By
P. RAJESWARA RAO
A
comparative study of religions increases our confidence in the universality of
God and our respect for the human race. It induces in us not an attitude of
mere tolerance which implies conscious superiority, no patronising
pity nor condescending charity, but genuine respect and appreciation. Such
tolerance becomes the homage which the finite mind pays to the inexhaustibility
of the infinite. Belief in exclusive claims and monopoly of religious truth has
been a frequent source of pride, fanaticism and strife. Hatred is fed on the
feeling that it is returned. To hate is in fact to acknowledge one’s
inferiority and fear. He who wishes to revenge injuries by hatred lives in
misery. The vehemence with which some religions were preached and the savagery
with which they were enforced are some of the disgraces of human history.
Secularism and paganism point to the rivalries of religions for a proof of the
futility of religion. Averroes, the great Arab
philosopher, rightly distinguished philosophic Truth (Tatvam)
from the religious View (Matam). When we dispute over
dogmas we are divided. But when we take to the religious life of prayer and
contemplation we are brought together.
Philosophy
is essentially practical, dealing as it does with the fundamental anxieties of
humanity which are more insistent than abstract
speculation. Religion may start with the individual, but it must end in a
fellowship. Religion means courage and adventure, not resignation and fatalism.
The different systems of thought, belief and practice, which developed from the
dawn of reflection, may appear at firstsight to be
more an encyclopedia of
varying
philosophies and sects than a continuous and uninterrupted development of one
system; closer second thought reveals a pervading unity which binds together
the bizarre multiplicity of beliefs and practices. Each order of reality known
to us is truly comprehended from a stand-point higher than itself. The
significance of the physical World (Anna) is disclosed in the Biological (Prana), that of the biological in the Psychological (Manas), that of the psychological in the logical and the
Ethical (Vijnana), and the logical finds its roaming
in the Spiritual (Ananda). The different religious
traditions clothe the one reality in various images and their visions could
embrace and fertilize each other so as to give mankind a many sided perfection.
What is needed is a fellowship (and not a fusion) of faiths. We need an outlook
on life reverent to the eternal values and responsive to temporal events.
Religious catholicism is a movement and not a position, a process and not a result, a growing tradition and not a fixed revelation. It is a direction and not a destination. It is an attitude rather than an attainment. It has only a beginning and knows no end.
Our
age has been rendered conceited by the multitude of new discoveries and
inventions; but in the realm of philosophy any such progress is much less in
evidence. Suppose we succeed in securing all the creature comforts that wealth
can command, in the shape of good roads, water supply, excellent sanitation,
free education for all, prompt and efficient medical aid, beautiful buildings
to live in, nutritious and delicious food, luxurious clothing, plenty of
leisure, unlimited picture houses, soft drinks and even the continued company
of the other sex. Still we may not be happy. There are many who have all these
comforts and conveniences and still suffer from emptiness of soul and nudity of
spirit. They have no hopes to inspire, no ambitions to realise,
no faith to live by, no happiness to which they can look forward. In the words
or Dr. Radhakrishnan, “Man has far horizons,
invisible hopes, thoughts that wander through eternity, projects that cannot be
attained in time. To find the way to truth, to create a work of beauty, to
understand another human soul, he is willing to scourge himself, endure hunger
and thirst, to give up his all.’ Self-restraint, self-sacrifice, and merciful
benevolence, is the theme of the Upanishads and the means to spiritual
illumination. The recognition of this vital fact that man lives
for a purpose larger than he sees, and is most himself
when he realises it, has been the deepest phase of
our higher life.
Even
a philosopher of materialism, wedded to new-humanism, like the late Sri M. N.
Roy, standing on the horns of a dilemma, declared that, ‘It looks as though we
have to choose between a modern barbarism promising material well-being and
security in a socially regimented and spiritually enslaved life and a relapse
into medieval obscurantism in search of an illusory safety in the back-waters
of faith.’ By insisting on the application of physical concepts in the field of
thought, we end in the impasse of determinism, mechanism and materialism. The merest
moment of reflection might have shown how inappropriate the concepts of physics
are in the world of mind; we think as readily of a mile as of a million miles
and one flash of thought can circumnavigate the globe; our
ideas elude every effort to picture them as material particles moving in space,
in their flight and operation. Life escapes the solid concepts, for it is a
matter of time rather than of space, it is not position, it is change, it is
not quantity so much as quality; it is not a mere redistribution of matter and
motion; it is fluid and persistent creation. Thought is a dance of molecules in
the brain. Man exists by instinct; but progresses by intelligence. In the words
of Henri Bergson, ‘Our Pandits
of the laboratory have become a little too confident of their categories and
thought to squeeze all the cosmos into a test tube.’ Materialism is like a
grammar that recognises only nouns, but reality, like
language, contains actions as well as objects, verbs as well as substantives,
life and motion as well as matter.
Prof.
Llyod Morgan who studies the subject from the
biological side affirms that while resultants can be explained as a result of
already existing conditions, emergents, like the
advent of life, mind, and reflective personality, can not be explained without
the assumption of Divine activity. Perhaps, scientific scepticism,
of which Sir Eddington is an exponent, may lead in
the end to the collapse of the scientific era, just as the theological scepticism of the renaissance led gradually to the collapse
of the theological era. When the Hindu thinkers ask us to free ourselves from
‘Maya’, or illusion, they are asking us to shake off our bondage to the unreal
values which are dominating us. They do not ask us to treat life as an illusion
or to be indifferent to the world’s welfare. Increasing knowledge of science
without a corresponding growth of religious wisdom,
only increases our fear. Though we dominate the forces of nature, control the
seas, conquer the air, increase production, combat disease, organise
commerce, and make man the master of his environment, still he cannot live in
safety. He is haunted by the fear of wars, and lives in the company of
uncertainties. Hence, what is needed is an illumined mind, a changed heart, and
a transformed will. Man is a being who is straining towards infinity in quest
of eternity. When he attains integrality there is harmony in his life. Sir
James Jeans, the great mathematician and astronomer, said ‘The universe begins
to look more like a great thought than a machine’. The biologist, J. A. Thomson
agrees that this world is not ‘a Soulless mechanism, and is not the work of
blind chance; that there is a mind behind the veil of matter, give it what ever
name we will’. Prof. Eddington regards consciousness as
fundamental and matter as derivative from consciousness. Albert Eienstein, of the Theory of Relativity fame, categorically
declared, ‘I believe in God…..who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of the
Universe.’ Thus the old atheism is gone. Religion belongs to the
realm of spirit and mind and cannot be shaken. God is the unifying principle of
the Universe. If oriental inwardness and occidental activism could be truly
coordinated, the problem of world religion would substantially be solved. The
spiritual radiance of Hinduism, the faithful obedience of Judaism, the life of
beauty of Greek Paganism, the noble compassion of Buddhism, the vision of
divine love of Christianity, and the spirit of resignation to the sovereign
Lord of Islam, together give us many-sided perfection.
In
this connection it may not be out of place to refer to Mysticism. It is not
confined to one epoch or to one country but has been a flowing current,
sometimes subterranean but often manifesting itself throughout the ages in
widely separated localities. In the language of a great Christian mystic, Eckhart of the thirteenth century, ‘God to a mystic ceases
to be an object and becomes an experience.’ The Persian sinner Jami expressed the same idea in picturesque language by
exclaiming in one of his poems ‘Seat me on thy Divan where there is no room for
two’. The description of Devi in Soundaryalahari
by Sri Sankaracharya who is at once a great seer and
a fervent devotee, the Gopis’, ideal of intense love,
and the craving for the fullest union in the Gita Govinda
and Krishna Karnamritam, and the outpourings of the
saints from the South, are typical of the yearning of the true mystic. What is
needed is a reorientation of values, regrouping of our concepts and spiritualisation of our ideas and endeavours.
Contemplation, if it is to be wholesome and valuable, must be married to
practice. It must inspire action and ennoble the aims of practical life. While
it remains secluded in the cloister, it is only a means of escape. Each
generation is a trustee to a future generation of the material and moral
treasure that man has accumulated through the ages. Elevation of the concept of
utility to a parity with goodness, beauty and truth is mischievous and
misleading. Detachment is opposed to attachment and not to enjoyment.
The
real and lasting land-marks in the annals of humanity are not wars and kings
but saints and scriptures. Emperor Tiberius was a contemporary of Jesus Christ.
In his day, millions trembled at his nod. Nobody remembers him now. Those that
live nobly even in their day, though they live obscurely, need not fear that
they have lived in vain. Something radiates from their lives, some light that
shows the way to their friends, to their neighbours,
and also perhaps to long future ages. In 1786, Warren Hastings, recommending a
translation of the Bhagawad Gita to the president of
the East India Company, declared that ‘The writers of Indian philosophy will
survive when the British domination in India shall long have ceased to exist
and when the sources which yielded wealth and power will be
lost to remembrance.’ The heritage of Hellas is epitomised
in the two words–Meden
Again–nothing in excess, engraved on the temple of Appollo
at Delphi. So also a balanced and rhythmic life in harmony with Dharma and the
appreciation of the inevitable, which is not to be confused with pessimism or a
negative code of conduct, is the contribution of India to world thought, based
as it is on the twin doctrines of Dharma and Karma. A famous church father in
the middle ages, Bernard of Clairwax, in a Latin hymn
asks ‘who will achieve universal peace’ and answers ‘the disciplined, the
dedicated, the pure in heart and gentle in spirit’.
The
threat to human civilization could be met only at the deeper levels of consciousness.
If we fail to overcome the discord between power and spirit, we will be
destroyed by the forces which we have the knowledge to create but not the
wisdom to control. What is needed is unity within, through ‘Swadharma’
and understanding from without in terms of the Vedic injunction ‘Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti’ i.e., Truth is
one though the sages call it by different names. Whatever be the truth of the
Shakespearean dictum ‘Neither a borrower nor lender be’ we should always
be borrowers and lenders; in the words of the Rig Veda; ‘Ano
Bhadrah Krutavoyantu Viswataha’ ie., let noble
thoughts come to us from every side. We need not be
original in the sense of being merely aboriginal. We should note the impact of
different cultures on one another, their inter-action and hope for the
emergence of a new civilization based on truths of spirit and the unity of
mankind. The tragedies and the catastrophies of the
day are symbolic of the breakdown of the separatist tendencies. In the
confusion of the contemporary scene we should not overlook the great movement
towards integration. Philosophy had hitherto been concerned with interpreting
life, but the time has come for it to change life, as Karl Marx cogently put
it. Either we have to recover moral control and return to spiritual life or we
pass out as so many other species. Taittiriya
Upanishad enjoins ‘Satyam Vada
Dharmam Chara’ i.e., Be
truthful, let your conduct be righteous.
Man,
a product of nature subject to its necessities, compelled by its laws, driven
by its impulses, is yet a spirit who stands outside of nature. He has the
capacity for self-transcendence, the ability to make himself an object. When
the Upanishads ask us to grow from intellectual to spiritual consciousness,
they ask us to effect an enlargement of our awareness, by which the
difficulties of insecurity, isolation, and death are overcome; we are called
upon to grow from division and conflict into freedom and love, from ignorance
to wisdom. When the Upanishads speak of Jnana or
gnosis, when the Buddha speaks of Bodhi or
enlightenment, when Jesus speaks of the truth that will make us free, they
refer to the direct spiritual apprehension of the Supreme, in which the gap
between truth and being is closed. In the words of the Prasna
Upanishad, life is created for the enjoyment of the soul, Sa pranam asrujata.
Saints
are the citizens of the city of God. They know no limitations of time and
space. They live for eternity and in eternity; their affections are not
constrained or canalised by narrow or parochial
considerations. They live and work for humanity. They are the ripest fruits of
the intellectual and moral progress of the world and are born for its
enlightenment. They are the essence of all that is noble, beautiful, good and
true. They analyse what baffles analysis and describe
what is indescribable. The personality of each is unique though he may have
some elements in common with the others. Reciprocity is one of the greatest
truths of life which is inculcated in the Gita text, Parasparam
bhava yantah sreyah param avapsyadha.
Attempts to rationalise the mystery, to translate
into the language of concepts, that which is inexpressible, have resulted in
different versions. Brahmabandhu Upanishad says,
‘The soul of the created being is a unity, only divided between creature and
creature; unity and plurality at the same time like the moon mirrored in many
waters.
Religion
is a personal achievement. Each individual is a member of a community where he
shares the work with others. But he is also an individual with his senses and
emotions, desires and affections, interests and ideals. There is a solitary
side to his being as distinct from the social, where he cherishes thoughts
unspoken, dreams unshared, reticences unbroken. It is
there that he shelters the questionings of fate, the yearning for peace, the
voice of hope and the cry of anguish. When the Indian thinkers ask us to
possess our souls, to be Atmavantam, not
to get lost in the collective currents, not to get merged in the crowd of those
who have emptied and crucified their souls, Atma
hano janah, who have
got their souls bleached in the terrible unmercy of
things, they are asking us to open out our inward being to the call of the
transcendent. In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, we
have a development of what Plato calls recollection the way by which we
steadily withdraw from externality, from our functions which are at the mercy
of life and enter into an essential being which is not the individual ego but
the universal spirit. Discipline of the intellect emotion and will is a
pre-requisite for spiritual perfection. The human heart is the scene of the
age-old conflicts between good and evil. By the pursuit of ‘Moha’
or delusion we reach death. By the pursuit of truth we reach immortality.
According to an Upanishadic saying God is the seat of
truth ‘Yatra tatsatya paramam nidhanam’. Paramatma is truth, intelligence and infinitude Satyam, Jnanam Anantam Brahma.