Contributed
to Freedom, Progress and Society,
a collection of essays in honour of
Professor K. Satchidananda Murty
IN every time
of transition and during the periods when notable external changes take place,
the minds of people are put to the test. They either derive a new impetus from
the challenge posed by rapidly altering circumstances and spearhead the further
cultural, intellectual and spiritual growth of the civilization in which they
live, or they get overwhelmed because they are too crystallized and conventional
to respond adequately to change, and then everything begins to decay and crumble
around them.
We are now living
in an epoch of great external change. Technology has altered the environment
of even simple, tribal people who live in remote areas. Present day enterprises,
made possible by technology, modify the weather, produce acid rain, bring imbalances
in forests and so forth, thus affecting the lives of people over a wide area.
In urbanized areas, of course, the impact of technology on the environment
is very much greater. The electronic revolution, too, is bringing about a major
change, rendering obsolescent various mind processes, and the occupations in
which memory and memory-based calculations were important. Some of the significant
discoveries in the field of science during the last few decades call for the
revision of various traditional world views. Against the perspective of the
annihilative techniques now accessible to the people of the world, old theories
of political relationship, the practice of the sãma, dãna, bheda and danda of previous ages, have become irrelevant, because it amounts to dangerous madness
to play this game at a time when any local conflict can spark disaster on the
global scale. Humanity can no more afford to think in old terms about relationship
among nations, communities and peoples.
The development
of technology has given rise to the illusion that progress lies in the improvement
of tools and skills. Man has been described as homo faber, the tool maker. He has also been
thought of since Aristotle’s time as a rational animal. It is his rationality which has enabled him to obtain
the knowledge which results in technological marvels. But there is hardly any
rationality in the pursuit of a competitive, aggressive way of life while possessing
tools of unprecedented destructive power. It is being increasingly realized that
the crisis which besets human society on all fronts is not due to the technology
or tools which man has created. The problem is in himself, the moral inadequacy
and inability to understand essential values. The present day civilization will
not win or lose by its capacity for production or for war, by the importance
of its cities or its commerce. It is only when the entirely new conditions of
the modern world are realized as a challenge to reconsider the prevailing values
of our consumeristic and conflict ridden society that there is hope for real
progress.
The idea of conquest
has been ingrained in the human mind making war one of the most consistent
features of human history. The notion of conquest includes of course, the acquisition
of resources and the adoption of whatever techniques and means are expedient
in terms of this given objective. Social values have, therefore, most often
been based on utilitarianism and regionalism. Slavery, the oppression of women
and those who are weak, torture, poverty and the numerous other forms of cruelty
and suffering which have existed in human society, in every age and country
are the direct consequence of failure to examine the validity of values formulated
to suit a particular region, religion, class or other group or society. Conventional
thought has always been predominant. However much testimony there is in a society
of failure—and the existence of
suffering is failure—the established values are not relinquished.
In a considerable
area of the world, dogmatic and authoritarian tenets of religion form the basis
for social values. Humanitarian principles are violated in the way barbaric
punishments are imposed even for minor infringements, the justification for
the same being found in supposedly infallible injunctions of religious authority.
Religious authority also dictates what shall be the status of women in society,
and deprives them of basic freedoms. This is only one instance to show how
basic values such as equality and liberty can be totally set aside in favour
of a small coterie of persons who have arrogated to themselves power in the
name of religion.
Vested interests
are also at work in conditioning people into adopting selfish and aggressive
nationalistic attitudes. They cannot but divide the world and create tragic
imbalances. Part of the world thrives and grows in affluence, while the rest
are exploited and live in abject poverty. The emphasis on nationalism converts
even games and sport such as the Olympics into arenas of intense rivalry which
give the appearance more of war than of games. The propaganda machine is used
for conditioning the peoples of almost every nation into the belief that their
own rulers are virtuous peace-makers while others are the opposite. So nationalism
is an excuse and a tool for instilling suspicion and animosity. It has the
veneer of virtue, but breeds ill will.
Man has not only
alienated himself from his fellow-men of other ‘categories’—the categories being
his own constructions—but he has also been regarding himself as outside nature. All things in nature
and every form of life appear to him to be made for his own use. His own pleasure
and knowledge are so predominantly important that he can only look askew with
his utilitarian eyes. The appalling horrors associated with the vivisection of
billions of defenceless animals in the laboratories of the world, most often
merely to obtain results which are already known or to get knowledge which serves
no foreseeable purpose, the brutality of ‘factory farms’, etc., rise out of
the Pandora’s box of utilitarianism. It is due to immediate utilitarian urges that nature
is being destroyed at a vast rate and the desertification of the earth takes
place. A number of technologists have pointed out that the problems created by
the misuse of technology cannot be solved by technologists. As long as the intensive
consumeristic drive continues and utilitarian ethics rule the world, such problems
as pollution and desertification will continue.
The world in general
has rejected such values as ahimsã ( non-injury), simplicity, etc., stressed by the few enlightened persons of the
world, because they seem to be personal, utopian, and not connected with the
basic progress of society. However, events in recent history have proved that
a difference cannot be made between personal values and social values. The
cultivation of a callous attitude in the individual is detrimental to the whole
of society. Systematic cruelty inflicted upon animals rebounds on mankind.
Minds which are accustomed to the practice of callousness and brutality towards
animals can treat other human beings with the heartlessness shown in concentration
camps. The victims have merely to be dubbed as ‘vermin’ or ‘logs of wood’, and then all is possible. The mind which becomes indifferent to suffering in
one area cannot be contained and prevented from being a destructive agency
in another direction. Hatred, fear and suspicion, instilled into the minds
of a population in order to achieve nationalistic aims, saturates the whole
of human behaviour. The promotion of acquisitiveness deprives the world of
its resources. The social well-being of man depends on personal qualities such
as kindness, simplicity, honesty, etc. More than in previous times, they are
now essential
for the health of
human society and the survival of mankind.
Science is discovering
day by day the interrelatedness of the world, thereby providing the evidential
basis for man to work towards realization of the oneness of life. In spite
of the mass of evidence already on hand to show that all living bodies survive
only through a complex system of mutual aid, adjustment and balance, designed
perhaps by cosmic thought, man continues to act as if he is the final authority
to decide what forms of life are good or bad, who and what should survive or
die, and what shall be the manner in which other creatures shall spend their
lives.
Times without
number man has committed follies as a result of self-conceit and assurance
which veil from his sight the superior intelligence of nature. He has destroyed
millions of sparrows in an attempt to save grain which they ate, only to
be faced with a worse disaster caused by worms and insects which multiplied
without
number in the absence of sparrows. The sparrows he regarded as his enemies
were in fact his helpers. Such instances of man’s distorted vision are numerous.
Within nature’s
mutual aid network, all around, everywhere, are helpers. Creatures, great,
small
and minute, are working away to fulfill a unitary purpose.
Worms
munch their way through the ground, opening up the dirt and
fertilizing
it with their castings; bats skitter through the night air, picking
off
recently engorged mosquitoes. Behind a munch here and a crunch
there
is a mutual roar, like distant surf; the cumulative sound of billions
of
invisible creatures changing rock into soil, taking nitrogen out of the
air,
turning the debris of life into nutrients on which plants, animals and
we
ourselves live. (The Smithsonian. July 1981)
John P. Wiley,
whose words are quoted above, remarks that we cannot live without microbes
and
that they do most of the world’s work free. ‘And as things become increasingly tight, they may end up doing a lot more of
ours, too.’ Micro-organisms produce antibiotic, amino acids, alcohol and a hundred other
things: they may some day make crude oil or eat crude oil when spilled, and also
manufacture insulin, inteferon and other things valuable to human beings. If
man works with
nature, nature will work for him.
Though micro-organisms,
which are generally thought of in connection only with diseases, are invisible
helpers of man and the life-process, they are not the only ones. All the multitudinous
forms of life have their role. Oriental tradition, in fact, envisaged the existence
of many creatures not at present known to man, invisibly forming part of one
eco-system, in which none can afford to ignore or reject the others. In ancient
works of art such as the sculpture of Buddhist Sanchi the world is shown as
peopled by a variety of denizens, some visible to man. others not. All of them
are an intrinsic part of a single manifested existence; and all of them, perhaps,
have a role in the working
out of a plan beyond our minds.
The next progressive
step for mankind will not be so much a feat performed in outer space or the
manufacture of an extraordinary new drug, but the discovery that each man
is constantly and continually indebted to all the other forms of life which
are
helping to maintain nature’s system and
without whom he cannot survive.
The knowledge
of interrelatedness and interdependence which science is gradually providing
has profound relevance to the relationships between human beings also, and
the values which are sought to be built into human society. This knowledge
of a scientific and ecological nature is an echo at a certain level of the
spiritual vision resumed in the celebrated statement, sarvam
khalvidam brahma the whole world is, indeed, Brahman—which has been amplified, in many other
declarations of the sages such as in Mundaka Upanishad, II, 2, 12:
This
undying Reality [Brahman] is indeed everywhere, in front, behind,
to
the right and to the left, below and above. All of this vast universe is
Brahman.
Society and civilization
imply living together and learning how to co-operate and make such mutual adjustments
as will bring about a sense of order, harmony, peace and beauty, while at the
same time preserving the liberty necessary for each individual to grow into
the fullness of his own dignity, revealing all his hidden potentialities. Learning
the art of relationship is an aspect of wisdom. In traditional and simple societies,
there was often a natural understanding of the interrelatedness of life. It
expressed itself in unwillingness to kill unnecessarily, even when they went
hunting. There was a certain wisdom in the mind of the cannibal who was shocked
to learn that millions of people were killed in the world war: he could not
understand the savagery of those who killed when they had no need to eat! The
American Indian knew that he belonged to the earth and not the earth to him.
So said Chief Seattle in 1854: “This we know: the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This
we know: all things are connected like the blood that unites one family. Man
did not weave the web of life; whatever he does to the web, he does to
himself.”
In the complicated
way of life which is the modern way, it is much more difficult to be aware
of the fact that life is one and that man is only an infinitesimally small
part of a wonderful universe. Still, it is imperative to realize that any values
which man adopts contrary to the fundamental truth of interrelatedness and
unity bring about confusion and suffering. A bold departure is necessary to
realize that many of the attitudes which have always been considered ‘natural’ are not natural, because they go counter to the facts of nature. It requires
courage to adopt and act by such values as non-violence because it looks as
if it is not possible to survive without doing what everyone else does. But
previously because almost everyone adopts violence and war, consumerism and
greed, utilitarianism and selfishness as inevitable, the earth has become so
stressful and dangerous
a place to live in.
A spiritual outlook
means acting according to principles and values which are absolutely valid
and not those which are relative, suited to the time and circumstances. The
absolute values are connected with the actualities of nature and not with
convenience, selfishness and specialized points of view. Enlightened ones such
as the Buddha,
who have realized the truth, see the total meaning and purpose of life and
the absolute values manifest in whatever exists. Because they live in accordance
with that realization, they personify love and compassion. Their lives exemplify
action which is not necessarily ‘wise from the worldly point of view, but is absolutely right because it expresses
their state of universal love and compassion, totally free from personal
motivations and interests.
None of the great
spiritual teachers has emphasized anything other than the inner awakening to
truth, for without such an awakening all that people do ends in futility and
suffering. Every attempt to social reconstruction ends in degenerate customs
and the exploitation of some persons by others, because the changing of outer
forms without inner awakening to the truth which is love ends in the forms
becoming corrupt. There have been revolutions of many kinds during the course
of history, but they failed to achieve what they claimed. Liberty, equality
and fraternity were hardly more than a slogan for upsetting a regime. It did
not bring about any fundamental change. Neither did the claim of those who
spoke of how the state would wither away after the revolution was achieved.
That very state has become a monstrous controller
of people.
One cannot negate
all effort to improve and construct at the outer level. But along with it,
there has to be sufficiently clear awareness of the extreme importance of learning
about the mysteries and truths of life. Else there will be continual failure.
The heights to which a civilization reaches depends on how far the search for
truth through philosophical enquiry, religious endeavour and scientific investigation
is woven into the culture of the people and how far the social values are related
to the spiritual insights obtained. Philosophy, religion and science can and
should have a practical influence and impact on questions of human relationship
and the quality of human life and society. Each of them is a path to truth,
and truth has a transforming quality. In the words of
St. John: ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’ (8.33). In that word ‘truth’ is
contained the totality of values which are absolute and beneficial.
The Theosophist
July 1987