Abstract
Given
mankind’s pioneering leaps in science and technology, it is paradoxical that
today, that very man is at the mercy of nature and nurture – both manifest in
the rising number of natural and man-made disasters.
In
the past, the best in man led him to try to transcend to greater heights,
resulting in an outpouring of creativity in thought and expression known as the
Renaissance age. Yet, this richness of expression remains superficial if we are
still bound by suffering brought on by nature’s and our own doing. In this
light, all our best attempts remain a sort of intermittent creativity
alternated with passive resignation to and desperate attempts to rise above our
difficulties. However, so far, this has had the devastating effect of
entrenching us deeper in a cycle of self-perpetuating suffering and
destruction.
If
indeed we are one with Brahman, then there must not only be a way that we can
overcome our reactive nature, but most importantly, evolve to a new state of
being; a harmonious living through an intuitive understanding of Satchittananda.
This
is not just a dream for a bright future, but the reality of a living past which
brought on the revelation of the Vedas.
This
is a humble experiment to swim in the vast ocean of knowledge and draws on the
deep inspiration of spiritual icons such as Shri Aurobhindo and Swami
Vivekananda as well as contemporary psychosocial thought with the hope that it
may lead to possible avenues of contemplation for new perspectives in life,
with the Vedas as a means to continuing a new global Renaissance which was
begun by Swami Vivekananda.
Background
India
earned her name as Dharmabhumi by the
concerted Tapas of her spiritual
children – the great Rishis and
Sannyasins throughout the ages from Maharishi
Vyasa to Swami Vivekananda and on to the modern day. These ennobled beings,
made it their life’s work to share the wisdom of the Vedas with the entire world.
In
his clarion call to the West, Swami Vivekananda appealed to them as Amrtasya Putraha, Children of Immortal
Bliss, to claim their rightful heritage. This event marks the dawn of the New
Renaissance when the Upanishads were propagated and came to be accepted by the
West.
Today,
the progress we see in the field of modern science and technology offers us the
illusion of having mastered the universe - from the simplest kitchen appliance
to the most advanced craft which enables man to travel to outer space. Yet, we
are still caught in the inevitable Vasana
of violence and despair within ourselves and our world. This is evident in
the rising incidence of psychosomatic diseases, civil unrest, warring nations,
and natural disasters.
Insane
Society
In his biography Chains of Illusion, renowned social
psychologist Erich Fromm traces man’s evolution over a mere 500 years, during which
the idea of the individual, with individual thoughts, feelings, moral
conscience, freedom, and responsibility, came into being.
Beginning
from the early ages, man’s life was governed by purely biological or
animalistic needs (Freud). Man then evolved in the traditional society of the
Middle Ages, during which a form of socioeconomic determinism (ala Marx)
existed. In this context, man followed the path of his forefathers. While this
meant that man had little freedom to choose his life’s direction, it also meant
that life had structure and purpose. Following this predetermined path as his
forefathers did, however, did not give rise to soul-searching and man remained
separate from his universe, at the mercy of unseen powers governing the
universe, and man’s perception of an unseen and whimsical God.
With
the coming of the Renaissance age, man began to see humanity as the center of
the universe, instead of God. Traditional establishments (such as the church) were
no longer looked to in determining one’s life’s path. Inspired by his own
potential, the Renaissance man turned his attention to the development of art,
literature, culture, and all it entailed including politics and the sciences.
However, despite the flowering of art and literature, a sustainable system of
life still remained a pipedream. This led to the Reformation, which introduced
the idea of man being individually responsible for his own soul's salvation.
This in turn led to democratic revolutions such as the American and the French
revolutions where man took responsibility of his governance. However, this was
far from the ideal society and soon, the industrial revolution followed. Labour
was sold in exchange for money and farming and artisanship took a backseat. All
of a sudden, man became an employee and consumer. Still discontented, man
continued to search for a more satisfying way of life. This led to the Socialist
revolutions, such as the Russian and Chinese, which introduced the idea of
participatory economics. Here, man was no longer responsible for his own
well-being, but for the well-being of his fellow workers as well.
But
we have failed our responsibilities to our present and we pose a threat to our
future. Today, approximately 10 - 20% of children and adolescents suffer from
mental health problems worldwide.
The United Nations Environment Programme reveals that rapid globalization and
urbanization, pervasive poverty, unsustainable consumption patterns and population
growth
are contributing to “…unprecedented global trends in environmental degradation...”.
“Global climate change, the depletion of the ozone layer, desertification,
deforestation, the loss of the planet’s biological diversity and the
trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes and chemicals are all
environmental problems that touch every nation and adversely affect the lives
and health of their populations”.
The horror of this
prediction is seen in the immense fragile interconnectedness of the entire
universe, which Albert Einstein put very succinctly when he said, “If the bee
disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four
years to live. No more bees, no more pollination… no more men!”
But we continue on our self-destructive trajectory
with scant regard for our own future or that of the universe we are a part of. Our systems
and philosophies have evolved, but on the whole, we remain internally isolated,
psychologically alienated and bewildered by nature. In this light, all our best
achievements to date remain superficial.
The
Age of Not Knowing
Modern
psychologists have tried to offer us hope. According to Fromm, Freedom is the
central human characteristic and through this freedom, we may transcend nature
(Marx) and nurture (Freud).
Like
many others, Fromm believed that man has human needs that go far beyond the
basic animal needs.
Fromm suggests that these human needs can be summed up as man’s need to find an
answer to his existence. He saw the major purpose of culture being to help man in
his quest, which would ultimately free him from his current suffering, which
Fromm called insanity. As
such, Fromm elaborates the needs as follows:
- Relatedness
– We have the need to feel related to the world around us. Our perception
of our awareness
of our separateness from others and our need to transcend this separateness has led us to try and meet this
need in unhealthy ways in the absence of a working philosophy. We see this
in the alarming accounts of people submitting themselves to others or
groups, or to their conception of a God, by dominating others or denying
the need itself (the exploitation of which has led to socially detrimental
effects such as terrorism, violence and mental illnesses such as
narcissism).
- Creativity – We all have an innate
desire to transcend being passive creatures at the mercy of nature. This
need to direct the course of our own lives has led us to the myriad breakthroughs
in all fields from medical science to communication to food production,
transport, etc. However, when this need is frustrated, it could lead to exploitation
for quick gain at the expense of all creation both living and non-living
as is seen in the rate at which earth’s natural resources are being
plundered, often giving rise to territorial war.
- Rootedness – We all need to
feel at home in the universe or discover our oneness with humanity. It is
this unmet need which manifests itself as schizophrenia or neuroticism or
even worse – fanaticism – as evinced in religious enmity to the exclusion
of all other faiths.
- A
sense of identity – All the above needs translate to our greater need for a sense of identity or
individuality. We see people do anything
for the sake of status, or conform
to the extent that he is willing to even give up his life in order
to remain a part of a group in their attempt to fulfill this need.
- A
frame of orientation – This all boils down to out need to understand the world
and our place in it. This sometimes leads us to acts of desperate
gullibility and allows us to be exploitation by interested powers such as or
to swing to the other extreme or scientific rationalization.
But
while we are able to find some of the pieces to the puzzle of life through
culture, religion, myths, philosophies, and modern sciences, we are still in
need of a frame of orientation that satisfies our need for a warm, human understanding.
Vedas – A return to the Source
The Vedas are believed to be the
well-spring at which all world religions draw their inspirations. The
Upanishads which contain the essence of the Vedas, present various meditations through
which we can seek the answers to our questions. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad,
which is the longest Upanishad is a cosmic meditation which tells us that all
the fourteen worlds are the Self or Imani bhutani, idam sarvam yad ayam
atma..
In
Vedic speak, if the path to man’s fulfillment of his human needs is his Dharma, then as the Pramana or tools of Dharma, the Vedas not only reveal to
man this understanding but show the way through contemplation with an inquiring
spirit (known today as a scientific spirit).
And the understanding is revealed deep within man himself.
The
Bhagavad Gita which believed to be the oldest comprehensive text on yoga tells
us enlightened men are those who can see the all pervading Atman in a cow, an elephant, a dog or even an eater of dog meat.
Vidya-vinaya-sampanne brahmane gavi
hastini /
Shuni c’aiva shvapake ca panditha
sama-darshinaha //
It
is our Avidya of the essential
Oneness of all creation that breeds in us Ahamkara.
This ego leads us to feel separateness from all other beings and the
universe which is the underlying cause of illness and unrest.
The Vedas also tell us that Katham bhava or an inquiring mind which prompts
us to questions the How and Why of the world leads to Samsrushti which can be interpreted as creativity in finding new
solutions to situations and phenomena around us.
This, coupled with the knowledge of
Bhramande yadasti pindande tat sarvam, if we are rooted
in humanity, we would understand the interconnectedness of the entire universe.
And this knowledge would deter exploitation of others as we would perceive that
all that we do we ultimately do to ourselves. Armed with this wealth of knowledge, man would have a
healthy sense of identity and see his place as the sustained in the world which
is the sustainer.
Therefore
in a nutshell, the The Abheda Sruthis
of the Vedas (i.e. Tat Tvam Asi, Sarvam kalu idam
brahmasmi and Aham Brahmasmi) tell
us all that we really need to know – that the identity of the
universe and Brahman or the all
pervading Self is one. If this answers all the questions which give rise to the
human needs described by Fromm, then the Vedas can be said to fill our apparent deficiencies and
fix our misconceptions. In fact they can be seen as the guiding light to show
is the way to return to a better way of life.
The
New Renaissance
And this way of life is not an Utopian ideal but a living reality
that has already taken root in some cultures.
In her book The Soul of
Money, Lynne Twist eloquently defines human Dharma as “our most soulful commitments and core values, which is
the well-being of the people we love, ourselves, and the world we live in”. Speaking from her learning
of 20 years with the World Hunger Project as a training consultant for fund-raisers
and the development of fund-raising operations in thirty-seven countries, Twist says that there is
no rational explanation for why “…one-fifth of humanity is hungry and
malnourished…” “…when we have more food that we need to feed everyone several
times over”. However, she found that “…systematically
challenging false assumptions about chronic hunger and food aid, exposed the
myth of scarcity and opened new avenues of inquiry and possibility, eventually
succeeding in making a significant contribution to the eradication of hunger by empowering people to
author their own recovery”. This is a powerful truth in a world where conflict
and disaster relief has become an industry.
Twist’s account of generations of Achuar people living deep in the
Amazon rain forest, “…raising families,
building homes and maintaining communities for thousands of years, all without
money” but with a high level of “…attunement to the forces of nature and their
relationships with one another and the forest” is deeply inspiring. “Reciprocity”
she says, was the “social currency”. “For the Achuar, wealth meant being
present to the fullness and richness of the moment and sharing that with one
another.”
And this is not an isolated case. Twist also speaks of this spirit
of “sufficiency” in people who live in money cultures like the people of the
remote Senegalese village in the West Africa’s Sahel Desert, who discovered an
underground lake beneath their harsh and arid land.
What
both these communities shared was a deep and abiding closeness to the natural
world that they inhabited and were
able to retain this intuitive understanding that was characteristic of the
Vedic people. And therefore to be able to return to this way of living, we
might consider Sri Aurobhindo’s description of the Vedas as the heritage left
to mankind, on the brink of the age of reasoning, by our forefathers from the
age of intuition.
There
is a need to for us to regain our lost intuition. Unfortunately, possibly owing
to the threats that the Vedic culture suffered in British colonial India, the
study of the Vedas today tends to be more ritualistic than spiritual.
However
by the development of Shradda, we can
cultivate a graceful acceptance of the limitations of rational thinking and
modern science and open ourselves to the divine message that the Vedas reveal. In
this manner, we can re-evaluate our current systems and assimilate Vedic knowledge
as our Dharma.
Led
by Swami Vivekananda, great souls such as Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore
in the East and T. S. Elliot and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the West drew on the
teachings of the Vedas to effect change in their spheres of life, leading the
way in a new renaissance. Let us too draw from the Vedas to guide us to be the
change that we want to see in the world.
