Hari
OM
Application - that is what 'Workings-days' are about!
We are now undertaking
basic technical discourse on Vedanta. The text forming the basis of these posts is 'Kindle Life'.
Please do reread part one to ensure grasp of flow…
Ch. 25; VEDANTA - LIFE AND ART OF LIVING, continued.
In every experience man yearns to gain perfection. He wants
happiness and peace. Perfect peace and endless happiness as what satisfy
him. Thus, seeking new occasions to
experience a more perfect and more complete happiness, he goes from one set of
circumstances to another created by changing the arrangement of things; all in
the hope [of procuring] a greater and better happiness, fuller and deeper.
Whatever be the type… it is certain that an experience can only gained when we come across the
world of the experienced. The greater the understanding of the world of objects,
the better shall be our relationship with it. With that right understanding if we approach
the world, it shall certainly yield for us a fuller satisfaction and with less
chances of disillusionment and despairs. The thesis that Vedanta propounds is
that in our hasty, unintelligent evaluation of life, of things and beings, we
have always made a wrong estimate of the world; by superimposing false values,
we have come to suffer the consequent imperfections in our experiences. This pale vision of a misinterpreted world,
which naturally doles out to us our ample share of sorrows is fully condemned
by the wise seers in the Upanishads.
They make a passionate appeal to man to make a right re-estimate of the
world of objects.
It is in this sense that Vedanta declares, "The world is
unreal, the Truth (Brahman) is the only Reality." Therefore, if understood properly, Vedanta
only demands of us a healthier re-interpretation of the world. The calumny that is generally thrown at the
doors of Vedanta - that it admonishes us to be indifferent to the sorrows of
man, to social injustice, to poverty and slavery - is an unjust criticism made
by those who are interested in this blasphemy. They are applauded only by the
gullible and the ignorant.
Religion is not the personal
property of an individual or and institution.
Properly understood, it is not a set of declarations made by some
strange men with rare powers of vision or some bundles of mysterious rituals or
some secret den of ominous conspiracies. On the contrary, it is a complete
science of perfect living, whereby society can learn to [exist fully and in
peace].
There was a time when religion chose not to recognise science and
refused to shake hands with her and this almost prepared religion's grave.
Today, we find the same mistake repeated in the opposite camp. Science has deliberately and openly disowned
religion and, consequently, materialism is groaning with the sorrows of its own
creation. Neither of them can stand on
its own if it wants to bring happiness to the society [it serves].
In fact, the principles of science and the scientific approach
vitalise religion. Similarly, the
achievements in production, the efficiency in distribution, the gains of
cooperation, the marvels of discoveries, the victory over nature, et cetera,
cannot in themselves meet the demand of life and assure a greater share of
human happiness. These should be backed
by the practice of nobler values of healthy living as preached in religion. The individuals constituting the community
should also strictly pursue the teachings of Self-integration. A community or a
nation is, we should not forget, constituted of its members and the strength of
the nation or the happiness of the community depends not only upon the material
gains or the peculiar pattern of the circumstances in life, but also upon the
structure and composition of the individuals themselves. We can, with a knowledge of architecture,
make easily a perfect blueprint for the most magnificent edifice in the world,
but in its construction, unless we are careful of the quality of the bricks
used, the edifice will soon entomb all the inhabitants who take shelter within
its accommodation.
Similarly, secular plans and scientific knowledge of this
materialistic age are certainly magnificent on paper and in theory, but all of
them seem to crumble into nothingness, entombing our happiness, when they are
put into practice. This has been the
repeated experience of our materialistic civilization. History records it; our own experiences
endorse it in no uncertain terms.
The redemption seems to be in the happy marriage between the
secular and the sacred, the scientific and the religious. So far, the scientist, pure and simple, has
failed to establish a schema of living by which man can attain a peaceful and
joyous way of existence. The history of
man has been a melancholy story of repeated wars and revolutions - all fought
in the name of peace. In its sacred
name, we have learned to take weapons of destruction and kill each other with
ruthless efficiency!!!
The peace that we know today is but the exhausting, fatiguing,
demoralizing pause between two immediate wars.
After every spasm of cruelty and bloodshed, the animal in us, in sheer
exhaustion, seeks a shelter wherein to mourn or to roll upon itself until it
licks its wounds dry and gets ready to fight again…
...to be continued...
