Man's Fate and God's Choice by Bhimeswara Challa (ereader for textbooks TXT) 📖

relativistic counterparts of each other and they become a mystery, an enigma before us when we try to understand them with our intellect working through our sensory perception.”490 Vedanta says that everything in life, indeed life itself, and death are the creations of maya and avidya, they are mere illusions. That creates a problem because although they are illusions, the suffering they cause is real, not an illusion. That is why the ancient Indian Sankhya philosophy, considered as one of the oldest philosophical systems in India, treats suffering as the central problem in human life. So did the Buddha. Setting aside for a moment scriptural characterizations, even according to the utopian scientific scenario, the operative part is, if civilization endures, suggesting that it may not, if the present mindset and resultant mayhem were to continue. There are many thoughtful people who fear that human civilization might well collapse by its own profligacy and toxic overweight. And if somehow it does not, and human conduct on earth remains unchanged, and if humans try to attain bodily permanence without consciousness change, it will be the gravest challenge man has ever thrown to Nature. It could, so to speak, turn the tables and simply speed up and widen the self-destructive tendencies in man, a process that appears to be already under way.

 

Moral decadence and consciousness change

One of our major assumptions about the human condition, as opposed to our fellow animals, is that we are ‘moral beings’, that is, we assume that we alone are capable of knowing what is right and what is wrong, and with that knowledge, that we alone are capable of putting the common good ahead of our personal advantage. That increasingly shaky assumption is the foundation of our sense of self-importance and superiority. In reality, our conduct both as individuals and as a species never actually measured up to it. On the other hand, it has become our license for our unspeakable cruelty towards animals, and also towards other humans who we think are ‘less human’ — people of other races, ethnicity, even religion.

Although we want to be good, moral, and godly, the true signature of our species has regressed into moral depravity. It is not merely our conduct but our very consciousness that is

 

 

 

489 Cited in: Daniel Callahan. The Desire for Eternal Life: Scientific Versus Religious Visions. The 2002-03 Ingersoll Lecture. Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Harvard Divinity School. Accessed at: http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/bulletin/articles/callahan.html

490 Swami Krishnananda. The Secret of the Katha Upanishad. 2nd edition. 2002. The Divine Life Society. India. p.138.

 

depraved. Whether it is man’s assault on Nature or the intolerance of another man, it stems from selfishness whose character changes when it goes beyond the needs of survival. In common parlance and in social etiquette, there are few words that one dreads more than being called ‘selfish’. Indeed, we may prefer being called cruel or callous but not ‘selfish’, obviously oblivious to the fact that the ‘shoe fits’ us as well, if not better. As Jane Austen said, most of us are selfish in practice, though not in principle. But the real problem of man is not selfishness; it is not self-preservation; nor is it concern for one’s own well-being or devotion to one’s own advantage; it is not even not being altruistic. It is ‘otherness’. It is not, as Oscar Wilde wryly noted, to live as one wishes to, but to demand of others to live as we wish them to; not to live like us, but like what we determine. In one sense, everything we do is selfish; otherwise we would not do it. It is inherent in every choice; if we choose what we value most or what is most beneficial to us, that becomes a ‘selfish’ act that best serves our purpose in comparison to any other alternative. The question is what impact it has on  ‘others’, particularly those more vulnerable than we are.

Another name for ‘otherness’ is self-righteousness; which is a kind of erroneous appeasement as well as self-deception, that smug sense of almost awesome moral superiority derived from the visceral conviction that our beliefs, values, actions or affiliations are the righteous ones. We appear almost pathologically or neurologically addicted to being incapable of feeling empathy for our opponents, of accepting any dissent or condoning any criticism. And that ‘addiction’ can be more pernicious socially than any hallucinogenic drug. That comes in the way of finding practical solutions to any problem. In the long run, that could be the trigger for self-destruction. From self-righteousness comes vanity; from vanity, pride; from pride comes intolerance, and from intolerance stems animosity, and from animosity springs violence and war. It is as removed from righteousness as light from darkness; as dharma from adharma. The Upanishads exhort man to follow dharma (the righteous path) in obtaining artha (wealth or material prosperity) and kama (sensory pleasures) and even moksha (liberation). Righteousness is to act in accord with the divine or moral law, to put the other person ahead of oneself. Self-righteousness is to be convinced of one’s own absolute righteousness; to view everything from the prism or prison of self-benefit.

The self-righteous think, feel, and believe so strongly that they are right and righteous, their sense of certainty is so impregnable, that they try to control others’ lives; indeed mold the world to their image, turning a blind eye, so to speak, to the cracks in their own face.

They are chronic ‘fault-finders’ and compulsive ‘correctors’; judgmental without the slightest self-awareness that they are so; indeed, they will be aghast with disbelief — and deeply hurt

that anyone should think so. Sarada Devi, affectionately called Mother by her devotees, and the spiritual partner of the sage Ramakrishna, said, “I tell you one thing my child — if you want peace, do not find fault with others. Rather, see your own faults.”491 Ramakrishna’s foremost disciple Vivekananda elaborated on this and said, “Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.”492 Emerson said “ that which we call sin in others, is experiment for us”. The more dangerous part is that self-righteous people not only convince themselves that they are the sole repositories of ‘revealed truth’; it is that they see themselves as ‘victims’ of injustice and exploitation. There is a growing number of that breed now, which could easily

 

 

 

491 Cited in: Richard Pettinger. Sarada Devi. Write Spirit. Accessed at: http://www.writespirit.net/authors/sarada-devi

492 Swami Vivekananda. Famous Quotations of Swami Vivekananda. Accessed at: http://www.saha.ac.in/lib/a.malakar/quot.htm

 

set the stage for greater domestic, social, religious, and ethnic tension and turbulence. In some form or to some degree, everyone is self-righteous. And to believe that we are not self- righteous is also, perhaps, an even greater level of self-righteousness — because, that makes us judge others from our belief that we are not self-righteous, which is really the signal signature of self-righteousness. Many confuse self-righteousness with self-belief or self- esteem, or even spirituality. That is why few, not even saints, are able to escape the spell cast by self-righteousness. These saints are like the elder brother in the Biblical parable of the ‘Prodigal Son’ who is also — as Timothy Keller notes in his book The Prodigal God (2008)

‘lost’ through his self-righteousness. Whatever label we may use, selfishness, self- centeredness, self-righteousness, they are all defenses of the ‘ego-mind’ in dealing with the external world in satiating its insatiable wants and demands. Biologists and evolutionary psychologists have long pondered over whether this almost reflexive trait in our behavior is inherent or acquired, and whether it has become entrenched in our psyche beyond evolutionary imperative. Philosophers like Georg Hegel argued that the ‘other’ is an integral constituent in self-consciousness. He wrote that “Each consciousness pursues the death of the other.”493 That pursuit takes different ways, from physical killing to control, and getting others to do what we want regardless of their will. There is considerable ambiguity about the import of terms such as selfishness and self-centeredness, self-esteem, self-belief, and self- love; indeed about the term self The Self in the scriptures is God, and in daily use, it is the individual person.

It is also said that what one does not have, one cannot give, and that includes love or hate. Therefore, to be able to love another person, one must love oneself. Spiritually, self- love is no different from love of God. But self-love is not self-absorption, to look at everything solely from the prism of self-benefit. It means that by themselves, self-love or self-centeredness or self-righteousness are neither good nor bad; it is where and towards whom it is directed that makes the difference. Whatever be the nuances of these terms the

basic question is, why do humans find it so difficult, more than any other species, to combine, cooperate, and collectivize their efforts? Evolutionary psychology argues that humans do have cooperative instincts but that they are reciprocal; that is, we become altruistic when there is something to be gained. In other words, cooperation too is a ‘subtle form of selfishness.’ Some call this a cynical travesty of human nature, and evolutionary psychology is accused of being “a blatant attempt to discredit our altruistically orientated instinctive self or soul as nothing more than a subtle form of selfishness in our makeup.”494 They say that articulating such theories could, on the one hand, make some people fatalistic (I can’t help my selfishness) or, on the other hand, despondent (what a horrible being I am). In sociobiology, DNA is immortal and the only purpose of genes is self-preservation. But the problem is that human behavior is inexplicable even in terms of selfishness and self- centeredness. Whether selfishness is an inherent or an acquired trait or a dated evolutionary necessity, the human condition seems to have crossed that frontier. Mankind’s selfishness is beyond any discernible self-benefit, and its recklessness borders on self-destruction. The ‘mind and me’ centered civilization, in turn, has shaped the human condition and behavior.

Man, in the words of John Gray, is a product of blind evolutionary drift; perhaps the very dynamic of survival in prehistoric times ingrained in man the imperative of greed and grabbing. Yet man is the most explorative creature on earth, explorative of his fellow-men, of

 

 

 

493 Cited in: Other. Wikipedia. Accessed at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other

494 Jeremy Griffith. Beyond the Human Condition. The Story of Homo. 1991. World Transformation Movement. Accessed at: http://www.worldtransformation.com/Beyond/StoryOfHomo.html

 

other species, of Nature, and even of God, but not explorative enough of his own soul. And hence he is the most exploitative. The self-righteous mind is so ingenious that it makes the exploiter believe he is the exploited; it makes the oppressor believe he is the oppressed, and it makes the villain believe he is the victim. It makes man think that he is at once the most virtuous and the most victimized, a Mahatma and a martyr. In the rush of civilization, most men are torn apart from their moral moorings, doomed to lead a mechanized life, without a clue as to what they are supposed to do or what is happening to them or where they are drifting, other than towards death. Every minute we are dying, but it does not change a whit how we live. Yet everyone complains, feels helpless, blames and badmouths the world, the system, and drowns in sensual pleasure and material trappings. While the individual is a virtual cog in a mighty soulless machine, those who control the levers of power, science, technology, wealth, and weapons, not knowing how to use them wisely, are busy acquiring ‘more’ of everything, plundering Nature, ravaging the earth, and pushing mankind — and the planet — towards the precipice.

To be fair, it is not that we are evil; at least not all the time; indeed we may even be good ‘at