All through his life Dr. Radhakrishnan lived the principle of simple living and high thinking. He believed that evil may prosper for a limited period of time but eventually the goodness and the truth will prevail.
On the subject of ‘Religion in the Modern World’ he wrote—
‘The life is a tussle between goodness and evil. When we ignore the evil we wander in aimless despondency. The biggest challenge is that of self control. The science has given us great control over outer nature. But it fails to help us control our own inner human nature. Until man does not evolve spiritual character great enough to match the gigantic industrial progress, the future will always be in danger.
The grave problems of humanity can not be solved by framing simplistic laws but by reforming the mindsets and ideological thinking. Every human must try to throw away the old inner conservatism.
Everyone needs to be renewed.
Every victory of human faith and spiritual power takes the world to a new higher level, closer to liberty and the goal of unity. Man’s spiritual voyage will not end till the love and the justice does not rule the human lives.
Doctor Radhakrishnan favoured the ascetic life style of our saints and munis. According to him, by introducing ashram tradition the ancient wisdom framed a clear rules for the duties of Hinduism. The period of the life of celibacy brings stability to one’s inner self. It teaches the soul knowledge which harmonizes inner life and one’s social life.
The soul knowledge helps one determine his own goals, deeds and duties. The celibacy in the impressionable teenage period teaches the young man discipline and he is conditioned to accept the later life duties. The spirit to take up responsibilities get inculcated. Then he is ordered to start married life and raise family dutifully and with ideal discipline to set an example for his children.
Domestic innings is compulsory state of the human life. It is not for carnal pleasures but the training for a higher aim of the life. Renunciation is improper until the physical desires are not satiated by allowing them their due natural share of life. Forcible suppression of the desires is counter-productive and can be harmful. The desires also are partners in the evolution of life. One should not deny them their due role in the development of one’s life and character.
The thoughts of renunciation should not be entertained until the desires don’t get their normal and natural expression. The marriage is sacred in this meaning. Not participating in marital activity is improper and unnatural to the point of its being dereliction of a basic personal and social duty. Only that person can truly do his duties whose inner self is balanced, otherwise imbalance, noise and inner strife, will burst out.
A person suffering from dissatisfaction fails to harmonise his inner self and his external life also remains disorganised. The ancient Hindu sages passed on this message by visualising female better halves to pair every god as the physical manifestation of their divine powers. Even Power Supreme’s real force is defined as a feminine energy. Ardhanarishwara is composite form of man and a woman representing Shiva. Vishnu is served by Laxmi and Shiva is paired with Parvati.
Ardhanarishwara is not an obscene idea but a healthy definition that a man and a woman are each other’s supplement. On their own, independently they are merely half entities. Their union only makes a full entity, a meaningful existence which eventually leads of spiritual progression. Thus, recommends our religion the marriage. The marital life’s fulfillment of the basic instincts encourages intellectual and moral progress while discharging personal, social and family obligations in a balanced way.
A person’s family not only liberates him/her from itself but from the bondage of ancestors and the future generations too. The marriage is like a cooperative unit, essential for a person’s all round development and continuation of the blood line. It gives little liberty to human weaknesses but it serves as a ladder for spiritual ascendence.
The wife is a companion, better half and co-traveller and not a maid or a platter of potato chips to go with whiskey or a striptease item. Similarly a husband is no master or lord or a sadistic slave driver. Infact, he is a lover, protector, helper and a caretaker. The two can exchange tender feelings, make sacrifices for each other and fulfil their respective duties to make the marital life a blissful experience. Harmonised life of a married couple can be a means to the lofty ideal and desires should prove helpful in reaching that ideal and not prove hurdles as is generally conceived.
The culmination of physical love in itself is selfless devotion or atleast simulation. The love between a man and a woman does not indicate the two being similar or equal in all respects. Two objects or living beings can not be identical. The cosmic wonderful diversity is based on universal dissimilarity. If two things are identical then they are not two but one in real sense. It is merely a repetition. Things should always have individual characteristics and traditional dissimilarity which is a demand of their own personality. But the diversity of the world is no proof of the existence of unrelated units.
Infact, in case of a woman and a man, their physical and mental dissimilarities or disparities are the very cause of the beautiful relationship of love between them. The nature has designed the dissimilarities of a male and female in the mould of deficiencies the supplement of which is available in the counterpart creating a desire for each other to come together as supplementary and complementary halves. And marriage is the logical answer to that compelling desire to pair and multiply.
In the root of the diversity is sovereign unity.
The sovereign consciousness is present as a latent factor in every human being. So, man and woman, inspite of having distinct characteristics are united as one by that factor. Both are spiritual creatures. The final aim of the both is spiritual. The marriage can not alter the characteristics which are permanent in nature but it makes them useful and helpful in gaining the wisdom of harmonised life. It can and it does.
The unity of the ocean of love can push in background the gender inequalities or characteristics. However care you take or go through selection and rejection rituals to approve a partner, finally the fact emerges that the marriage is just a gamble. The wisdom lies in making best of the gamble. For the people of wisdom and rationale, turning a chance bride or groom into a worthy life partner should not prove difficult. A bit of adjustment, understanding and open heart is all that is required. The reward to true penance is Shiva, the life of beauty and harmony.
The married life is its example.
Marriage is not only carnal merry making or domestic peace, but it is the beginning of a dutifully dedicated life. For a larger ideal selfish habits are required to be reigned in. Two different personalities have to fuse together for the sake of higher ideal of harmonic partnerships. Self-discipline and tolerance can make love a divine experience. That marriage is commendable where husband and wife are true to each-other and dedicated to make their union rewarding. The people who go to the altar thinking that if the marriage does not work he or she would go for divorce or are fearful that the failure to make it together would make their lives woeful, more often than not prove unsuccessful husband or wife due to the lack of the resolve, dedication and ante-post honesty. Such people never find joy, peace and marital bliss that they are entitled to otherwise.
In Hindu tradition, the examples of polygamy are mostly for kings or fiefs. King Dasharatha’s life is one. To make a life successful matrimony has to be threaded in the universal oneness of the spiritual aspect. Marriage is a sacred exercise for the invigoration of the progress of the human race. Those who take the marital institution a licence for physical indulgence never get the benefit of its bliss. Their sexual relationship does not know to respect the partner and is no help in dealing with the practical life. Such people when sexually satisfied get fed up with it and walk out or are filled with anger, despondency and disillusionment. If such a person is a king then he would find solace in violence, to indulge in which, he picks up quarrels with neighbourhood kings on some flimsy ground, or an imaginary grievance.
Our history is full of such wars.
To establish positive and equality based relationships between two persons, both parties have to make an effort. In this world nothing comes to a person by accident and as gift, similarly for a good marital match some toil and sweat is required. Without tolerance, sacrifice, goodwill and penance the true marital bliss will remain a mirage. The dissimilarities and differences between two persons is a challenge to human rationale and labour, and not an invitation for divorce. The divorce is the declaration of defeat. It is a black mark on the face of the dutiful human. It is a sign of the arrogant misbelief which makes one consider himself an all important superhuman.
In today’s noisy and fast life the man has lost the power of human identity. The events, deeds and anomalies spiral around a person in such mad whirl that he does not find time to ponder over spiritual questions like—who I am, what is the real purposes of life etc. The exercise of introspection is going out of fashion and an individual has become a man-animal. He perpetually lives in the fear of his own self, personality, exalted position and emotional nature getting singed in the heat of the world. Man-animal is finding solace in carnal pleasures instead of lifting himself up to honour himself. He roams naked in the jungle of obscene gestures.
Weather beaten body bears scars of time. It becomes soggy and skin wrinkles. The energies get spent. The Hindu tradition prescribes shift to the peace of the forests to do penance as the duties to the family is done and over. Staying with the family in old age is not advised. The family needs space and the young members are full of energy and youthful arrogance which often shows up in the form of contempt, neglect and disrespect to the aging members. Thus, our ancient system removes old members through Vanaprastha tradition from the family set-up to save them from humiliations and embarrassments.
In the forest with intact self-respect old ones can apply themselves to achieving spiritual goals—detached from the mundane things of the world.
A man is basically a spiritual creature besides being a means of prosperity and a moral defender of society and the country only as long as he is physically capable. In the end period one should live a selected spiritual life in the nature’s lap where he has the best chance to find out the real truth and answers to his spiritual curiosities. It is a true retirement from the mundane existence to dedicate oneself totally to spiritual pursuits.
A true ascetic is one who is equanimous to all humans, communities, sects, castes, races and religions. The disparities of high-low or rich-poor or man-woman dissolve into spiritual oneness. But the greatness of ascetic life does not diminish the importance of marital life which is infact a ladder to the spiritual progress.
Even in the final evolved stage human being can not dismiss or disown previous stages (Ashrams) of life as inconsequential. A bloomed flower can not disown bud, bud can not disown the stalk, the stalk can not disown roots. The entire human life is a tree and the fruit or seed is its end achievement. The human progression is systematic evolution. It is no accidental at any stage. A pre-designed state is the cause of its final state.
The liberated soul is not detached to world welfare but it is very involved. It is said about Buddha that during his penance which earned him enlightenment, he had gone spiritually to the door which lead to the divinity beyond. His soul could have easily walked over into it. But Buddha withdrew it from the threshold and took a vow that he won’t go across until there is even one human in pain and misery in this world.
The lord of ascetics, Shiva partook poison to save the cosmos. How can an ascetic delink himself from the woeful problems of the world. He must share the pain of the mankind through the oneness of the souls of all living beings. Infact, running away from the realities is not the duty of an ascetic. His asceticism itself is a prayer for the salvation of all human beings who are still trapped in mundane existence.
A saint must feel the pain of others and relieve it by doing some extraordinary sacrifice to waken up the conscience of the perpetrators and victims (like Christ) or by preaching the ways of redemption and salvation.
I do not yearn for the state of Nirvana having all light factors of perfections. Nor do I wish to get liberated of the life-death cycles like most spiritualists do. Instead I would prefer to suck into myself all the pain of the woes others are being ravaged by to liberate them from their misery. A liberated soul does not wear a crooked smile at seeing others in pain.
Infact, it would dearly like to serve as a balm.
At the highest levels of existence the liberty, manifests itself as tolerance, sacrifice and embracement of death. Doing penance for others and giving them love is the aim of a liberated soul. According to the belief of resolution for world welfare, liberation or salvation is not the merger of the soul entity in Eternal Power.
Hindu philosophy determines four goals for all round development of a person—Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. If Dharma is the first goal then Moksha is the last and the final. The worldly practical life is a life of Dharma (Duty). It is the beginning of the road that leads to Moksha. The human desires and propensities can be divine if they are bounden to the sense of duty.
Dharma is an order for civilised conduct. A person can realise his/her aspirations through it. It teaches the honest means of making a living. Artha tells us that every person has natural desire for power and riches. It concerns with the financial and political aspects of one’s life. The people, common folk yearn for riches, material prosperity. This yearning requires to be properly appreciated. The fulfillment of the desire for wealth and luxuries must be achieved within the parameters of Dharma and civility. Dharma rules fix the ceiling for means and the extent of the fulfillments. Otherwise as we see today that unlimited desire for riches and luxuries breed barbarism and tyranny that begin to swallow the humanity.
Kama is manifestation of human nature’s artistic, creative and cultural aspirations. The propitious development of art and culture is only possible through moral medium. The ubiquity of the value of Dharma and morality in entire life spectrum is the mother of final salvation i.e. Moksha. Moksha is spiritual liberation and consciousness.
A human inspite of having physical necessities is basically a spiritual entity. Neither does he live for bread alone nor for acts, money, desires, instincts or power. They are related to and carry meaning in respect of one’s limited outer soul. The satiation of outer soul is no fulfillment of the core inner soul. His core soul is conscientiousness. He really lives for it.
And so he should.
Moksha is soul’s complete existence. It is the fulfillment of our interim conscience and the soul liberation.
Every person has an independent resolve. He can chose his way of liberation or penance according to his own temperament. A person’s propensities can be classified in three types—knowledge savvy, devotion savvy and action savvy. The three are so harmonised in life as the sounds of vocal and musical instruments are attuned in a composition. In the highest flight of life the power is provided by the knowledge factor. The other two are useful in lower level exercises. There is no contradictions between desires and family duties in this world. And similarly spiritual pursuits and ambitions don’t contradict each other. They are not opposites like light and darkness but more like candle light and sunlight. The both are truths but the latter is more heavenly, even and brighter truth.
The mundane life is a pilgrimage towards the ultimate truth. It is not falsehood or illusion. It is like unblossomed flower bud which contains unmanifest truth. We must see it in that light and properly nurture it to help it flower or it will wither without blossoming.
Hindu wisdom framed four ashrams and set four goals for the organised progression of human life in the knowledge of the fact that the material world was no beginning and the end of the human life. The eternal spiritual truth does not dismiss the physical world, it merely explains its realities in deeper spiritual context by lending it eternal value. The worldly relationships may be perishable but they are not ignorable. Considering them worth disowning can be fatal and the negation of truth.
Eternal is expressed in periods and the periods lead toward eternity, either way. Moksha is not dissolution of the world but eradication of the mistaken belief about it.