The Symbolism of the Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is much more than a moral treatise, which it apparently appears as. Behind the literary veil, the Bhagavad Gita presents a profound discussion on sum total of all science, harmony and mathematics of universal creation. The Bhagavad Gita - “The Song of the Lord”, was not named as the “Commands from the Lord”. By definition the work of art is not authoritative. Rather it is an expression of the laws of nature. It is a “song” of the Lord. It depends on the reader to listen to the song and implement the wisdom relating to it at a level appropriate for him. 

At the outset it is important to be reminded ourselves that the Bhagavad Gita - “The Song of the God”, is a symbolic tale. The two central characters are Krishna and Arjuna. Krishna symbolises the intelligence, the Buddhi, the dharma, the inspiration. He is the link to the ultimate Wisdom - the Ideal.

Krishna is the link to the Nous for the Greeks, Isis for the ancient Egypt, Buddhi for the Vedic school, Ideal for Plato, and Virtues for Aristotle. Arjuna is Hebrew Abraham, dragging himself in infinite pain up Mount Moriah with the torch of Faith illuminating his heart, triumphant over his human grief. The most important aspect of Krishna is that he is not a personna in human sense. He is above human needs and propensities of emotions, desires, ambitions, anger, body and soul. He is the mirror of “Vishnu” in the material world. At the same time he is not Vishnu. He is a man-God, or “Manas Putra” - the way Vedic tradition likes to name. He is symbolically analogous to the serpent of the garden of Eden - a harbinger of wisdom, enabling man to raise to the next level of evolution - a stage where man is more aware of what is right and what is wrong. In the myth of the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, Vishnu stands for the sustainer. He stands for a womb of creation, nourishment, intelligence, inspiration, the right environment, which makes the will (Brahma) to grow up to the form of creation (Mahesh). Vishnu is the analogous to Isis in ancient Egypt. Brahma is Osiris, and Mahesh is Horus. Krishna is the manifestation of the abstract idea of the ideal of Vishnu, in the material world. He symbolically acts the role of the charioteer to Arjuna. Hence he guides Arjuna to the right path. He is the eyes of Arjuna in his battle. Note that Krishna does not do the fight for himself. He is the inspiration, the link between man (Arjuna) and The Ideal (Vishnu). Krishna is the teacher of the wisdom. Wisdom is Vishnu himself. Arjuna is the disciple. Krishna is the philospher - the link between man and the Ideal.

Arjuna stands for Nietzsche’s Superman, and kierkergaard’s Christian. Arjuna is “Krishna” in potential. He is the disciple of the Dharma. He is the leader who manifests the inspiration of Krishna to the material world, into form. He stands for the common man, who is fighting the battle of his life. The battle between Kauravas (lower self) and Pandavas (higher self). Arjuna’s doubts are our doubts, his problems and dilemmas are ours, and the questions which he puts to Krishna are the same universal and eternal questions that men and women of all ages, and from every part of the world, have been asking themselves since time immemorial. 

One very important premise on which the Bhagavad Gita is based is the idea of the battle between Kauravas and Pandavas. Since time immemorial most of the greatest of the ancient civilizations have been teaching that man has two natures : the sense and the mind. The former is material and the latter is divine. Plato speaks of our lost wings and of the useless beatings of the stumps which have lost the prodigy of flight. The immortal soul, when free of the body, has wings that hold it aloft, in heaven. Yet the wings are lost when the soul is tied with the body, but since the soul has glimpsed the immutable forms, it strives to join them again. The eternal striving of the lower self (Kaurava) to be united with the higher self (Pandava), battling the human propensities grounded in the material world of senses has been symbolised by the battle of Kurukshetra, to win over Hastinapura - “The city of elephants”. Elephant symbolizes Wisdom. Hastinapura has been translated to the “City of Wisdom”. 

Just to clarify the lower self (Kauravas) is not something that has to be despised and subdued. The lower self is just the transient, material, emotional part of being human. It is more connected to the animal nature of man. It is the physical existence of the man. This part of man acts as a vehicle for man to climb the stairs of the evolution. The lower self are the limbs of man, helping him to climb up to the Idea - the Nous. The lower self has to be guided by the “Krishna”, to win over the existential battle of mankind - “The battle of Kurukshetra”. The higher self is already present in the lower self, in potential. All that is good, and close to the ideal, which is represented by Pandavas is the potential already present in man. Same is true for the Kauravas. All the lower propensities are also potential in man. By nature, man is in potential - both the God and the demon. It requires the education of the Krishna to realize man his real potential - the potential of being the God. Krishna plays the role of the “Partha Sarathy” - the charioteer of the Arjuna - the disciple, guiding him to the realization of the real potential of being human. 

One very subtle but profound premise of the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita is about the way to achieve victory over the lower self. It is neither in the form of suppression (using will to stop oneself to act as per lower instincts), not in the form of repression (removing the stimulus itself from the awareness, which can entice man to fall for his lower instincts). The former method is too superficial and stress-full. That reduces man to be a guard of himself, who is forcibly trying eternally to lock up the evil monster inside. The latter method is about creating a pseudo surrounding by avoiding the realities of life. This way might guard the conscious self from lower propensities. But the sub-conscious mind will have its own ramifications. The effect of the repressed impulse on the person is not even necessarily smaller than if it were conscious; the main difference is that it is not acted upon overtly but in disguise. so the person acting is spared the knowledge of what he is doing. Krishna formulates a third method in which the life-furthering fores in a person fight against the destructive and evil impulses. The more aware a person is of the latter the more is he able to reat. Not only his will and his reason take part, but those emotional forces in him which are challenged by his destructiveness. This relieves a man of being his own watchdog and of using his will power constantly for self-control. In this method, the emphasis is not on one’s feeling of badness and remorse but on the presence and use of productive forces within man. Thus, as a result of the productive conflict between good and evil, the evil itself becomes a sources of virtue. It is not about repression of man’s evilness but the productive use of man’s inherent primary potentialities. Virtue is proportional to the degree of productiveness a person has achieved. This productiveness is being termed “karma” or the “right action” by Krishna. Action is treated as a means to self realization by Krishna. 

The figure of Krishna holding the four horses (symbolising our senses going hey where) tight, and leading the chariot of Arjuna to the right direction symbolises not an authoritative vigilance of the guard who has to shut in the evil prisoner; rather, the vigilance of the rational being who has to recognize and to create the conditions for his productiveness and to do away with those factors which block him and thus create the evil which. Bhagavad Gita is based on the premise that man is a potential God, and not a potential evil. The evilness in man do arise due to presence of barriers which stop the real self getting manifested. And Krishna through his song tries to put forward the idea of productive usage of man’s inherent potentials through productive activities, both internal and external, to be able to realize his Godliness. 

This battle of Kurukshetra, the fight of man to reach the ideal, is what our philosopher forbears intended to convey when they wrote Bhagavad Gita. On that problem, every genius has planted the seed of his talent. It is the problem and for man: there is no other. It was the inspiration for the mysterious hierophants of the Nile and their hermetic tablets. It was contemplated by Plato when he wrote his Dialogues. It was in the heart of the first being who questioned the Infinite about his own essence. 

One very interesting thing about Bhagavad Gita is its settings. Here we have the Lord singing to his disciple amidst a ferocious battle. Weapons flashes in sunlight, clutched by tensed Kaurava warriors. Animals snort andneigh; the mystical conch-shells sound; life trembles, and death smiles expectantly. Amidst all this noise, confusion and destruction all around, we are shown an afraid and confused Arjuna, who has surrendered to Krishna, and is listening with all intent and discipleship to the song of the Lord! It demonstrates Arjuna’s virtue of being centered to the axis and his attention on the dim melody of the divine song, not letting the distractions of the battle move him out of his center. He is not stunned by the noise. All that matters to him is to seek the eternal Silence within him in order to hear the Voice which sounds above the din of battle. To have that silence is to have everything. 

Bhagavad Gita is one of the most profound treatise on ethics ever formulated by the ancients. With all its literary adornments this book goes to bring forth the optimism, the faith, the feeling of certainty that the day of final reunion will come after the long journey across the dark seas, where no one should remain but as stranger returning to his homeland. It reminds man to exercise his reason, faculties and virtues of being human, to transcend his inherent Kaurava propensities, which although appear sensuous and attractive, but are transient and illusion of the world of maya. The treatise is like a mine of wisdom. Written succinctly, it is like an eternal fountain of wisdom. It offers man in every level to find for himself, the nourishment for his soul. For a common man still grounded on material realm, it offers the apparent story which he can follow with interest, with hidden symbolism. For a philosopher this treatise challenges his mind to interpret the symbolism to go deeper into the laws of nature. This is the most beautiful aspect of the Bhagad Gita. It has something every every one, based on individual needs. This nature of the treatise, itself inspires. Can we be someone who has something to give to all - irrespective of the level from which one is coming from? Can we be able to stick to the art, note and meter of the “song” amidst the bustle of the every day material life? Can we focused in the path of dharma? The book comes up with such challenging questions, which inspires man to realise who he inherently is - The God - The Ideal.

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Love and Productive Reason.

One can be productively related to the world by acting and by comprehending. Man produces things, and in the process of creation he exercises his powers over matter. Man comprehends the world, mentally and emotionally, through love and through reason. His power of reason enables him to penetrate through the surfaces and to grasp the essence of his object by getting into active relation with it. His power of love enables him to break through the wall which separates him from another person and to comprehend him. Although love and reason are only two different forms of comprehending the world and although neither is possible without the other, they are expressions of different powers that of emotions and that of thinking.

Productive Love

Genuine love is rooted in productiveness and may properly be called, therefore, "productive love". Productive love is rooted in care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.

Care and responsibility denote that love is an activity and not a passion by which one is overcome, nor an effect which one is "affected by".

It is believed that to fall in love is already the culmination of love, which actually it is the beginning and only an opportunity for the achievement of love. It is believed that love is the result of a mysterious quality by which two people are attracted to each other, and event which occurs without effort. Indeed, man's loneliness and his sexual desires make it easy to fall in love and there is nothing mysterious about it, but it is a gain which is as quickly lost as it has been achieved. One is not loved accidentally; one's own power to love produces love - just as being interested makes one interesting.

To love a person productively implies to care and to feel responsible for his life, not only for his physical existence but for the growth and development of all his human powers. To love productively is incompatible with being passive, with being an onlooker at the loved person's life; it implies labor and care and responsibility for his growth.

Love for mankind is looked upon as an achievement which, at best, follows love for one individual. To love one person productively means to be related to his human core, to him as representing mankind. Love for one individual, in so far as it is divorced from love for man, can refer only to the superficial and to the accidental; of necessity it remains shallow. All men are in need of help and depend on one another. Human solidarity is the necessary condition for the unfolding of any one individual.

Love is the productive form of relatedness to to others and to oneself. It implies responsibility, care, respect and knowledge and the wish for the other person to grow and develop. It is the expression of intimacy between two human beings under the condition of the preservation of each others's integrity.

Productive Thinking

Most of our thinking is necessarily concerned with the achievement of practical results, with the quantitative and superficial aspects of phenomena without inquiring into the validity of implied ends and premises and without attempting to understand the nature and quality of phenomena.

Reason involves a third dimension, that of depth, which reaches to the essence of things and processes. While reason is not divorced from the practical aims of life, it is not a mere tool for immediate action. Its function is to know, to understand , to grasp to related oneself to things by comprehending them. It penetrates through the surfaces of things in order to discover their essence, their hidden relationships and deeper meanings, their "reason". It is, as it were not two dimensional but "perspectivistic", to use Nietzsche's term; i.e., it grasps all conceivable perspectives and dimensions, not only the practically relevant ones. Being concerned with the essence of things does not mean being concerned with something "behind" things, but with the essential, with the generic and the universal, with the most general and pervasive traits of phenomena, freed from the superficial and accidental aspects.

Characteristics of Productive Thinking -

1. In productive thinking subject is not indifferent to his object but is affected by and concerned with it. On contrary, the subject is intensely interested in his object, and the more intimate this relation is, the more fruitful is his thinking. It is this very relationship between him and his object which stimulates his thinking in the first place. To him a person or any phenomenon becomes and object of thought because it is an object of interest, relevant from the standpoint of his individual life or that of human existence. A beautiful illustration of this point is the story of Buddha's discovery of the "fourfold truth". Buddha saw a dead man, a sick man, and old man. He, a young man, was deeply affected by the inescapable fate of man, and his reaction to his observation was the stimulus for thinking which resulted in his theory of nature of life and the ways of man's salvation. His reaction was certainly not the only possible one. A modern physician in the same situation might react by starting to think of how to combat death, sickness, and age, but his thinking would also be determined by his total reaction to his object. In the process of productive thinking the thinker is motivated by his interest for the object; he is affected by it and reacts to it; he cares and responds. This aspect of productive thinking expresses the subjective aspect of being related to the object of thought, in true sense.

2. Productive thinking is also characterized by objectivity, by the respect the thinker has for his object, by his ability to see the object as it is and not as he wishes it to be. The point 1 and point 2, expresses the polarity between objectivity and subjectivity is characteristic of productive thinking as it is of productiveness in general. To be objective is possible only if we respect the things we observe; that is, if we are capable of seeing them in their uniqueness and their interconnectedness. This respect is not essentially different from the respect we discussed in connection with love; in as much as I want to understand something I must be able to see it as it exists according to its own nature; while this is true with regard to all objects of thought, it constitutes a special problem for the study of human nature.

Another aspect that must be present in objective thinking about living an non living objects : that of seeing the totality of a phenomenon. If the observer isolates one aspect of the object without seeing the whole, he will not properly understand even the one aspect he is studying. This point has been emphasized as the most important element in productive thinking by Wertheimer, "Productive Processes", he writes, "are often of this nature: in the desire to get a real understand, re-questioning and investigation start. A certain region in the field becomes crucial, is focused; but it does not become isolated. A new, deeper structural view of the situation develops, involving changes in functional meaning, the grouping, etc, of the items. In this entire way of thinking, tow directions are involved : getting a whole consistent picture, and seeing what the structure of the whole requires for the parts".

Objectivity requires not only seeing the object as it is but also seeing oneself as one is, i.e. being aware of the particular constellation in which one finds oneself as on is, i.e., being aware of the observer related to the object of observation. Productive thinking, then, is determined by the nature of the object and the nature of the subject who relates himself to his object in the process of thinking. This twofold determination constitutes objectivity, in contrast to false subjectivity in which the thinking is not controlled by the object and thus degenerates into prejudice, wishful thinking, and phantasy. Objectivity does not mean detachment. It means respect; that is, the ability not to distort and to falsify things, persons, and oneself.

3. Integration of objectivity and subjectivity - All productive thinking is stimulated by the interest of the observer. It is never an interest per se which distorts ideas, but only those interests which are incompatible with the truth, with the discovery of the nature of the object under observation.

4. Crippling of productive activity results in either inactivity or overactivity. Hunger and force can never be condition for productive activity. On the contrary, freedom, economic security, and an organization of society in which work can be the meaningful expression of man's faculties are the factors conducive to the expression of man's natural tendency to make productive use of his powers. Productive activity is characterized by the rhythmic change in activity and repose. Productive work, love and thought are possible only if a person can be, when necessary, quiet and alone with himself. To be able to listen to oneself in prerequisite for ability to listen to to others; to be at home with oneself is the necessary condition for relating oneself to others.

5. One has to save oneself from symbiotic attachments in the name of love. While symbiotic relationship is one of closeness to and intimacy with the object, although at the expense of freedom and integrity.

6. One has to guard himself from withdrawal and destructiveness. The feeling of individual powerlessness can be overcome by withdrawal from others who are experienced as threats. To a certain extend withdrawal is a part of the normal rhythm in any person's relatedness to the world, a necessity for contemplation, for study, for reworking of materials, thoughts, attitudes. Its emotional equivalent is the feeling of indifference towards others, often accompanied by a compensatory feeling of self-inflation. Withdrawal and indifference can, but need not, be conscious; a matter of fact, in our culture they are mostly covered up by superficial kind of interest and sociability. Destructiveness is the active form of withdrawal.

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PS - This is an abstract from the book - Man for himself - An enquiry into the psychology of ethics, by Erich Fromm.

The Most Important Philosophy of Life

If man wants to know the sole and universal secret of a meaningful and happy life, he is to be aware such a life is possible only through the determined resolve to walk in the path of pure love. It is imperative to have an unshakable resolve to be in love every moment of the day, no matter what. The crux of every philosophy is jut one - be in love, active love, Manas Love, Love emanating from Nous, from Buddhi. 

At the same time, beware of the disintegrated form of love coming out from the physical levels of Kama Manas and below (Linga, Prana, Stula). They are disintegrated form of that once pristine love of the Nous, of Buddhi. They have lost their erstwhile wings. They will just flutter and then die in a moment. They are transient. They have an inherent ego, frustration, pain, needs, and other lower propensities, which primarily belong to the realm which are lower in the evolution line than that what is present as an opportunity for man in his life. These lower forms of love although attractive on surface, pulls down man backwards and retards his growth in his journey. They just dissipate time and energy of man, and steal away his opportunity to really live. 

What is the truth is just that one love - The love emanating from the Nous - The Manas Love. Be grounded in that every moment of your attention.

The Manas love is based on the premise of Love as an art. Erich Fromm in his book - "The art of loving" has tried to identify characteristics of Manas love. He says Love is an active effort, grounded on the human potentials of objectivity, humility, courage, active faith, discipline within, concentration and meditation, patience, supreme concern, the indirect nature of love, relaxed awareness, sensitivity, right education, overcoming narcissism, universality of love. 

Glimpses of The Manas Love - Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr, Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Mohammad.

Victor Frankl has expressed another important aspect of Manas Love in his book - "Man's search for Meaning" as follows - 

Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.

Sri. N. Ram articulates the ideal of Mans Love as follows - 

"Only as we go out in love which seeks to help and serve, do we transcend ourselves and develop that consciousness which embodies the awareness of our essential unity with others."

One has to be grounded in Manas Love every waking moment. This love has to extend to his fellow humans and to the nature. This is the secret of a meaningful and happy living. This is the only way out of the existential problems infront of man. This requires constant attention, will, memory, nurturing, intelligence and the resolve to bring into form that wisdom of the idea of Manas love in everyday life. Only then man can know who he is, and who others are, and what nature is - in reality. Any other way is a way in illusion - Maya.

Having said all this, it is very important to understand that an abstract idea is real only when it is applied. Similarly, Manas Love will remain as a dead word, unless it is actually lived, implemented and applied in real life - in the life which is alive in the realm of Kama Manas, Linga, Prana and Stula. The physical life is grounded in these physical realities. These are the realm of forms. The ideal of Manas Love has to be grounded to the framework of physical forms. Unless that is done, its all fluke and over intellectualization. It is very important to discern and have the power and resolve to play with Manas Love in the stage of the world of Maya, and not get lost in the illusion of the disintegrated forms of love so very popular and present everywhere around.

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Idea of Self Interest from Humanistic Philosophy

To Spinoza self-interest or the interest to "seek one's profit" is identical with virtue. He says, "The more each person strives and is able to seek his profit that is to say, to preserve his being, the more virtue does he possess; on the other hand, is so far as each person neglects his own profit he is impotent". According to this view, the interest of man is to preserve his existence, which is the same as realizing his inherent potentialities. This concept of self-interest is objectivistic inasmuch as "interest" is not conceived in terms of the subjective feeling of what one's interest is but of what the nature of man is, objectively. Man according to Spinoza has only one real interest and that is the full development of his potentialities, of himself as a "human being". Just as one has to know another person on his real needs in order to love him, one has to know one's own self in order to understand what the interests of his self are and how they can be served. It follows that man can deceive himself about his real self-interest if he is ignorant of his self and its real needs and that the science of man is the basis of determining what constitudes man's self interest.

In the last three hundred years the concept of self-interest has increasingly been narrowed until it has assumed almost the opposite meaning which it has in Spinoza's thinking. It has become identical with selfishness; and instead of its being synonymous with virtue, its conquest has become an ethical commandment.

This deterioration was made possible by the change from the objectivistic into erroneously subjectivistic approach to self-interest. Self-interest was no longer to be determined by the nature of man and his needs; correspondingly the notion that one could be mistaken about it was relinquished and replaced by the idea that what a person felt represented the interest of his self was necessarily his true self-interest.

The "fallacy of self-interest" in modern man has never been described better than by Ibsen in his play Peer Gynt. Peer Gynt believes that his whole life is devoted to the attainment of the interests of his self. He describes his self as:

"The Gyntian Self!

- An army, that, of wishes, appetites, desires!

The Gyntian Self!

It is a sea of fancies, claims and aspirations;

In fact, it's all that swells within my breast

And makes it come about that I am I and live as such"

At the end of his life he recognizes that he had deceived himself; that while following the principle of "self-interest" he had lost the very self he sought to preserve. He is told that he never had been himself and that therefore he is to be thrown  back into the melting pot to be dealt with as raw material. he discovers that he has lived according to the Troll principle: "To thyself be enough" - which is the opposite of human principle: "To thyself be true". He is seized by the horror of nothingness to which he, who has no self, can not help succumbing when the props of pseudo self, success, and possessions are taken away or seriously questioned. He is forced to recognize that in trying to gain all the wealth of the world, in relentlessly pursuing what seemed to be his interest, he had lost his self.

The failure of modern culture lies not in its principle of individualism, not in the idea that moral virtue is the same as the pursuit of self-interest, but in the deterioration of the meaning of self-interest, not in the fact that people are too much concerned with their self interest, but that they are not concerned enough with the interest of their real self; not in the fact that they are too selfish, but that they do not love themselves.

The issue in hand then is how to distinguish from the "subjective self interest" and "objective self interest". The question is how to know that a course of action expresses the real self, and at the same time is what is right and good - ie. expresses the true human nature of man. Putting it in other way how to discover one's own real self - own real conscience?

There is no prouder statement man can make than to say: "I shall act according to my conscience." Throughout history men have upheld the principles of justice, love and truth against every kind of pressure brought to bear upon them in order to make them relinquish what they knew and believed. The prophets acted according to their conscience when they denounced their country and predicted its downfall because of its corruption and injustice. Socrates preferred death to a course in which he would have betrayed his conscience by compromising with the truth. Without the existence of conscience, the human race would have bogged down long ago into its hazardous course.

One's conscience has to be developed such that it manifests the state of really being a human. That is the highest state of being for a man. In scholastic philosophy, conscience is considered to be the law of reason implanted in man by God. It is different from habit of faculty of judging, and of willing the right.

The issue becomes even more difficult when man accepts the contents of the Calvinistic doctrine. He makes himself an instrument, not of God's will but of the economic machine or the state. He has accepted the role of a tool for industrial progress. Not only do the authoritarian ideologies threaten the most precious achievement of Western culture, the respect for the uniqueness and dignity of the individual; they also tend to block the way to constructive criticism of modern society, and thereby to necessary changes. The failure of modern culture lies not in its principle of individualism, not in the idea that moral virtue is the same as the pursuit of self-interest, but in the deterioration of the meaning of self-interest; not in the fact that people are too much concerned with their self  interest, but that they are not concerned enough with the interest of their real self; not in the fact that they are too selfish, but that they do not love themselves. 

Canalizing of all human energy into work and the striving for success was one of the indispensable conditions of the enormous achievement of modern capitalism, a stage has been reached where the problem of production has been virtually solved and where the problem of organization of social life has become the paramount task of mankind. Man has created such sources of mechanical energy that he has freed himself from the task of putting all his human energy into work in order to produce the material conditions for living. He could spend a considerable part of his energy on the task of living itself. 

The idea is about realizing one's own self, i.e. the ideal nature of man - and use the opportunity of this life to use the unique power endowed to man, being his real self.

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Marcus Aurelius and his doctrine

Bust of Marcus Aurelius in the Glyptothek 

Marcus Aurelius (Latin: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180 AD), was Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD. He ruled with Lucius Verus as co-emperor from 161 until Verus' death in 169. He was the last of the "Five Good Emperors", and is also considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers. During his reign, the Empire defeated a revitalized Parthian Empire; Aurelius' general Avidius Cassius sacked the capital Ctesiphon in 164. Aurelius fought the Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatians with success during the Marcomannic Wars, but the threat of theGermanic tribes began to represent a troubling reality for the Empire. A revolt in the East led by Avidius Cassius failed to gain momentum and was suppressed immediately.

When he was eleven years old he assumed the dress of philosophers, something plain and coarse, became a heard student, and lived a most laborious, abstemious life, even so far as to injure his health. He abadoned poetry and rhetoric for philosophy, and attached himself to the sect of the Stoics. But he did not neglect the study of law, which was useful preparation for the high place which he was designed to fill. 

Marcus Aurelius Stoic tome Meditations, written in Greek while on campaign between 170 and 180, is still revered as a literary monument to a philosophy of service and duty, describing how to find and preserve equanimity in the midst of conflict by following nature as a source of guidance and inspiration.

It was the doctrine of Marcus Aurelius that most of the ills of life come to us from our own imaginations, that it was not in the power of others seriously to interfere with the calm, temperate life of an individual, and that when we fellow being did anything to us that seemed unjust he was acting in ignorance, and that instead of stirring up anger within us it should stir our pity for him. Oftentimes by careful self examination we should find that the fault was more our own than that of our fellow, and our sufferings were rather from our own opinions than from anything real.

The circle of man's knowledge is very limited, and the largest circles do not wholly include the smalls. They are intersecting the segment common to any two is very small. Whatever lies outside the space does not exists for both. Hence arise innumerable contests. The man having the largest intelligence ought to be very generous to the other. Being thankful that he has been blessed in so many ways, he should do all in his power to enlighten his less favored fellow, rather than be angry with him on account of his misfortune. Is he not sufficiently punished in being denied the light?

Assisting his uncle in the government of the great Roman Empire at seventeen, it was his aim constantly to restrain the power of the string and to assist the weak. It was greatest delight to retire to his country home and there, dwelling among his books, to meditate upon his books, to meditate upon his books, to meditate upon the great problems of life. He claimed that a man's life should be valued according to the value of the things to which he gave his attention. if his whole thought was given to clothing, feeding and housing himself comfortably, he should be valued like other well-housed and well-fed animals. He would, however, derive the greatest pleasure and benefit in this life by acting in accordance with reason, which demands of every human being that his highest faculties should govern all the rest, and that each should see to it that he treated his fellow kindly and generously and that if he could not assist him to a higher level he should at least not stand in his way. 

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Unconditionality – A Farce

Some people (including me) are most of the times driven by what they call “unconditional love”. They do not practice that from the standpoint of freedom. Rather they are driven unconsciously to be unconditional. They force themselves into the space and lives of others, even when the other person does not need them. They neurotically are driven to “be of help”. They use the socially acceptable rationalizations presented in the phrases like, “being a means”, “being relevant”, “being a giver” to justify their precarious way of relating to the world.

From birth to death, they have the same repeating pattern – “being a saint”, to others. Going deep into the nature of such men, one is surprised to discover that there is a deep sense of lack in their inner psyche. They are vexed with “having” from others (actually from everyone in this world), an acknowledgement, love, respect, understanding, and above all – affirmation of who they are. This crops out from that deep seated inferiority complex, and lack of self. They do not know their own self worth, and who they are, and look for affirmation of the same from others. Even if they have an inkling of their self, they want to re-affirm the same by hearing it from others.  This propensity of man is driven by the deep seated drive to “have”, rather to “be”. Such men are “takers”. It has been the biggest insight of my life to realize that I have been a person of this sort most of my life, till date. This insight cropped to me by myriad of my personal experiences, interactions with people in my world, books I have been reading, and contemplations I have been doing.

I have been reading and contemplating on the works of Erich Fromm, since last few months. I have been trying to be able to really go deep into the mind of Fromm, with help of his books – The art of loving, Fear of Freedom, and the one I am reading now – “Man for himself”. I also have been reading and listening to him over the internet from the archives. The most concrete synthesis of the personality type I have been discussing has been very succinctly postulated by Fromm in his book – “Man for himself – An inquiry into the psychology of ethics”, as follows. He calls such people – “Receptively Oriented”

“…They feel “the source of all good” to be outside, and believe that the only way to get what they want – be it material, be it affection, love, knowledge, pleasure – is to receive it from that of the outside source. In this orientation the problem of love is almost exclusively that of being loved and not that of loving. Such people tend to be indiscriminate in the choice of their love objects, because being loved by anybody is such an overwhelming experience for them they “fall for” anybody who gives them love or what looks like love. They are exceedingly sensitive to any withdrawal or rebuff they experience on the part of the loved person. Their orientation is the same in the sphere of thinking: if intelligent, they make the best listeners, since their orientation is one of receiving, not of producing. If religious, these people have a concept of God in which they expect everything from God and nothing from their own activity. If not religious, their relationship to person or institutions is very much the same, they are always in search of a “magic helper”. They show a particular kind of loyalty, at the bottom of which is the gratitude for the hand that feeds them and the fear of ever losing it. Since they need many hands to feel secure, they have to be loyal to numerous people. It is difficult for them to say “no”, and they are easily caught between conflicting loyalties and promises. Since they cannot say “no”, they love to say “yes” to everything and everybody, and the resulting paralysis of their critical abilities make them increasingly dependent on others.
This receptive type has great fondness for food and drink. These persons tend to overcome anxiety and depression by eating or drinking. The mouth is an especially prominent feature, often the most expressive one; the lips tend to be open, as of in a state of continuous expectation of being fed.
By and large, the outlook of people of this orientation is optimistic and friendly; they have a certain confidence in life and its gifts, but they become anxious and distraught when their “source of supply” is threatened. They often have a genuine warmth and a wish to help others, but doing things for others also assumes the function of securing their favor.”


Certainly the above postulation from Fromm is not a description of one person, rather a personality type. A human being is far more complex than one template of personality type. There are other aspects which synthesize together to give a unique nature to a person.

But, it was really very fulfilling for me to catch myself red handed. I have been always very proud of being “unconditional”. Of late I have been discovering that it is just a façade, inside which I have been hiding that longing to be “accepted” and be “loved”. This have been driving me to force myself to others, either rendering an un-solicited help, or over graciousness, showing of excessive concern for others, expressing forced solidarity with one and all. Obviously this propensity cuts across all the spheres of my life, and the way I relate to the outside world. In reality, there is need, this sense of poverty, always trying its best to get that signal of acknowledgement and affirmation of who I am, from the outside world.

Being brought up in an environment of a Roman Catholic mission school in childhood, I have been strongly influenced by the preaching of Jesus on unconditional love. I got this socially acceptable rationalization of “unconditional love” presented to me in childhood, to hide the weakness of my inner self. And the most interesting thing is that, it is all unconscious!

I am aware many people in my world have been feeling claustrophobic due to this peculiar drive in my personality. Nevertheless, it helps to build a false mask of being positive. Interestingly I have been getting awards for being the most positively oriented person in my department at work, for the last 3 years in succession. But it is now that I realize what is the source of my being so receptive and positive!

It is certainly important and highest of human virtues to be unconditional and loving to the world. But the whole philosophy crumbles down when it is just a farce, a façade hiding something else. The problem is when such high virtues are practiced being “driven” by these deep seated vulnerabilities – the aspects of under developed personalities – as in the case of mine. Such divine virtues has to be practiced from the firm foundation of being grounded in dharma, and no real need for the self.

This insight about my own self, has been a difficult and most excruciating process of last 10 years of my life. I always had an inkling to this, but was looking out for a concrete synthesis for the same, I guess. Thanks to the numerous books and people in my life, who have so genuinely contributed to me, enabling me to discover this weakness of my inner self.

This insight has helped me to understand the idea of spontaneous productive activity, that Fromm has been putting forth repeatedly in his various books, to overcome separateness. It is certain that man has to resolve his separateness with himself and his outer world – both other men, and nature. But the drive to resolve this separateness is not about forcing myself into the space of others, who really do not need me. That is the case of a typical sado-masochistic craving. Resolving separateness is not about closeness and intimacy with the object (man or nature), although at the expense of freedom and one’s own integrity. It is not about losing one’s own self, and being a doll of salt, dissolving in a bowl of water. That way the doll has been able to resolve its separateness with water. But, in this process has lost his real self – of being a doll. This never leads to happiness. A horse will be happy only to be the best horse. It will never want to be a tiger or a rabbit. It is important for man to realize that self integrity, and affirmation of one’s own uniqueness and individuality is of prime importance for man to find happiness and fulfillment.
When Fromm talks about resolving one’s separateness, he speaks about understanding the other. It is about entering into an inquiry, a state of concern, respect, objectivity, care, responsibility, and love. Love is the productive form of relatedness to others and to oneself. It implies responsibility, care, respect and knowledge, and the wish for the other person to grow and develop. It is the expression of intimacy between two human beings under the condition of preservation of each other’s integrity.  

So, the process of resolving the separateness starts with preserving one’s own integrity, and at the same time integrity of the other. This will stop a man to force himself into the other, thereby dissolving his own integrity and expressing a ruthless attitude to swallow the other. This drive is often hidden in various socially acceptable ways - either being too nice to people, or showing extra care to others, or calling someone by loving names, though totally un-solicited! At core of all this, there is a deep seated sado-masochistic craving. The person expresses both sadism and masochism simultaneously.

A place of freedom would be resolving the separateness from the place of total understanding of the needs of the other. It is also about knowing someone at his core. It is about being able to really discern what is superficially apparent, and go in search of the truth about man and nature. This requires lot of productive orientation, contemplation, concern and vitality. Once that truth is found it is interesting so observe the unity in otherwise ostensive diversity prevalent in this world. The one-ness of the world overwhelms one in joy and pure bliss!

It is so true when H.P.Blavatsky mused in her book – The Voice of Silence –
“The biggest illusion of all is the illusion of separation”. 

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Saving the self

I feel that the most important task in one’s life is to realize one’s own self, develop it, and keep growing gradually to be a person what one has found out to be ideal – for himself. Life is an ongoing journey to carve out the best in oneself; the best that one feels is his own best, for which he is proud of, and being who, enables him to use and realize his own potential.
This has been beautifully expressed by Plotinus[204-270 AD] -  a neo Platonic philosopher, as follows, in his book Enneads –

“Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other dark, until a lovely face has grown out of his work.
So do you also: Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow in beauty and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the God like splendor of virtue, until you see the perfect goodness strongly established in the stainless shrine.”

I have tried to symbolically express that process of chiseling one’s perfect self through the series of my poems - http://criativ-mind.blogspot.in/search/label/SIMONI%20SERIES
This series constitutes of 15 poems on a fictitious renaissance sculptor Michel Simoni. He goes on carving out a statue in marble, most of his life. Eventually in his spontaneous activity of perfecting the statue he falls in love with it. The statue symbolizes Simoni’s real self. With all wisdom, scholastic pursuits, life’s experiences, contemplation, and actions, Simoni tries to discover his real self, and then goes on perfecting that real self – in this case the statue – which he names – “The lady with the most beautiful eyes.” As the statue comes to completion, he has almost lived his entire life, and dies out. But before dying he sees to it that he has perfected his real self (the statue) to such a high level of beauty, that the Gods even fall in love with his statue – symbolizing attainment of godliness. There are times when Apollo himself descends from the Mount Olympus, being lovelorn with the statue (the real self of Simoni).

As it is important to discover, sustain and grow one’s own real self, it is also important to save it from harm. As the immune system of the body is needed to save it from the onslaught of the infections from countless pathogens all around, the self has also to be actively saved from harm. The pathogens that kill the self are life circumstances, criticism from others, fear, hatred - both being hated by others, and one hating the other, diabolic activities, pessimistic attitudes, etc which goes to diminish one’s own self. These entities contributes in diminishing one’s own self. And the self has to be actively guarded from those. Buddha had put this idea very succinctly. He suggests that the goal of mankind is to free itself from greed, hatred and delusion. These are the veils which hides the real self of man.

There is this beautiful story told about Buddha. When he was spending years in meditation and contemplation, in forest, there used to pass a rich trader by him, daily. He was a wealthy and very successful man. He used to blame Buddha saying that he is totally un-productive, and is wasting his life sitting idly under the tree, without doing anything productive. Going by today’s standards too, that seems logical. Buddha continued to meditate and did not get perturbed. This trader continued to do so for a very long time. Each day he used to come, and rebuke Buddha. But Buddha did not change. Years passed by. As the trader started growing old, it was one day, when something happened to him, and this day, instead of seeing Buddha in the eyes of hatred and shouting at him with contempt, he fell down on this feet. He pleaded Buddha to forgive him, because he realized that he had hurt Buddha throughout his life. Buddha opened his eyes, and with a smile said, “You did not hurt me. Whatever you had to give, I never took.”

 I feel that is the key! People give what they have. If a person is grounded in hatred, narrowness, selfishness, and in the spree just to take and hoard, he will be able to radiate only that. There is nothing else he can give, as he has nothing more than that. If one takes these poisons, he will be killing his own self. It is important not to take these, and actively save oneself from the company of such entities. The idea is not only about saving oneself from such people. But also saving oneself from such ideas, thoughts, events, actions, and attitudes. Having said that I do not mean that one should not take constructive feedback to improve oneself. One has to do so, through contemplation, active listening, reading, experimenting, trying out stuffs, and living life fully, and self analyzing oneself. But one has to exercise discrimination on what he is taking in. It is same as food. If one takes poisonous food, one harms his own body. Similarly, if one takes in a harmful thought, remark, opinion, one harm his real self. One has to develop his strength and finesse in hearing such remarks, being in such circumstances, interacting with such people, but at the same time, not taking what diminishes his real self. To repeat, this does not mean such entities are bad. It only means they are foreign to one’s real self, and they help in no way to chisel one’s own sculpture to the awesome beauty, so that even Apollo can fall in love for.

This exercise is not easy. One has to understand this is not about entering into a cocoon, and increasing one’s separateness from others. Rather it is contrary to that. One has to actively understand and relate to others with supreme concern, responsibility, care, objectivity, faith, respect and love. One has to be productively oriented being able to discern aspects which are ostensibly and apparently not visible. As aptly Antoine de Saint Exupery had mused in his book - The Little Prince -

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye"

To be able to grasp that what is invisible to the eye, one has to exercise his reason, mental faculties, imagination, love, compassion, sense of reverence, etc. One has to understand that to be able to discern what is invisible one has to be truly human. As the faculties I have listed above is what makes us uniquely human. One has to understand that imagination is different, infact opposite to fantasy. Imagination is the faculty to see what is not visible, but is present. Fantasy is about dreaming what is not present. It is an illusion. Imagination is the truth - beyond illusion which is apparent.

Another aspect about saving one's own self, is also to nourish the self of the other, i.e. to have a sense of respect, space and affirmation of the uniqueness of the other. What is considered poison for one's own self, might be what nourishes the other self, and that is perfectly valid. That is the beauty of this life – people are different. It would be so boring if one sees just the images of his own self, all over!! Certainly one would hate to be in such a monotonous world. So, it is not about hating the entities who are not like one's own self. Rather it is loving them, and giving them their nourishment to survive and flourish. But at the same time, one has to actively save one’s own self. Remember, Buddha did not go and kill that trader. He gave that trader his space and freedom to behave the way he pleased – sometimes rebuking him, sometimes pleading for forgiveness. It is irrelevant what was the action the trader chose. But whatever he chose, he was free to do. A proper space and respect was given to him to behave and react the way what he found correct and in-line to his own real self.

One has to at the same time keep in mind one more very important aspect of all these prevalent differences and uniqueness. There is an invisible thread of unity which is prevalent embracing all of mankind. Beyond the apparent diversity there is that unity which connects us. All of the mankind is faced with the same existential dilemmas. All has the same seed of love and light deep in their heart. It is only the artificial veils, separations, and guards that are created by man, society, and circumstances which hide that real self of man, which is soaked in love, since its conception.

So, part of realizing one’s real self, is affirming other’s self at the same time. It is very important. Human solidarity is the necessary condition for the unfolding of any one individual.  One has to go beyond seeming separations, and appreciate the flow of unity hidden.

PS - I want to apologies if  the style of my writing appears didactic. It has never been my aim to preach others. I know I am a disciple, and never a teacher. I cannot teach, as I am myself in the journey to know. My articles are expressions of my insights. I keep myself in the place of the reader, and try to write what I want to say to myself. It none of my prerogative to teach others, and change others. I am aware that all my insights might be absolutely rubbish for others. But at this point I take these insights as very precious - for myself - just for me. I share my insights to others just in a hope, if it helps others. If it does not, please ignore them.

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Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds

Here goes one of the famous Love sonnets by the bard –

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
               Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,
               Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
               That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,
               Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
               Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
               But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
               I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
                                              William Shakespeare  
                                                (1564 - 1616)


Going by what Shakespeare has to say about love, love is something which is eternal. It is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove! Given the transient nature of the existence of humanity, this claim of the bard appears a paradox. But when he claims so strongly in the last line – “If this be error and upon me prove, I never writ, nor no man ever loved”, it is too difficult to ignore his claim.

As Erich Fromm succinctly puts forth in his writings, happiness can be achieved only by being able to realize the self and bridge the separateness with man and nature. He theorizes that entering into a creative spontaneous activity enabling one to express one’s own self, and simultaneously enabling the other to express their own self, enables one to bridge the gap between men and nature, and get back to the lost one-ness. He states further love is the foremost component of this spontaneity. But, “love” that Erich Fromm formulates, is different from what generally people understand the word. Fromm states –
“..all attempts for love are bound to fail, unless he tries most actively to develop his total personality, so as to achieve a productive orientation; that satisfaction in individual love cannot be attained without the capacity to love one’s neighbor, without true humility, courage, faith, objectivity, concern and discipline..”

Certainly love that is subject matter of this discussion is not just the popular romantic love. It is the love binding man to man, and man to nature. Shakespeare has been hinting on this capacity of human love in his sonnet. Certainly love is eternal, and lives an indelible mark on the person having the capacity to love. This not an emotion, rather it is a capacity, a faculty of expressing one’s personality as a whole. It aids a person to express being human. It enables one to discover and express one’s own real self. This is a means to realize Godliness being in human form. It is not tied to a personality, or an object of love. It is an innate evolution of the lover, to grow his awareness of who he is, and redeem his connection to humanity and nature. It transcends time and form. It is an invisible energy, in its highest form, which enables man to get a glimpse of what it feels to be a human. Being a human is the utmost goal of a man’s life.

To be able to realize love in its true form, to be able to love one’s neighbor, transcending the apparent narcissistic aberrations of one’s own mind, is a big challenge. That is what Shakespeare expresses by saying, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds, Admit impediments”. The idea is to achieve victory over the seeming impediments, through knowledge, contemplation, thought, reason and faith. The extensive availability of judgment, hatred, separateness between humans, countries, regions, expresses these impediments in daily conversations, news, media and stories. Shakespeare labels these as the “tempest”. Love certainly is an “ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken”. Given all the inconsistencies and narrowness of mankind since ancient ages, love, fellowship and fraternity still holds strong, and has transcended the dark ages, coming to its heights in the period of renaissance, and again raising it invincible head, again and again in today’s neo-middle ages – an age in the darkness of utilitarianism, capitalism, and materialism. Each time the likes of Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and the recipients of the Nobel peace prize every year, come to mind, one reminds oneself of the faith in love and peace!

Certainly love has lived through eternity, from the age of Socrates and Buddha and their pre-historic ancestors, in their love for virtue and ethics, giving it more importance than their own lives, to the present day of Yemen’s iron woman, Tawakel Karman. It is so very true when Shakespeare says,

“Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
               But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”
 

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Managing Spontaneity

Spontaneity needs to be directed, managed and modulated when being expressed. It is important to be one’s own self. It is important not to wear pseudo masks. It is also important to express your real self. It is even of utmost importance to reduce one’s separateness.

But one has to modulate his spontaneity, based on the audience. Life is an art. One has to keep in mind though that it is not about being deceitful and a fraud. It is also not about being an automaton and a pseudo self. Rather it is about artistically beautifying your expression to the outer world in a form which leads to the following simultaneously –

1.    Expressing your real and authentic self

2.    Expression is done only when asked, and to the right person, who really wants it.

3.    The message is communicated effectively and un-ambiguously.

4.    Spontaneity and expression are two different things. You can be spontaneous, and not expressive. You can remain spontaneous in your inner self, and express the same inside your being, or creating some work of art, like painting, poetry, essays etc. It need not to be expressed to another person. Expressing the same to an outer self is to be done only on demand. And while expressing the same, it has to be stepped down, and modulated based on the state of the recipient.

5.    Separateness is resolved with the recipient, through supreme concern and the orientation of service to the other

6.    Affirmation of the self and the other.

7.    Proper modulation and artistic beautification is done on the expression, so that the recipient gets to understand the expression, and is enriched by the same. This is done from the mind-set of service.

8.    There are many instances when there should be no expression, viz – a circumstance when the expression is not solicited explicitly.

You cannot express Upanishads in its original form to a child. You have to codify the philosophy into an interesting drama as the Puranas, or the epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana, to pass your message to the child. Codifying is the modulation I am talking about. The most important thing to remember while modulation is keeping one’s real self intact, and having the spirit of service to the recipient.

You have to remember life is not about forcing out, or vomiting our own real self. That is not the spontaneity Erich Fromm is trying to express. There is a very thin line between pseudo act and modulation of the real self for a productive outcome. While modulating the expression, you should keep in mind not to vitiate your real self. And also there are many instances when you should hold on your expressions, and just be quiet. That does not mean you are not in spontaneous activity. You are in spontaneous activity inside your own being, working on your capacities of objectivity, love, humility , compassion, etc (Lotus of spontaneity). Spontaneous activity does not necessarily ask for you to express. Remember the story of the lama who said he had compassion for his jailor. He did not go and hug the jailor, or said to the jailor – “I love you”, to express his spontaneous real self, to reduce his separateness, although he felt the same in his inner being. He rather chose to be quiet, and silently express his one-ness with the jailor, forgiving him for his wrong doings.

It is always to be kept in mind that expression and spontaneity are two different things. Spontaneity is your inner state of being. You don’t express your inner high voltage real self as is, at any moment you wish to. People would get confused. They have their own needs, fears and personality make up, as you have your own. Men are alike, for they share the human situation and its inherent existential dichotomies; they are unique in the specific way they solve their human problems. The infinite diversity of personalities is in itself characteristic of human existence. If you express out the spontaneity in its original form, that will lead to more separateness. People will shun you, as this is against the principle of letting the other affirm themselves. You always have to keep changing your expression based on the context. Sometimes you might have to stop your expression to them, and continue to express to the self using poems, paintings and essays, as spontaneity is not always about being expressive to others. It stars from being expressive to one’s own self.

There is not division between love for one’s own people and love for strangers. The condition for existence of the former is the existence of the latter. It is not having an inner circle with whom you are real self and with others you are pseudo self. The idea is that when you interact with others – both your own and others, it should be driven by a productive orientation, based on service for the other. This enables one to enter into a spontaneous activity, which helps one to affirm one self and affirm other. This also enables the real self to develop and discover its innate strengths and potentials. Expression is creation. It has to yield a productive and beautiful outcome, in the eyes of the world.

One has to actively snap oneself out of narcissism. One has to be oriented exocentrically, to be able to be spontaneously engaged with man and nature, enabling oneself to realize himself, and the other. This is the secret of happiness, creativity and living one’s own self fully.   

Expressing oneself is the usage and expenditure of one's psychological capital. You should not keep expressing each and everything that spontaneously comes in your mind. That is crass. Rather one should live an artistic life. Expression should be beautified to really express one's own real self. Most of the times, we are rising and falling in the elevator of the 7 fold constitution, from Sthula to Atma. The real self is the full expression of the Manas, Buddhi and the Atma, through ones own reason and sensuous capacities. This needs enough homework to be done on ones own ideas and opinions. So, modulation is a very important step before the expression is out in the world.

I have tried to express this philosophy in the form of the following diagrams -
http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/2012/01/philosphy-of-my-life.html
http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/2012/01/modulations-of-expression.html
http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/2012/01/copy-right-all-rights-reserved-samrat.html

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Resolving Separateness - Spontaneous Activity

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Amalgamation

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Modulations of Expression

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Philosphy of My Life

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The discovery of my real self – Creative Spontaneous Activity

The following article is inspired from the book – “The Fear of Freedom” by Erich Fromm.

In the quest of the truth, this is another threshold I am crossing, while I am continuing my research, contemplation and synthesis of the ideas of Erich Fromm. Most of his ideas related to social psychology are captured in his following books – The Art of Loving, The Fear of Freedom, The Sane Society, Man for himself, an enquiry into the psychology of ethics, To have or to be. 

In the book – “The Fear of Freedom”, Fromm delves into the post industrialized world, and analyses the overwhelming impact of the rising capitalism, modernization and materialism on human psyche.  He explains in detail how with rise of freedom and individuality in the post modern world, there has been an increase of loneliness, separateness and split in human nature. He shows that freedom from the traditional bonds of medieval society, though giving the individual a new feeling of independence, at the same time made him feel alone and isolated, filled him with doubt and anxiety, and drove him into new submission and into a compulsive and irrational activity. This compulsive and irrational activity to which man has been driven into out of this feeling of fear, separateness and discontent, take the form of either sado-masochism, or a total submission.

Sadism is a form of being which is totally authoritative. A sadist kills the individuality of others, and forces his thoughts and ideas on the other. This way he overcomes the separateness he has with the other. An example might be an old fashioned father, who in the name of love for his child, decides what is best for the child, and does not allow the child to grow and realize her real self.

Masochist is a person who is totally submissive to an authority. By being so, the person succeeds in resolving the separateness, by discarding his real self. A masochist derives pervert pleasure out of being in pain, being mutilated by the Sadist. A typical example might be one’s masochistic relationship to his idea of God, as an all powerful entity, punishing him when he behaves against His will, and loving when he behaves as per His will. In this relationship, God takes the place of the Sadist individual, and the follower becomes a masochist.

In the case of total submission, the person forgoes his real, authentic self, and submits to the pseudo thoughts and philosophies from external sources. For example, if a person who does not have any training and interest in visual arts, visits a world famous museum, and looks at a classic painting, he appreciates it. But the appreciation is a pseudo one. He neither has the authentic appreciation of the painting, nor is interested in it. He appreciates it just because he should appreciate that. This certainly is different from one’s intellectual quest to learn more and experience more, from outside sources; in which case the person learns, reflects, contemplates and synthesizes the truth for himself. That is more about discovering one’s own real self, being informed from the works from the exponents in the past, in the related domain. But an in-authentic submission is about just aping outside ideologies superficially. Submission helps the person to be a part of the crowd, and hence resolve his separateness.

But most of these mechanisms – sado-masochistic cravings, and submission to the external world, are in-authentic and temporary methods to cover up that fear. Modern man is starved for life. But since, being an automaton, he cannot experience life in the sense of spontaneous activity he takes a surrogate any kind of excitement and thrill: the thrill of drinking, of sports, of vicariously living the excitements of fictitious persons on the screen. Fromm goes ahead to investigate the real solution to overcome the fear.  He terms it as freedom and spontaneity.
Fromm says that man can be free and yet not alone, critical and yet not filled with doubts, independent and yet an integral part of mankind. This freedom, man can attain by the realization of his self, by being himself. He continues -

Idealistic philosophers of the guild of Plato and the neo-Platonists, have believed that self-realization can be achieved by intellectuality, so that man’s nature may be suppressed and guarded by his reason. The result of this split however has been that not only the emotional life of man but also his intellectual faculties have been crippled. Reason, by becoming a guard set to watch its prisoner, nature, has become a prisoner itself; and thus both sides of human potentiality, reason and emotion, were crippled. From says that he believes that the realization of the self is accomplished not only by an act of thinking but also by the realization of man’s total personality, by an active expression of his emotional and intellectual potentialities. These potentialities are present in everybody; they become real only to the extent to which they are expressed. In other words, positive freedom consists in spontaneous activity of the total, integrated personality.

While spontaneity is a relatively rare phenomenon in our culture, we are not entirely devoid of it. In the first place, we know of individuals who are or have been spontaneous, whose thinking, feeling, and acting were the expression of their selves and not of an automaton. These individuals are mostly known to us as artists. As a matter of fact, the artist can be defined as an individual who can express himself spontaneously.

Spontaneous activity is the one way in which man can overcome the terror of aloneness without sacrificing the integrity of his self; for in the spontaneous realization of the self man unites himself anew with the world – with man, nature and himself. Love is the foremost component of such spontaneity; not love as the dissolution of the self in another person (masochism), not love as the possession of another person (sadism), but love as spontaneous affirmation of others, as the union of the individual with others on the basis of preservation of the individual self. The dynamic quality of love lies in this very polarity: that it springs from the need to overcoming separateness, that it leads to oneness – and yet that individuality is not eliminated. Work is the other component; not work as a compulsive activity in order to escape aloneness, not work as a relationship to nature which is partly one of dominating her, partly one of worship of and enslavement by the very products of man’s hands, but work as creation in which man becomes one with nature in the act of creation. What holds true of love and work holds true of all spontaneous action, whether it be the realization of sensuous pleasure or participation in the political life of the community. It affirms the individuality of the self and at the same time it unites the self with man and nature. The basic dichotomy that is inherent in freedom – the birth of individuality and the pain of aloneness – is dissolved on higher plane of man’s spontaneous action.

In all spontaneous activity the individual embraces the world. Not only does his individual self remain intact; it becomes stronger and more solidified - for the self is as strong as it is active. There is no genuine strength in possessions as such, neither in material property nor in mental qualities like emotions or thoughts. There are also no strength in use and manipulation of objects; what we use is not ours simply because we use it. Ours is only that to which we are genuinely related by our creative activity, be it a person or an inanimate object. Only those qualities that result from our spontaneous activity give strength to the self and thereby from the basis of its integrity. The inability to act spontaneously, to express what one genuinely feels and thinks, and resulting necessity to present a pseudo self to others and oneself, are the root of the feeling of inferiority and weakness. Whether or not we are aware of it, there is nothing  of which we are more ashamed than of not being ourselves, and there is nothing that gives us grater pride and happiness than to think, to feel, and to say what is ours.
This implies that what matters is the activity as such, the process and not the result. In our culture the emphasis is just the reverse. We produce not for a concrete satisfaction but for the abstract purpose of selling our commodity; we feel that we can acquire everything material or immaterial by buying it, and thus things become ours independently of any creative effort of our own in relation to them. In the same way we regard our personal qualities and result of our efforts as commodities that can be sold for money, prestige and power. The emphasis thus shifts from the present satisfaction of creative activity to the value of the finished product. There by man misses the only satisfaction that can give him real happiness – the experience of the activity of the present moment – and chases after a phantom that leaves him disappointed as soon as he believes he has caught it – the illusory happiness called success.

If the individual realizes his self by spontaneous activity and thus relates himself to the world, he ceases to be an isolated atom; he and the world become part of one structuralized whole; he has his rightful place, and thereby his doubt concerning himself and the meaning of life disappears. This doubt sprang from his separateness and from the thwarting of life; when he can live, neither compulsively nor automatically but spontaneously, the doubt disappears. He is aware of himself as an active and creative individual and recognizes that there is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself. This way he gains strength as an individual and he gains security.

The idea of spontaneous activity needs more explanation. It is not the mindless act of giving up to one’s irrational whims and fancies. I feel Fromm should have qualified his spontaneous activity as Creative Spontaneous Activity. By adding the extra qualifier – creative, I would want to stress on Fromm’s idea of originality, constructive and positive aspect of one’s own action. Through his spontaneity man has to realize his real self, engaging into an activity which affirms goodness – both within and outside. It is not enough just being spontaneous in certain private and spiritual matters, but above all in the activity fundamental to every man’s existence, his work. It is about engaging in a creative enterprise, which not only helps the person to express his real self, but also that activity should uplift humanity per se.

The Creative Spontaneous Activity should come from the place of love, compassion, dignity, respect, beauty, positivity, growth, freedom, joy, courage, decency and kindness. It should be firmly grounded in the belief of human equality and individual uniqueness. At the same time, there has to be the perspective of general good – that insight of positively impacting people and institutions.  The only criterion for realization of freedom is whether or not the individual actively participates in determining his life and that of society, and this not only by the formal act of voting but in his daily activity, in his work, and in his relations to others. Modern political democracy, if it restricts itself to the purely political sphere, cannot sufficiently counteract the results of the economic insignificance of the average individual.

I have tried to express this philosophy using the following diagram -
http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/2012/01/copy-right-all-rights-reserved-samrat.html

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On Truth and original thinking

I was reading the book - The fear of freedom, by Erich Fromm. The following excerpt on truth and its nature, and the way human relate to truth, was eye catching. As usual, Fromm forces the reader to contemplate into dimensions he has always ignored - 

"..Another closely related way of discouraging original thinking is to regard all truth as relative. Truth is made out to be a metaphysical concept, and if anyone speaks about wanting to discover the truth he is thought backward by the "progressive" thinkers of our age. Truth is declared to be an entirely subjective matter, almost a matter of taste.

Scientific endeavor must be detached from subject factors, and its aim is to look at world without passion and interest. The scientists has to approach facts with sterilized hands as a surgeon approaches his patient.

The result of this relativism, which often presents itself by the name of empiricism or positivism or which recommends itself by its concern for the correct usage of words, is that thinking loses its essential stimulus - the wishes and interests of the person who thins; instead it becomes a machine to register "facts". Actually, just as thinking in general has developed out of the need for mastery of material life, so the quest for truth is rooted in the interests and needs of individuals and social groups. Without such interest the stimulus of seeking the truth would be lacking.

There are always groups whose interest is furthered by truth, and their representatives have been the pioneers of human thought; there are other groups whose interests are furthered by concealing truth. Only in the latter case does interest prove harmful to the cause of truth. The problem, therefore, is not that there is an interest at stake, but what kind of interest is at stake. I might say that inasmuch as there is some longing for truth in every human being, it is because every human being has some need for it.

As a child, every human being passes through a state of powerlessness, and truth is one of the strongest weapons of those who have no power. But the truth is in the individual's interest not only with regard to his orientation to the outer world; his own strength depends to a great extent on his knowing the truth about himself. Illusions about oneself can  become crutches useful to those who are not able to walk alone; but they increase a person's weakness. The individual's greatest strength is based on the maximum of transparency to himself. "Know Thyself" is one of the fundamental commands that aim at human strength and happiness.

...with regard to all basic questions of individual and social life, with regard to psychological, economic, political, and moral problems, a great sector of our culture has just one function - to before the issues. One kind of smokescreen is the assertion that the problems are too complicated for the average individual to grasp. On the contrary, it would seem that many of the basic issues of individual and social life are very simple, so simple, in fact, that everyone should be expected to understand them. To let them appear to be so enormously complicated that only a "specialist" can understand them, and he only in hi sown limited field, actually - and often intentionally - tends to discourage people from trusting their own capacity to think about those problems that really matter. The individual feels helplessly caught in a chaotic mass of data and with pathetic patience waits until the specialists have found out what to do and where to go.
The result of this kind of influence is twofold: one is a skepticism and cynicism towards everything which is said or printed, while the other is a childish belief in anything that a person is told with authority. This combination of cynicism and naivete is very typical of the modern individual. Its essential result is to discourage him from doing his own thinking and deciding."

From the above passage this is what I synthesize -

1. Truth is absolute, and can be obtained not just be accumulation of facts, but rather synthesizing, analyzing, contemplating, and really "thinking". Having said that it does not go to under-estimate facts. Rather it emphasizes the need of complementing facts with original thinking of the student, the need of relating the facts with the experience, emotions and interests of the student. It is about simmering the thoughts and facts in the moments of deep contemplation.

2. Quest of truth is rooted in the interest of individuals and social groups. Without such interest the stimulus of seeking the truth would be lacking. One has to be aware of the nature of interest involved. Following are the nature of the interests involved -

i) There are always groups whose interest is furthered by truth, and their representative have been pioneers of human thought. For this group truth is the means, and the end to itself. It works like a exploration of an uncharted land. More a person explores, more he is filled with awe, and more he is motivated to explore. It is the truth which he finds, and that fuels his search for truth to the next level.

ii) There are other groups whose interests are furthered by concealing the truth, either in the name of faith, harmony, status-quo, solidarity, etc. This nature of interest forces a pseudo thinking and in-authentic act on the person involved.

3. Every human longs for truth. This gives him power. As a child, every human passes through a state of powerlessness, and truth is one of the strongest weapon of those who have no power. Truth is in the individual's interest not only with regard to his orientation in the outer world; his own strength depends to a great extent on his knowing the truth about himself. Illusions about oneself can become crutches useful to those who are not able to walk alone; but they increase person's weakness. For example an illusion on how a person relates his inner self with say God, or love or his inner model of reality, might give him comfort, but will make him weak, if he does not remove the illusions and bring out the light of truth. This action requires immense discipline, patience and courage. This act of lightening up of one's inner self, with truth, has been termed as varied as "self-realization", "enlightenment", "nirvana", etc. So aptly is the inscription at the entrance of the temple of Delphi of the ancient Greeks - "Know thyself".

4. There is a need to develop a critical thinking faculty. One has to go beyond naivete and skepticism. The root of this what Fromm says about smokescreening the otherwise easy truth in the name of over-specialization.

Creativity is a fallout of original thinking. At its core it is much more involved with the human nature, than is popularly even acknowledged by the masses.

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