Racing to the Top

Every fibre in me revolts each time I try to be a Person. I have been primed to succeed, primed to get to the top, primed to be an individual. And yet each cell in my body recognises that there is more to life than the compulsions that drive me; that caring and being cared for are more desirable than the ‘dog eat dog ’ attitude that has come to plague our civilisation. The Individual cannot care; only the Person can.

There is this story I came across when I was in college many years ago. A young ant, trying to figure out what life was all about, noticed a commotion in the distance. He hurried to the scene to see more clearly. He saw a small mound of ants in front of him, with more ants trying to clamber to the top. Amidst all the pushing and shoving was a constant refrain: “Got to get to the top!” The young ant joined in the frenzy with the others and started pushing and shoving in the race to the top. It went on for several hours, during which time several ants were crushed and wounded. Finally one ant, swept by the momentum, was hurtled to the top. He was amazed at what he saw. “There’s nothing at the top!” he exclaimed. “There’s absolutely nothing up here.”

The significance of the story needs to be explained further. An intellectual stream of great import, known as The Enlightenment, took place in Europe in the 18th century, which changed the notion of the human being profoundly and forever. Up to then the church, the feudal lords and the restrictive guilds held a stranglehold on human advancement. The liberal and intellectual currents of The Enlightenment, with their emphasis on reason and intellectual progress, took the human being out of the shadow of the church, the feudal structure, the family and the clan. The natural child of The Enlightenment was the philosophy of Individualism which declared that the individual is an end in himself and is of supreme value. All individuals were in some sense morally equal and no one would ever be treated solely as a means to the well-being of another person. Individualism also justified a certain degree of selfishness in the individual.

Individualism, which at one point of history was a progressive current, finds itself today in crisis because of its identification with the fiercely competitive attitudes of the market - like ‘dog eat dog’ and ‘ win-lose’. It is an axiom of post-modern society that some people will win and others lose, that some will rise to wealth and fame and others will be trampled upon materially and emotionally. Today the individual is geared to compete right from primary school through university and professional life. He is geared to reach the top. The vision of human existence is vertical, to climb over each other to get to the top. Only one set of human drives are nourished: those of power and selfish competition. Other drives, the horizontal ones, concerned with being a Person, drives related to love, fellowship and interconnectedness are neglected and slowly atrophy. The crisis is even more accentuated when we discover, like the ant, that there is nothing there at the top, that the top is an illusion.

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Nothing is permanent, and the cause of all suffering is to hold on to the illusion that there is Permanence. The consumer goodies I buy are not permanent, the giddy heights I aspire to are not permanent. Each cell in my body is racing to extinction. If I were to grasp this central truth of the Buddha, the truth of impermanence, I would be a happier and more fulfilled man. But the notion of impermanence is usually so frightening that I prefer not to think about it. I am regularly drawn to the make believe world of consumer advertisements, of the daring shown by the world of female fashion, the excitement of the new cars in the market. My outer spaces are expanding, while my inner ones are shrinking. And yet the truth of the impermanence of all things strikes me every once in a while, drawing me to myself, reminding me that I am missing the poetry of existence and the joys of equanimity. The inner journeys do not negate the world, nor take away from its beauty and awe. Rather they help free us from life-negating delusions.

Freedom from the illusion of permanence, metaphysical or material, is what I have imperfectly strived for, with some success and many failures. But then. I am not a great believer in the full Nirvana, the complete one. It is my karma to experience small joys and Little Nirvanas. Only a Person can experience the wonder and the transcendence of the Little Nirvanas. The Individual, a product of our material wasteland, was pronounced spiritually dead some time ago. 

Hope in the era of Climate Change

This is not the place to dwell at length on climate change, but a few facts would bear mentioning. There are indications that by the end of the century we might witness the emergence of tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of climate refugees as temperatures soar and water and food resources become scarce in several parts of the world. Countries like the Maldives and Bangladesh will go under water as will many other coastal areas. Lester Brown has indicated that a one degree rise in temperature could mean a ten percent reduction in food production.  In India a two degree rise could signal the beginning of the end of rice and wheat crops. Some parts of the world would become unliveable.

But many are also acting to slow this trend, if not halt it. It must be noted that thousands of organisations, and millions of people, all over our planet are trying to reduce their needs: using less power, riding bicycles, using public transport, harvesting rainwater, eating less meat to save on grain, going solar and so on. Big technological breakthroughs are also in the offing. If the changes happens fast enough we might still be able to avert the worst. The big challenge is whether governments will take the hard decisions. So far the conferences at Copenhagen and Cancun have not produced any binding agreements to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. This has led some to believe, rightly or wrongly, that our planetary future is bleak.

In this rather anxious context what is the meaning of hope?

The coming years will surely witness the emergence of a body of literature on the ethical, psychological and spiritual dimensions related to the era of Climate Change. What follows are some modest reflections in this direction.

To begin with most of us find meaning and fulfilment in our day-to-day concerns and the little things of life. What would we do without the love and companionship of our parents, children, friends and others dear to us? Despite many things going wrong around us we never cease to feel the joy of looking at plants, trees turning green in spring, the wild flowers of summer, the frolicking squirrels and the chirping of birds. We enjoy our favourite dishes, the onset of the mango season, and sweetmeats like ladoos and khulfis. How exciting it is to watch a good movie, or read a well written book, or spend an evening chatting with friends!

When we experience spiritual wellbeing it is likely that some of us are, consciously or not, doing our little acts of appreciation, reconciliation, kindness, compassion and even political dissent. This kind of wellbeing also entails paying gentle attention to all the events that make up our day. The Buddha said that a person has to ‘Be Awake!’ to experience this inner enthusiasm. One does not have to be religious to be awake.

A friend recently referred me to St. Irenaeus, who famously said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” Being awake, or fully alive, is itself a state of being that provides lucidity and equanimity.

Some of us are used to praying or meditating. The Dalai Lama once mentioned that by the time he gets to eat breakfast he has done several hours of meditation. People who know him have never failed to wonder at his childlike laughter and good humour, despite the burdens of office and political exile. Without doubt the time he spends meditating each morning plays a significant role in nurturing his joyful disposition.

But perhaps hope is ontological to human beings. It is embedded in our genes. One does not have to be religious to experience it. As the English poet, Alexander Pope said, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast...”

For the Christian theologian Jurgen Moltmann hope is a "passion for the possible". Hope and faith depend on each other and “Despair is the premature, arbitrary anticipation of the non-fulfilment of what we hope for from God."  For Moltmann hope is central to being a Christian. He identifies with the struggles of oppressed peoples; hope signifies a revolutionary openness to the future. 

Hope also signifies our willingness to act, our determination to redefine the good life in terms of voluntary simplicity, away from the unwholesome seduction of consumerism, and ultimately, critically engaging with the unwholesome global economic system that creates grave injustice and emits greenhouse gases. The Buddha told his disciples in the Anguttara-Nikaya: “Abandon what is unwholesome, oh monks! One can abandon the unwholesome, oh monks! If it were not possible, I would not ask you to do so. If this abandoning of the unwholesome would bring harm and suffering, I would not ask you to abandon it. But as the cultivation of the wholesome brings benefit and happiness, therefore, I say, 'Cultivate what is wholesome!”

On a different tack I wish to relate a personal experience that took me a long time to understand. Many years ago, when I was a university student, a middle-aged Dutchman turned up at my hostel. His name was Br. Frank, and he was part of the well-known youth programme in Taize, France. Frank invited me, along with a few other Indian youth, to visit Taize and experience its spiritual vitality. I went to Taize and returned. It was a memorable experience of living in tents in the countryside and singing, praying and folk-dancing. But I was somewhat dissatisfied with the absence of political insight. In any case, I lost contact with Br.Frank after that.

A few years later Br. Frank suddenly turned up at my door step. I was pleased to see him, for he was an enticingly modest and simple man. I asked him if he had come from France, but to my surprise he told me he had been living in Calcutta for the past year, working at Mother Teresa’s home. I admit that I was a little put off, since Mother Teresa was a symbol of charity to me, responding to the effects of an unjust society rather than dealing with the causes. However, I did not show my disapproval. I went on to ask what he was doing there. He replied: “I spend time with people who will die today, in a week or in a month.” This was strong stuff, and I was taken aback. “Gosh Frank, you must feel depressed with all the time you spend with dying people!” was my spontaneous response. Frank’s reply puzzled and shocked me: “No, on the contrary I feel very fulfilled and experience a lot of joy doing this work.”

I was miffed by Frank’s attitude. How could he say that he experienced joy in the context of such immense pain and suffering?  Be that as it may, I never saw Frank after that and forgot him altogether. In recent years however, as the full magnitude of human suffering under climate change began to dawn on me, Frank’s ‘unfortunate’ comments came back to me, and I saw what he was trying to say.  I realised that if Frank had not felt mystical joy and fulfilment he had little to offer the dying people in Mother Teresa’s home. They needed someone who could communicate positive energy to them in their final hours. If he had been depressed he would have been totally dysfunctional and could not have offered them solace or meaning.

I am sure that those who will be around to deal with the problems thrown up by climate change will need considerable spiritual and psychological strength to go about their compassionate engagements. The vision of Frank, and similar like-minded people, may not be the only meaningful ones, but I suspect they will be of some significance in the years to come. Although Frank was a prophetic mystic, he may not be easily acceptable to those who are more comfortable with pro-active theological approaches, whether they be Christian, Buddhist, Gandhian or Sufi.

Mahatma Gandhi was a liberation theologian of a non-marxist variety. He was fiercely committed to a decentralised and sustainable model of development. Of course the modernists thought he was antiquated; and now we are paying the price for not taking him seriously. The notion of ‘hope’ from the Bhagvad Gita which inspired him enormously was nishkama karma: action without attachment to the fruits of one’s action. In other words, we engage with action not because we wish to see the results, but because it is necessary to act, and it is right to act. Concerning the issues around climate change that need urgent action, we may not all see positive results in our lifetime. But act we must, as our dharma, or sacred duty, enjoins us to. There is no reason to be pessimistic because of not achieving quick results. We are not even asked to hope, but to do our duty, do what is right. The spiritual fulfilment that this brings will be beyond despair. Some might say that it is even beyond our conventional sense of hope.

The Equality of Religions

Here is a Gandhian perspective on the equality and complementarity of all religions.

The equality of all religions: Gandhi propagated the notion of Sarvadharma Samabhava,the equality of all religions. This is an important notion, particularly in a world where we are witnessing an increase in religious fundamentalism and religious conflict. Although it was clear to Gandhi that there was only one God, he was realistic enough to recognize that different religions would always exist. Gandhi stated that "belief in one God is the cornerstone of all religions. But I do not foresee a time when there would be only one religion on earth in practice. In theory, since there is one God, there can be only one religion. But in practice, no two persons I have known have had the same and identical conception of God. Therefore, there will, perhaps, always be different religions answering to different temperaments and climatic conditions." (Harijan, Feb.2, 1934)

Elsewhere he has used the metaphor of different leaves belonging to the same tree to underline the theme of unity in diversity. "Just as men have different names and faces, these religions also are different. But just as men are all human in spite of their different names and forms, just as leaves of a tree though different as leaves are the same as the leaves of the same tree, all religions though different are the same. We must treat all religions as equals. - Harijanbandhu, July 22, 1934.

No religion is superior. They are all complementary to one another:  "Religions have been interwoven. One sees a special quality in every one of them. But no one religion is higher than another. All are complimentary to one another .Since this is my belief, the specialty of any one religion cannot run counter to another, cannot be at variance with universally accepted principles.  - Harijanbandhu, March 19, 1933.

Gandhi was uncomfortable at the efforts of some missionaries to convert the adivasis (tribals) of India into Christians. He expressed his own feelings about adivasi beliefs when he said: "What have I to take to (them), except to go in my nakedness to them? Rather than ask them to join my prayer, I should join their prayer." Mahatma Gandhi, B.R.Nanda, Oxford University Press, p56. 1994.

Mutual respect and unity in diversity:  Gandhi insisted that, "The need of the moment is not one religion but mutual respect and tolerance of the devotees of different religions. We want to reach not the dead level but unity in diversity. Any attempt to root out traditions, effects of heredity, climate and other surroundings is not only bound to fail but is a sacrilege. The soul of religion is one but it is encased in a multitude of forms. The latter will persist to the end of time. Wise men will ignore the outward crust and see the same soul living under a variety of crusts." (Young India, Sept.25, 1925)

The truth and error in religions: Gandhi believed that all religions were 'true'. Yet all of them had some 'error' in them. Although God was perfect, He was experienced and interpreted by human beings who were not perfect. So no religion could claim to be perfect. Gandhi wrote: "I came to the conclusion long ago… that all religions were true and also that all had some error in them, and whilst I hold by my own, I should hold others as dear as Hinduism.  … But our innermost prayer should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a better Christian." (Young India: January 1928)

Professor M.P.Mathai from Kerala, South India, believes that Gandhi had made a synthesis of the best in all major religions. When Gandhi was asked "would you say, then, that your religion is a synthesis of all religions?" he answered, "yes, if you will". He was quick to add that he would call that synthesis Hinduism, as far as he was concerned, and for a true Christian that synthesis would be Christianity, and for a Muslim that was Islam. (Harijan, March 3^rd, 1937)

Gandhi believed in a religion "where there is a room for the worship of all the prophets in the world." (Oxford University Press. B.R.Nanda. p 56)

Later in his life when he was asked whether he was a Hindu, he replied: "Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew." And he meant every word of what he said.

Siddhartha

                                                                  Painted by Sahadevan

Re-visioning in the Tumultuous Era of Climate Change

James Lovelock, the father of the Gaia theory and a distinguished scientist, believes that climate change is happening faster than we expected.  “I think we passed the point of no return some time ago - we don’t know when”, he said in an interview to the Financial Times. Then he said the unthinkable: “If we get away with 20 per cent survival by the end of the century, we’ll be doing terribly well.”

A recent piece in the Indian magazine, Tehelka, by Prem Shankar Jha states: “The Arctic’s ice-melt of 2008 summer was what the climate change committee had predicted for 2055”. This is what 2500 scientists concluded in March 2009 in Copenhagen at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change. With proof mounting by the day we are still sadly trapped in a paradigm of development and progress that takes us down the path of self-destruction. Are we actually wired to self-destruct? Nicholas Kristof believes so, and recently wrote in the New York Times: “Evidence is accumulating that the human brain systematically misjudges certain kinds of risks. In effect, evolution has programmed us to be alert for snakes and enemies with clubs, but we aren’t well prepared to respond to dangers that require forethought”. He states that if you came across a snake “nearly all of your brain will light up with activity as you process the ‘threat.’ Yet if somebody tells you that carbon emissions will eventually destroy Earth as we know it, only the small part of the brain that focuses on the future - a portion of the prefrontal cortex - will glimmer.”

But this may be an incorrect, or at least incomplete, way of viewing things. There are some reasons to believe that the situation is serious, but not irreversible. One, because we still do not have hard evidence that climate change will indeed wipe out 80 per cent of human beings on the planet, despite the likelihood that we will face acute food and water shortages and serious flooding of low lying regions. Two, scientific breakthroughs may possibly help us radically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and further help us with mitigation and adaptation strategies (agricultural scientists, for example, believe that we can develop varieties of crops that may not only use less water but be resistant to higher temperatures). And finally, we have overlooked the ‘miracle’ of the human spirit; history is replete with social and spiritual movements that have radically changed the course of events. The inward-outward dialectic of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and the social movements they engendered, are facts of relatively recent history.

A huge part of the reason for finding ourselves in this predicament is not that our brains are wired to self-destruct, but that our values are wired to do so. Unlike the brain, our values can be changed, particularly if they are largely created to sustain a system that will otherwise collapse. There is enough evidence to show that our consumerist world-view and our highly competitive and exploitative mode of functioning have led us to this state. Not only is it normal to exploit each other but we are brutally exploiting the very earth, from which we have all co-evolved. Chief Seattle had the prescience to say a hundred and fifty years ago that all things are connected:  “Teach your children… that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves”.

What is clear is that our dominant value system is geared to self-aggrandisement. Concern for others and the health of the planet is often given only lip service. Nature is now commodified into real estate, mineral, property and resource. For many in the modern world nature does not evoke awe and sacredness, but has value only if it can be exploited for quick profit.  This may sound like preaching from the pulpit. It is clearly a cliché to say that our world is driven by the pursuit of success, quick money and instant gratification. There is nothing as obnoxious as a guilt-inflicting and piously moralistic view of things, particularly since we know that we have all, in different degrees, contributed to the present situation.

Part of the reason why we find personal change so difficult is that our values do not entirely emerge from our own volition, but are fostered by the system. Systemic needs press for the legitimisation and self-perpetuation of the present mode of market fundamentalism. After all, how will the system survive without manipulating our consciousness with messages that are cleverly romanticised, whose underlying purpose is to convince us that the good life is a package that includes aggressive competition, exploitative profiteering and mindless consumption? Some would affirm that it is extremely difficult to expect radical changes in the global neo-liberal system without a major crisis. But there are also countless courageous efforts to bring about change by individuals, organizations and social movements. Unfortunately these efforts do not appear to be making much headway as yet. I would hazard a calculated guess that the lack of success is due to our neglect of the dimension of values and spiritual insights. We have focused almost exclusively on analyzing and changing the outside system without paying attention to the inner architecture of our consciousness.

Without transforming this inner architecture we cannot relate meaningfully to other human beings and to nature. The good life is thankfully not about what the global neo-liberal system is propagating. The present understanding of the good life is delusionary and diminishes us as human beings. It takes us away from relating meaningfully to other human beings and to nature. Religions, spiritualities and secular values, which should have led us to the good life, have been largely co-opted by the system. They largely help to legitimize the status quo. Religions have certainly contributed to enlarging the parameters of compassion, but they have also contributed to divisions and violent conflict. Religions rarely wish to rock the boat. Some people believe that ‘religions divide, and spirituality unites’. But spiritually attained persons prefer to live in ‘bliss’ and ignore the suffering, injustice and ecological degradation that is around. Likewise, the domain of secular values can be diluted by the compulsions of market fundamentalism, where ‘growth at any cost’ and ‘profit as the final goal’ have contributed to atrophy our sensibilities and diminish our capacity to feel.

The great challenge is to re-authenticate our religious, spiritual and secular values so that they produce flowing streams, and not stagnant pools. For, unless the inner architecture is renewed we cannot bring about the systemic changes that are so necessary. Transforming our consciousness and bringing about systemic changes must happen simultaneously. Meaningful political changes are intrinsically interwoven with the values we bring to them.

Up to a few years ago the ecological crisis did not even appear on the radar screens of religious and secular concerns. Many compassionate leaders believed that it was enough to create a just society where wealth would be re-distributed. The good life was to develop more, to produce more so that everybody could partake of the fruits of development. For the market die-hards the goal was to create a mass market for consumer products. Today these dreams are imploding. For the first time since the dawn of human history the earth is shuddering at the ongoing impact of what we call ‘development’.

To save life on the planet appears to be highly unlikely without an enormous effort at re-visioning. Only new visions can help cast out the failed ones. We have to move from life-denying visions to life-affirming ones. However difficult it may appear we need to create varieties of non-exploitative consciousness that pull in the same direction as our efforts to stave off climate change. These new visions are not altogether new; they are already being lived out in the chinks and crevices of our flawed dominant visions. Obviously the emerging visions cannot be inflexible or dogmatic, even if they need to lay down the ground rules clearly. To be relevant they have to draw from all that is good from the religious, spiritual, secular and scientific traditions. We have to admit that no one tradition has the complete answer, but the partial answers emerging from several directions may be woven into a formidable tapestry that help us re-discover the good life, and enable us to joyously connect to other human beings and the planet.

Our efforts must move in the direction of creating living values and spiritual insights that have us ‘wired’, in a manner of speaking, to care for each other and the earth. We are about to embark on a tumultuous period of our history where we can save ourselves, our children and grandchildren, only if our spiritual and secular traditions inspire us to find and practise the life affirming visions and life-styles that can green our planet once again.