The Logic of Spiritual Life

[Last month I wrote a couple posts trying to couch religion in reason—but this article by Swami Chinmayananda, called The Logic of Spiritual Life, I think does it better. Swami Chinmayananda is probably the greatest influence on my life, and the reason why I still think religion is worthwhile.]

Religion is not a bundle of superstitions to be fumigated at regular intervals with incense and candle sticks. Carefully analyzed, it is a definite science of life, giving a complete technique of practical living. By faithfully adhering to its precepts and following its practical suggestions, we can make ourselves happier and this world a better place to live in.

As the Equipment, so the Experience

Life is a series of experiences. The experiencer comes in contact with the world of objects and ekes out for himself pleasure or pain, joy or sorrow and failure or success. His reactions are dependent upon the quality and texture of his mind-intellectual equipment. There is an infinite variety in the texture and composition of the equipment and one gains the particular vision envisaged by it. Thus, the world provides different and distinct visions according to the individual who projects them.

Analysing a few examples, we find that to scientist, the world appears to be a field of magnificent phenomena—discovered and undiscovered—of great power and potentialities; to a peasant in a remote village, the same world is insignificant with nothing spectacular about it. Again, to a poet, the world is a manifestation of nature in luxurious and extravagant beauty, and he sees in it everywhere an expression of divinity. The same world is viewed by a pessimist as an inferno of misfortunes and tragedies. Hence, the objects remaining the same, the experiences differ from person to person, and their reactions will also differ, depending upon the constitution of their equipment.

The world, therefore, has no precise and clear-cut definition. The pattern changes as in a kaleidoscope, according to the individual vision. As for instance, a man wearing blue glasses see the world blue; upon changing them to green, he sees the world green. Realising this truth, the religious masters advised people to reform and reconstruct their inner instruments of experience so that the world can be interpreted by them in its true perspective.

Politician, Economist, and Scientist

Man, in his innocence, continues to believe in development and beautification of the external world more than in the rehabilitation of his inner personality. This has given rise to three types of workers who have been sincerely serving mankind, making this world a better place to live in. They are the economists, the politicians, ad the scientists.

The economists provide more wealth and material prosperity for people. The politicians deal with the people and improve the pattern of mutual and co-operative living. The scientists harness and tame nature for man to enjoy it. The economists, the politicians, and the scientists have achieved wonderful things in our own time, for our own happiness and for the happiness of the society.

People Still Unhappy

Now, if we were to meet these prophets of our age one by one, each would admit privately that his had been a waste of noble energies! Not that their plans, ideas and discoveries were in themselves glorious mistakes. The political visions and programmes are well based upon historical experiences of the past. The economic schemes and plans are indeed the fruits of great study and deep ponderings. The scientists, no doubt, have been very creative; they have wrest ed out of Nature many of her splendid secrets. But, they all cry, "We strive, but somehow we find we cannot bring blessings to the society, because the society in its present state is incapable of receiving the blessings we shower on them."

How does society become unfit for blessings? Why is it that people are still miserable in spite of such mighty intellects constantly working to make them happy? We will have to enquire a little more deeply to discover where exactly lies the seed of this ruinous disease.

People in today's society live ever in a state of tension, in a state of withering discord among themselves, each shattered within himself. Ever agitated and restless in their minds, ever unsatisfied with what is available in society and ever striving to cut the throats of one another, all of them always feel, in spite of all that they have, a sense of insecurity in life. Each one tries to build a wall of safety for himself with money, possessions, power, strength and social laws. Why this sad plight? Is there no escape, no remedy? Should life be ever a groping in the dark, a wasteland of strife with no reward of peace and true joy? Should there not be a full contentment of love and unreserved affection?

Where is the flaw?

When we analyse this question as true critics of life, not as pessimists judging society as doomed, but standing apartment as intelligent and kind critics, lovingly analysing life, we have to ask the question, "Where exactly is the flaw?" Vedanta, or the philosophy of India, roars, "Try not to understand the world as a separate entity, but try to understand it in relation with you. Since you alone are the object available for complete study, you can observe and fully investigate 'you-in-the-world'. Thus understand the world through you, rather than objectively looking at the world, ignoring yourself." This is quite right, as life is possible only when a person is in relationship with the world.

Let us for a moment consider what exactly the politician, the economist, and the scientist achieve for the world. Politicians order my relationship with the people around me; the economists regulate my relationship with the wealth in the country; and the scientists command my relationship with the phenomena that constitute the world about me. Thus, everywhere I am being educated on how to relate myself with the world, so that I may come to life harmoniously with the community around me.

World and Me

There are naturally two factors here—the world and me. The happenings around me and the nature of the world that lies about me are at present not directly under my control, but in case I can reorganise myself within myself and by myself, I may then gain a glorious and healthy harmony with the world in which I happen to live now. The scientists the economists and the politicians can only tell us the correct relationship with which we must live in the society with social wealth an phenomenal energies. But in all patters of relationships, we have to be healthy and intelligent in order to maintain the right relationship. If man is not rightly educated, however much the politicians, the scientists, and the economist must strive to bless the society, the society can never be blessed. It is thus clear that I am the one who keeps an intelligent relationship with the world around. If I don't keep an intelligent relationship with the world outside, I become a nuisance to the society. A lunatic does not know how to maintain a proper relationship with others; he makes himself unhappy and he makes everybody around him also unhappy.

Tune up the Personality

Therefore, the main emphasis of religion and philosophy is on the individual, to make him competent to face his environment. The spiritual scientists—the subjective scientists—strive to tune up and strengthen the personality of man, so that he may be competent in himself to face his own challenges in life.

When man comes in contact with the environment, then there arises in him his experience of joys and sorrows. The external environment keeps changing continually. It is, no doubt, to some extent controlled, regulated and improved upon by the material scientists, politicians and economists. But however conducive the political arrangement may be, whether it be socialistic or communistic, whether it be  capitalistic or democratic, in any condition of poverty or riches, it is you and I who have to face life individually. No economist or politician can take away from us our sorrows and tragedies. Happiness or unhappiness depends upon our interpretation of the world in which we are living. They may try to improve the world, they may try to adjust it beautifully, but after all, it is we who have to face our own challenges, not anyone else.

In this business of living, religion and philosophy say that each individual is compelled until death to face his own challenges. You may say that all of us belong to one society or one country, we are one race, and so on. Yet each person reacts differently to the same environment. Even in your own homes, as a father you have to face certain things yourself; you cannot share many of your problems even with your own wife; your wife has her own problems which she cannot share with you; your little baby lying between you two has its own private problems. If I am ill, the society may provide a beautiful hospital and the best of doctors to attend on me. All my friends may come and cheer me up. Still, I have to face my pain myself; no one else can do it for me.

Self-Improvement is Essential

How to improve the inner health of a person so that he becomes competent to meet his own challenges—this is the problem that philosophy tries to tackle; towards the same end, religion also tries to provide a field in which each can train himself to grow in knowledge and inner strength. As a technique of self-improvement, religion and philosophy provide certain exercises by which each individual's view of life becomes more ideal. When his view becomes thus elevated, his behaviour in the world also becomes correspondingly nobler.

Philosophy is never tired of repeating that life is an orchestra; it is not solo play. Each individual must, through education and self-effort, improve his own behaviour. No doubt, he must have his own goals in life, set by himself; at the same time, he must also learn to live harmoniously with others, bringing about an orchestration in his social behaviour. This orchestration has not been achieved to a great extent in the world so far, in spite of sincere efforts.

Master of Ceremonies

The politician who is talking aloud is certainly sincere. The industrialist who is trying his best to increase production is also sincere. The trade union leaders are also a sincere lot. Each one is sincere, but since each one is singing his won song, together it becomes a noisy clamour of disturbing discordant notes, rather than a harmonious melody of beauty. Therefore, there must be a Master of Ceremonies and he must serve as a conductor, and if the conductor conducts properly, all of them can fall into a synchronised harmony. He must order and regulate each individual's play, and thus generate the dynamism of togetherness, the beauty of togetherness. For this, each must sink his arrogance and implicitly follow the signs of the conductor.

Today, there is no harmony in life, nor is there synchronisation in its activities. This is because people do not have a synchronising ideal to look up to and act, regulating their own activities for the blessing of all. This synchronisation comes into our life when we provide ourselves with an inspiring ideal. The ideal in religion is Godhood; in philosophy it is called Self-realization. As long as this ideal is not discovered and accepted, each member will tug and pull and try to work only to fulfill his own little selfish desires. Naturally, all our programmes, even at their best, prove to be nothing but calamitous follies and stupendous failures.

Subjective Evolution

Therefore, to increase our happiness in life our religion demands the sublimation of our ego, sublimation of the individuality, the sense of the little ego, by lifting our vision to a higher standpoint.

This idea of bringing harmony in society through subjective evolution is not generally recognized by the materialists, who essentially follow the objective scientists. Objective scientists believe that the world creates man and causes his happiness. No doubt, external environments are necessary for political stability, material developments, scientific growth, and social justice in the world, but human happiness does not depend merely upon all these. If that were so, for anyone living in a palatial building, resting on its comfortable furniture in a costly and luxurious environment, there will never be any tears. Alas, nowadays it is in such places that you find maximum sorrow and tears. If the environment alone governments man's happiness, then there should not be any laughter or smile in our slums, and we know that this is not the case. So it is clear that a comfortable external situation alone is not sufficient. Man must learn to live in harmony with and enjoy the external circumstances.

Religion and Rhetoric, part 2

My last post, Religion and Rhetoric, generated a number of comments, and I'd like to follow up on them. I'm glad to get some discussion going on this blog! I won't be able to get to everything that was brought up in the comments, but I'll try to address the main points.

Before I do so, though, I need to clarify some things I think about religion. First, I don't think it's just like science. The main difference I see is that science concerns "objective" reality—the world as we see it—whereas religion concerns "subjective" reality—the glasses we wear to see the world. Given the same facts of reality, people can interpret the situation differently. You can face the same challenges of life either grudingly and despairingly, or with equipoise and confidence. I think the purpose of religion is to move us from the first category to the second.

Second, I see religion in purely instrumental terms. Like the pole valuter who uses the pole to cross the high bar, we use religion as a prop to help us over this mental "bar" that we can't surpass without. But once the pole valuter crosses the bar (i.e. come to realize God, become completely purified, etc.) then he has to let go of the pole, otherwise he'll come crashing down. Likewise, at that point, when religion has no more practical use, then we should not rigidly hold on to the habits that religion inculcates. I think we should think of religion (defined as the rituals, practices, commandments associated with spirituality) as an instrument to realize the truths that spirituality (aka religious theory) talks of.

Third, I think we have to separate the wheat from the chaff in religious doctrine. You don't have to believe all parts of a religious doctrine to subscribe to that religion. Because religions are meant to cater to a mass audience, they contain within them various levels of explanations, which vary in logical rigor depending on the mental capacity of the devotee. More simple-minded people won't be interested in deep, rigorous philsophical debates; they find supernatural explanations/appeal to a personal god/etc. more appealling, and it's for those people that these reasons are crafted. [This is why religions offer what I called "child" answers in my original post.] But if you want logical rigor, then you can find that too—in Hinduism we have the Upanishads, which are incredibly difficult to parse but read just like philosophical treatises, and base their explanations on pure logic and natural laws.

Think of the distinction between "high" and "low" explantations in terms of math. Only few mathematicians dedicate themselves to rigorously proving mathematics; the rest of us take their results for granted and just use it. Example: engineers use calculus all the time without having to learn the measure theory and real analysis that supports the validity of their results. We even use shortcuts that aren't perfectly rigorous. Example: we treat (dy/dx) as a fraction sometimes even though there's handwaving there.

Now, an example for religion. I'll talk about Hinduism since that's what I know best. In Hinduism have elaborate rituals, called yagnas. People are told growing up that if they do these yagnas then they will get good merits that will allow them to go to heaven (or get a favorable next birth). This supernatural explanation is, of course, not logically satisfying. For people who press, swamis will explain that the whole affair is 1) practice in self-less activity and 2) a visual symbol and reminder of the process of purification. First, to put a yagna together requires the coordination and cooperation of a lot of people. People are supposed to contribute what they have to the effort (labor, resources, energy) in order to pull it off, and they're supposed to give selflessly and willingly so that the yagna is a success. When we a do a yagna, then, we get a reminder to work in this "yagna-spirit" in all aspects of our life. Second, the yagna itself is an elaborate symbol. I'm not knowledgeable enough to go into the full details, but basically the idea is that we are burning our ignorance in the fire of knowledge.

So, in answer to Derek's question, yes, I do think you can choose to disbelieve certain (supernatural) aspects of the religion and still proclaim yourself a believer. The reason is that those explanations were not meant for you. And I don't think this damages the credibility of the religion itself because the supernatural parts of religion are secondary and periphery, and the core tenets don't (shouldn't) rely on these explanations anyway. I realize this isn't the way religion often presents itself. Christians, for example, will say believing in the resurrection is an essential component of Christianity—that it's what validates their beliefs. But I think if religion wants to serve the needs of a modern, scientific society, then it should adapt itself in this direction.

What then makes a believer? I don't think of belief as a static, binary state (either you believe or you don't), but rather as a grey-scale continuum. Religion is a prescribed path of study, and though you can start out a skeptic, or a disbeliever of the whole thing, your beliefs can change over time as you come (maybe) to embrace it. What matters whether you're a believer or not is, I think, whether you're applying yourself to that study.

Both of the commenters questioned my equating faith in science with faith in religion. To be honest, I don't think they're exactly the same, but I wanted to make a point that religion doesn't require blind faith in hocus-pocus. That's because I come from the "high"/"low" explanations school of thought, so when I'm dialoging with religion at my own level, then I find that faith in religion is not illogical. I believe that there are deep explanations for why we do the things we do in religion if we know where to look. Plus, not believing in supernatural stuff doesn't mean I don't have faith in my religion.

The difference I see between faith in science and faith in religion is this: because religion deals with a subjective, not objective, reality, its truths are not externally demonstratable. Even if these religious techniques make me fundamentally happy and satisfied, no one will be able to know the full extent of this inner change except for myself. That's the point where religion requires more faith than science.

I'll stop there for now. As a final mark, I'd suggest that people curious in religious philosophy should become well-versed in a non-Semetic religions. I think seeing an entirely new conceptualization of religion gives a better sense of what religion is really about, and what parts about it are important and which ones are not. Plus, there is actually a lot of overlap (in what's important) between Eastern and Semetic traditions—at least that's what Christians have told me when I try to explain what Hinduism is about.

Religion and Rhetoric

[Recently I've been reading a lot of philosophical anarchism, which is all about questioning the authority of the state. Locke, Nozick, and others make sophisticated arguments to defend the legitimacy of the state's authority. No one seems to be doing the same for religion, though. This is my attempt at filling that gap. Comments are very welcome.]

Where does religion's authority come from? All religions proclaim to tell the Truth, but if you are to ask an average religious person why you should believe they'll say, because The Holy Book said so. If you question further they'll say, you just need to have to have faith. The discusion usually stops there. Intelligent people, who need to have good reason before believing in something, have naturally come to have totally written off religion. 

I think people who offer these sorts of explanations do religion a large disservice. It's mispresentation, really. This answer is the child's answer, but for some reason it's still pretty much the only one offered to curious and skeptical people.

The adult answer grounds itself in the idea that religion is rhetoric. Religion is essentially an argument for a way of life, and like all arguments it needs to develop its logos, pathos, and ethos. The first two elements are obvious components of religions. It's the last one, ethos, that seems more elusive.

So where is the appeal to ethos in religion? The answer is that it comes from the same place that ethos always comes from: the identity of the speaker. What religious leaders so often fail to mention—and what holds religion together in the first place—is the credibility, respect, and trustworthiness of both the founder of the religion and the religious leaders who maintain it. If religious figureheads preach a standard that they don't live up to themselves, then thinking people will naturally reject that religion as false.

In Hinduism, there is a saying: When the student asks for guidance, the teacher tells her to go to the Scripture, and the Scripture tells her to go to the teacher. The idea is that the two are mutually reinforcing; the theoretical ideas of moral behavior find a living example in the teacher.

The purpose of religion is to make us better human beings. It's a system for self-improvement and inner development and transformation. Of course, people may become worse in the name of religion, but there are also lots of quiet but inspiring inner self-unfoldments taking place because of it too. Swami Chinmayananda, my own spiritual teacher, made the point that we can't judge religion by how bad religious people are, since after all if they had nothing to improve upon then religion would do them any good. Instead, he said, we should focus on the before-and-after, i.e. how much did they change by sincerely applying religious practices. That's the real test. In that sense, if there is even one person who has achieved significant self-improvement, then that validates the religion: it means that the religion, as a system for self-improvement, actually works.

Faith plays an important role in religion, but it's hardly anything more special than the faith we require to function in everyday life. In religion we need faith because we can't travel back in time to verify the accuracy of scriptures; because we have to trust our religious advisors; and, most importantly, because sometimes religious doctrine contradicts our intuitions. But we also have faith the same kind of faith in the science textbooks we use, in our spouses, and in our doctors and our medicines. It's nothing new.

Thus, choosing to follow a religion can be a very reasonable, considered decision. If I see that in history certain spiritual men and women have led unparalleled moral lives, and that they explain their thought processes, and that many people over the centuries have come to live great, inspired lives by following this system, then these present good reasons to me for trying the religion too. Why not? I can always test it out for a year, sincerely, under the direction of knowledgeable people, and see if it produces any results.

So where does religious authority come from? Consent, of course (the same place political authority comes from). We give religion our consent when we decide that sometimes religion knows what we want from life and how to achieve it more so than our own (faulty) intuitions do.

Hindu Syncretism

What if Hinduism was brought from India to the West on a large scale? How would it change as it mixed with local cultures?

Ashok Krish supplies us with a potential answer. He's uploaded some shlokas (Hindu hymns) and gives a (humorous) sense of how they'd transform in foreign lands:

If, for example, Hinduism came to Mexico, then the classic Sri Venkateswara Subprabhatam—

—might sound like this instead:

Casa Venkatesa

And if Sonia Gandhi brought back the Mahishasuramardini Stotram...



...to Italy, then might it sound like this?

Mozzarellasura Linguini Stotram

Uselessness

Yesterday I stumbled upon a book by Richard Sennett, an American sociologist, called The Culture of the New Capitalism. In it, Sennett looks at how our constantly evolving economy shapes the way we live—how we attempt to manage the constant uncertainty; how we try to adapt to a life of "migrating from job to job, task to task, place to place;" how we make efforts to live up to a new cultural outlook on talent and merit and ability; and how we fail at all these things.

One of Sennett's most engaging ideas is what he calls the "specter of uselessness." Depression-era photos still disturb us, Sennett argues, because the specter of uselessness still continues to haunt us, though it's character is different in the modern age. Now the uselessness we face takes the form of the jobs that are being shipped overseas; or the hyper-intelligent automation systems that are making human labor cost-ineffective; or the emphasis on fresh skills and new talent versus experience and seniority that threatens the job security of the ageing.

Stated after the fact, it almost seems like common sense. After all, our higher education system is built entirely around innovation and discovery; our politicians constantly talk about "remaining competitive" and "staying ahead;" our TV shows are all about finding the next star; our companies are always racing to outdo each other...and while everyone is marching ahead, how will there not be anxiety about being left behind?

But I think that this "specter of uselessness" is not just peculiar to modernity, but rather a part of the human condition. I think Adi Shankaracharya put it best (that is, starkly and plainly) in his Bhaja Govindham:

यावद्वित्तोपार्जनसक्त्तस्तावन्निजपरिवारो रक्त्त:।
पश्चाज्जीवाति जर्जरदेहे वार्तां कोऽपिं न पृच्छति गेहे।।
As long as there is the ability to earn and save so long are all your dependents attached to you. Later on, when you come to live with an old, infirm body, no one at home cares to speak even a word with you!

I don't read this verse as a lament, but rather as a sober recognition of the way relationships work. Humans relations involve give and take: we give our attention, our affection, our time, and our effort; and in return we expect money, affection, wisdom, love, intimacy, interesting conversation—something. There comes a time though when we no longer have anything to give, and at that point these relationships naturally dissolve.

In this spirit, I have heard that our job in life is to learn to enjoy our own company, to be at peace with ourselves, to figure out what to do with ourselves before the world has no more use for us. The specter of uselessness will always loom, but it becomes less scary when we confront it directly.

The Rhetoric of Proselytization

As a non-Christian, I've seen evangelicals make a fair number of attempts to proselytize me. With their Bible in their hands and a worn smile on their face, they patiently try to make me understand that Jesus Christ is my only salvation, that I've been living my life wrong all this time (even though they have no idea what it means to live a Hindu life).

Although I oppose proselytism on principle, I sympathize with the intention. The idea, it seems, is that it feels miserly and selfish to have found something that has been such a positive and transformational force in one's own life and not share it with others. One wants to spread the "good news," so to speak.

But in spite of my sympathies, even well-meaning and clean-hearted evangelicals come off as annoying and intrusive—and it's not an accident.

The problem is that evangelicals forget one of the most fundamental rhetorical dictums: know thy audience. For some reason, evangelicals seem to believe that the best way to talk to people who do not believe in the validity of the Bible is to endlessly quote the Bible. They like to start with John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world..."), take a tour through Matthew and Mark, and then make a powerful close with John 14:6 ("I am the way and the truth and the life..."), the clincher that unequivocally proves the necessity of conversion. They look at you with eyes (and sometimes mouths) that say, if it's written in the Bible how can you contradict? And if you do contradict, you only get another Bible quote.

This is surely an exercise in futility. So, evangelicals, if you are to undertake the very difficult task of proving that only your way of worship is legitimate, please read up on some rhetoric first.

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 12 Verse 16

Today I was reminded of one of my favorite lines from the Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 12 Verse 16:

सर्वारम्भपरित्यागी यो मद्भक्त: स मे प्रिय:
sarvarambha parityagi yo mad-bhaktah sa me priyah

To paraphrase, it means that one should renounce the idea that one is the beginning or end of anything. Thus, to think, for example, that I discovered the cure, I came up with the design, I am the one that made this happen is nothing but sheer ignorance.

Isaac Newton, who probably has one of the biggest claims to bragging rights in the history of mankind, also probably has one of the best explanations for why he doesn't make his claim: "If I have seen far," he said, "it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." Trite, yes, but only because it is true. And it deserves more repetition. Quotes like these make the researcher who boasts of curing a disease think twice about skipping over all the foundational work that scores of people did to make that discovery possible.

However, this verse doesn't just apply to major acts of creation and discovery. The subtle and more day-to-day meaning is that behind all of our undertakings lies a motivating and influencing force. Parents, teachers, books, and media all shape our actions, and part of having a healthy outlook is recognizing this fact.

On paper this all seems so obvious, of course, but it's surprising how often we forget. We like to think of ourselves as intelligent, but we forget about the people who refined that intelligence and directed it into constructive channels. We like to think of ourselves as good people, but we forget about the people that have helped instill those values in us.

After internalizing the principle of this verse, sincere and matter-of-fact humility should come on its own. After all, when one goes through the list of people one's indebted to, how can one feel anything but humility?