1

Forms of Life and Ways of Living

In this chapter, I first propose to discuss the nature of love for life and its limits. The term life will be used in its extended sense, comprising both individual life and collective life. Second, I will say a few things about how the different phases of life are differently oriented. Biological facts strongly suggest that, generally, in the early part of their lives, humans are found to be at their creative best. Third, I would briefly discuss the place of both values and disvalues in human life. Fourth, I will argue to show that human life is found to be lived amidst the contrary pulls or motive forces of creativity and destruction. Life is full of ups and downs with occasional valleys in it. Its graph is very complex, certainly not linear. Fifth, in order to make my points clear on the issues of collective life, I refer to certain revolutions and try to show how the well-meaning revolutions, in search of a good life, in the process of delivering intended goods, get caught up in the vortex of self-defeating dangers. Sixth, having recognized the importance of the role of religion in life, I try to describe, in brief, how every religion is indebted to its cultural past and is influenced by other neighbouring religions. I find the social and historical factors, compared to philosophical ideas, as being more helpful in understanding a religion’s unifying role, achievements and sectarian proliferations, leading often to a bitter battle of ideas and also of the sword and gun. Finally, I conclude that in the developing context of science and spirituality, religious life gradually takes a back seat, yielding more and more space to reason-based science and intuition-based creativity, both ideological and axiological.

I
Love for Life and Its Limits

Is life worth living? What makes life meaningful? These and similar other questions cannot be easily answered, still less acceptable, in an absolute, universal or even in a general way.

Certainly, a normal life, not afflicted by disease, mental or physical, and not subject to the pain or fear of poverty, is certainly worth living. Reflection makes it abundantly clear to me that it is impossible to list all the conditions, the presence of which will make living a matter of joy or at least worth coveting.

The matter may be put from another point of view as well. If I am asked: what are the conditions, given which, I would like to live a very long and happy life? I am afraid, I will not be able to provide a complete answer that would appear acceptable even to myself, under all circumstances of my life. Without entering into endless and often conflicting and philosophical views, and without indulging in arguments for and against the permanentism or fluxism of life I find, at times, it is indeed a matter of joy to live and to do the things, which are very dear to me. For example, the beauty of nature in its endless varieties, in different seasons of the year, and at different parts of the world makes me exceedingly happy. Given the power, I would have had a rerun of those days and nights, and experiences, and would have asked for them repeatedly, if not endlessly, not only for myself but also for all other sentient creatures and, particularly, like-minded human beings.

However, my scientific sense pulls me back and makes me painfully aware that this will of mine cannot be granted or fulfilled. The physical ability, mental capacities and the aesthetic sensibility, which are necessary for having repeatedly or at least at pleasing intervals, this kind of welcome experience are not available to most of us. The objects of human desire change enormously and often unpredictably with the passage of years. At different phases of life, as we see, our values and preference-schedules keep changing. What is even more instructive to recall is this. Take an example of people who suffer from a wide variety of mental and physical disabilities. Their values and objects of desires cannot be considered to be identical to those of ‘normal’ human beings. I know the word ‘normalcy’ in this context needs to be used with care and circumspection. The social milieu also has a big role in influencing what is good for us and what is not.

Ethical and aesthetical relativity, are inescapable, and therefore, can hardly be dismissed lightly or in a purely pejorative vein. Statements like ‘everybody wants to be happy’ deserve cautious interpretation. Some pro-religious people are strongly opposed to the idea of hedonic happiness and are sincerely inclined towards a life of austerity and self-imposed privation. Spiritually disposed persons, not necessarily believers, through meditation and contemplation seek to attain a state of blissful existence.

The issues related to the meaningfulness of life may be, and in fact have been, approached from very many points of view, viz., theological, scientific and mystical. None of these points of view lends itself to a unique interpretation or formulation. Many physical scientists and life scientists are inclined to mysticism¹ in their private life. At least some of them are religious both theoretically and practically even now. I say ‘even now’ because, as we know, the majority of the professional scientists of our time are either indifferent or clearly opposed to any theological view of life.

This sweeping statement needs serious qualification. When we speak of a religious or an irreligious scientist, we have a relatively circumscribed view of the educated section of society. We assume that most people who live on the globe today are directly or indirectly inclined to some form of a religious view of life. This is particularly true of those parts of the world which are conventionally designated as underdeveloped and poor. Many of us are pre-reflectively led to the view that scientifically educated people of the developed world, generally speaking, are not much concerned with religion in the received sense.

It is difficult to believe today that many of the most famous universities of the ancient and medieval world were established by some or the other religious order, and that the teachers and students of those institutions were required to be religious in their pronouncements and writings. It is interesting to recall now that some of the greatest scientists of the past were severely persecuted for their expressed scepticism that questioned the official views of the prevalent religious orders.

This is not to deny or forget that some of the contemporary philosophical and religious minds are deeply and passionately committed to God and to one or another teleological world view. The law-governed character of worldly phenomena persuaded them to the belief that God created this world using His infinite power, goodness and knowledge. However, it is equally true that down the centuries, many heterodox thinkers expressed their doubt about the compatibility between Divine creation and the presence of evil in the world. During the last 200 years or so, with the rise of reinforced materialism and Darwinism, the widespread belief in the theories of creation and design received a severe jolt.

The widespread acceptance of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution went against the received Christian theology and cosmology. It also challenged, directly or by implication, theories of emanation or creation as found in mainstream Hinduism, in Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Islam. To none of the major religions of the world can one rightly ascribe a single theory of creation.²

Darwinism has gone deeply against the religious sensibility of most people by its heavy reliance on the concept of ‘chance’. To think that life in general and human life in particular, have evolved out of a kind of dance of chance and not because of some supreme intelligence has offended many people, including scientists and philosophers.

It may be profitably recalled here that even subscribers to the Cartesian and Newtonian views of mechanics found it difficult to give up completely the idea of teleology. For example, Immanuel Kant, said to be the sage of Könnisberg, who did not believe in the existence of God had no hesitation to entertain the Idea (with a capital ‘I’) of God in his otherwise pro-Newtonian world view. The beauty and harmony that mark the events, periodicity and orderliness of the cosmic phenomena strongly suggested to him that there is a design behind all these seemingly mechanical events. Pro-mechanical thinkers like Kant and Pierre Laplace, who are often jointly credited to have authored the theory of the origin of the earth out of the sun due to the gravitational pull of a passing giant star, were not openly anti-religious. They substantially assimilated religion into ethics.

Social influences, particularly those which are rooted in the living tradition of religion, contemporary science and politics, act so strongly on most of us that we try to adjust ourselves, including our views and values, to the same. Most of us prefer to swim with the current, not against it, conforming to, or accepting received theories and practices.

History is replete with the acts and life stories of great nonconformists like Socrates and the Christ. Thousands of other persons, who may be easily designated as reformist or even revolutionary, had to pay dearly for their convictions and expression of the same. Even the greats like Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei, evidently scared of the religious establishment of the time, could not firmly stand by their scientific convictions. In contrast, relatively lesser-known scientific thinkers like Giordano Bruno, committed to the Copernican theory, stood firmly by his conviction when he was about to be burnt at stake by the Inquisition, i.e., the religious court. In the face of death and given a last opportunity to recant his pro-Copernican view by touching the Bible, he refused and preferred death for his beliefs.

Generally speaking, our love for life and fear of death, leave most of us to the conformist or conventional view of life. The safety and security of life are rated higher than truth and are considered more important than scientific conviction and commitment to the principles of justice. This compromising attitude towards life, surely not commendable from a high, ethical point of view, is so common that, as said before, is extremely difficult to leave behind.

In this context, I recall the moral dilemma of scientists and philosophers like René Descartes (1596–1650). His Jesuit education made him very devout. However, consciousness of the happenings on the then European scene of science made him very careful. For example, in 1633, when he was only 37 years of age, he heard that Galileo has been condemned for heresy and immediately decided to abandon the idea of completing the book he was writing on the universe, in which he had accepted the views of Copernicus.

If, for the time being, we forget about the great thinkers, writers, philosophers and scientists, and confine our attention to ordinary people around us, we feel strongly inclined to accept and pursue a prudent and practical view of life without being very inflexible or firm in following (what may be called) the dictates of the conscience.³ Though many of us often believe that the erring conscience is a chimera, numerous social surveys clearly show that there is nothing like a universal conscience. This is clearly evident from anthropological literature which deals with different groups of human beings living in the different parts of the world.

For example, members of a self-professing religious faith can and do kill in ‘clean conscience’, members of the other who profess a different faith. The latter are known as ‘infidels’, ‘dissenters’, ‘protestants’, or ‘heretics’ because they belong to an opposing or warring group. The non-availability of a universal conscience is further buttressed by the stories found in literature, ranging from the epic period to the modern age. In all-out states of war or conflict, respect for life and property is relatively unknown. The notionally recognized laws of war and peace are rarely followed in practice.

However criticizable these relativistic considerations may appear from the theoretical point of view, in practice, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to avoid their binding force. Autobiographically speaking, most of us find in our own lived lives that our views and values slowly but steadily undergo change. For example, what seems to be very attractive in infancy and youth, tend to change with the process of ageing. It is well known that when compared to the aged, younger people are more optimistic, enterprising and less conventional in their mental make-up and ways of living. It is interesting to note that in most cases, older generations tend to be justificationist. They try to justify what they thought and did in their younger days and turn out to be relatively critical of new ideas, art forms and ultramodern ways of life. I must add here that this is not an absolutely universal truth. I have seen both young people of conservative nature and old people of radical temper. But I strongly feel the truth that I have referred to above, holds good generally and exceptions to it do not violate its validity.

II
Life at Its Creative Best

My reading of biographical and autobiographical literature leads me to the conclusion that most great thinkers, writers, scientists and philosophers developed the bulk of their seminal ideas while they were relatively young.⁴ When people are psychosomatically at their best, their creative capacity finds its most original expression. For example, recorded scientific biographies show how great scientists arrived at their main original and important ideas while they were relatively young, say, between the ages of 20 and 35 years. This claim can be convincingly established by citing innumerable life stories of creative thinkers and writers. It is true that many of them published their best ideas rather late in life. But that can be explained in terms of historically available convincing facts of the time and their own life stories. My own studies show that when people are relatively old and mature, say, between 40 and 60 years of age, their ratiocinative capacity expands and they excel in the style and power of articulation. However, creative insights in old age tend to get somewhat dimmed. Again, I must repeat, exceptions do not falsify the general rule.

To illustrate my point, I propose to refer very briefly to the life stories of some great scientists and philosophers. Though Isaac Newton (1642–1727) published his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in 1687, when he was 45 years old, he had started working on related ideas long before. He conducted his startling optical experiments during the years 1665–66. He had already developed the famous Inverse Square Law by then. When Newton was a young man of 27 years in 1669, his mathematics teacher at Cambridge resigned in his favour and he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, perhaps one of the most prestigious professorships in the field. A special ruling by the Crown enabled him to hold on to his job without entering the Church. However, it must be added here that in his private life, Newton, like Descartes, was deeply religious. However, in his mechanical-scientific-theoretical position he could not accord God a very high position. His deism allowed his well-known three Laws of Motion to determine all happenings, events and everything, from macro bodies to the micro ones, from terrestrial phenomena to the celestial ones.

Another name, which readily comes to my mind in this connection, is the next famous name in the history of science after Newton, namely, Albert Einstein (1879–1955). His most important papers containing his earliest scientific insights were published in the year 1905 when he was a young man of merely 26 years. His first paper, on the photoelectric effect falling upon certain metals, was rooted in Max Planck’s Quantum Theory (1900). This paper substantially contributed to the emergence of new Quantum Mechanics. In his second paper of 1905, Einstein worked out a mathematical analysis of the Brownian motion named after Robert Brown (1773–1858), a life scientist, who had observed that individual grains of plant pollen moved about irregularly. Closer analysis convinced him that non-living, that is, physical dye particles suspended in water, also exhibited the same erratic motion. Einstein proved that the suspended particles jiggled in water as the latter was composed of molecules moving randomly, following the conditions of kinetic theory developed by James Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann. The greatest and the third achievement of the year for Einstein involved a new outlook on the universe, replacing the old Newtonian view, which had remained unquestioned for two-and-a-quarter centuries.

Several other famous scientists, whose names may be mentioned in support of the early blossoming of scientific genius are Neils Bohr (1885–1962), Max Born (1882–1970), Heisenberg (1901–76), Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961), John von Neumann (1903–57) and J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–67). Several other names, co-architects of modern physics, may also be referred, to in this connection.

Bohr is the major contributor to the development of Quantum Physics in the twentieth century. This Danish physicist and Nobel laureate developed the Bohr Theory of the Atom and liquid-drop model of the atomic nucleus. At the early age of 22 he was awarded a gold medal by the Danish Scientific Society for determining the surface tension of water. He worked with famous scientists like J. J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1922. In his later life, Bohr wrote extensively on epistemological, psychological and social issues. He also took a lot of interest in the spectacular development of molecular biology. Light and life were among his favourite themes that exercised his mind and on which he wrote, more than once, during his lifetime.

Max Born (1882–1970), another very influential co-architect formulated a very precise definition of quantity of heat. It is perhaps the most satisfactory mathematical statement of the first Law of Thermodynamics. In 1926, when his student Heisenberg developed the first Law of New Quantum Theory, Born started collaborating with him in order to develop an adequate mathematical formulation of the theory. Later on, when Schrödinger presented his Quantum Mechanical Wave Equation, Born showed that the solution of the equation has a statistical meaning of physical significance in it. He received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1954.

Early on during his lifetime, Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) was interested in both philosophy and physics. He was influenced, among others, by the writings of De Broglie, Einstein and Bohr. Wave properties of the electron drew his special attention. Schrödinger, along with P. A. M. Dirac and Born, worked out the mathematics involved in his concept of the atom. Schrödinger’s work on wave mechanics was published in 1926 and Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics was advanced in 1925. Later, it was found that they were equivalent in the sense that whatever could be explained by one could be also explained by the other. Both Schrödinger and Dirac were awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1933. The former was awarded the prize for his work on wave mechanics, while the latter received it for his work on both wave mechanics and his Theory of Anti-particles. Schrödinger’s philosophical interest induced him to study the relation among matter, life and mind. He also familiarized himself with the Vedantic philosophy of India.

John von Neumann was a child prodigy. He studied at various universities in Germany and Switzerland where he met and interacted with many famous scientists like Oppenheimer (1904–67) and Wigner (1902–95). He made important contributions to many branches of knowledge—mathematics, economics (Game Theory) and computer science. It was Neumann who showed that Schrödinger’s wave mechanics and Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics were mathematically equivalent. Rarely was a scientist found as multi-faceted a genius, as Neumann.

Another famous scientist who showed exceptional talents early in life was J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–67). He studied at Harvard under P. W. Bridgman (1882–1961) and graduated in three years with record grades. He interacted with Thomson, Rutherford and Born and obtained his Ph.D. degree at the University of Göttingen where he met Neumann in 1927. In 1930, he proved that the proton could not be Dirac’s anti-electron and paved the way for the discovery of the true anti-electron, that is, the positron, by Carl David Anderson. In the year 1943, Oppenheimer was placed in charge of the laboratories at Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb of the USA was designed and constructed. He was the Chairman of the General Advisory Committee to the USA Atomic Energy Commission from 1947 to 1953. He had a phenomenal memory and is credited to have memorized the whole of the Gita.

Genuis blossomed early, not only in the lives of scientists, but also in the lives of many masters of arts and letters. They showed glimpses of their genius from a very young age. In this connection, I would certainly like to refer to the life of the many-faceted Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832). He studied and wrote on many areas, from poetry and literature to philosophy and science. Besides, he had an interest in, and experience of, politics and diplomacy. Though he is mostly known for his rightly famous dramatic work, Faust, which appeared in two parts in the years 1790 and 1832, he had started his literary career earlier than this. His poetic works, Das Buch Annette (1767) and dramatic work, Die Laune des Verliebte (1767) were written when he was below 20 years of age. Some of his early writings, though published much later, were penned when he was quite young. Many of his famous poetic and dramatic works were written when he was in his twenties. He was a prolific writer and really a Renaissance personality with many gifts of character and achievements in life. Unlike most others of his generation, he remained involved in creative activities till the end. His autobiographical works like Aus meinem Leben, Dichtung und Warheit (1811–22) and Italienische Reise (1816–17) give an intimate picture of this versatile genius.

In this context, the names of two other famous poets come to my mind. Both are English, P. B. Shelley (1792–1822) and John Keats (1795–1821). These two contemporary poets, in spite of their relatively short lives, left a poetic legacy which is rightly remembered with deep admiration even today. Shelley defended atheism, but in his teens, he had published two gothic novels and two volumes of verse. It is instructive to recall that sorrow, poverty, personal problems and an intense love affair contributed to his creativity. His first major poem, Queen Mab, was published in 1813 when he was only 21 years of age. He wrote Alastor, Or the Spirit of Solitude in 1816. His romance epic, Laon and Cythna; the Revolution of the Golden City, was composed in 1817. It was reissued in 1818 as Revolt of Islam. His cast of mind was classic, unconventional and revolutionary. His famous work Prometheus Unbound, a lyrical drama, was completed at Florence in the autumn of 1819. Some of his works were severely criticized and that pained him deeply. The end of his life was truly reflective of the turbulence of the life he had actually lived—Shelley drowned with his friend Edward Williams on 8 July 1822, when his boat sank during the stormy return voyage of Lerici in Italy.

Like his contemporary Shelley, John Keats was also a poet of romanticism marked by the mastery of vivid imagery. The sensuous appeal and the tinge of philosophical classicism are found in his youthful works. When he was around 26 years of age, that is, from 1817 onwards, Keats devoted himself entirely to poetry. His life was the life of his poetry. His classical poetic temper was rooted in his familiarity with the English translation of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Keats’ first book, Poems, was published in March 1817. Sensuous natural beauty was very dear to his soul. His long poem, Endymion, appeared in 1818. He was infected with tuberculosis in 1818, but he went on writing. Many of his best poems like ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and the ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, and many of his other finest works were written while he was in bad health. Love of beauty, yearning for life beyond death and a deep sense of melancholy pervade his best works written in the last phase of his life. The lives of both Shelley and Keats unmistakably show how passion and imagination can lead young souls to the height of aesthetic sublimity.

Among Indian poets of the recent past, Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913, started his poetic career at a very early stage.⁵ In fact, his first poem to appear in print was ‘Abhilash’ (desire) when he was only 13 years old. He was married to Mrinalini (born in 1873), in 1883. Between 1876 and 1884, his adolescent aspirations and genius found expression in many literary writings, as Kadambari Devi, his sister-in-law with whom he had a very intimate relationship, committed suicide. Tagore’s romantic relationship with Kadambari is believed to have contributed much to his early creativity. Her tragic suicide deeply moved the young poet. Somewhat like Kadambari Devi, another sister-in-law of the poet, Jnanadanandini Devi, encouraged him to publish his poems in a children’s journal, Balak, of which she was the editor.

Tagore had a multi-faceted and intensive education in which he was tutored at home. Deeply averse to formal schooling, he did not like its discipline and routinized study according to a fixed syllabus. He also did not like appearing for regular examinations. This reticence to school education fortunately, found support in some of his elder brothers, Dwijendranath, Hemendranath and Jyotirindranath. The Tagore family of the time was the most important cultural centre of Calcutta. Many religious leaders, poets, social reformers and writers hailed from the family. He was sent to London for education. It also did not yield the intended result. His aversion to formal education persisted and his instinct of self-education not only sustained him, but also enabled him to develop himself as an exceptionally gifted, creative writer. How a very inspiring family life can exceptionally contribute to the creativity of a genius is wonderfully illustrated by the life of Tagore. It must be added here that from his father, Devendranath, who was a very learned and respected spiritual leader and a gifted writer, Rabindranath inherited a deep, religious inclination, and initiation into the Upanishadic philosophy. In the many-sidedness and prolificacy of his writings, Tagore reminds me of Goethe. Besides poems, he wrote novels, dramas, travelogues, an autobiography, short stories and musings on religion, philosophy and popular science. He composed thousands of songs and himself was an accomplished singer. In the later phase of his life, Tagore took to painting and he left his creative mark in that area too. His contribution to the freedom movement of India was so profound that Gandhi and other nationalist leaders respected him very deeply. The national anthem of free India is Tagore’s composition.

In spite of several family bereavements, including the death of his wife and children, Tagore maintained his mental stamina and carried on creative work between 1884 and 1910. During the same period, deeply dissatisfied with the colonial education system, he, together with some other prominent persons of public life, planned a national system of education for young students of the country. In the first decade of the century his father, Devendranath Tagore, established the Brahmacharya School at Santiniketan, which later developed into Visva Bharati. Tagore was associated with it right from the beginning. In the second decade of the twentieth century, Tagore encountered some very eminent people of the time like W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, C. F. Andrews and Bertrand Russell. He travelled widely the world over and came in contact with the cultures of the world, both eastern and western. He was the first recipient of the Nobel Prize from Asia. His books, translated into many languages, made great minds of the contemporary world conscious of his extraordinary genius.

What is indeed striking about Tagore is that his literary and other achievements needed no formal education or university degree as their motive force. This point illustrates, among other things, that to be great in life one need not have formal education. Native genius and its intense cultivation are the most important things for an excellent human life.

In this connection, I always recall the life and works of John Stuart Mill (1806–73). This widely acclaimed philosopher, political thinker, economist of high standing and defender of women’s rights, had also no formal education in the received sense. He neither matriculated from school, nor graduated from a university. His wide-ranging education was mainly because of his father, his father’s friends and self-study. Like his father, he also worked in the East India Company at a very senior level. He started writing for important newspapers and contributing to popular journals from an early age. His philosophy was largely shaped, among other things, by the works of John Locke, David Hume, Auguste Comte, Jeremy Bentham and James Mill. His System of Logic (1843) was evidently influenced by Bacon’s Novum Organun and William Whewell’s Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (1848) was largely shaped by the works of the then influential thinkers like Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo.

One notices two streams of ideas in his thought—liberal and pro-socialist. He tried to reconcile in his thought, the elements of social conflict, because of differences in class interest and social harmony, needed for liberty and democracy. It is interesting to note that on many important issues, the views of Mill are similar to those of Marx. However, it must be added here that Mill’s thoughts changed over the years, from accentuating conflict to emphasizing harmony. Another point which may be mentioned here is, though he, like his father, worked in the East India Company, his views differed in many ways from his father’s, particularly with reference to the character of type of education that was desirable for Indians. It is only recently, through scrutiny of the internal documents and dispatches of the East India Company, that we have come to know about Mill’s relatively liberal attitude on Indian issues of the time.

The lives of Tagore and Mill clearly show that those who have a strong motivation to become learned and creative, do not depend on formal education in the received sense of the term.

III
Life, Values and Disvalues

Famous writers, philosophers and scientists referred to above are still remembered long after their death. Mortality cannot put an end to the value of works created by humans in general and great minds in particular. At the same time, it is undeniable that death and related issues have their bearing on life, on how we live, and what we can or cannot do during our life span. We remember the lives of great men, mainly to draw inspiration from them and to shape our own lives following their examples. People have achieved greatness and have effectively shaped the course of history without receiving formal ‘education’. This shows that a lofty way of living is not necessarily related to textual education.

The long history of mankind tells me that, broadly speaking, there are two types of teachers. It would be advisable to classify them under two heads, viz., classroom teachers and teachers of mankind. It is found that classroom teachers with degrees, publications and fame to their credit can influence only a limited number of people and for a short period of time. On the other hand, teachers of mankind like Krsna, Moses, the Buddha, the Christ and Mohammad, who had no formal education in the received sense, could influence millions of people over a long period and leave the lasting effects of their teachings not only on their religious followers, but also on thinkers, writers and rulers of different persuasions.⁶

This view of mine, I know, is not likely to be accepted by many people who are naturalists, agnostics and anti-religious in their outlook. But it can hardly be denied that in many states, which are not wedded to any particular religion, an enormous number of people are religious both privately and publicly, both theoretically and practically. Official secularism and private commitment to religious faith often go together.

The relevance of religion to the question of meaningfulness, or otherwise of life should not be confused with the question of the belief, or lack thereof, in the existence of God. For example, Buddhists, Confucians and Taoists do not believe in the existence of God but many of them are deeply religious. We also know that many agnostic philosophers, scientists and writers who lived a noble life, a life to be emulated, neither believed in God, nor did they follow a religion. On the other hand, most of us will agree that there are many believers who indulge in many unethical activities and do not hesitate to harm other people, or even wage war against mankind. To me, it seems the value of life has no necessary relation with God or religion.

At the same time, most of us agree that social conditions and education largely influence our attitude towards God and religion. Personally speaking, when I was a young boy, I used to believe not only in God, but also in gods and goddesses. The reason was simple. My parents and other elderly family members were all religiously inclined and used to observe the rituals related to our religion. Later, I realized that religiosity of this type is more a matter of convention and tradition and had little to do with any reflective, scientific, or philosophical basis.

When I grew into a young man, still in my teens, and about to enter college, I was not very clear about God, religion and related questions. Following the convention of the time, I, as a good student of the arts stream, was first inclined to take up the study of economics as my major subject for undergraduate studies. However, I later argued with myself along a different line. I asked myself that if I did not know anything about God, what was the use of a higher education? On second thoughts, I chose philosophy as my major subject and took economics only as a minor one. What is to be remembered impotantly in this connection is my decision to choose the philosophy of religion, while most of my other colleagues at the graduate level opted for logic. What worked in my subconscious mind was the belief that the question of God was extremely important and the road to God, if any, had to be found in religion, and not in logic.

Curiously enough, at that period of my life, from the age of 16 to 28, I was a strong believer in Marxism, substantially accepting both its economics and ethics, but I could not accept its rejection of religion. In other words, from my undergraduate years to the period of doctoral research I was in an ambivalent state of mind, marked by spiritualism, based on God-based religion, and Marxism, based on ethico-economic views strongly in favour of the suffering poor.

By the time I came to my doctoral research, I had familiarized myself with the history of both the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the Chinese Revolution of 1949. I was fond of history and I had already studied Russian history from the Napoleonic invasion of Russia to the abortive revolution of 1905. I also had read carefully the history of the Far East, particularly the history of the first Nationalist Revolution under the leadership of Sun Yat Sen in 1911. Besides Russell’s book, Theory and Practice of Bolshevism, also deeply stirred my mind and raised several questions. Russell himself, to start with, was a well-known supporter of the Bolshevik Revolution. But his personal experience of post-revolutionary Russia largely disenchanted his mind. Secondly, I came to know of Wittgenstein’s decision and preparation of taking lessons in the Russian language, to go to and settle in Russia. Subsequently he too, like Russell, having heard of the negative side of the Bolshevik experiment abandoned his idea to go and live in that country. However, I was one of those non-ordinary persons who continued to remain a supporter of the revolution. I knew, after studying post-revolutionary Russian history of the 1920s and 1930s carefully, that Trotsky, the founder of the Red Army, was expelled from Russia and that senior leaders like Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Rykov were convicted in a sham trial and executed. I continued in my support for the Leninist-Stalinist form of communist ideology because it was marked by the two Es (education and electricity), so indispensable for the struggling poor of Russia.

I was deeply impressed by the pro-peasant reforms of the new regime under the leadership of Stalin of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The record of achieving the target of universal primary education and electrification of the country to lay the foundation of industrialization deeply impressed me. The two Es changed the life of the people to such an extent that in 1941, when Hitler’s army invaded the USSR and, initially, deeply penetrated into it, Russian resistance did not break down. Though Stalin was a tyrant in politics, he successfully fought the enemy in the war of resistance and had the support and adulation of his people. Otherwise, having suffered the loss of 250 million people, dead or injured, by the year 1944, Russia could not roll back German army back to Poland and to Germany itself.

It is evident in biographical literature from antiquity to modern times that most famous people, drawn from different walks of life—literature, religion, politics and scholarship did excel most while they were relatively young. In this connection, one can easily refer to the Buddha, Ashoka, Julius Caesar, Alexander, the Christ, Mohammad, Hannibal and Napoleon. It is obvious that this list of names is merely illustrative and heterogeneous in character.

There seems to be no common standard of comparison for the gift or genius of people from different occupations—religious, militaristic, political, scientific, philosophical and artistic. Given this difficulty, what we can do is, when people become famous in their lifetimes for their works and are remembered by posterity for a long time, their life stories are studied carefully to find if there are some common denominators in their accounts of success. Military and political heroes are often remembered and strongly criticized. This is not to suggest that they do not have their admirers long after their death. Somewhat similar seems to be the case even with the lives of great religious teachers. I say ‘even’ because the differences between religious teachers and communities have often proved very bitter, if not sanguinary. The simple point which I would like to emphasize here, is the that most distinguished people, irrespective of their fields of achievement, excelled most in their early lives.

The demands on the successful lives, on scrutiny, are found to be different in different spheres. Military generals, naturally, are required to be courageous and fearless. However, these traits of character are also found among politicians and statesmen to a certain extent. Some statesmen, whom we generally rate above petty politicians, have left behind enough evidence to convince us that the concern for the public welfare and necessary initiative connected with it had also been a part of their character.

Courage and heroism are characteristics, which cannot be uniformly defined. For example, when Stalin and Trotsky and their followers entered into a bitter factional fight, it may be somewhat safely assumed that they were prepared ‘to do or die’. The same may be said of the lives of leaders like Hannibal, Caesar and Hitler. It is, however, difficult to compare the courage of Bruno and Christ with that of Hitler and Robespierre.

Politics is often described as a cruel game.⁷ Nevertheless, even while taking risk, it is worth remembering what leaders like Napoleon and Stalin did for their peoples. It is, therefore, not surprising that they are remembered for different, or even contrary reasons, long after their death. Hitler’s hatred towards the Jewish community and his act of large-scale liquidation of its members, though admittedly diabolic in character, still finds sympathy in pro-Nazi members of the present generation. Stalin’s purge of the 1930s, leading to the execution of leaders like Bukharin, Kamenev and Zinoviev is almost unbelievable. In the 1920s, they had been ‘comrades’ of Stalin, however, during the bloody purge and sham trial, they were found to be ‘renegades’. This reminds one of bitter factional fights between the followers of Robespierre and his enemies like Danton. As we all know, the French revolutionaries’ struggle for liberty, fraternity and equality ended in the execution of the leaders of both factions, including Robespierre and Danton. This paved the way to the military dictatorship of Napoleon.

Can we draw a lesson from the philosophy of war and dictatorship, be it political or religious?⁸ To what extent has frequently professed religious peace, succeeded in keeping mankind’s violent instincts in check and making it a peace-loving race? Have not more people died because of religious differences and conflicts, than they have due to the sword, gun battle and bombs? Is it not surprising that even people, who profess the same religious faith, fight bitterly among themselves? Does it not seriously clash with our received views of religion and religious fraternity?

Take the example of the battle of Karbala (10 October 680), a tragic struggle for religious office and power between Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, pretender to the Caliphate and his followers, on the one hand, and those of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid, on the other. The battle ended in the defeat and death of Husayn. This war between the Shiites and their enemies, the Sunnis, who formed the majority group in Islam, makes it clear that mere adherence to the principles of a proclaimed founder of a religion does not in practice, settle all disputes or differences between the contesting sects.

Sectarianism seems inherent in all human beings, including even their religious orders. A study of the history of most major religions makes it clear that sectarianism or partisanship is hardly avoidable. The difference between the Catholics and Protestants in Europe is another well-known example in this long story of difference, leading to war between different sects professing the same religion. The long persecution of Huguenots by the Catholic majority in France during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries makes the point painfully clear.

Inter-religious disputes and battles between followers of major religions—the Muslims and Christians can be clearly illustrated by the successive Crusades, a series of European military expeditions directed against Arab territories for control of Jerusalem and the Christian shrine of the Holy Sepulchre. This took place between 1095 and 1270. Comparable conflicts are recorded between the Hindus and Muslims in South Asia, particularly in India, ever since Islamic rulers of foreign origin attacked lands to the east of the Indus river in the early centuries of the second millennium.

From the above-said references, one must not assume that most religions of the world have no concept of mutual understanding and accommodation. The point that I am trying to make, while discussing these inter-religious and intra-religious wars, is to highlight a simple but extremely instructive insight. Even in the sphere of religion, ordinarily recognized as moral, soul-elevating and unifying, belligerent and savage instincts of human beings do come into play.

This psychological truth has larger implications for human life as a whole. If morality, religiousness and commitment to the high principles of prophets and great religious teachers cannot prevent humans from enmity and bloody wars, how can we honestly believe religion to be a basic factor for ensuring human living with high ideals? Naturally, the question arises: are humans, simply by the merit of being so, destined to fight over differences, theoretical and practical, mundane and religious? Alternatively, are we to understand and interpret this persistent trend as an irremediable expression of both human aggression and freedom? If the answer to the question is yes, then the history of human civilization and human life itself can never be free of conflict and war. In that case, our frequently expressed hope and ideal for a peaceful and orderly development of human aggregates, smaller and larger, from the family and community to nations and international order, can hardly be realized. The absence of open war or cessation of hostility obviously does not mean a peaceful and happy state of human existence. It is not easy to make the factors and forces necessary for human life actually and durably peaceful, and if possible, progressively comprehensive and noble.

IV
Life Amidst Contrary Pulls of Creativity and Destruction

While it is true that the history of human civilization is marked by wars and conflicts, either high or low intensity, it is perhaps equally true that over the millennia mankind as a whole has succeeded in achieving many new and valuable things in different spheres of life. For example, we now know how devastating and destructive world wars can be. Global wars and even local wars, which persist for a long time, prove very costly not only for the people directly affected by them, but also for others living in distant parts of the world.⁹ For example, the fallout of the wars between North Korea and South Korea, Israel and the Arab nations, and India and Pakistan has been global in character.

We have realized, at least theoretically, that loss entailed by war is not only material but also, and perhaps more so, valuational. Loss because of death and injury, pain and suffering, is so obvious that we need not enter into any detailed discussion about these issues. What is not so obvious is the silent but almost irreparable loss that we suffer because of war-related destruction and damage of human habitation and cultural heritage. Even more serious is the loss resulting from the adverse impact on the progress of mankind in different areas of knowledge and knowledge- based civilizational achievements. War is the most dangerous enemy of all, for what is good, right and just.

Does it not sound paradoxical, irrational and anachronistic that while in the fields of the sciences of medicine and biotechnology we are making remarkable advancement, we are creating at the same time, wittingly or unwittingly, willingly or unwillingly, a dangerous situation around us which makes our life peaceless, unsafe and fearful? A somewhat similar question continues to haunt all right-thinking people: how to reconcile the contrasting claims of our life like growth in knowledge and depravity in such vital spheres as morality, justice and righteousness. In response to this and other kindred questions some ultra-practical persons rush to the hasty, but understandable conclusion that there seems to be a sort of inverse relation between material prosperity and moral depravity, scientific development and moral insensitivity. To support this negative and pessimistic view of life, references are frequently made to consumerism, inequality between the rich and poor nations, and preventable or at least minimizable inequities between different sections of the people living within the same society.

In this connection, the most shocking example which is often cited, is that of the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki towards the end of World War II, in August 1945. The first atom bomb was dropped by the US on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. The explosion, which released energy of 15,000 tonnes of TNT instantly, devastated 10 square kilometres of the heart of the city which had a population of 343,000. Of this number, 66,000 were killed immediately and 69,000 were injured. Nearly 70 per cent of the city’s structures was destroyed or damaged. A second atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, producing a blast equal to 21,000 tonnes of TNT. Thirty-nine thousand persons were killed in this attack and 25,000 were injured. About 40 per cent of the city’s structures were destroyed or damaged. Shocked by the impact of the two atom bombs, the Japanese immediately initiated negotiations for surrender on 10 August 1945. It was difficult, if not impossible, to believe before August 1945, that scientific knowledge and technology developed by humans could be used against humans in this terrible way.

The human aspect of the problem reveals an equally memorable, though tragic, chapter of the history of human civilization. When warring nations take the plunge, it seems, they are ready to go to any extent to be victorious, becoming entirely blind to the cost of victory. They mobilize all their resources, civil and military, scientific and technological, to defeat the enemy. The long history of recurrent wars and fragile peace so deeply marks the history of human civilization that not only the pacifists but also all morally sensitive persons, whatever be their official profession—legal, philosophical, scientific, or theological, face a moral dilemma, if not definite disinclination, to describe this history as genuinely civilizing. How could this story of civilization be so deplorably stained and smeared with human blood? It is understandable that the armed forces are professionally obliged to take up arms in defence of safety and security of their country and its legitimate interests. However, when this patriotic obligation is madly defined and extravagantly extended, rationalizing and legitimizing all types of use of force against not only armed enemies, but also against an innocent civil population, the very concept of ‘civil society’ is rendered hollow and meaningless.

These types of inhuman situations have appeared in the history of the world time and again, a few examples of which I have already referred to. But incidents that humanity witnessed between 1933 (when Hitler came to power in Germany) and 1945 (when Germany, Japan and their allies were squarely defeated) were literally unprecedented. One does not know whether this incredible chapter of human depravity will be repeated again.

As already mentioned, never before was humanity forced to witness such tragic misuse of human knowledge, disregarding all human rights and values. Great scientists, outstanding philosophers and large-hearted apostles of peace were forced to follow their official lines of war-related thought and action. Fanaticism was encouraged in every sphere of life in the name of patriotism—from the battlefield to the laboratory. Thousands of thinkers and writers were either imprisoned or fled their country of origin.

It is deeply instructive to study the lives of innumerable European scientists, particularly those who hailed from Germany, Austria and Hungary and had Jewish ancestry. Equally instructive is to recall the phenomenal development of science in the 1930s and 1940s. Famous scientists like Einstein (1879–1955), Max Theodor Felix von Laue (1879–1960), Neils Bohr (1885–1962), Lise Meitner (1878–1968) Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961), Eugene Wigner (1902–95), Edward Teller (1908–2003), Leó Szilárd (1898–1964) and Neumann (1903–57) left Europe or Germany and started working either in the USA or in other countries like Sweden, Switzerland, Britain and Ireland. During these two decades, uranium fission technology was invented and developed. The path that led from these scientific discoveries to the making of the atomic bomb was a very short one indeed. Both the USA and its allies, on the one hand, and Germany, on the other, were virtually engaged in a race to make atomic bomb. Undoubtedly, the USA was well ahead in this race. In case the Nazi regime under the leadership of Hitler had made the atomic bomb first, it would have been a veritable disaster for mankind.

As this fear and danger loomed ahead, some of the greatest scientists of the time, including Einstein, decided to approach the American President, Franklin Roosevelt, to launch the project of manufacturing the atomic bomb. This project was generally known as the Manhattan Project. Its aim of producing the bomb came true in July 1945, and immediately thereafter, as stated above, two of these atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.¹⁰

The War was won but peace, was grievously wounded, if not lost altogether. I am not talking here of the Cold War, the arms race and political rivalry between the USA and the then USSR, the two superpowers of the time. I am trying to understand and highlight the moral goings-on in the lives of the great scientists involved in war efforts in general, and the atomic projects in particular. Their life story is an inseparable part of the larger story of suffering humanity as a whole.

Einstein, the most famous and influential scientist of the time in the world, was persuaded by his colleagues like Szilard to write that historical letter to President Roosevelt, urging him to support the gigantic and highly expensive research project designed to build the nuclear bomb. However, after realizing and reflecting on the terrible after-effects of the use of atomic bombs on the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Einstein, a morally sensitive person, seriously devoted himself to the cause of peace. At the end of the War, following the lead given by Einstein and his other colleagues like Bohr, Wigner, Oppenheimer (1904–67) and Szilard, the technology of making the atomic bomb and thereafter the hydrogen bomb became public, enabling several countries like England, France and China to own nuclear weapons. In the world of science, truths, once discovered, become accessible to others and, given the favourable political and financial powers, the new inventions empowered the ‘advanced countries’ to make deadly bombs and missiles. In this respect, the US, Russia, England, France and China obviously had an advantage over others like India, Brazil, Germany and Japan. The last two were directly involved in the Second World War against America, Russia, France and China and were politically prevented by the Permanent Members of the Security Council, armed with the power of veto, from making the atomic or hydrogen bombs. Economically speaking, China was not developed enough to go in for this highly expensive nuclear project. However, it fulfilled its ambitions because of newly emerging international conditions, mainly the defeat of the Chiang Kai-shek in the Civil War and the support of Russia.

Here, I will not venture into that long and complex story. Only two points here are important to be stressed upon. One, neither in national politics nor in international affairs, is there any justice-based permanent friendship or enmity among nation-states. Two, after World War II, an increasing number of poor nation-states in Asia, Africa and South America gained independence from their colonial masters. This led to a partial decline of hegemonic influence of the superpowers. In this connection, two other factors perhaps, also deserve mention, first, the gradual emergence of the European Union as a semi-independent political entity and second, the disintegration of the USSR around 1989. Till this day, war budgets of all nations, particularly those of the industrialized ones, the G-8, is so heavily pro-war (in the name of national security) that there is little or no concern for ushering peace or eliminating poverty in developing nations.

This brings me to the central, negative point of war and its dangerous fallout in the lives of both individuals and nationstates. We all know what happened to the leaders of defeated countries in World War II. While some of them were driven to commit suicide, others were executed or went into hiding or exile for a long time, maybe till their death, in fear of persecution. Though this part of the tragic story of war is well-remembered by many, the equally sad story of great minds of the scientists involved, directly or indirectly, in or around war efforts has not been remembered, at least not as instructively as deserved. Only a few researchers in the area of peace and its value for human life have recorded this very important issue.

Einstein, who at the instance of Szilard and other colleagues, co-promoted the Manhattan Project leading to the making and dropping of the atomic bombs, most of them became extremely unhappy when the nuclear bombs with their increasing lethal power were being stockpiled to threaten post-war mankind. Till the end of his life Einstein expressed himself strongly in favour of peace and fought stubbornly for a world agreement to end the threat of nuclear warfare. He was also a vocal critic of McCarthyism in the early 1950s. He was totally against the witch-hunting let loose by that infamous American politician in power on the scientific community that did not openly support the nuclear policy of the United States. Admittedly, Einstein revolutionized physics, but his ability to change the human heart in favour of peace did not yield the desired result. On the contrary, at the time of his death (1955) nuclear threat to the world was greater than ever before.

In that very year 1955, Bohr organized the first Atoms for Peace Conference in Geneva, and in 1957 he was awarded the first Atoms for Peace Award. This recognition appears interesting and also instructive against the background of his active association with the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos, USA. Anxious about the dangerous consequences of the bomb falling into the hands of the Nazis under Hitler, he effectively persuaded Lise Meitner, then in exile at Stockholm, to publish her extremely important finding on uranium fission in January 1939. Otto Hahn, her friend and scientific collaborator, though of Austrian and Jewish origin, was among the few scientists who stayed in Germany during the war years. He was also convinced of the actuality of uranium fission. However, when compared to him, Meitner was more determined to make her scientific discovery available to the world so that it could be used for making the atomic bomb. Fortunately, the Nazi authorities could not make use of Hahn’s knowledge of uranium fission and thus, one might rightly say, the world narrowly escaped a catastrophe. It is worth mentioning here that Meitner was awarded a share of the Fermi Award issued by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1966.

Perhaps a sense of guilt which tortured Hahn deserves even more admirable remembrance. Though it was Meitner, Szilard and others who were directly responsible for the American project of the atomic bomb and its explosion on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hahn continued to feel tortured by his personal responsibility in this great tragedy. For a while, he even considered committing suicide after he heard of the twin tragedies. Among the famous scientists only Heisenberg, Laue and Weizsacker stayed back in Germany after the end of the European phase of World War II. They were taken into custody by American forces. It was while in custody that Hahn heard of the dropping of the atom bombs and seriously thought of committing suicide.

The human aspect of science and the lives of scientists cannot be isolated from one another. Therefore, when we speak of human life in general, we can hardly afford to ignore the moral basis of the lives of the most abstract thinkers, philosophers and writers.¹¹

V
Search for the Good Life, Revolution and Its Self-defeating Dangers

Whether war is glorified or debunked as barbarity, in the long term one cannot ignore its existence and survival as a widely accepted institution. Over the millennia, theories and modes of conduct of war have undergone enormous change. If the nuclear phase of war has added a chapter to its annals in the twentieth century, then new strategies of guerrilla warfare has added another chapter to it. It is true that low-intensity conflict has always existed in one form or another. However, now that the character and consequences of nuclear war have proved almost self-defeating in practice, guerrilla warfare has assumed newer and deadlier forms. Take the example of car bombs and human bombs. These are explosive-loaded cars and human beings, and are used as bombs—a very effective and dangerous device of attack. If human beings are prepared to kill themselves, for good reasons or bad ones, for patriotism or fanaticism, it is extremely difficult to build up successful defence against this type of deadly attack. In terms of an input-output analysis, one may describe the situation as a very effective mode of conflict with minimum input, while ensuring maximum output.

War in general and in its recent forms, particularly nuclear war and guerrilla tactics have raised some very fundamental questions. It is not as if these questions were never raised before, but in the changed context of modern times, a single bomb could kill billions of people and totally wipe out an entire civilization. Similarly, a handful of determined people, driven by a kind of fanatic will, can endanger the lives of millions of innocent people and that too, with a long and lingering period. Naturally, people who are concerned about these happenings are obliged to raise the question: is killing or aggression native to human nature? Given the technology of our time, the killers must know that killing cannot be a one-sided affair for a long time. Death invites death. The survival of mankind on the planet has placed a demand more or less, on every normal human being. All human beings must take minimal responsibility for their ideas and actions and see that these do not lead to a situation in which their lives and those of their near and dear ones are consigned to a sure death trap.¹²

The complexity of this question and the enormity of its implications get compounded a hundred-fold when we relate it to the concept of just war, distinguishing it from unjust war.

War as such has often been denounced as something intrinsically bad and morally wrong, and attempts, both practical and theoretical, have been made to improve the situation by reducing the causes and possibilities of war. It is well recognized that the causes of war may be profitably viewed at least under two broad heads, psychological and sociological. If we commit ourselves to the well-known psychological view that aggression is innate in human nature and can only be marginally modified by such forces as education, religious teachings and a just and effective social order, then we can indirectly be committed to an ineliminable determinism. It may be noted here that the removal or even reduction of the causes of conflict and war rests much on the accepted or preferred theories of human nature.

Some writers, like Freud for example, argued to the effect that discontent is more or less, inherent in every civilization. No civilization can provide unmixed happiness to all concerned people. All civilizations, marked by enforceable law and authority, are bound to impinge upon human freedom and individuality. Only ensuring equality in property relations or equity in the distribution of collective resources, does not make it possible to free people from discontent, or to ensure their happiness. The Freudian remedy consists in sublimating the death instinct. Views of writers like Freud and McDougall cast serious critical reflection on religious views that highlight the inherent spirituality of human nature, which through sustained cultivation is believed to be endlessly improvable.

The death instinct, including death, both of the self and that of the other, seems to be so deeply and instinctually grounded in life that love for life cannot refrain humans from causing death to others through conflict and war. Since this instinct is destined to remain in human existence and cannot be completely eradicated, the only reasonable attitude that we can develop towards war, war-related death and destruction is to accept it as a part of, not an enemy of human civilization.

To me, this psychological response to death and destruction does not appear to be coherent and correct. Firstly, I find it difficult to accept the psychological view that we are condemned or doomed to accept death, both of the self and of the other, as a part of life. Besides, it seems very counterintuitive to me to maintain that love for life cannot affect, even minimally, the instinct of death by substantially weakening it, if not by replacing it gradually by the powers of reasoning, law and morality. This view of mine rests, of course, on a view of human nature which, to the best of my understanding, is defensible, both rationally and empirically.

Historically speaking, we cannot think of a period when a country or civilization was completely free from tension, conflict and war. Myths or theoretical constructs like satyayuga, the Age of Truth, or the natural state of society, as imagined by thinkers like Rousseau, or primitive communism devoid of private property, are too good to be true. However, these romantic notions of human society, either of hoary antiquity or of an exotic land of the past, are purported to serve two contrary purposes. At times, it is used as a theoretical fiction facilitating the explanation of the origin of subsequent and less romantic, if not more conflict-ridden, forms of the society. At times, the story of the so-called ‘Fall’ is sought to be related to the fall of mythical man from the stage of innocence and goodness, to that of selfishness and conflict-proneness.

The attraction of this view has been substantially neutralized by contrary pictures, for example, of kaliyuga, the dark age of human debasement, the natural states of society in which, as Thomas Hobbes wishes us to believe, human life was marked by ceaseless conflict, nasty, brutish and short. Coming closer to our own times, we have the historically recorded reference to evidence of the all-out slaughter during the Civil Wars between the followers of Danton and Robespierre after the French Revolution. The two World Wars of the twentieth century wherein atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki made it absolutely clear that the worst sort of tyranny could be perpetrated in the name of freedom and justice. The games of dangerous power politics often confine human option to choosing between bad and worse. The Soviet and Chinese purges can also be cited in this context. These are merely illustrative. Many other conflicts and wars, comparably cruel and differing only in scale, have been witnessed by mankind.

It would be idle to believe that political romanticism or idealism motivates people to try to achieve peace and prosperity in society. In the name of idealism and romanticism, traceable to ideologies and theologies, internal, factional and sectarian conflicts have been triggered, time and again. These ideas and facts, however, must not drive us to the conclusion that human civilization is an illusion giving rise to more evil than good.

That life and living involves struggle is hardly disputed. This is not only true for human beings, but also for subhuman beings. Different forms of struggles are unavoidable. In relation to our needs, the supply of resources to meet the same seems inadequate. If it is true at the human level, it is even more so at the animal level. This truth was known to human beings from the beginnings of civilization. Darwin and his theory of Natural Selection that highlighted conflict in life came into vogue. Natural Selection, in spite of its scientific and literal base, has in it a large metaphorical content. Nature does not really select. What passes for ‘natural selection’ is an outcome of the workings of nature at different levels, particularly the subhuman ones. Even if we remember the pernicious aspects of social Darwinians, it is difficult to deny that conflict arising out of differences in perception and evaluation is deeply rooted in human freedom. Misuse of freedom directed towards conflict and war is in no way a wholesale denial of its positive use, striving and thriving in many areas of life. Even writers like Benjamin Kidd and Georges Sorel (1847–1922),¹³ who, among others, have highlighted the role of violence in human civilization, could not totally deny that conflict and struggle do have some positive impact on human life.

Social Darwinism, in its classic form, is now only of historical interest but its conceptual components are being differently interpreted and appropriated by social scientists. Most of them downplay the evolutionary aspect of Darwinism and emphasize its aspect of conflict. Karl Marx himself drew Friedrich Engels’s attention to the importance of the Darwin’s view in the context of class conflict. He went to the extent of affirming that he and Engels were trying to do in the field of economics what Darwin had done in the field of biology. Perhaps it was an overstatement of the parallelism between social Darwinism and Marxism, but it certainly had a point. It is evident from the works of writers like Gordon Childe (1892–1957)¹⁴ who highlighted the role and process of technology in accounting for the sequence of social formations like savagery, barbarism and civilization.¹⁵

It is true that Marx sent Darwin an inscribed copy of Das Capital but, conscious of the difference between his approach to history and Darwin’s to evolution, he never intended to dedicate any of his works to Darwin. It seems Engels’s emphasis on the affinity between Darwin and Marx expressed in terms of the role of labour in history is not, strictly speaking, reflective of Marx’s view of history as ‘class struggles, contesting between the exploiting and the exploited, the ruling and the oppressed class’. This view expressed in the Communist Manifesto preceded the publication of the two famous works of Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) and The Descent of Man and Selection of Relation to Sex (1871). Compared to Darwin, Marx was evidently more influenced by the works of Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–81), particularly his Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871) and Ancient Society (1878). Independently of Marx’s thought, Morgan, on the basis of his anthropological studies of North African tribes, arrived at the conclusion that successive stages of the history of social transformation are mainly influenced by changing modes of technology of economic production.

Both Marx and Engels were attracted to Morgan’s writings and deeply influenced by the same. To both of them and their followers, Ancient Society became a classic because it provided the best available account of the revolutionary character of some cultural changes. Marx planned to write a book on Morgan’s work, but he could not do so before his death (1883). However, Engels’s monograph, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, published in 1884, bears the clear imprint of Morgan’s ideas on him. All of the basic ideas of Marxism, the patterns of ownership of property, the role of labour and the changing modes of technology, referred to by Morgan, have received the systematic attention of Engels.

Every religion has its own view about what makes a good and righteous life and how to avoid or come out of a bad and wrongful life. As every religion has different sects and supporting philosophical, social and juridical systems, it is not easy to carve out a unified view of religious maxims leading to the good life. That explains, as stated before, that the religious way of life has in a manner of speaking failed, till date, to provide mankind with a particular view of life which can be universally recognized as good, right, and therefore acceptable. I say this, not to minimize the importance of religion in human life. As a matter of fact, religion has had an important role, maybe the most important one, from time immemorial till the present age of science and technology. It is through religion that human beings define their efforts to arrive at an ideal life and an ideal social order so that they can live in peace and work harmoniously in search of justice and prosperity.

The so-called failure of religion in the context of the quest for a good life is in effect, the admission of the limits of our human nature. Even those religions that are not based on the concept of God or gods have also evidently not succeeded in providing an ideal picture of human life or that of social and world order. Views of the good human life available in different kinds of atheism, agnosticism and materialism or naturalism, though accepted by many, have not succeeded in providing mankind with a perfect view of the ideal life. This apparently cheerless conclusion appears more pessimistic when we find that some of the best minds refer to new political ideologies as a kind of religion. In the nineteenth century, Comte spoke of the Religion of Humanity. It is perhaps worth recalling here the Marxist view that religion is a sort of opium for man, making him forget the true cause of his suffering and inducing him to espouse it as curative of suffering. The practice of religion as a solution to one’s grief is said to be an unreal way to seek release from the sufferings of life. I hold this Marxist view to be curious because thinkers like Russell tell us in the early twentieth century that Bolshevism or Communism is itself a kind of religion with its infallible scripture, that is, Marxist literature. Also, the Pope-like authority who interprets it is infallible. Marxism strongly denounces revisionism. The Communist International was its political surrogate, reminding one of the Vatican City, headquarters of the Catholic Church. Even if this view is not taken seriously, or even if it is lightly dismissed, the point which I am trying to make, remains.¹⁶

The suffering of human life or of a large section of it cannot be ascribed to this or that religion, political ideology and world view. Rather I, like many others, am inclined to believe that most of us, human beings, together with our views and values are mainly influenced by our primary reference group, its social space and historical context. For example, the average Indian, whatever may be his religious (or irreligious) affiliation, political commitment, or scientific outlook, is primarily interested in the news and views about what happens in India or in that part of India where he or she lives. Our philosophical, scientific, or world outlook only marginally enters into our consciousness, moulding our character and influencing our behavioural pattern.

The question of a good life or that of suffering in life can neither be formulated in a general way, nor can it be answered in general terms. The man in the street is concerned mainly with his daily routine—how he will look after his family and how he can survive in the struggle for existence. Even professionals do not always perceive life very professionally. Only when they are in the lecture theatre, conference room, or laboratory, they are in their professional element. Otherwise, their life is not much different from that of ordinary folk. This explains why regionalism, nationalism, or even localism enters into our life in a very effective way.

Consequently, the concept of suffering or that of a good life is not context-invariant. Positively speaking, it depends upon about whom we are talking. Is the person an Indian or an African, is he European or American? Speaking more specifically, the concepts of good life and suffering, as said before, are largely related to one’s immediate environment. Social immediacy and historical immediacy have obviously a considerable impact on everyone’s life, be he a scientist, a philosopher, or a man on the street. It is only some exceptional persons, prodigiously dedicated to their work, whatever it may be, who think and act on and around their profession or livelihood.

For example, some religious teachers meditate and contemplate for a long time every day. Meditation and contemplation, a type of spiritual consciousness in which one focuses inwards, gradually become their second nature. The same habit is found in some exceptionally gifted musicians and writers. Biographies of some scientists tell us that they spent the major part of their day in a laboratory or study room. It is for this reason that spiritualism, professionalism, dedication and the like have been accorded a high place in the context of the pursuit of a good life, a successful life and a happy life. The popular version of this maxim is: there is no substitute for hard work and intensive practice. Even genius has been defined in terms of 90 per cent perspiration backed up by 10 per cent inspiration.

In defining the meaningful life, we are obliged to take the concerned person’s aim and aspiration into account. When rightly understood, there is no absolute happiness or absolute enlightenment equally solicited by or acceptable to all people. Some people are happy with money. For example, the businessman’s main aim is to maximize profit and minimize loss. The human face of business houses is secondary or tertiary in character. A scientist, who is preoccupied with a very important problem, yet to be solved, remains deeply involved in it even if he fails to solve it. Morality is primarily an engagement and not necessarily an achievement.¹⁷

It is instructive to note that even the greatest religious teachers are not unanimous in their notion about the nature of the most meaningful form of human life.

VI
Ways of Human Life in Some Major Religions of the World with Special Reference to Social and Historical Roots and Contexts

Of all the major world religions Hinduism is one which is not historically datable. Therefore, it has been often described as an eternal religion (Sanātana Dharma). Its origin cannot be traced to any great religious teacher in the way that other religions can be traced to Abraham, the Buddha, the Christ, Confucius, or Mohammad. But close studies in this religion, followed mainly by South Asian countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal show that many indigenous and non-Indic elements have been transformed and fused in it. Many sects are found in its fold, viz., (i) Vedantism, traceable to the ultimate reality of the ineffable One and individual Brahman, (ii) Vaisnavism, the worship of Visnu, (iii) Saivism, the worship of Siva. Besides, esoteric (iv) Täntridsm is also prevalent and influences people in many parts of North East India and Tibet.¹⁸

Though many writers describe Hinduism as theistic or even polytheistic, the most authoritative writers on this topic consider it as Absolutistic. ‘The ultimate reality is One but the wise persons refer to it by many names.’ This is an oft-quoted sentence of the Veda. Like other major religions, Hinduism, in spite of its claim to eternity is also to be understood in its historically changing, social complexity. Generally speaking, Hinduism recognizes four main aims of human life (Purusārthas), viz., (i) Dharma—religion in its comprehensive socio-ethical sense, (ii) Artha—both pursuit of money and economic well-being, and the meaningfulness of life, (iii) Kama—somatic and sexual satisfaction and (iv) Moksa—liberation or the disembodied transmigration of the soul. The three main paths or ways to salvation are recognized and these are (i) the path of disinterested pursuit of knowledge, Jñānamarga, (ii) the path of disinterested action, Karmamārga and (iii) the path of intense devotion to God, Bhaktimārga. These principles, though widely recognized, are actually followed, or can be practically followed, only by a few exceptionally gifted persons. Therefore, an impartial observer of the Hindu way of life finds it difficult to maintain that the recognized aims and the means can in fact, make an average Hindu happier than his non-Hindu counterparts.

Buddhism and Jainism were two different, but contemporary protest movements against classical Veda-based hierarchical Hinduism. Both these religions are historically datable, around 500 BC, and initially flourished in North East India, absorbing in their folds many non-Vedic and pre-Vedic ideas. The essence of Buddhism, deeply relevant to the human life, consists of the Four Noble Truths. These are as follows (i) life is marked by disappointment and suffering; (ii) the cause of suffering is knowable and it is desire for pleasure, power and continued existence, (iii) to be free from disappointment one must attain control over one’s desire and (iv) the means of controlling desire to be free from suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path. This Path leads to right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness and right concentration. According to the Buddha, the realization of the truth of anatman, that is, there is no eternal self and the truth of pure temporary character of everything and every being, enables one to be released from this mortal frame called nirvana, literally meaning ‘blowing out’.

Buddhism spread peacefully to Burma, Ceylon and other countries of South East Asia, China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia and Central Asia. It was also influenced by local religions like Confucianism, Taoism, Shamanism and Shintoism. Both the above-said factors show how a religion interacts with different beliefs of near and distant lands without losing its original identity, and in the process, influences the former and acquires new characteristics for itself. All major religions are better understood when they are studied in their diverse and changing cultural contexts. Religion is a form of life purported to elevate the positive traits of human nature. The Latin root of religion, relegere, and the Sanskrit root of dharma, dhr, is substantially similar in its implication, namely, ‘to gather and hold together’. Yet, unfortunately, the history of all major religions, as previously discussed, is marked by bitter conflict and open wars.

Like Buddhism¹⁹, Jainism²⁰ is also wedded to the ideal of nonviolence. It does not believe in a creator God and its ethical core consists of the doctrine of ahiṃsā, non-violence and non-injury to all living creatures. Its religious ideal, the perfection of human nature, is to be achieved predominantly through a normative and ascetic life. Jaina ethics highlights the philosophy of soul and karma. The three ideals that Jains value the most are right belief (samayagdarśana), right knowledge (samyagjñana) and right conduct (samyogcaritra). In spite of its professed ideal of non-violence, Jaina rulers of India, particularly those of South India, entered into bitter political battles, in different historical phases, among themselves, for the expansion of their kingdoms. Similar aberrations or departure from professed religions is evident in the cases of other rulers of different countries like China, West Asia and Europe.

From this recurrent trait of the power game, it seems that the influence of religion on politics has repeatedly failed to be salutary. This confirms the negative assessment of religion to the effect that it is merely another sociological form of human civilization, which cannot be rated without serious qualifications, above other sociological forms of civilization. Therefore, the primacy of the axiological claims of religion, under the stated circumstances, is frequently questioned.

The difference between profession and practice is evident from the history of all major religions. The founders, and in some cases, leading teachers of different religions have claimed special access to God, who is said to be all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful. They have also claimed to have his blessings upon them. Yet, we find that the blessed and their followers too, have undergone all sorts of suffering very common to that of others in mankind. For example, the Jewish people, followers of Abraham and his descen- dents, Isaac and Jacob, despite their Divine covenant (berit) with God of a permanent character, had to undergo unbelievable sufferings over the millennia. Their theological affirmations, historical recollections and ethical actions could not effectively save this ‘chosen race of God’ from unending migration from one country to another, and enslavement for generations in Egypt before the Exodus, and persecution even in the twentieth century.

At the same time, it is generally recognized that the value of Jewish contribution to the civilizations of Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Arab world has been extremely important.²¹ It is also partly true that the Jewish claim that their God of Israel was Lord of all the Earth, regardless of territory, has fostered in them a religious chauvinism. This has usually tended to alienate them from followers of other religions like Christianity and Islam. The Jewish enlightenment, Haskala, of the eighteenth century, provided European Jews in general and those of Eastern Europe in particular, a significant developmental impetus. Many great Jewish thinkers, scientists and creative artistes flourished in Europe and the results of their good work lingered on for a long time. Their consequences notably enriched the Europeans and, later on, American science, philosophy and literature.

Immense sufferings that the Euro-American Jews underwent during the last three centuries and even the Holocaust of World War II could not destroy their creativity. The vitality and remarkable development of the small Jewish state of Israel, which came into existence in 1948, strongly suggests that there is an exceptional inner strength in the Jewish community. Continuous recollection, perhaps, of the long history of their persecution has steeled their will to strive and thrive. It should be mentioned here that the support and solidarity of Jews spread all over the world has contributed much to Israel’s strength and development. Here again, one finds that religion has to be assessed not purely on its axiological basis: its socio-historical process and conditions have also to be taken into account for objectively assessing its strength and weaknesses.

The parallelism between the relation of Judaism and Christianity, on the one hand, and that of the Vedic religion and Buddhism and Jainism, on the other, is very instructive. When different religions came up within the same social space and against the same historical background, they were found to have many characteristics in common, despite their recognized denominational difference. Buddhism and Jainism, as we have seen, though briefly, articulated two protestant-cum-reformist movements against the old hierarchical and orthodox Vedic religion. The latter absorbed in its broad fold, many non-Vedic and pre-Vedic elements, trying to make them reasonably compatible with the main characteristics of what was later on known as ‘Hinduism’.

Christianity, to start with, was a movement within the fold of Judaism. Jesus by birth was a Jew.²² His chief followers, the Apostles, were also Jewish in their religious commitment. Christ, or chosen one, was born, it is said, to fulfil God’s promise to Abraham and his sons. The life and teachings of Christ were collected and consolidated in the Gospel. The followers of Jesus and the Apostles believed in one eternal truth and one universal salvation. From the very beginning, the Gospel had opposition within itself, but various interpretations of it drew extensive attention to it in the Hellenic world, in Syria, Egypt, North Africa and Persia. Judaism had reached the shores of India quite before the appearance of Christianity in West India, early in the first millennium. Christianity, like Judaism before it, came into clash with the pagan or non-Christian beliefs and practices.

From the life and teachings of Confucius (550–479 BC), a contemporary of the Buddha, at least two things become very clear. Firstly, that textual education is not extremely important for great religious teachers and social reformers. Secondly, that Confucianism proves once again, how a long-lasting religion is deeply influenced by social and historical conditions of the specific country and its people.

According to Confucius, the ideal polity rests on shared cultural values and social norms rooted in the practice and ideas of ancient sages and worthies. He attached the deepest values to learning—the knowledge to be truly human. He was not fond of abstract speculation at all. His aim was to build a moral community by cultivating a sense of humanity and shared trust in social and political life. To him, the creation of a scholarly community was essential for the uplift of human life. A good life, he thought, is the outcome of a process of sincere efforts for self-control, freeing oneself from opinionatedness, dogmatism, obstinacy and egotism.

Many of his subsequent followers developed his basic ideas. The teachings of Confucius had a deep impact on ancient Chinese bureaucracy. Taoist and Buddhist influence on the cultural elite of China called for the revival and strengthening of Confucian ethics. Buddhist influences entered Chinese society mainly through Taoism. In the nineteenth century, the educated section of the Chinese started doubting the ability of Confucian ideas to combat Western colonial cultural invasion. Although many of the post-Revolutionary (1949) Chinese thinkers are critical of Confucianism, particularly its authoritarianism, bureaucratism and conservatism, there are still many people who appreciate its underlying humanism and are interested in making use of it as a theoretical basis for democratic liberalism, coupled with socialist value.

It is clear from our brief reference to the values of human life defended by different religious systems, that religion is not an autonomous system of knowledge or an independent way of living. It is neither eternal nor universal. Religion, as we have noticed, may well be Godless. In that case, a surrogate God in the form of an eminent person or system of values is posited and followed. Even this alternative to the classical view of religious life is entirely influenced by historical conditions and social contexts.

The same common point is clearly evident from the history of Islam, the youngest of the world’s major religions. The rise of this uncompromising, monotheistic religion has for its background, the rejection of Adam, Abraham and Jesus—the proclaimed messengers of God of the previous eras. For a student of comparative religion, it is interesting to know that there is no specific reference to the religion of distant lands like China and India for considerations and critical rejection. This typical and over-simplified binary, self/other, classification of all religions by itself implies the veiled rejection of the universality claim of any particular religion. The idea of God defended by many monotheistic or pantheistic religions is peculiar in itself. Koranic theology speaks of five articles of faith. They are (i) belief in one God, (ii) in Angels, (iii) in the revealed book (Koran), (iv) in the prophets and (v) in the day of judgement. There are five recognized pillars of Islam. They are (i) reciting the profession of faith, (ii) observing the five daily public prayers, (iii) paying tax and performing acts of self-denial and self-purification for the support of the poor, (iv) fasting from morning to evening during the month of Ramadan and (v) undertaking a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca if the follower was financially and physically fit.

The history of Islam shows once again, how these initial basic principles were broken and/or differently interpreted in different periods and contexts. The first major departure from the principle was the justification of jihad, holy militancy including the assassination of the deviant Caliph. The second, very powerful movement are because of the Mutazilites, the rational dissenters of the ninth century, who questioned the very doctrine of infallible revelation and affirmed that human reason itself was capable of discovering what is good and what is evil. The third dissenting view may be attributed to Shiite Islam, which was influenced by Gnostic and Old Iranian dualistic influence. The fourth school of Islam, represented by the Sufis, stressed on devotion and effected massive expansion of Islam in India, Central Asia, Turkey and sub-Saharan Africa. It must be clearly added here that besides these main non-orthodox developments of Islamic faith, there had been many other minor Islamic faiths. Equally important is the fact that the propounders and defenders of all these faiths emphasized on and traced their theological lineage to the Koran and the Prophet.

Notwithstanding the social and historical trends of modernity, particularly the increasing influence of scientific reason, it is clear that religion continues to have an important bearing on the life of the majority of mankind, even in the twenty-first century. Religions, which attach much importance to proselytization and possess enough money power and control organizations, have been trying to draw more and more people from poor countries within their folds by extending educational, medical and other services. Even those who are not orthodox in their religious profession and practice can hardly afford to ignore the importance of religion as a social and political institution. Marxist states, which, to start with, were emphatically opposed to religion in the name of secularism, subsequently started relaxing their hostility to it in different degrees. That is mainly because they have realized that the official rejection of religion was required to be tempered by the recognition of the common people’s inclination, strong or weak, towards it. It is undeniable that many people find a sort of solace or a sense of security in religious faith and practice.

In whatever way this religious inclination is explained, one has to recognize that every social order requires some or the other ethical basis, a set of dos and don’ts. Otherwise, there is fear that human civilization, whatever be its form, historical and geopolitical, is bound to be threatened by forces of uncontrollable dissension, alarming disruption and finally the disintegration or breakdown of constitutional arrangements. The political significance of religion and its fallout must not be underestimated. In this connection I, for one, recall what happened in South Asia during the last 150 years, in West Asia in the twentieth century, and its lingering effects; and the role that religion played in East Europe and Central Asia before and after the breakdown of former USSR.

VII
The Future of Religious Life in the Developing Context of Science and Spirituality

There is no universally acceptable definition of religion. This intellectual failure is, perhaps, reflective of a larger failure of human life, and its inability to arrive at a practical consensus about finding a way of living together in peace and happiness. In the discourse on ethics and religion, most of us highlight the importance of such values as peace, love and co-operation in the quest for common welfare and prosperity. In actual life, however, we find that this well-meaning reference to noble values is not reflected in a credible and sustained manner.²³

Even if we agree to forget about the non-availability of a universal definition of religion and lower our sights to search for a generally shared ethical concept of good life, the outcome is not always very positive or encouraging. Once we accept the primacy of social and historical conditions in understanding what religion is, difference of opinion seems to be unavoidable, and, as a result, we are landed in a sort of confusing relativism. One cannot honestly and totally deny relativism of every kind and offer a sort of ethical absolutism which would prove practically workable.

The question of autonomy and absolutism is intimately related. That explains abstract theory-construction in the field of religion and ethics does not help us much. We write one thing in the textbook and behave differently. Pressed to explain this difference between theory and practice, we, in search of an escape route, invoke excessively the concept of context. Contextualism is a kindred concept of relativism. Both are ill-defined. Where and when one context, spatial or temporal, social or economic, ends and another begins, can hardly be brought out clearly. That explains our common, if not universal, scepticism about contextualism and relativism.

That also substantially accounts for our endless search for the categorical imperative in ethics or a universal religion, be it theistic or atheistic, or based on political ideology or faith in scientific reason. None of the said searches has proved, till date, fruitful. Social conditions and historical situations, as we have repeatedly asserted before, invariably enter into our morals and legislations. So the laws and constitution of one age need to be revised and amended time and again. The difference in political ideology turns out to be notoriously conflicting. Although we seek to justify it in the name of human freedom, at the end when its practical fallout turns out to be pernicious, we get disgusted with the anarchy and lawlessness engineered by reason, romanticism and utopianism. Engaged earnestly in search for a just social order, which would provide us liberty, equality and fraternity, we find ourselves embroiled in endless debate at best, or civil war at worst. Our sad experience with revolution, repeated endlessly, forces us to accept the sad and cynic maxim: revolution devours its own children. When revolution turns out to be unstable and its outcome endlessly changes, we speak of permanent revolution purported to justify an elusive ideal of the good human life, which ensures at least reasonable durability.

The long and sad experience with the social routes to a happy human life has led some of us to agree to fall back on a moderate, compromising view. Often, it takes the form of a will to live in a smaller aggregate, a commune, a social unit like an enlarged family, in which it is hoped, that it would be relatively easy to achieve peace and live in happiness. Even that fall-back solution does not turn out to be realistic and durable. The reason is simple: every social unit, small or large, is embedded into a larger and more complex social unit, and cannot be insulated from its effects—good, bad or indefinite.

Theoretically speaking, there is still another human approach in the quest for peace and happiness. We presume that if we can develop a form of life in which we are mostly independent, and do not need to enter into complex relationships with other people, and minimize our demands for living, perhaps we can be happy. In almost every social or religious order, there are some ascetics who maximally renounce the collective life and even the family life, and try to live on some very meagre resources, depending on charity, or even alms received without begging.

Undoubtedly, this mode of life, however desirable it may be in principle, is not easy to be lived in practice. At least for most of us, this kind of ideal life is more of a dream that soothes the soul, than actual practice. Its near-collective or political analogue is anarchism, the ideal of the minimal state, leaving maximum social space for the individual self.

Thinkers like Thoreau, Emerson, Tolstoy and Gandhi have, in different ways, admired this kind of life. Many religious teachers and saints did live this kind of life in practice. However, when they tried to enlarge this model for larger aggregates, they failed. It will not be out of place to recall here, that even some socialists like Marx thought of a future state of society in which the state will wither away, leaving maximum social and spiritual space for the individual.²⁴

My own study and reflection on human history in general and the history of religious and ethical systems in particular, leads me to examine seriously the spiritual, not religious in the received sense, view of the human life. This analysis is committed to search for (i) for the true nature of existence, (ii) to ascertain the psychosomatic basis of human consciousness and (iii) retain creative peace both in one’s individual and collective life.

It is true that cultural space is not deeply determined by physical geography. This is not to suggest that the physical features of the earth close to a country have nothing to do with its culture. The physical parts of culture like soil, production of food, irrigation, agriculture, mode of transportation—using animals, animal-driven cart and boat, the structure of habitat—using different kinds of materials depending on the availability or non-availability of wood and metal of different kinds, are certainly relevant to the understanding of the concerned collective life.

Although civilization is said to be the material sub-soil of culture, a sharp division between the two should not be drawn.²⁵ Human knowledge has developed largely due to the changing mode of material production and invention of writing. The latter facilitated the travel of techniques and communication of ideas, which resulted in man depending lesser and lesser on nature or physical geographical factors. Concomitantly, the power of knowledge and technology has enabled man to overcome, at least partly, the forces of nature on human life. Also, these knowledge-based capacities have empowered man to transform and utilize natural resources as civilizational input and transform the same as cultural resources. With increasing awareness of humans about their place in the entangled nature-nurture context, and sharing and communication of the same through increasing travel from place to place and through the use of language, contact between different cultures and the similarity between the neighbouring ones have started becoming more and more clear and effective. This explains the emergence of similarity between patterns and forms of both material and cultural production. These considerations have much to do with the rise and fall, spread and variation of different political aggregates, both national and hegemonic. Besides, these factors also partly explain the rise of discernible families of languages, their affinity and interaction, including loaning and borrowing of words and ideas.

Life in general, and human life in particular, have two main tendencies, self-affirming and self-effacing or self-sacrificing. The animality of human life makes self-affirmation unavoidable. It is also desirable for survival. Living itself, involves the appropriation of what nature gives to it and the security that other peoples, from parents and neighbours to social organizations provide it. Self-affirmation in moderation, promotes individual distinctiveness, and at times, actuates and strengthens its creative power. At the same time, it is found that when self-affirmation assumes an aggressive form, it tends to harm not only others, but inflicts injury on the concerned individual or aggregate.

Peaceful social interaction is so central to a fruitful life that whatever adversely affects it, for example, excessive self-love and alienation from, or hostility towards others, is bound to impoverish life. To speak of peaceful or loving life, loving others are easy to espouse as ideals, but extremely difficult to follow in practice. These days we find that even smaller human aggregates like families and corporate bodies are coming under increasing stress and strain. The disruption of these entities has become very common. The instincts of individualism, possessiveness and the will to thrive at others’ cost are becoming disturbingly strong. The unifying forces and institutions—communitarian, national, transnational and global, though frequently professed and loudly preached, are not meant seriously. One feels that these larger entities are in effect, mere shells with little or no living substances within them.

If our institutional life gets increasingly fragmented, if alienation proves to be the major force at work in defining relationships, how can human life be authentically happy? How can a life that is not enriched by inner peace or driven by a creative impulse, give rise to a peaceful and creative world-order?

Such questions are addressed and are sought to be answered and tackled mainly in terms of two approaches, individualist and collectivist. That both these instincts and dispositions lie within each of us is hardly disputed by philosophers, theologians, psychologists and sociologists. Buttressing these approaches, different views of human nature are available in abundance, which, broadly speaking, can be viewed under two heads, material and spiritual. This oft-repeated distinction between materialism and spiritualism is more conceptual than actual. Many scientific materialists are of the view that materialism is not necessarily antagonistic to mentalism or spiritualism. In terms of evolution, they are believed to be easily relatable. On the other hand, many spiritualists speak of the material matrix of spiritual life. In biological terms, materialism and spiritualism are said to be interconnected, if not essentially interfused. In the discourse of biology, materialism and spiritualism have often been referred to as inseparable, mutually supportive phases of the same process. Involution and evolution are stated to be non-isolable.

From the natural/material forces as found in sciences like physics and chemistry, through a graded evolutionary process, marked by the life-world and the mind-world, existence or reality reaches the human level. This level finds its expression, for example, in such sciences as psychology and epistemology, which show the reflective capacities of man as being conscious both of its base and the future. The world of theories, including their problems, abstract entities like numbers and musical compositions populate the highest available world. There is an upward causal nexus and process from matter, life, mind and what evolves out of these inseparable layers of reality. Human reflectivity and scientific experiment show a process of downward causation from the abstract world, via the mental world, back to the material/natural world. In a way, one might say, these worlds are mental constructs and not a concrete and continuous description of what happens in the world of existence. However, that is unavoidable while describing such a complex situation of virtuously circular causation. That this process is virtuous, or open-ended and not viciously repetitive, must be mentioned. Emerging from the material level, human reality, endowed with its native capacities can and does look both backward and forward, that is, what has been left behind and what lies ahead of it. Philosophical biologists of critico-creative orientation seem to be convinced that there is good reason to believe that beyond the world of theories, abstract entities and problems, there are other possible worlds to be unfolded by the process of evolution. This promise is held out by the cosmology of the ever-expanding universe.

If it is rationally recognized, and there is no reason why it should not be so, that, ontologically speaking, reality is perpetually open-ended. Cognitive non-availability of the details of worlds hitherto unknown to us is no argument that the creative process that lies undisclosed or unevolved, till date, will not come into being in the un-datable future. If these words sound speculative in their tone and tenor, it cannot be held against the higher reaches of scientific speculation, which by its very nature is tentative and explorative.

In both scientific philosophy and rational theology, we come across this type of speculation about the origin, development and future of the human species. It should not be forgotten that some of the finest scientific minds had been deeply religious. The contemplation of reality, its secrets and mysteries, has been fascinating human minds from the time immemorial in every known culture. Most well-formulated and subsequently tested scientific theories, on careful scrutiny, are found to have their metaphysical and theological, if not mythological, ancestry. Our commitment to modern science and its highly specialized character must not make us blind to the pre-scientific past of modern, scientific world views. This is not to suggest in the least that non-theological approaches to discover scientific truths have not contributed much to the development of science. For example, atomism of the Indic and Hellenic civilizations, which anticipated subsequent and more refined forms of atomism was undeniably speculative in many of its features.

It must be borne in mind that contemplation about the nature of reality in search of truth has its own reward. It fosters a spirit of enquiry in the human mind, which is both enjoyable and exciting. We may profitably recall in this context, the famous Socratic maxim that life is not worth living if it is not examined. Comparably important is Sankara’s view that unless there is a sort of questioning, jijñāsā, about the highest reality, no cognitive enterprise, be it philosophical or scientific, becomes fruitful. Here is a place to recall also the famous expression, ‘love of reality’ of Spinoza. In our own time, Einstein, not a religious person in the received sense, did subscribe to a sort of emotive view of religion when he said that the contemplation of cosmic orderliness, the law-governed character of the universe, gives a sort of deep satisfaction to the scientific mind.

Time and again, we have found that many great religious teachers like the Buddha, Confucius and Mahavira did not believe in the traditional concept of God. But rarely does a prejudice-free, modern mind question their high spiritual attainment and achievement. It may also to be recalled that Spinoza, the famous scientist-cum-philosopher, has been quite differently described: some Marxists regarded him as a materialist, while many others like Novalis thought that he was a ‘God-intoxicated man’.

There is no unique path to happiness and success in human life. Some humans feel happy in their belief in and surrender to God—about whose existence no conclusive proof could be offered by philosophers and scientists. The question of proof need not be understood in the rigorous scientific or logical sense. As we all know, there are many difficulties in that area. The idea of a happy human life could be taken as sui generic, about which it would not be advisable to raise the question of scientific test of logical proof. The concept of happiness in human life, to my mind, is kindred to the sense of fulfilment in love, the delight we experience when we hear our favourite music, or read great poems.

Since there is no universally acceptable general theory of human nature, we are obliged to come close to its specific peculiarities, svabhāva. It is bearing these peculiarities of human nature, diversity of dispositions, solicited modes of satisfaction, and chosen modes of living life, that we hear of different paths to the highest level of life. The path of knowledge, jñānamārga, the path of action, karmamārga and the path of devotion, bhaktimārga, are some of the well-known and frequently spoken of modes of good life. But, these modes are more in the nature of ideal types rather than clear descriptions of what a good life is like. Many seekers of knowledge had been profoundly committed to a life of action, social welfare, or public service. The Buddha and Mahavira, for example, though recognized and remembered as great religious teachers, always shared the fruits of their knowledge with others through a life of action. It is very difficult to describe the manysided life of Confucius. He was both a wise and an ethical man, deeply interested in social and political reforms. The same may be said, of course, with considerable qualification, about Socrates and Plato. Their pursuit of knowledge was always oriented by the idea of public good. In the Indian tradition, Śaṅkara is frequently remembered for his profound knowledge, deep spirituality and extensive travel that he undertook to spread his ideas to different parts of the country. In those days, one can well imagine, how difficult it was to travel the length and breadth of India to make available, his realization of truth, in order to help people achieve happiness at large. Here, we need not repeat the life story of the saints and prophets of different religions, as they have already been referred to, earlier.

Life is such a complex phenomenon that one cannot expect to receive universal assent while speaking of its goodness. Some great men did choose the path of public life and shared all that they had with others, that is, they sought self-fulfilment in others’ welfare. Many great persons found their highest fulfilment in utter renunciation. Some other souls preferred to live a solitary life and sincerely convinced themselves that the spiritual light they acquired through meditation and contemplation was so self-luminous in character that they felt no need to preach the same to the masses. We also know of some saints who could live their life both in solitude and also among people who were critical of them.

VIII
End of Life: Idea and Experience

Personally speaking, I think whatever good a man possibly has within him, will remain with him till the end of his life, unless he gets extremely disoriented and suffers from dementia. It is only in order to tackle his imperfections, shortcomings and limitations that he needs the help of critics. A good life is more benefited by its critics than by its supporters and worshippers. The best possible criticism of life in general and particularly of my own life can arise only from within me. External (or other’s) criticism is destined to be less authentic than internal (or self) criticism. In spite of the self’s unpreventable self-love, unavoidable elusiveness, self-criticism, compared to another’s criticism, is more informed.

A right thinking, living person has no reason to be afraid of death. The fear of death arises in our psyche, because we confuse and conflate the idea of death with its experience. It is true that by strong and repeated auto-suggestion, most of us become victims of this confusion and conflation. My death is not mine in the strict sense. I, like many others, can only have an imaginary experience of death. Admittedly, even imagination has a productive or reproductive experiential component in it. I, like others, cannot have a reproductive or remembered imaginary content of my death in my consciousness. This is so, because in the absence of any experiential route to it, I cannot reproductively imagine or remember my death in my consciousness. The question of remembrance of death makes no sense, that is, it does not arise at all because in no way it is rooted in any experience of ‘my death’ or is effectively relatable to it.²⁷

To others, I am an object and they, under favourable conditions, can experience my death. I, as an irreversible subject, cannot objectify myself. Even to speak of it is misplaced and makes no sense. Yet, most of us are haunted by (the idea of) death derivatively, deriving the same from life-based experience. It is like this. During my lifetime, I have experienced so many things, pleasant and painful, beautiful and ugly, attractive and repulsive and so on. These long and repeated forms of experiences have led me to resist reconciling easily to my lived life, with the possibility of an absolute end to the actual availability of pleasing experiences (whatever be the causes). I cannot think of utter destruction of all the beautiful things, which I have experienced; and I am totally disinclined to believe in the literal annihilation of all the attractive things and beings, which I have had the pleasure of experiencing and remembering. For example, the very idea of leaving behind my very dear and near ones, the idea of not being able to see the beautiful flowers in spring any more, and the idea of not being able to hear the sweetest of music make me unhappy. The idea of not being able to return again to my home and city in the festive season, make me very sad. I, with my all power of reasoning and realism in me, refuse to accept them as mere ideas, however valuable they might be in themselves. In brief, our inability to mentally draw a distinctive line between experience and idea and to live by it, makes our life painful and tragic. We die a hundred times before our death.

We die because we bark up the wrong tree, failing to map correctly the scope and bounds of a meaningful life, or those of an absurd life. If I am closely asked to spell out what I mean by a meaningful life or absurd life, I feel, I will fail miserably.²⁸

At the common sense level many of us, I have found, are inclined to believe that death makes nonsense of most, if not all, noble aims and great things we try to achieve in life. In spite of our best efforts, dedication and knowledge, theoretical as well as practical, we fail to get to the goals of our life. Even if we choose only one particular but very lofty goal, we often find, to our dismay, we are unable to get there. The best and the most valued goals of life remain elusive or unsolved from the time of our addressing these and the time of our departure from the world.

Torn and tossed by the conflicting claims of duties on our life and time, most of us fail to decide what is (or are) the most important thing (or things) to aim at. Love for the dearest one, love for the family we are born into or raised in and duty to the motherland are among the innumerable contesting candidates. I say ‘innumerable’ because I could easily think of equally esteemed candidates, for instance, to make the world war-free, to be self-realized or/and to have beatific vision of God, to identify a universally acceptable religion or ideology that will render all religious and ideological clash and conflict a matter of the past, as in a bad dream.

It is very difficult to explain why, given our wits, goodwill, cognitive capacities and scientific ingenuity, we, human beings, cannot agree upon the practicable outlines of a world order, which will be free from poverty, suffering, ageing and death.

One can think of many other ideals or values which have been talked of by many great philosophers, scientists and saints for thousands of years, but could not be given a concrete and practicable form. Is it because of some inherent limitations of human beings? Are these limitations really innate or are they externally imposed? Are they a part of a large design? Is the universe, together with human beings and other creatures in it, an act of design? Or are all these the result of an accident? Our failure to elicit an agreed answer to this question tends to lead most of us into a desperate situation. We feel inclined to accept the oft-repeated conclusion that life is meaningless without an assured design.

Why is the world we live in, not free from all evils? Are all these here because the Creator, if any, wants to test us humans, rigorously? If that is so, is it not a cruel joke, which could be easily avoided?

Or, must we grudgingly accept the view that death is the irremovable obstacle to our attempt to get to the highest aim of life, that is, immortality. Are our fallibility and finitude and all that which follow from them due to death? Must, we then, come to the conclusion that human life cannot exceed its limits and get into the realm of immortality? Honestly speaking, I do not know the answer to this question. With equal honesty, I must confess that if I am, or anyone else is, further pressed, will we be able to clearly and correctly state the meaning of the very question I have raised? Does it only prove that life is meaningless? I do not know.

However, I raise the question against the background of the widely held view that life itself, if it is not otherwise afflicted by an incurable and/or an extremely painful disease, is intrinsically worth living. But this view, as we repeatedly find, has been strongly questioned by great minds from very many walks of life—philosophers, scientists and littérateurs. Many philosophers, including Schopenhauer, have commended the idea of committing suicide in appropriate cases. Which of the human cases will be appropriate and which ones will not be so, cannot be generalized in a sweeping manner.

The wide variability of the lived life in question becomes centrally relevant to this point. Some people of strong character can easily put up with very painful disease and extremely difficult problems, while relatively fleeting impulses drive some people to commit suicide. Some ‘pious’ wives are led to believe that to die in the dead husband’s funeral pyre is an act of virtue, ensuring their passage to heaven. People, who are strongly attached to parents and children, are rarely heard to have committed suicide, for example, by jumping from high-rise buildings or throwing themselves into a flowing river, or the sea, at the death of their very dear and near ones.

Some profoundly religious persons are found to be prepared to suffer long and deeply, but detest and reject the idea of committing suicide. For them, committing suicide is a betrayal of the family or the social milieu, which sustains them. Some other religious persons go to the extent of believing that suicide is a sin against God because, they sincerely maintain, God has given us life and to live it is an essential part of His design. We are ill-advised to go against it.

There are others, equally or comparably gifted and serious, who are of the considered view that if we are forced to accept false views and values, it is better we die or commit suicide. In this connection people often refer to the lives, for example, of Christ and Bruno. Christ was prepared to be crucified rather than giving up his conviction which is reported to have included mercy for his killers. Bruno was prepared to be burnt at the stake for his conviction that the Copernican heliocentric cosmology was true, which was denounced and proscribed by the then Church authority. It is instructive to recall, in striking contrast, how easily Galileo, one of the greatest scientists of the world, confronted and threatened by the Church on the same question, easily agreed to recant his previously pronounced pro-Copernican sympathies. It is even more interesting to recall that many supporters, contemporary and subsequent, justified Galileo on the ground that he was right in falling in line with the false view of the Church rather than giving up his great scientific pursuit for truth. These examples make the issues of courting death and committing suicide very complex, too complex to be easily answered without qualification.²⁹

This question may be very pertinently raised in the context of wilfully self-destroying terrorists, many of whom fanatically or sincerely believe that they are jehadis or martyrs for a great cause— religious freedom or national independence. Also, people die for what they think is a worthy cause. What may be a veritable cause for one group of people, appears flimsy or frivolous to another. For example, the loss of money or property is deemed to be important to some people for committing suicide. Some people commit suicide after failing in an examination, or failing to execute work assigned to them by their superior authority—religious, political, or military. For example, when the time came for Paulus, the German General, besieged by Russian soldiers in the long-drawn battle of the then Stalingrad, to surrender to the enemy, Hitler ordered him to commit suicide and not surrender in a ‘cowardly’ manner. Paulus obeyed the order of the Führer and committed suicide. Later on, the Führer (Hitler) himself committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin immediately before the city fell to Russian and American forces towards the end of World War II. He did so in order to avoid the shame of defeat and disaster that he had brought to Germany and upon himself. In these cases, shame is the sense of shame, self-induced or caused ab extra.

I had earlier referred to the practice of suttee (Satī) which means the custom of ‘self-immolation’ formerly practised by the high- caste Hindu widows on their husbands’ funeral pyre. To what extent the practice of ‘self-immolation’ is spontaneous and to what extent it is due to customary pressure, is a borderline and long-debated issue. Some pro-positivist sociologists like Durkheim ascribe causal forces to the said customs in the specific context of high-caste Hindu society in India. It may be pointed out, in fairness to fact, that this custom, though banned by law, is still practised occasionally in some parts of northern India like Rajasthan, where the casteist structure of society is still in existence and force.

In this connection, one may raise the larger question of the principle of distinction between social fact endowed with causal efficacy and the intensity of belief and acceptance of the custom credited with causal potency. This question is important, particularly in the complex context of the necessity of drawing a line of distinction between homicide and suicide, killing and self-inflicted death. For example, some ‘superstitious’ women (in India) are willing to commit suttee by jumping ‘voluntarily’ into the burning funeral pyre of their deceased husband because they ‘sincerely believe’ that their death or suicide will earn them virtue and take them to heaven. In several cases, when such cases are heard by the courts in India, from the lower courts to the Supreme Court, parties of conflicting interests offer conflicting arguments for and against the claim that suttee is really a case of voluntary death, and the members of the deceased’s family or locality should not be accused of encouraging the pious wife or wives to commit this act. Everyone, including the person who commits suttee or suicide, is a legal person and, in normal cases, is free to entertain (or reject) some beliefs to the exclusion of others. A legal person, it has been argued, is free to believe, accept and act according to that belief. The same person is also free not to believe, accept and act according to that belief.³⁰

Larger, but related conditions, namely, the concerned person’s belief system as a whole, her social milieu, education and exposure to contrary forces of tradition and modernity are also to be taken into account. This complex collocation of causal factors may be deemed to be a causal fact, but not necessarily or universally so. This complexity, attending causal collocation is found in other cases—cases of suicide other than committing suttee. The determination of the mental component, mens rea, is found to be psychologically and jurisprudentially notorious for its vagueness and elusiveness.

This shows why jurisprudence, when dealing with the principles of justice in their generality, ordinarily believed to be abstract and objective, is, on close analysis, sociologically and historically embedded. The serious search for truth in the realm of justice finds itself caught in an almost unstoppable vortex of forces, local as well as universal. If the principles of justice are lifted from the complexity of their local (or socio-historical) situatedness, they may appear to have achieved universality and objectivity, but at the same time, this strategy has its negative backlash. If the supposed complexity is ignored for the sake of solicited objectivity and universality, the resulting principles turn out to be anaemic in content—literally a bloodless victory.

Death, like life, is significant to us because of its human situatedness or social embeddedness. Humans are social and for that reason, historical too, because of their psychosomatic existence. One is social by virtue of one’s bodily existence, which is the sine qua non for sharing joys and sufferings with others. Without the body, one cannot express oneself to others. For expression—of ideas and emotions, humans need to use symbols—linguistic or otherwise. For communication also, the use of symbols, either in the form of bodily gestures or in that of meaningful sounds, are indispensable. Abstract concepts of ethics like justice, good and bad, are available only to socially situated and symbol-using human beings. Derivative concepts of ethics like approval and disapproval, praise and blame, and related measures like reward and punishment are all more or less, rule-guided.

The field of application of these rules, though at times claim to be universal, that is, space-and-time-invariant, it is found to have its limits. That explains why jurisprudence or legal systems of different countries turn out to be different. For example, the legal system of contemporary India is different from that of Britain, different countries of Europe and the USA. Within India itself, people professing different religions—Hinduism and Islam, are subject, in some important respects, to different sets of laws. Personal laws of Hindus are not identical to those of Muslims.

According to positivists, the most important thing about laws is not their claim of generality or universality, but actual enforceability. Laws that prohibit suttee and dowry, for example, in spite of being enacted by the competent political authority, the State, are not actually enforceable because of strong social resistance. Knowing fully well, the inadmissibility of suttee and dowry, people in some cases abet suttee and accept or give dowry at the time of marriage of their family members. Social activists, particularly feminists, go further and point out that even our (India’s) laws of inheritance are not uniform. The State, with all its sovereign powers, hesitates to enter into the field and interfere with these special laws of different communities.

All these considerations and facts make it abundantly clear that the human factor, as found in the beliefs and community-based religions and/or ethical practices, have much to do with the laws of the land. Principles of morals and legislation, notwithstanding the forceful theories of argumentative philosophers, can hardly be insulated from attending social conditions and time-specific limits.

Law and ethics are pre-eminently, but not exclusively, practical disciplines of thought and action. Among the philosophers Kant, apparently following the uncritical tripartite division—knowing, willing and feeling—of the so-called faculty psychology, views both ethics and jurisprudence under will. However, the distinction he draws between the knowing mind and the willing mind seems to be weak and untenable. For even within our knowledge, other mental capacities, including willing and feeling (or passion), have their undeniable influence. There cannot be any pure reason or pure will that can be purged from other mental capacities or propensities.

Further, it may be pointed out that the question of judgement arises in the context of claims of all types and levels of mental capacities and activities — cognitive and non-cognitive. All mental capacities and their exercise, without exception, are informed of and propelled by consciousness. Consciousness is not self-enclosed —it is not enclosed by one’s individual self, or even the collective self. Consciousness is object-oriented and, when correctly understood, the object is not quite separated from what is inexactly called subject or subjectivity. The neural ends of man’s somatic existence are not terminal points of his being. That explains, partly, why the individuality of a person, and his social embeddedness are mutually interpenetrated. This is what is hinted at by the social situatedness or embeddedness of individual human beings.

In our willing, we know. Also we know in our feeling. In all such modes of mental activities, we, in spite of our specific social situatedness, go out of ourselves, our individuality. In a manner of saying, it may be affirmed that all our awareness is simultaneously both inward-looking and outward-looking. What we call individuality, is not isolated singularity. It is the focused aspect of our conscious being. It has its endlessly graded umbra and penumbra, shaded shadows, and the said shadows are due to the ineliminable light of other selves, self-assertive existence and function of other beings, including their changing aggregative character.

Our self-consciousness is both enlightened and shadowed by the consciousness of the other. This other or other(s) threaten or encroach upon our self or selves. This threat or encroachment influences the scope of our thought and the realm of our action. At the same time, it may be pointed out, this very other or other(s) by their presence and active existence, extend an invitation to us, to ourselves, to go out of our narrow confines, inexact scopes and changing horizons of our activities.

Both our knowing and doing activities have their aims—object-orientedness.³¹ The truth of knowledge, rather knowledge-claim, and authenticity-claim of our actions are in a very fundamental sense, interchangeable expressions. In other words, verity, unerroneous and unfallacious character of thought are admittedly kindred to rightness and justness of action. Both these modes of consciousness are addressed to reality and reality in these kinds of cases has to be understood in terms of their pragmatic efficacy, or what is meant in Indian Philosophy by the concept of arthakriyākāritva. Reality—be it intellectual, volitional, or emotive, is not sundered from or unrelated to lived life, it is not something abstract and outlandish in character. It is woven in and continuously nourished by our lived experience.

IX
End of Life or Trying to Creatively Imagine or Critically Think of a Life Beyond Death

If we cannot go ‘beyond’ the lived experience of ‘our life’, then the discourse on death beyond life is going to be futile or devoid of substance. Are we really encircled by and enclosed within our experience? Instead of raising this question, one may raise, perhaps pertinently, another question like: Can we literally jump out of our (somatic) skin? Can I get out of my scheme of experience in search of its content?

These questions appear to be purported to reopen the old metaphysical-cum-epistemological question of realism versus idealism. The elusiveness or plain non-availability of a ‘scientific’ answer to this kind of question over the centuries, strongly suggests that there is something wrong or ‘unscientific’ in the very formulations of the issues involved. In science, in the sense of natural science of our time (the twenty-first century), we seek and gradually get to—at times even suddenly tumble upon—the solution to our problems, and come to know of its truth or genuineness, if any, about the problems we are engaged in tackling. In the realm of science, problems are found to have their possible solution, however delayed or difficult it may be, and peers can substantially agree in most cases about it. In the area of scientific truth-seeking or/and problem-solving, though universal assent is solicited, the voice of dissent, even if it is of the minority, is not lightly dismissed. Positively speaking, the question of universal acceptance and the assent need not be taken in a strict numerical sense. The world of scientific democracy accommodates both truth and truth-claim, peers’ unqualified agreement and also peers’ agreement qualified by the dissent of the minority. Differences are critically accommodated within its liberal fold.

For one of the most educative examples on the subject, one may recall the history of quantum physics in the first half of the twentieth century. From the end of the 1920s to 1955, that is, till the end of his life, Einstein, supported only by a few fellow physicists, decided firmly to swim against the current, against the majority view on the subject. It may be recalled that his contribution is universally acknowledged to the emergence and growth of the said discipline. He continued to believe in the possibility of a unified field theory of quantum mechanics against the then majority view of his peers. This theory postulated that both gravitation and causality could be given a central place within it. During the fourth quarter of the century, long after his death, an unarmed victory on the frontier of quantum physics was distinctly visible.

A comparable problem-solving situation has been hardly found in the realm of philosophy. The arguments for and against realism (or, one might say, idealism), which perhaps started in hoary antiquity, are still going on without losing much of their age-old fury and fire. Occasionally, some compromising views under the headings of ‘objective idealism’, ‘internal realism’ and ‘indeterminism’ have been proffered, but not universally accepted: not even general consensus could be evolved on any of the cluster of views designated by any of the said terms.

In the light of the brief allusion to the pages of the History of Science and Philosophy one may, in fact I do, have the comfort of believing honestly that the controversy regarding the availability or non-availability of the question of death has to be found within the bounds of life or lived experience. The immortality of the soul, undoubtedly a comforting belief for some of us living in this scientific age (who are theologically disposed), is metaphorical in a serious sense. Its literal ground consists of the living history of signs and symbols, created by human beings, for a long-lasting period. This period may be taken to be even everlasting and always open-ended. Humans live in and through their works and in the recognized worth of these works. Long after they are gone physically, they live on in the memory of future generations.

What makes human life live even beyond death is love.³² Love, in its extended sense implies affection, attachment, regard, passion and adoration. At times, love induces not only admiration but also worship. Love influences our priorities in life and value-schedules. Often, it takes away our mind from the harsh reality of death and destruction and puts it on a flight of fancy to a realm of literal transcendence, leading us to believe in a real being of adoration and worship. The religious person’s worship of gods is based on a mystic vision in which heaven and the ‘life after death’ prefigure. That sort of mystic vision makes it evident that imagination is not only creative but also proactive, that is, it makes us proactive. What is loveable—from the dying leper or cancer patient to the exquisitely beautiful Venus or Urbasī, on analysis, is found rooted in our social affiliation, silent subscription to the values and ideals espoused by society and our primary reference group of life.

Our passion for knowledge takes us away and lifts us above the minor concerns of daily life. A Socrates, for example, forgets that he went to the market to buy goods for his daily needs, including food stuff, and to take the same to his house in time for meals. Instead, he gets involved in a dialogue with people in the street about the higher virtues of life. Many scientists, philosophers and saints are recorded to have forgotten their daily duties and devoted themselves to the higher pursuits of knowledge and spirituality. The search for knowledge is a veritable passion for many outstanding thinkers and statesmen.

Of all the passions which are believed to have influenced great souls, are love, knowledge, patriotism and compassion. Love has been hailed because it brings an ecstatic experience to human beings. All kinds of love are not life-long. Some forms of love, for example, the love of men for women, and of women for men, are often found to be time-bound and circumscribed by contemporary rules, regulations and norms. It has the wonderful power of saving humans from their sense of isolation and loneliness. It makes men and women forget that their love will come to an end one day, certainly with death. Forgetful of that veritable destiny, they plunge into love and try to get at its bottom, if there is any, of this bottomless abyss. Love has been glorified, or, to the lover and beloved, it has actually been given as a godly relation of solicited union. Kṛṣṇa had this endless and infinite longing for Rādhā and Dante had it for Beatrice, not seemingly circumscribed by time and space. Rādhā worships Kṛṣṇa and the latter irresistibly draws her to himself. Poet-philosophers like Mira, Surdas and Nanak ask us to believe in the actual existence of their highly idolized human beings or gurus themselves.

Neither cognitive truth nor emotive bliss, it has been affirmed time and again, knows any definite point of encounter. No scientist has ever claimed to have literally experienced truth. What they claim to have experienced in life is truth-likeness, not truth itself, of a particular view. Similarly, there is nothing like complete satisfaction in any pursuit of passion. Satisfaction is always highly relative to a person’s level of desire and the qualitative object or subject to answer and fulfil that desire. There always remains a gap between sādhya, the desired goal, and siddhi, the achieved goal. It is this gap which sustains human effort, sādhanā, and the pains taken to achieve the same.

Experience shows sādhanā, longing and human effort, however intensive they may be, are not enough to ensure achievement in the difficult areas of life. Even in the ordinary fields of life, our quest for knowledge and quest for happiness, rightly understood, never meet their intended goal. The elusiveness of practical ideals and vagueness of theoretical representations of our domains of knowledge are almost irremovable. These cases of elusiveness and vagueness do not berate the value of our practical and theoretical enterprises, but only show how the realization of the ideal or aim proves so difficult in effect.

Some thinkers and writers have attributed these difficulties to time, the passage of time, which renders everything more or less impermanent. Fluxism in some form or another, has been endorsed by many scientists and philosophers, leaders of both thought and action, from the Buddha and Heracleitus, to Tolstoy and Bergson. The magic of numbers and geometrical figures, purported to give an abstract picture of what is fleeting, admittedly serves some purpose, and gives us a modicum of satisfaction, in many fields of life—of thought, action and experience. Even then, we intuitively know that the difference between perception and conception, sketch and picture, and their cognates, persists.

We, human beings, cannot arrest the flow of time. ‘Flow of time’ may be a metaphor. However, in reality or actuality, what it does stand for, works very tellingly. Unlike God, who is believed to be able to see everything in the aspect of eternity, we mortals, are condemned to seeing everything under the aspect of temporality. Arithmetic, algebra, geometry and other abstract and formal disciplines may partly help us to be free from the restrictions imposed by time, both on us and the things around us, but, at the end of the day, we realize that all things, including we ourselves, are in flux. All of us, unlike the God of the believer, are journeymen. Our theoretical pontification or abstract quantification cannot still or stop the journey either of things or beings like ourselves.

Nothing is, everything flows on. Fortunately, we are not always obsessed with the harsh reality of what fluxism entails—perpetual change. We have other modes of consciousness in us, like passion and emotion, which keeps us close to the objects falling within the reach of perception and conception, jñānendriyas and karmendriyas. In addition, we have in us other means of being aware of the things in the worlds around us, proximate and distant, past, present and future. Among those means, intuition and productive (or creative) imagination are very noteworthy.

Yes, we live in time, have our being and move in it: at the same time, we can transcend it, at least in limited ways. We can, in thought and imagination, go back to the past, past events and ideas. This is paradigmatically evident from works on geology and paleontology, archaeology and history, history of all arts and sciences. We are also capable of predicting that, which is yet to come.

We are ceaselessly, almost unstoppably, predicting and retrodicting events, past and future. Together with our consciousness and all its intended objects, we are placed in between a no-longer (past) and a not-yet (future). The present seems to be specious. Yet, we have to admit, rather postulate, it. It is a both conceptual and perceptual compulsion. Without it, we cannot visualize the plenum and continuum of the world. Without it, we are unable to account for even our self-identity and our thrownness into the lived world.

Our self-identity is neither fixed nor unmixed. The unavoidable effects of time on us, makes it undergo change, both within the scope of individual life, and in relation to the aggregative life. Social existence is not atomic or self-enclosed. It is transcendental in an important sense, transcends the immediacy of our social space, and places our consciousness in some or the other large setting. This large setting, be it national, continental, or global, knows no physical-geographical bounds.

That explains, at least in part, our common concern for and affiliation to large political and economic aggregates. We, Indians, are not only Asian but also belong to larger aggregative entities, which are designated by such expressions as developing countries, South Asian countries, or densely populous countries. Aggregative reference may be indicated in different ways—economically (developed, developing, etc.), politically (liberal democratic, socialist, dictatorial, etc.), linguistically (Indo-European, Tamil, Tibeto-Burman, etc.), and also ethnically (Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Proto-Australoid, etc.) and religiously (Hindu, Muslim, Christian, etc.). However, what some of these terms designate are not homogenous or simple. For example, ethnically and religiously, the population of India is mixed in character. Peoples professing different religions and belonging to different ethnic groups have been living here for a long time. In spite of these differences, it is instructive to note that these groups, through long interactions among themselves, have developed common biological, psychological, or social traits. That accounts for why, in the broad area of culture, these groups remarkably affine. Expressions like Indian identity and Indian culture are not devoid of content or empty.

This becomes evident from the political history and cultural history of the people of India and South Asia. In their struggle for freedom, for example, all Indians, irrespective of their religious and caste affiliation, got close to each other and fought with remarkable convergence of aims and ends in view. This is true not only of Indians, but also of many other peoples, say, of China and Russia. In their long histories, all these peoples lived together and stood together, time and again, in war and peace. At times, they also fought bitterly among themselves.

The close relationship among peoples and their motherlands are well-known and frequently referred to, in the context of political history, in general, pertaining to those periods, in particular, which were marked by foreign invasion or an internal civil war. The concept of nationalism is often invoked in such a case.³³ However, after the rise of Marxism in the nineteenth century, the concept of nationalism has not always been in favour. Marx’s observation was to the effect that class-divided countries and their peoples cannot be rightly understood in terms of nationalism. The class-bound character of a people makes it too heterogeneous to be clubbed together under the common heading of nationalism. That is why, as a matter of fact, nationalism in Russia during and after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and World War II (1941–44) played a very important role. Similarly, the ideal of nationalism proved very influential in the Communist Revolution of China in 1949. However, in countries like India and Indonesia, and their struggles for freedom during the first half of the twentieth century, this ideal roused tremendous emotional fervour among the concerned peoples.

However, Marxists and pro-socialists have criticized and resented it in various ways. In the place of nationalism, postrevolutionary leaders of Russia and China like Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai have been using terms like fatherland and in place of nationalism they are speaking in terms of patriotism. Analysis and the contexts of using the terms make it clear that fatherland for nation and patriotism for nationalism are largely terminological surrogates. It may be profitably recalled that even Western writers like Harold Laski were opposed to the ideal of nationalism. Apparently their inspiration, knowingly or unknowingly, was the Marxian view on the subject. However, all countries from which these writers hail passed through nationalist phases in their history. For example, France and Spain under the Plantagenets and the Capets, Britain under the Tudors and the Stuarts, Germany and Italy during the nineteenth century in general, and, particularly, in the 1850s, passed through the nationalist phase of their countries’ history.

The denunciation of nationalism, mostly by Euro-American writers for the last 150 years or so, need not be taken verbatim et literatim. This is because the concerned views are based on their peculiar historical experience, evidently circumscribed by their time and place. My own critique of nationalism, including both its justification and criticism, should be understood carefully, marked by due discernment. Nationalism as a unifying force has its own limitations.

It may be profitably recalled here, that many large countries like India, China, Russia and the USA, on the one hand, and relatively small countries like Poland, Germany andCzechoslovakia on the other hand, have witnessed many divisions, partitions and strife in their long history. South China and north China had different identities several times in the past. The unity of the USSR (Russia before its Soviet structure broke down), the US (before and after the Civil War between the southerners and the northerners in the nineteenth century) and India (before 1947, when Pakistan was not a separate State, and after 1971, when Bangladesh claimed independence and separated from Pakistan) are all examples. They illustrate one particular trend, existential in character, not a general law of history. The unification, division and reunification of Germany during the last 150 years or so, repeated division and unification of Poland during the last 500 years, the division of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in the relatively recent past, illustrate another historical trend. Both these trends show that nationalism or patriotism as a unifying force purported to bring smaller aggregates under larger ones, do not, and can possibly not work predictably in the long run. Incidentally, this indicates the limits of nationalism as a political ideal. However, it should be borne here in mind that every political ideal has its limits, largely because of the forces of history, geography and ideology. For example, democracy defined by its five broad parameters, (i) multi-party system, (ii) independence of judiciary, (iii) freedom of expression, (iv) freedom of trade unionism, and (v) periodic general election; socialism (understood in terms of a one-party system, abridging the above mentioned parameters of democracy); military dictatorship, or theological dictatorship.

With the scientific and technological modernization of the world, unleashing new and potent forces of globalization like a superfast communication system, travel system and a common shareability of ideas and ideals, the effectiveness of localism, from tribalism to nationalism and stateism, is bound to be on the wane. But this curve of the waning cannot be given in a monotonous or universal manner.

I would like to highlight, in this context, the growing importance of internationalism and globalism. These developing phenomena may best be understood both ideologically and spiritually (not necessarily to be explained in theological terms). One may or may not like the idea of the waning of the cult of the State or the ideology of the withering away of the State—some or the other form of anarchism visualized by thinkers like Emerson (1803–82), Thoreau (1817–62), Marx (1818–83), Tolstoy (1828–30) and Gandhi (1869–1948). However, that the wind of public opinion has been blowing in that way can be hardly disputed ordinarily. Also to be reckoned with, are the forces of globalism, defended and promoted by saintly persons like Albert Schweitzer, Gandhi, Aurobindo Ghosh and Mother Teresa. Nobility and sublimity of idealism, irrespective of their ideological or theological roots, have had a deep impact on the moral sentiment of human beings.

One way of understanding our self-identity is to maintain that we are all hedonists, not necessarily in a very pejorative sense, and that we are basically concerned with our self-interest and the immediate reference group. This claim of understanding seems to be somewhat out of place in the context of today’s world. As we know, the basic aggregate to which most of us belong, is relatively large, national or sub-national, but not tribal. Nor are we exclusively affiliated to a particular class. In this respect, the dominant post-Marxian view is well known and widely accepted, that is, class compositions have substantially undergone a process of steady decomposition. It is difficult to believe that we are either exclusively capitalists or workers, that is, depending on our labour. The market mechanism governing the ownership of capital and the substantial increase in the strength of trade unionism, have removed, in effect, the wide gap between the different factors of production, particularly, between capital and labour. Increasing decomposition and mobility of classes and the fact of non-withering away of the State, indicates that modern society is exposed to very influential global forces of the market.

The ethical aspect of this steady widening up of the limited, or the relatively narrow scope of socio-economic life, as emphasized by classical economists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is deeply significant. Perceptive people, especially the leaders of public opinion, are aware of the presence of different trans-territorial civilizations and their cultures. The emergence and activities of UN-related organizations have been making us increasingly aware that there are very poor peoples in different parts of the world. This is borne out, among other things, by the reports of organizations like the World Bank, IMF (International Monetary Fund), UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), Asian Bank and those of the Central Banks of widely different nations.

Apart from modern political and economic developments, mainly because of the emergence and activities of World Bodies, we must take note of the larger movements of free human minds— free from the immediacy of political boundaries and economic considerations. This type of relatively free minds has been at work in history from time immemorial. Great spiritual leaders like the Buddha and the Christ, Moses, Confucius and Mohammad, in spite of their being situated in particular societies and in particular time periods, had in their views and values, a universal concern for mankind as a whole. They had an appeal that attracted all of humanity. For example, the Buddha’s compassion for suffering humanity and Christ’s love for all, followers and foes alike, have stirred human minds for thousands of years.

I am inclined to characterize their influences as spiritual—not religious in the narrow and received institutional sense. This is not to say their teachings have been actually accepted and always followed by their own followers, not to speak of humanity as a whole. However, it must be admitted that in all ages and cultures, there had been the echoes of messages of their compassion and love. Gandhi repeatedly referred to the ideal of non-violence or, positively speaking, love. Even before his body fell to the assassin’s bullet, he uttered the name of Ram, who was to him, an incarnation of God and not distinguishable from the gods of other religions. It is not surprising that having heard of his death, Einstein, the greatest scientist of our times observed that ‘generations to come…will scarce believe’ that such a person like Gandhi, ‘a man of wisdom and humility…who confronted the brutality of Europe with the dignity of the simple human being…ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.’ Of several other great martyrs, spiritual and scientific thinkers, these noble words of the great scientist can be pertinently reiterated. Compassion for the suffering and poverty-stricken humanity is such a value and virtue that everyone endowed with moral sensibility, is most likely to accept and endorse. The gradually increasing appreciation of this truth is attested by the steadily growing spirit and action programmes of globalization.

X

Having outlined, in brief, life and its different forms, I propose to make few remarks on their decay and death. It has been rightly observed that human life is not primarily biological, it is psychological, intellectual and aggregative. It may be described in various other terms, indicating its larger and longer contexts. Mainly because of their abilities to use symbolic capacities and conceptual abilities, humans can make their time-bound and life-bound experiences, ideas and even relatively fleeting emotions relatively permanent. The durability and shareability of the outcome of human thoughts and actions are ingredients of a tradition and constituents of aggregative or social life. We know from human accounts of the past that all that humans produce or create, from poetry to civilization, or try to empower are, like humans themselves, subject to the forces of birth, growth, decay and death.