| | | One
of Lord Mahavira's principles is: "He who knows one, knows all; and he who
knows all, alone knows one." We are at a loss to find solutions to the problems
because we do not know even one. It becomes essential to know all other things
in order to be able to know an atom. Full knowledge of an atom is not possible
without understanding its similarities and dissimilarities and presence or absence
of relatedness with all other things. That is why in analysing an atom one comes
to know of countless laws of the universe.
These days we have got obsessed
with extension. We have no liking for concision. The Upanishads declare: "He
who sees manyness is heading for a condition worse than death. Any attempt to
know manyness, that is, society without trying to know the one (individual) is
truly disastrous."
The problems of the individual can be divided into
three classes: One, Physical; two, Social; and three, Mental or Spiritual. Economic
power or the power of money came to the fore ever since the beginning of civilization
in order to fulfill the physical problems relating to the basic needs of life.
But the advent of economic or money power gave rise to another problem: Robbery,
plunder, snatching and looting. The strong started terrorising the weak. State
power came into being in order to solve the above problem.
Even state power,
which flourished to resolve problems arising out of economic power, could not
remain untainted. A need for moral or religious power was felt to curb the arbitrariness
of state power. Besides, religious power is also an answer to the inherent anxiety
and uneasiness of human beings.
However, despite the emergence of all these
authorities or power-centers, individual problems remained unsolved. The individual
is even today poor and deprived. He is bereft of social cooperation. His awareness
is blunted. What is the cause? According to me it is not hard to find. The power
centers created for solving individual problems have themselves turned into problems.
I recall a tale contained in the Puranas. By performing penance a mouse earned
the blessings of lord Shiva and turned into a cat. He did so out of the fear of
cats but still the fear of dogs continued.
Through successive course of penance
he kept changing from cat to dog to leopard to tiger and finally to man. One day
Lord Shivs asked him: "Are you now free from all fears?" He replied:
"Even by becoming man my problems are not over, for I am suffering from fear
of death. I may, therefore, be favoured and turned into a mouse again. Lord Shiva
once again blessed him and he returned to the original form of mouse.
Modern
man should also be thinking of reverting to his primitive state, because in his
case too all new solutions turn into problems. Take the case of money. It was
intended to solve a major problem but today it has become one of the greatest
problems. At one place we find tons of money, and at the same time at another
place people are crying in agonising penury. Money is less a means of fulfilling
human needs and more a status symbol. State power, originally intended to provide
order and security, finds itself incapable of doing it, since it has lost internal
discipline. Religious power capable of inspiring state power to practice internal
discipline is itself embroiled in its own affairs. Religion no longer has internal
strength. It has become an instrument of state power.
The feeling of unity
and harmony with everyone is the spirit of religion. The greater the identity
one feels with others, the more the religiosity one imbibes. Thinking on these
lines convinces me that we have merely touched the veneer of religion, never felt
its inner core. What we have seen are the carbs, shells and oysters in the sands
of the sea beach, not the pearls lying at the bottom of the waters. What should
we do then? This was precisely the question raised by Tolstoy.
The end-result
of religious power is purity. It should be coupled with morality. A religious
person has his gaze fixed only on the hereafter and rarely on the now and the
here. One is afraid of spoiling the hereafter in the absence of religion, but
there is no fear that unethical behavior is bound to spoil the hereafter. People
feel remorse and consider the day wasted if they are not able on that day to count
the beads on a rosary. But they neither have remorse nor consider the day wasted
if they indulge in unethical behavior. This is because they have convinced themselves
that a few minutes religious ritual will purge them of thousands of sins.
Today
people are suspicious of a religious person because there is no compatibility
between his inner being and external behavior. His fragmented personality is unable
to instill goodwill towards religion in the minds of the people. The dividing
line between the religious and the irreligious, between a believer and a non-believer
has disappeared. This should urge the religious people to give serious thought
to the matter. I see only one way of strengthening the poser of religion - developing
a feeling of unity or equality and creating a bond between religion and morality. |
