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January     Last updated:January 20 : 7:00 p.m.

Agenda
Identify with the Immortal

Dr Bhai Mahavir

It may enthuse anybody to take himself mentally several millennia back to the battlefield of Kurukshetra and simulate Arjuna's experience to grasp his dilemma. Since childhood, Arjuna had been taught to respect elders, favour cousins and treat other relatives with love. But he had been cornered into a position where he had to fight and annihilate many of them. A sea of water has flown down the bridges since Shri Krishna expounded the essence of Vedic culture in the midst of a vast army of soldiers. Dhritarashtra was not the last ruler who was blind physically and blinded as well by his indulgence for the evil deeds of his spoiled sons, nor the Pandavas the only kind and living cousins who had been cheated and denied their genuine rights. Nor were Bhishma Pitamah and Vidur the only pious but submissive elders in history. Bhagavadgita was the sermon to unfold the principles of human society to guide a sensitive soul caught in the struggle for self-assertion. But with Arjuna as the medium in it Shri Krishna has expounded a whole philosophy of life-here and beyond-and thrown light on the principles on which the universe works. How far do those principles provide us answers to our present day problem? Till the other day the world was divided into two camps with the Third World War hanging threateningly above us in a position of 'MAD' (Mutually Assured Destruction).

After the collapse of Communist Empire, a new dichotomy is visible now on the world stage. In the intervening span another important element which has affected human affairs is man's approach to the super-natural which goes under the label of religion. Almost paradoxically, the most important threat before man today is that posed by fundamentalism, at the root of which lies religious intolerance. History has many instances of religious wars like crusades and this country has suffered perhaps the largest number of invasions in which an important, if not sole, motivation was destruction of "false gods and unholy modes of worship". But in spite of intense provocation, in our long history, we never sent armies to capture or subjugate any country or impose our religion in any other society by force. One comes across people with queer whims like women or coloured people-not to speak animals-being without souls, religion born in this country did not make any such distinction. We saw all beings as children of the same Creator. In the words of Gita, our ideal is: loZ HkwrLFkekRekua loZHkwrkfu pkRefu "Noticing the self in all beings and all beings in the self" It is this catholicity which found a voice in Swami Vivekananda's words in the Chicago speech: ".... I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. ...

We accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation, which has sheltered the persecuted, and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. ..." It is a great irony worth mentioning that Hinduism which found a voice in the eloquence of Swami Vivekananda has been willfully victimised by scholars of Semitic religions and political beliefs-most prominent of whom in recent history-being Communists. I am tempted to quote here from Meditations by Ram Swaroop. First a brief specimen which illustrates the point referring to Hinduism, he says: "Hindus have their full faults; they have their own pride and prejudices, but there is one quality of Hinduism which has attracted the attention of many outsiders and thinkers, that is a spirit of tolerance in Hinduism, its pluralistic views of religions, the absence of crusades and organized missions to convert people. "The absence of religious intolerance in Hinduism is not incidental. It has grown out of the way in which Hinduism has viewed the world and looked at fellow men and intuited the divine. "What is this view which may be called the theological base of Hindu tolerance if I may use this expression in this context? Expressed simply, it means that in Hinduism all symbols signify the same Reality. This is an insight, which the Hindus have stressed again and again from ancient times. The Vedas, the most ancient scriptures of the Aryan race declare that it is the "same Reality which the wise call by many names".

The Atharvaveda says: He is Aryama; He is Varuna; He is Rudra; He is the Great Garuda; He is Agni, He is Surya; He is the great Yama." And then he quotes from Danielou, a 'liberal' Christian theologian in his Holy Pagans: Danielou admits that "there were men who did not know Christ either because they lived before Him or because knowledge of Him did not come their way, and yet were saved; and some of these too were saints". But that is all. For he hastens to add; "They were not saved by the religions to which they belonged; for Buddha does not save, Zoroaster does not save, nor does Mohamed. If they were saved, then it is because they were saved by Christ who alone saves, who alone sacrifices. Again, if they were saved, it is because they already belonged to the Church for there is no salvation outside the Church." Gita's great contribution is the message to man to identify himself with the immortal spirit. Treatments and medicines have prolonged the expectations of life. But medical science cannot rid man of the fear of death.

The longer the life the more prolonged is the fear of death... And interestingly enough old people in countries where they have achieved the highest duration of life, there is the movement for euthanasia, right to die. Assurance of longer life does not make one fearless. Fearlessness can come only with realisation of the soul. Man is not the physical body only. He is, in reality, the soul as the Gita says: u gU;rs gU;ekus 'kjhjsA When the battle of Mahabharata was fought, India had achieved the pinnacle of prosperity and development. The destruction brought by the war has not been undone till date. According to at least one great thinker we are in a similar set of circumstances. Today, man has with him weapons of destruction that human race can be annihilated many times over. If there were fight today, however, it would be idle to presume that one side will win and the other loses. Both will be finished. That makes the Bhagavadgita relevant again.

The situation shows one difference. The battle of Mahabharata was a struggle between members of the same joint family. Today fundamentalism appears to be gearing up against the free society-almost heading for a 'Clash of Civilizations'. Hope, if at all, lies as Swami Vivekanda in his address to the world Parliament of Religions narrated, the wonderful doctrine in the Gita: "Sectarianism, bigotry and its horrible descendant, fanaticism have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilisation and sent whole nations to despair... ".... I fervently hope, that... this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal."

(Based on the inaugural address at the international seminar on the Gita and Modern Problems held in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala recently)