Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, Culture as an Element of Development

Swami Gautamananda is the President of the Ramakrishna Math, Chennai, and a Trustee of the Ramakrishna Mission. This is his talk delivered at the Chennai Meet on Culture and Development on 3 October 1999, organized by the Veda Vyasa Sabha Trust and the World Faiths and Development Dialogue.

I would like to begin by suggesting a slight amendment to the title of the talk. Instead of 'Culture as an Element of Development' let us study 'Culture as Development'. For, the term 'culture' derives from the Latin 'cultura' which means 'to cultivate'. Thus 'agriculture' is cultivating the 'agros', the field. And cultivation implies refinement and development. When a person cultivates his family business he is trying to refine it and develop it. Culture and development, therefore, go hand in hand. Culture must develop, it must not stagnate. And development, without culture has no meaning; it is a contradiction in terms.

Culture, therefore, can be defined as the refinement and development of all the facets of the individual's life along with the development of the various potentials of society. Since it is a matter of development, it is the ongoing result of experiments and experiences of the community down the centuries, handed down as a parampara from one generation to the next.

The evolution of culture can be traced through four disinct levels--physical culture, mental culture, moral culture and spiritual culture. Each rung of the ladder leads to the next higher one.

The body is the foundation on which the edifice of Dharma can be built: shariram adyam khalu dharma-sadhanam say the scriptures. So the first cultural step is the development of the physique. This calls for the availability of nourishing food, drink, shelter, medicine, exercise, sports, games and the like. These must be available in adequate measure to provide physical comfort and convenience, though not luxury.

But man cannot live by bread alone. Development at the physical level will make an individual only a healthy animal. To be a man the individual has to cultivate his mind. Mental culture involves the development of language, rational thinking, knowledge of the laws of nature and their control (science), knowledge that enables appreciation and creation of beauty through aesthetics, poetry, song, music, dance, painting, sculpture, drama, etc. (art). Mental culture not only leads us to a higher dimension of living but also serves to check and guide the physical development. Over-eating, over-dressing, over-playing, over-resting, etc. are addictions that can develop at the physical level. When the discriminating mind is brought to focus on these failings, they can be eliminated. Mens sana in corpore sano--a sound mind in a sound body. All the benefits from development at the physical level would be lost if their wastage and misuse is not checked by the developed mind. This is why education is so important in poverty eradication. When the gates of education are thrown open to the poor and the downtrodden they are enabled to think for themselves, see things more clearly, and stand on their own feet. Sa vidya ya vimuktaye--knowledge liberates; Vidya viheenah pashuh--the uneducated remains an animal. This is why Swami Vivekananda insisted that eradication of material poverty should go hand in hand with the spread of education.

Even mental culture is not enough by itself. A man may be mentally strong, but morally weak. He may use his talents not to do good to society but for self-aggrandizement. This is what is happening to most of our development programmes. We put persons educated and trained by us in charge of these programmes to work out the projects. We entrust them with large sums of money and materials to be delivered to the needy persons at needed places and at needed times. But because they themselves come from the poor communities, we cannot really expect them to be absolutely honest in delivering the money and materials to the needy, hazarding all the inconveniences of transport and communications.

This is why there is a dire necessity for moral culture. From moral culture comes the urge to live together with the other members of the society in peace, harmony, mutual help and mutual protection. Moral culture generates in us a feeling of love, compassion, sympathy and readiness to serve selflessly. It implies a sense of patriotism and hesitation to do things illegal. In fact moral culture is a major factor that affects the success or failure of projects. True education must make the administrators at every level feel for the poor and the needy and be willing to sacrifice their comforts to relieve their sufferings.

If the moral fibre of an officer is weak, vested interests exploit that weakness to divert him from his duties through bribes, enticements, allurements of food, drinks, flesh, money and the like. We know how in politics certain vested interests want the poor to always remain poor so as to further their own selfish ends. How to guard our welfare work and workers from such evil forces?

Here it is that we see the significance and importance of spiritual culture. Morality cannot stand by itself. It requires a spiritual base. The question can be asked: what is the need of being good? Why should I not exploit others, if thereby I can enrich myself? The Gita has made a fine and detailed analysis of this attitude which it calls asuri sampat, demoniac wealth. It shows how the demoniac attitude leads to the destruction of oneself as well as of society and has to be countered by the cultivation of daivi sampat, divine or spiritual wealth. Each soul is really a spark from the Divine Fire. Forgetting this innate divinity of ourselves we become miserable. When I am divine every other person is also divine. In essential divinity we are all equal. No question of superiority or privileges. I should deal with another, as I expect him to deal with me. If I hurt another it is hurting myself. If I help another I am helping myself. If this conviction grows we will not ask why we should do good. Doing good will become part and parcel of our nature. We shall derive inspiration from such eminent personalities like Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi. Their words and deeds make us feel that we have a spiritual goal to achieve and we shall not give in to temptations. If the administrators in charge of our development programmes keep these great spiritual personages before them as their ideal the projects will deliver the goods to the poor and the needy, and there will be all-round development.

Having the goal of achieving spiritual perfection through selfless work and compassion, our personnel will be in a better position to resist temptations. That this is not a chimerical fancy is evident when we see thousands of village level social workers in Gandhiji's ashrams, Vinobha's ashrams and our own Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrams where temptations have no hold.

We may here cite the example of Prof. Shiv Shankar Chakravarthy of West Bengal. He took up for service a slum in which a backward community had dwelt for decades in dirt, darkness and squalor. The project was to build two hundred decent flats for the hut-dwellers. When the professor had evacuated the people and was about to start his construction on the empty space, land development and building construction agencies offered him huge sums as temptation to sell the land to them. But he did not succumb to the temptation. Today two hundred families with houses, sanitation, education and commerce are living there with dignity and self-confidence. The youth of the community did not go to colleges or seek government jobs, but are earning two to three thousand rupees a month at home through their hereditary industry of basket making. This could happen because Sri Chakravarthy was inspired by Swami Vivekananda's call: Serve the poor as manifestations of God. Daridradevo bhava, murkha devo bhava--exhorted Swamiji. Swamiji wanted his workers to work from the spiritual plane treating the poor and the illiterate as Gods.

Our personnel must be inspired by spiritual leaders like Swami Vivekananda and Gandhiji whose hearts bled for the poor. Then only great development works can be launched successfully.

Thus culture is a holistic concept demanding development of individuals and society at the physical, mental, moral and spiritual levels. The World Bank must remember that affluent nations, who have attained affluence through physical and mental development, must pay more attention to moral culture and spiritual culture; whereas developing nations who have inherited moral and spiritual traditions must be enabled to enrich themselves physically and mentally.

If the four wheels--physical culture, mental culture, moral culture and spiritual culture--are well aligned, the chariot of civilization can speed smoothly in the right direction.