Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, Editorial: Many Holes Stitched Together

Someone cracked a joke: A clever student defined a `net' as `many holes stitched together!' We laughed at the blatant stupidity of the student! But where did he err? Suppose, he has only seen a net; he does not know how a net is made. Then it is no wonder that he gave such a definition.

On this misunderstanding depends all validity of the values created by us. So we go on stitching holes to make a `net'! Do we ever succeed in the attempt? Never. Because there is no pre-existence of `holes' that they can be stitched--a painful proposition for them! Holes are by-products of the creation of a net; and they have utility value also. But if the stuff, the yarn of the thread with which a net is made, is of poor quality then the holes have short life. It is therefore required to care for the quality of yarn and not of the holes.

Once a customer who went to a press to check a job did not like the write-up. So the man at the computer changed the font and showed a better presentation of it on the screen. The layman customer eagerly read it; it was the same text! The get-up only had been changed; so it looked like a different matter, an improved one. That is why Sri Krishna called them `pushpitam vacham', florid texts¹. They have their charm. People use them to woo their supporters. The charm of the fonts can multiply our desires and ambitions very easily based as it is on a wrong understanding of real values. Fonts symbolise physical beauty. Though great men like Vyasa, Socrates, Homer, Surdas or even Einstein were not handsome people, their substance was good.

Suppose we also understood things this outlandish way, what would be the result?

The joke reveals a truth. Let us take an impartial bird's eye view of some of the very familiar scenes around us. Instances abound all over the world, somewhere more and somewhere less, to support our point. We read in newspapers, are told by the TV channels, and other information media that dishonest executives are replaced to remedy rampant corruption. Laws are promulgated to eliminate malpractices of myriad kinds. Bosses are charged for their connivance with underworld dons. High level enquiry commissions are set up to investigate the sources of kickback and unearth the dirty designs of criminals. And so on and so forth. All this is done, we are told from time immemorial and without number, in the larger interests of the public.

How do such remedial measures actually concern the majority of the human race, called the masses? If any good comes to the common people out of the hordes of charges, changes, and words of hope, it is received with open arms. But in reality this does not happen; we all know it. Why are such clumsy and costly eye-washes worked out diligently in the larger interests of taxpayers?

The cases we have cited are like the changing of fonts, while the text remains at the level of words without conveying the desired effect! Not that we don't know there is something wrong with the application of the text itself. Not that we don't know that the real values are different from what goes in the name of texts. But, weirdly enough, we do not have the courage to move away from hypocrisy about the text, due to some imaginary selfish values we attach to them. We cannot feign ignorance about the truth that no change in font will help unless the text, the stuff we are made of shines in its pristine glory. The transformation is purely subjective, not objective. It calls for a personal change. The texts should mean something more than philological connotations.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with texts. They have three levels of utility-- philology, philosophy and practice. For a hypocrite they are only words, or rather during the long period of their use or misuse by unscrupulous people who detach practice from principles, they have been reduced to mere written symbols. Consequently, people have lost trust in the text itself. Sri Krishna refers to such a degradation when he says, `Owing to long lapse of time, it yoga has been lost to the world.'² Tall promises remain unfulfilled for this reason. Now the time has come to judge promises on the basis of what the promise-makers have actually done, not on what they are capable of doing.

We try to hide the point and cause all the miseries in the world. We even do not dare to address a problem--social, national or international--directly and courageously. As a result there is a host of `strategic and vision paralysis' everywhere. For which the real stuff that is not at fault, is blamed. Swami Vivekananda years ago laid bare this dichotomy when he boldly said, `What guarantee have we that this or any civilisation will last, unless it is based on religion, on the goodness of man?'³ Values are tested by their fructifying force. They are not created; they are manifested and recognized in the life of true people.

Acharya Shankara accepts the reality of the worlds of the waking and dream states. From the point of value his pratibhasika world of dream state is real, but deceptively real; vyavaharika world of the waking state is also real, but apparently real; and the paramarthika is absolutely real. The man who stands at the state of realization, at an arbitrator's position, is the best judge for all the values. But for a person standing at the nadir, it is an irony of fate that he judges imaginary values. That is the case with our student of `hole-stitching' fame! The scriptures discard all apparent values, saying, `All transformation has speech as its basis, and it is name only. Clay as such is the reality (vacharambhana vikaro namadhyeyam mrittiketyeva satyam⁴).' Shankara validates empirical values because it indicates an intrinsic value behind the apparent. The human behaviour is possible, he says, because there is an admixture of truth and untruth (satyanrite mithuni kritya)⁵. That is why empirical experiences inspire dispassion towards false, ephemeral values.

The Vedas are bold enough to declare that the Vedas fall in the category of lower knowledge (apara vidya⁶), words, which have only face value. The meaning of the words is a better value which sets us thinking. But it is the practice that is the value which the words want us to do. Sri Ramakrishna illustrates this point with an example, very commonplace, yet very impressive: A man receives a letter. By chance he loses it. However, after a tiresome search he finds it. He reads the letter, and comes to know that the writer wanted him to procure some sweets and a piece of cloth and send them over to the writer. The man throws the letter away and goes to procure the materials. So the real value of the letter is that it can inspire us to move. Sri Ramakrishna further says, `How long does the bee buzz about? As long as it is not sitting on a flower. No sooner does it light on a flower and begins to sip honey than it keeps quiet.'

The student in our opening joke mistook the holes for real. But that is how our mind works. It may be a joke, it has a fallacy enclosed. The shastras call it `dvaita',⁷ a creation by the jivas. Though all objects (of senses) are created by Ishvara (God), still, by action and reflection, the jiva has converted them into his objects of enjoyment.⁸ Hence they are said to be his creation. A person may feel happy on obtaining a gem, another may feel disappointed at failing to obtain it, and a person uninterested in it may only look on and feel neither happy nor disappointed⁹. These are values created by us but mistaken for pre-existent values.

A novitiate once approached an old monk with a host of questions regarding meditation. The wise monk said to him, `Look here. First perform for one month what I ask you to do and then you will be allowed to ask any number of questions you want.' Fortunately the novice did as directed. After one month he stood before the monk with so many practical questions--all based on his practical difficulties concerning meditation. He no longer raised the imaginary questions with which he had approached the teacher one month before. He was now convinced that they had no bearing on practice. The wise monk then said, `You see, no imaginary questions can be satisfied with even most practical answers.' What a great lesson indeed!

This training gives a basis to our value-judgements. Don't we ourselves judge values in this world? We are continuously doing it. There is a Sanskrit saying: Prayojanam anuddishya na mandah api pravartate, i.e., without a purpose even a dull-witted person will not engage in any work. Even an idiot has a purpose for his work, intelligible to him only. Let us take up the case of a value called `money' that we have created for utility purposes. Money governs the whole market, almost all aspects of our practical life. Take the example of a hundred rupee note. There are three types of values for this one currency--face value (printed value of rupees one hundred), real value (value determined after deducting the inflation rate, say eighty two rupees), and intrinsic value (production value). If we remove the first two imaginary values, what remains in the ultimate analysis is the intrinsic value. A lone man like Robinson Crusoe stranded in an uninhabited island will not look at the other two values except the intrinsic value of the currency note. If required, he will at the most use it to make or tend a fire! Sri Ramakrishna announced that money is equivalent to clay and vice versa. He said, `What does one get with money? Food, clothes and a dwelling place --nothing more. You cannot realize God with its help. Therefore, money cannot be the goal of life. This is the process of discrimination.'¹⁰ And such is the proper judgement of all created values and for the matter of that, of all values.

The world is now more thirsty than ever before to see a sea change in our understanding the meaning of the texts. People are tired of seeing font changes, changes of same type of corrupt people in substitution for their clan. It does not save any situation or solve any problem; rather it breeds self-betraying ironies.

The world is today horrified with the enormity of corruption that is eating into the very existence of civilization. Commissions are being set up routinely, and even before starting any project anti-corruption cells are formed. For starting any free economic move there is the anxious thinking about the obvious moral and ethical turpitude. It shows a great and benevolent planning. Instead of evaluating corruption as and when it occurs, it is good that we accept it as a reality of today's business-oriented and business-, (or rather) greed-dominated world, and arrange to seal the probable loopholes by stringent rules and effective legislation. Yet there remains the obvious possibility of falling into the old ruts if we do not change ourselves to fight it tooth and nail above all considerations of cost. No doubt, in today's scenario it requires indomitable courage and great sacrifices to remain honest. But how long will the demon be allowed to unleash havoc in an increasing spree? The option we choose surely shows our stuff, the text. Can't we form a movement of daringly honest people? Is it premature to think on this line? But the trend forebodes the desperate necessity of a pre-emption before the evils are legalised! ¹¹

The idea of Hiranyagarbha (the Brahman in action) in Indian philosophy is that those souls which accumulated sufficient merits will form the body of the next Hiranyagarbha and will rule the next cycle! A utopian proposition? Well, it may seem utopian given the present day disappointing experiences; yet do we have a better way of addressing the pandemic problem? Is it not more utopian to allow rotten bodies to form the body of a Hiranyagarbha (which will then be termed as Putigarbha, i.e., the person whose stuff emits stench.) and allow him to reign in successive generations? Ironically, this is called stitching of holes together and change of fonts!

1. Cf. The Gita, 2.42
2. Cf. The Gita, 4.2
3. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vols 9, (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1979), 5:202.
4. Cf. The Chhandogya Upanishad, 6.1.4
5. Shankara in the Introduction of the Brahma Sutras
6. Cf. The Mundaka Upanishad, 1.1.5
7. Cf. The Panchadasi, 4.1
8. Cf. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 4.4.2
9. Cf. The Panchadasi, 4.21
10. Cf. M., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Trans. Swami Nikhilananda (Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 2000), p. 82
11. Let us remember what Mr. S. Venkitaramanan in his article `Speed money and all that .&' in the Economic Times dated 28.4.98 wrote: `Recently in a persuasive piece in the Times of India, Mr. Madhav Godbole exposed the inconsistency of a decision of the income tax appellate tribunal allowing for tax purpose the expenditure incurred on protection money. He pointed out how it is absurd to allow such expense, which arises on account of failure of governance. Policy-makers should, of course, heed his warning against perversion of justice, which legalise private violence and extortion.'