Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, Contents

A senior monk of the Ramakrishna Order, Swami Swahananda is a former editor of The Vedanta Kesari and a former head of Ramakrishna Mission, New Delhi. He is at present the Minister-in-Charge of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, Hollywood, U.S.A.

Normally we live in two worlds: the world of facts, and the world of values. Science and our daily experiences give us the world of facts. But man also lives with certain ideas and ideals. Even the most ordinary man lives with ideals, though they may not be ennobling ideals. He visualizes every experience, everything he comes across, through the eye of a value. An experience is pleasant or painful, a sight is beautiful or ugly. This is a type of discrimination, a valuation of the things and experiences that he encounters. Scientific knowledge is based on the facts about the physical world and the experiences of tangible things. But valuation is provided by man's mind. This valuation has to be purposeful if it is to give meaning and significance to all of the activities of life. Hence the need for a science of values. In philosophical circles, this science of values is viewed from many points: ethics, aesthetics, art, logic--all of these will be included in a science of values.

The faculty of reason, which is ubiquitous in every one of our experiences, is used for making discriminations between things and between experiences. This enables us to move in a chosen direction based on rational understanding. But the choice of direction comes from elsewhere. It is in the deeper nature of man that the motivation arises. Reason tries to analyze options, and point out the best way to fulfil the motivation.

Bertrand Russell was once asked: 'Can reason give man motivation?' Though Russell was the proponent, in recent decades, of the supremacy of reason in every walk of life, he answered that reason cannot give man motivation; the source of motivation is elsewhere. Reason clarifies the issues involved, or the experiences involved, and offers guidance. Russell gives an example: if you are in Boston and want to go to Chicago, the desire to go to Chicago is not given by reason. The desire comes up, prompted by some other factor, some other prompting of nature, and reason tries to clarify whether the desire is good or bad, proper or improper. A science of values must try to examine the source of man's motivation, to see how man's life could be guided by higher, more civilized and nobler reactions. Science in its approach is neutral; it deals with the existence of things, and the nature of things.

Four major motivations of man, which cover four different aspects of human nature, were identified by the Indian philosophers. They are called chaturvarga-four values. Values are defined here as those things toward which man looks for the satisfaction of his strivings. The first is the desire to experience pleasure. It is every man's natural motivation to seek pleasure. Whatever is pleasurable, he seeks; whatever is unpleasurable, or painful, he tries to avoid. So the desire for pleasure is the primary motivation through which man accepts any type of voluntary activity. Involuntary activity, of course, is often also guided by this idea. But whenever a voluntary activity is involved, the major motivation is the seeking of pleasure.

The Indian masters, the rishis, accepted this search for the pleasures of life, kama, as a valid value, a goal worthy to be pursued. But to get the pleasures of life, you require certain other things: wealth, status, recognition, and so forth, which are bundled together into a category called artha, literally translated as wealth. So artha is accepted as a second valid goal, a worthy ideal to be pursued by a normal man.

But then, in life, when pleasure is sought, when wealth is sought, competition arises. Competition will have to be kept within bounds, so certain obligations are included with these two worthy goals: you may search for pleasure, you may enjoy wealth, but your search for pleasure should not be a bar to the search for pleasure of other men. You should not enjoy in such a way that you create disharmony in the social fabric. You should not act in a way that would prevent the largest number of people from getting the greatest amount of pleasure. Buddha said, 'Bahujana hitaya, bahujana sukhaya.' 'For the good of many, and for the happiness of many.' That should be the ideal. Any society worth the name tries to impose this consideration on people who search after happiness or pleasure: your seeking of pleasure should not be a source of trouble to others in society. Similarly, your pursuit of money, or wealth, or status, or security, should not be such that it creates disharmony in society. Man should not earn money in such a way that, as a result, others are completely depleted and reduced to starvation. The ordinary idea of citizenship covers these points to some extent. Whether such an ideal is possible or not is a debatable question. As a result of any man's procuring of pleasure and wealth, someone else is going to be exploited to some extent. So it is not claimed that every effort of man toward kama and artha will be absolutely free from all defects. The Hindu theory of karma holds that every action is fraught with defects. Even a good action has, in its texture, as it were, an element of evil. For an action to be absolutely pure, absolutely free from defect is very rare-practically impossible. So the Indian seers put the judgement on the motivation. If, with the best of motivations, and with consideration for the other man, pleasure and wealth are sought and acquired, and if, in the process, some people--in spite of one's unwillingness--are exploited a little, it can't be helped. In the relative world, it is probably in the nature of things.

So by and large, the search for pleasure, and for wealth to provide pleasure, has to be controlled by a third consideration, the consideration of dharma, or righteousness, consideration for one's fellow man--in modern language, the idea of citizenship. In one very famous Sanskrit verse it is said that man and animal are practically similar in their physical behaviour; eating, sleeping, experiencing fear, mating, etc. are common to men and animals. So what gives distinction to man? Human speciality is seen in the observance of dharma, consideration for others. Without this consideration for the other man, consideration for the higher moral values, which in religious language is called righteousness, man is only as good as the other beasts. A distinction is given by this consideration.

An average person's life can continue with these three ideals, these three major values. But man will not be permanently satisfied with these --with the enjoyments of life, with the piling up of the wealth of the world, and with the higher social services prompted by his higher nature. Even these are not sufficient to make a man satisfied for all time. A very famous sloka tells of King Bhartrihari. He was a king, a ruler in an area south of Delhi. He enjoyed his life as an autocratic ruler, but at the end of his life he said, 'Ah, what is the meaning of all this?' and wrote his famous Vairagya Satakam (The Hundred Verses On the Spirit of Renunciation). And there he says, 'What if you have secured the fountainhead of all desires? What if you have put your foot on the neck of your enemy, or by good fortune gathered friends around you? What even if you have succeeded in keeping the mortal body alive for ages' 'Tatah kim Tatah kim--What then, what then?' That is, we come to feel that all our successes in life, in acquisition, pleasure, position, status, wealth--even the services that we render to society with higher motivation--are not enough. Something more is necessary. This need pushes man to a fourth consideration, or a fourth value, moksha, the search for the permanent significance of life, the permanent meaning of life. All these experiences that man has in the world through pleasure, wealth, and higher social virtues and services, are based upon the transient aspect of human nature. Finally, as an individual, man comes face to face with this realization, and begins to search for something more abiding.

Vedanta says that man's nature is infinite; man's ultimate, essential, permanent, enduring nature is something spiritual. So even if he gets what is covetable in the world on the physical or intellectual level, it doesn't satisfy him permanently. A time comes, today or tomorrow (and the Hindu theories say, if not in this life, then in the next life), sometime or other, he will get tired of the routine type of enjoyments, and the various pursuits that he has undertaken. A time will come when he will feel dissatisfied with all that he has attained. Vedanta says this dissatisfaction occurs because we centre our lives on limited things, and things which are limited cannot bring unlimited, unperturbed, undisturbed, unbroken happiness--happiness which will lead one to satiety.

What is satiety? Satiety has come when, once a man has gotten a thing, he doesn't aspire after that thing again. After experiencing any type of pleasure, the next day, or after a few days, you want to experience that pleasure again. If you eat food today, then you want to eat food again tomorrow. This means that the average man's happiness is always fraught with defects. It is always broken. It is always segmentary. So a search for an abiding type of happiness is necessary. It becomes imperative for a man to search for something which will give him a type of satiety, a type of complete satisfaction, which doesn't know any diminution, or permit the repeated cropping up of the same desire for the same thing. From this search comes the ideal of moksha. The Chandogya Upanishad very forcefully and very wonderfully presents the idea that man is, by his nature, divine, and because of this divine spiritual nature, he is infinite. 'In the small, in the limited, there cannot be happiness; in the infinite, there is real happiness.' Real means abiding, permanent, knowing no defects, knowing no brokenness. Real, unbroken happiness comes only when man realizes the infinite.

Man with his infinite nature can never be permanently satisfied with something which is limited in nature. So the goal that has been given to man at a certain stage of development in life is this search for the fourth value, the final value, moksha, or liberation--freedom from these broken pieces of pleasure, the broken pieces of happiness that man comes across through the experiences of life.

These, then, are the four vargas, or values, that are given by the teachings of the ancient Rishis: kâma, the search for pleasure; artha, wealth--the search for the wherewithal of providing pleasure; dharma, moral consideration--the consideration for the other man which keeps the society together and provides an atmosphere and a climate for the greatest good of the greatest number; and finally, moksha. At first, an average man finds meaning in the enjoyment of whatever actions and activities he is engaged in. A stage eventually comes when he feels that this is not enough. He begins to seek recognition from society. His mere physical enjoyments, his food, clothing, house, are no longer enough. He wants something more--he wants recognition. He may have spent thirty years of his life in amassing wealth. Then, with both hands he begins throwing that wealth to others. Why? Just to earn a little recognition from society.

One of the major reasons that people support foundations and charities is to get public recognition. Mere physical satisfaction does not bring them satiety or satisfaction with life. Satisfaction of physical needs is necessary; it is not as if a man can go hungry, and still perform all types of other actions. Satisfaction of physical necessities is a basic need. But when this basic need is satisfied, the desire comes for something higher, something non-material. These are pleasures of a finer type.

After this comes a still higher level, as a means, partially, of getting a higher type of pleasure, even by courting uncomfortable physical and mental experiences if necessary. Man becomes more unselfish; his ideas cease to be centred upon himself, though an indirect pleasure will come to him as a result of this unselfishness. The man who can forget himself is naturally considered to be a little higher than the man who is always preoccupied with himself. His mind has evolved from consideration for himself to a higher consideration for the good of the people. This is the idea of dharma--acting out of a sense of duty, prompted by a higher ideal. He begins to work for the good of society, often forgetting himself and his self-consideration. He works for a climate in society which allows most of the people to get the maximum amount of joy out of life.

And then comes the final purpose, moksha--the ideal of liberation which is an enduring purpose, but one which the average man often forgets. Nevertheless, this ideal is always prompting him. When a philosopher tries to work out a course of life for the average man, he normally does not advise him to disregard this highest ideal, and the great masters and teachers of mankind have tried every now and then to remind us of it. Even in a life based on the first three values--or only the first two values, a time will eventually come when a man will feel that even the upkeep of these values, the provision of these values, is not possible unless he has a higher consideration. And man's mind, especially the individual mind--cannot be permanently satisfied with the pursuit of kama, artha, and dharma. The need arises to search for the significance of life through the pursuit of the ultimate nature of things.

Now, if this final goal, this fourth value, is to be of a permanent and enduring nature, it must be based on that part of man's nature which is permanent and enduring. The first three values are based on the part of man's nature which is not permanent. They are based on his body and his mind, which are temporary. Yet any system of values that is to bring full satisfaction to man must take into consideration all aspects of man's nature. The body, of course, comes first, the mind comes next, but then these two must always be illumined by a third consideration, which really gives significance to man's life on this earth. But as King Bhartrihari said, 'Tatah kim, tatah kim?' What next? He had acquired so many things, but unless he could finally reach a condition which brought satiety, what was the meaning of it all?

Dr. Carl Jung, the psychiatrist who wrote the famous book, 'Modern Man In Search Of a Soul'¹ says that the main problem for a person over thirty-five or forty years of age is to find a meaning of life. Up to the age of thirty-five or so man has some motivation--his vitality is strong, and his life is taking a sort of direction. If you ask the average young person what he wants, he would probably first wish to succeed in his studies. Then? To get a good job. Then? Probably to get a good family. Next? A question mark. Younger people can be absorbed in these things, but by thirty-five or forty, whatever is possible for them to achieve, they have either achieved or not achieved. At that point, Jung says, a conflict arises in a person's mind. What is the meaning of all this? What are all these things for? Has life any purpose--any enduring purpose, anything to grasp, permanently?

A search for eternal verities comes to man's mind. And Dr. Jung says, if he cannot find a solution to this problem, some answer to his questions, the inevitable result is physical and mental illness. Jung mentions that he had come to this conclusion on the basis of his experience of thousands of cases in Europe. Of course, as a psychologist, Jung is satisfied with any answer to this question.

Most people find some answer. As Aldous Huxley very nicely puts it, every man has a philosophy of life. It is not a question between no philosophy of life, and some philosophy of life, but between a good philosophy of life and a bad philosophy of life. That means that every average man has, according to his capacity, some sort of motivation.

Acharya Shankara begins his commentary on the Brahma Sutras, a major textbook for the Vedantins, with these words: 'Without a definite purpose, even the dullest among men will not do a thing.'