What is Life?
Where is mankind headed, what is our purpose and the meaning of life?
We are going toward freedom—or better, Freedom, with a capital F. Freedom is the simplest, broadest way to describe the goal of life. We all want to be free—to feel that we are unlimited, unconfined. Some of you may say, “I don’t want freedom so much as i want to find truth! The reply, is all right, but when you find truth you will discover that it is Freedom, so either word is valid. The purpose of our life is not only to find Truth, however, but to identified with it. Truth, or freedom, is not something which, having once found, one can remain apart from; it is all-absorbing, demanding our total commitment.
Is this the purpose of every life? Are you claiming it is universal?
Yes, from the least complicated virus to the most exalted human being, god or angel, all without exception are seeking this Freedom, aware of it or not. All are in search of Knowledge, Wisdom Truth, Joy, Reality, for these, in the last analysis, are synonyms. The whole creation is going through this intricate process of evolution for but one purpose: to get out of it and be free. Only the ways in which we try to find the goal, differ, which is why nature is so varied in its expression. The bacterium expects to realize its freedom by escaping the clutches of the predatory virus; the giraffe extends its freedom by reaching the higher leaves with a longer neck; the politician seeks office because to him freedom means power—power to act in the ways he chooses. BUt all are reading the same basic message in these different languages………Put another way, all growth is from inside out; there is That in the heart of life—-call it God, the Atman, soul, Truth, Freedom—what you will, there is That lying latent within each of us which cannot rest until it has completely manifested itself. In order to do so it takes life after life, century upon century, age after age, wearing now the garb of the amphibian, next dressed as man and woman, again shinng as a Christ, a Buddha, until finally it wakes up and laughs at the whole thing as a wondrous dream.
How is it we do not know that this is our goal? Why wouldn’t intelligent human beings be aware of it?
This requires a two-stage reply. First, some are aware of it: we call them sages. Where we blindly struggle, they consciously strive toward freedom. Secondly, for the rest of us, we offer an explanation which you may think peculiar; it explains away the problem. There is a principle, which we call “maya,” a kind of universal ignarance. This principle is not something which can be fully understood; we cannot, for example, trace its origin. It is like darkness, in that when you wish to examine it, light is required, which destroys it. So, we say, Knowledge is that powerful corrosive in the presence of which ignorance cannot endure, and dissolves. We do not know how we have come under the sway of this “maya,” because even to raise that question is a sign of our ignorance; but we do know that we can get out of it. Sages have told us so, and have demonstrated it in their lives.
If this total freedom is the goal, is each of us on our own separate track? Or does the race or society, as such, have a role to play?
Probably both. Certainly as individuals we are on the move. And here is an important difference between evolution as understood in Darwinism and as understood in this philsophy. To the latter it is a “vertical” process. That which is called the soul, having identified itself for the time being, because of ignorance with names and forms, is struggling as it were to tear off the veils between itself and Reality. That is why, through coming to birth and dying again and again, it tries to realize itself in one kind of body after another, moving to forms that are more thinly veiled, until it reaches the human plane. There, throug the light of intelligence the soul’s ultimte awakening can take place. This is an individual process; like the bubbles at the bottom of a kettle of boiling water: each bubble rises to its own liberation at the surface. Of couse there is the influence of one individual upon others, a nudging as it were; and given sufficient time, all the water will boil off— everyone will be liberated. Darwinism of Neo-Darwinism has conception of evolution as a horizontal or rising incline: evolution of the physical form, and by implication, of intelligence, but not the soul; and it is of the species, rather than of an indvidual. Nothing here is contrary to such an outlook, but that is not its primary orientation…….It is a mistake to think that the proponents of this system cared only for the development of the seeker and nothing for the well-being of the seciety. That is an erroneous idea which has come to the West parly from persons who never penetrated to the basic concepts of this system of thinking. Either they have not cared to do so, having interests of their own, or for some reason they have been unable. What is important is that society does not make the sovereign, independent individual its basic unit, as do we in the West. There the freedom of the human being, of which we have spoken so much here, is conceived as spiritual, not social. It is the person of self-control, of self-retraint, who is truly free, not the libertine. It is the person of righteousness, dispassion, calmness, compassion and service, who is the product coveted by the body social; hence the vast admiration for a Mother Teresa, for example. It is for the emergence of the enlightened being, that the whole of society has supposed to be organized. Social structure was a ladder by which one might climb to the heights of spiritual excellence. It was organized to produce scholars, sages, saints. Social, horizontal movement, was to be much restricted so that movement of the life-force would be upward, so far as possible. And the higher-born the person, the greater the restriction…….. The phenomena of the social organization can be understood only as we remember this basic driving motivation: the spiritual evolution of the individual, bringing with it the spiritual development of the society. Thus a kind of incubator for the production of men and women of illumination, persons of paramount character, conduct, and courtesy, free from the limitations of ignorance and desire and firmly grounded in Self-knowledge. Under this system as originally developed (though not in its present state of corruption), if one person somehow got the means, through wealth of learning or “luck,” to raise him of herself to the lvel of a higher state, then it was incumbent upon them to work for the upliftment of their entire group to the same level.
BUt isn’t it a fact that all our external activity in the West has brought us far ahead, developmentally?
Yes , here in the West there is a deep-seated conviction of the inevitability of progress. We think that when our cars and airplanes run faster, our houses are better heated, our computers upgraded, our housework minimized by labor-saving machines, when minimum levels of housing, health and purchasing power are guaranteed by the state or nation, then we are making progress. (What do we do, by the way, with the time saved by speed and machines?) There are now critics among us, who are seeing through the glitter of all this tinsel, and asking, if there is really any net gain in all that. It is not that such things do not betoken progress and no one today can be a Luddite. The other civilazation too, has its critcs, who feel it would be better off if it paid more attention to ideals of material welfare. But we have to understand that the basic ideal of this philosphy is different: progress must show itself in the fruits of the inner life as well. How peaceful has our mind become? How little of the world’s resources can we live on? How few are our demands upon others? How much care have we taken to bring up our children as ideal person? Have we set them the example for it? Is our mind moving daily toward greater renunciation——renunciation of possessions, desires, power, ego-claims— all the things which Death will one day take away anyway? These are tests of progress according to this system. Truth does not pay homage to society, ancient or modern, primitive or technological. Society must pay homage to Truth, or die. It is with some historical justification that the claims of this society that it has endured because in it the highest truths were made practicable. That is what makes a people great—- the corporate ability to produce men and women who have realized the highest truth. …..(more to follow later)
