Nehru's Scientific Humanism

We attach so much importance to the nation of God that according to many thinkers like Voltaire, even if God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him. According to them. God is a psychological necessity for "the mind of man has always been trying to fashion some such mental image or conception which grew with the mind's growth"

In addition, it is our natural tendency to depend on someone else - who we consider to be superior to us in all aspects - in knowledge, competence, power and perfection, for instance. God is the paradigm of virtues and ideals cherished, on whom we can rely in times of crisis and whom we can blame for our failures.

Countering the argument of those who upheld the necessity of God or a God-like concept, Nehru argued, "Even if God exists, it may be desirable not to look up to Him or to rely upon Him." He argued. "Too much dependence on supernatural factors may lead, and has often led, to a loss of self reliance in man." It would accord him; ultimately result in "blunting of his (man's) capacity and creative ability".

Nehru had a tremendous faith in the human. On order to show the supremacy of man over God he argued, "God we may deny, but what hope is there for us if we deny man and thus reduce everything to futility.

Instead of having faith in God and religion Nehru advocated humanism -which he termed as 'scientific humanism'. It represents 'synthesis between humanism and scientific spirit'. Scientific humanism advocated by Nehru "Is practical and pragmatic, ethical and social, altruistic and humanitarian. It is governed by practical idealism for social betterment".

The doctrine of scientific humanism rejects the philosophic, mystic or theoretical approach to humanism in which the quest is primarily for ultimate reality and for individual salvation. For scientific humanism on the contrary, "Humanity is its God and social service its religion". It recognizes the fact that "every culture has certain values attached to it, limited and conditioned by that culture". It also recognizes that human nature is such "every generation and every people suffer from the illusion that their ways of looking at things is the only right way or is at any rate, the nearest approach" to knowing and realizing permanent validity.

Nehru concludes that "we have... to function in line with the highest ideals of the age we live in, though we may add to them or seek to mould them in accordance with our national genius".

Like Sartre, Nehru, too, upholds the view that man continually accepts the challenges faced by him in achieving the targets and goals chosen by him. "Life," according to him, "is a principle of growth, not of standing still, a continuous becoming, which does not permit static conditions". For man, life is a long adventure and an opportunity to test his will and his worth. He does not rest until goals are reached. From every disappointment and defeat, the spirit of man 'emerges with new strength and wider vision'. Nehru expressed this characteristic of the human spirit poetically thus: "I count life just stuff/ To try the soul's strength on......"

Performing Good Deeds

Meaning: As stated in the Atharvaved 7/30/1 – Man should perform such good deeds as will give him the love of his mother, father and spiritual teachers.

Message: The cornerstone of man’s stability and progress is his responsibility to his duty. If we give up our responsibilities and ignore the prescribed duties, then such obstacles will also be created that life as a human being will also become impossible, leave alone progress. Every achievement of life depends only on responsible accountability. The stability and protection of every achievement depends only on dedication to duty. We have been granted the invaluable body. It can be made healthy, strong and long-lived only when bathing, cleanliness, work and exercise, punctuality, disciplined diet and restraint on pleasures of the senses are observed. The mind becomes powerful and capable when it is saved from worry, grief, disappointment, anger, excitement etc and fortified with enthusiasm, joy, daring, contentment, balance, patience, confidence, concentration or engrossment and similar qualities.

A person gets many facilities and a proper organization through the family. But these facilities are available only to those who fulfill their duties towards other family members with full eagerness, care and honesty. A wife is not obtained only for service. It is also one of the duties to fulfill all the needs for her development comforts, contentment and health. A cow gives milk only when the owner feeds her sufficient hay. Only he will get the joy of married life, who will win his wife’s heart by doing his duties. Also the children of only those persons will be cultured and well developed, who give them their love, time and cooperation and are always eager for their development and culture. And only they will receive the love and blessings of parents and spiritual teachers who will look after their comforts and honor them. Only they should hope for receiving the overwhelming love and cooperation of their brothers and sisters who are willing to sacrifice their lives for them and give them plenty of love. Only the people dedicated to their duties, can get the joy of family-life. Contrary to this, those who only claim their rights for facilities but forget the condition of doing their duty, for them there will be no difference between home and hell. The atmosphere of the home will be poisonous because of malice and quarrels. Neither will the wife be a life-companion nor will the children be obedient. The discontent of the parents and jealousy from the brothers and sisters will make the home like a crematorium

For those who are ready to carry out their duties at every step and bear with the defects of other family members, the home is like heaven. But, for those who have big expectations from family members and are themselves negligent towards their own duties, home is like hell.

Our responsibility is towards self as well as God. Our existence is also for God. It is also necessary that we listen to the voice of conscience and go on striving for making the human life meaningful by doing our duty for the tasks ordained by God.

Only by such good deeds do we receive everyone’s love and family-life becomes heavenly.

Purpose of the Mind

To bring a sense of purpose and better quality into our lives we must look at the nature and working of our very mind itself. The mind is meant to absorb information, transform it into knowledge and lead it into action. Action and speech determined the quality of our life and these comes from the mind itself.

First let us understand the nature of absorption of the mind. Wise man who have delved into the truth of this have said that most people’s minds are as hard as a rock. Just as a rock is impervious to water, information that falls on a hard mind bounces off without a trace. A hard mind offers immense resistance to previously absorbed information that prevents the flow of knowledge and action.

Our mind must be as soft as a sponge for maximum absorption. Just as water can be easily absorbed by the sponge and squeezed out, a soft mind easily absorbs information and allows free flow of knowledge into action. The two processes are reversible –a soft or open mind can be easily hardened and a hard or closed mind can be easily softened.

What makes our mind hard or closed? Ancient sages have said that this is an automatic, front-line defense mechanism for the protection of our belief systems based on our state of ego. If we encounter an idea or a situation that is not in line with our thinking, we immediately closed our mind by putting up a block against it. Ego creates mindset. Mindset is a protective mechanism of self-defense because we are scared of what others think about our notions and beliefs. This mindset is self-destructive. For example, a simple discussion develops into an argument and leads to a verbal or physical fight.

Mere gathering of information by our mind is useless. We must transform this into knowledge. Our mind must be extremely pure to be able to perform this conversion efficiently. The results of an impure mind will rebound while the work of a pure mind will reach out for common welfare.

A pure, soft mind is gateway to divine living. Thinking positive isn’t enough, you need to think divine. Only then can we soften and purify our mind. We should review the working of our mind at least three times a day. Was my mind aggressive or calm? Did my words and actions hurt or bring joy to people? An object that slips out of our hand can be recovered, but an inappropriate word that slips out of our tongue cannot be erased. Self-review will free our mind of all obstruction. Ideas and inspiration flash freely in a pure mind to transform information to knowledge.

Three basic steps can be followed: First, allow others the freedom to be as they are, without imposing your mindset of thoughts and ideas. Second, have faith and belief that God is in you. Third, spend some time quietly everyday thinking about your inner self and chanting the name of God. This way our mind which seeks information can be changed into a mind meant for the transformation of our very life itself from human to Divine.

The light that comes from the sun illuminates the whole world, and that which is in the moon, and in the fire; know that light to be Mine.  - Bhagavad Gita 15:12

There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond the highest, the very highest heavens. This is the light that shines in your heart-Chandogya Upanishad

The Glory of the Society

Meaning: According to the line of Rigved 1/164/40 – the mothers should become knowledgeable to make their children properly educated. The glory of the society increases when women produce children after marriage with men of good conduct and make the children cultured. Her sacrifice is as pure as of cows.

Message: In her various roles, woman always spends her life by renunciation, sacrifice, patience, sympathy, love and faith for the human race. One sees in her eyes compassion, beauty and joy. Her speech is the source of nectar for the life. Her sweet smile has the incredible capacity to remove all the disappointment and bitterness of the world. As a wife, she is her husband’s partner, and co-performer of religious duties and rituals. The wife’s tender skill saves the husband from rudeness and animal-life and lends him the dignity of a householder. When a woman adorned with learning, grandeur, bravery, good tastes, warmth and compassion marries a man of culture, good conduct and character, then both in the family as well as in the society their names and fame spread.

The best identity of a woman is as a mother and through motherhood her personality becomes complete. To give birth to a child is not a result of physical entertainment, but a brave responsibility with far-reaching effects. Many and varied problems like the development of the fetus in the womb, the bringing up of the baby after the terrible pain of child-birth, the feeding and exercising of the baby, education etc are connected with it. Ultimately only the parents have to make proper arrangements for it. If the husband and wife have the capacity to bear all the above responsibilities, then they should try to bring forth a new life into this world. In advance, they must make their physical, mental background and family atmosphere so excellent that the child to be born will prove pure and cultured from every angle. Just as we prepare for any work in advance, similarly for this very important plan, there should not be any mistake in the preparation, the time of conception and remains for lifetime in the individual.

Without proper preparations, to give birth to uncultured and undeveloped children not only creates troubles for the parents, but simultaneously it becomes a breach of trust with the society and the country. A society filled with citizens who are wicked and addicted is collectively pushed into the chasm of downfall. Such children become a stigma on a woman’s motherhood. Only when the pious deeds of giving birth to proper, virtuous, well developed and cultured children is carried out with full faith and dedication, can the number of impressive and excellent men increase.

One has to try to develop one’s inner feelings, which can be done simply by training one’s mind. This is a priceless human asset and one you don’t have to pay income tax on!

Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it backs

The Thirst of Fame

Generally everything in life comes in pairs. Not in terms of opposites but in terms of ensuring balance inexistence. Like rights come with duty, freedom comes with responsibility and so on. The secret is to identify the pairs. Some of them are visible and taken for granted. For some others, you have to play something like a memory game..... You have to search out the pair. When any concept is understood along with its pair then it becomes firmly rooted and gives more results than when it is tackled or pursued in isolation.

One such single which is hunting for its pair is fame. Most people seek fame. Some want international recognition and work towards that some want national acclaim and yet others are happy being the leader in the family circle or the colony community. Again the reason for the fame and the talent being showcased can be as varied as flowers in a garden. To celebrate the idea of fame we also have many record books that document the different fields.

Our quest for fame is perhaps only younger than our quest for truth. Psychologists say that every human being seeks immortality and therefore seeks fame..... So that they live beyond their calendar years at least in name. And that is why there is the obsession to 'become'.

Fame brings immediate power. Sometimes the power of fame may not bring any wealth. But it brings honor and respect. What makes the fame lasting? What pairs with fame? Much too often fame is confused with the riches it might bring it is believed that if money is made, dignity and respect will naturally accrue. That is not entirely untrue. Money does buy many things..... But that which is bought, also sells is it not? As the market decides the price for such things, the halo of fame remains, but the substances that makes it, in terms of adulation and trust that the famous inspire, gets whittled down.

On looking a little closer one finds that, since the power wielded by fame is derived from it, lasting fame will accrue only when you recognize from whom you have derived that power and invest it back in them or that. Sacred books live eternally because they invest the reader with the power of divine blessing. Leaders derive their power from the people, parents from their children, a cook from the people who scour his food, a designer from his craftsmen and so it goes, in every field of life.

The pair of fame is thus service, which is to be useful. When there is service, fame comes automatically and this fame is rooted in a noble activity. To remember this is the path to the kind of fame that lives after you is what makes you immortal. That is why a good teacher is remembered at all times and is 'famous' among students of the school and their families.

The Sanskrit tradition identified long ago that the eternal quality of fame and the dignity it inspires is oft-smudged by the grime of life. What remains and dominated all actions is the desire for fame. So it is said humorously in a subhashitani (a couplet which has an inherent lesson in it) that break a pot, tear your clothes and ride a donkey, if you may, but make sure you become famous - at any cost! But surely, not at the cost of crossing the thin line that divides fame from notoriety?

When a Rose is not a Rose

A wilting rose, wrinkling skin, graying hair, growing kid, all of these remind us of one fact of life, and that fact is: Impermanence. Has this fact of life ever troubled you? Disturbed you deeply? Then you are lucky, because in you, a Buddha could be born. All of us are aware of the story how Siddhartha became the Buddha because he was deeply perturbed by the scenes of a sick person, an old man and a dead body being carried to the burial ground. It prompted him to question the nature of life and led him finally to nirvana.

Let us enquire, is suffering truly in the fact that our skin is less charming or in the fact that we are not as much in control of our business or household as we were 20 or 30 years ago? No. Our suffering is in the non-acceptance of change.

Why do we resist change? It is because we are afraid of losing the beautiful experiences of life. Love, pleasure, significance, happiness, comfort and other beauties of life that we cherish, we do not want the ruthless wave of life to wash them away. We do not know what the 'new' might hold for us. Fear of uncertainty drives us to resist change. On the contrary if permanence were the nature of life, then what if pain, displeasure, anger, disappointment, fear, frustration and the whole host of unpleasant experiences continue ad infinitum? That would be, being stuck in a hellhole.

Seated beneath the Pipal tree 2,500 years ago, Buddha taught the Pratitya Samutpada Sutra which said, "True happiness is this is not, then that is not" True happiness is sourced in wisdom that everything changes. Change happens as the factors that go to constitute something change. Your skin changes when there are biological changes. That we know. What causes a relationship to change? The emotion you feel towards a person is dependent on the perceptions you hold at that point of time.

As life throws up more and more experiences, your perceptions keep changing. Love, affection, friendship do continue through life but they, too take on the changes life brings on them and evolve with time. That is why it started. It changes with passing years. If necessary awareness is brought to it, it has the potential to give you more joy and togetherness. In unawareness the relationship could degenerate into pain and displeasure.

As we observe the truth of what the Buddha spoke, we come to clarity, to peace with ourselves. Who have we to blame? What can really be held responsible for our unhappiness? Some deep seated anguish, disappointments and yearnings lose charge over us as this wisdom dawns. All of us have a control freak hidden in us shrieking for absolute power over everything; all of us have a perfectionist hankering for the creme de la creme in every situation; all of us have a lover in us looking out for ideal responses from loved ones. How do you think our thirst could ever be quenched? It can only be appeased. Hence, the Buddha spoke of freedom as the appeasement of all obsessions. Our obsessions can be appeased when we see what life is at this moment; it is not the next moment. A rose is not a rose if it stays forever.

Yoga of Universal Brotherhood

All that which falls within the purview of the five senses is known as the empirical. As these senses – of smell, taste, sight, touch and hearing – are the preceptors of pleasure and pain, it goes without saying that advancements in empirical science have been resulting in ever-increasing means to heighten both pleasure as well as pain.

If we devote just a few moments to look at our own such sensations from a third party point of view, we would conclude that these sensations are in fact being referred to our own ego, the sense of “I” ness. If this were not so then the same objects would have produced the same sensation in everybody and in equal degree. Thus, the ego is the traceable birthplace of all desires and also reason for the relentless but futile struggle to satisfy them.

The question is; who in reality is struggling in such a futile manner? If this is my body and this is my mind, then who is the real ‘I’? The wise call it Atman. It is always the Atman that wants to experience reality in all creation. It is always ego or ahamkara, the ruler of body and mind that always short-changes the Atman in the process. In other words, the ego domain forces an identification of the real self with body and mind.

So strong is the grip of ahamkara that even in death it remains attached to the karmana-sharira or casual body along with all unfulfilled desires. In due course the soul is reborn in another bodily form and there ensues yet another round of struggle to appease the ahamkara through the agency of available sense apparatus.

We can thus further conclude that in essence, the inequality amongst not just humans but across all creatures is simply the inequality in the latent and manifest desires, both good and bad along with the apparatus and opportunity made available by divinity to satisfy the same.

As far as humans are concerned, we see that the apparatus is misused since opportunity is greatly misconstrued. The high level of “I” ness or ahamkara inevitably makes us oblivious to our individually inherent differences in deservedness which we were born with. Leading too much distress and disharmony.

IN view of these underlying facts, all external efforts towards precipitating “peace” and “mutual brotherhood” will come to naught as the individual mind is distraught, being full of unfulfilled desires, having their roots in the subconscious, in the form of innumerable polarities. Experiencing the commonality amongst all, realizing that outer differences manifest as a result of differences in karmic past and finding an easy way to progressively free oneself from these deep-set differences would in reality pave the way towards attaining these noble goals.

Fortunately, animation of Atman into body and mind takes place due to the grace of prana shakti, the dynamic principle of Mother Nature.

If mind, which is forever engaged in desire-satisfying activities, dictated by the ego, merges into prana shakti, this divinely intelligent force which is our own higher dynamic aspect, finds its way into the hither to untraversed subconscious, which is the storehouse of all hidden, unfulfilled desires.

Prana shakti then neutralizes one by one, through precipitation of various autonomous yoga kriyas, all the hidden polarities which represent unfulfilled desires. As self-purification takes place, one can progressively experience Universal Brotherhood in its real aspect.