‘Neither seek nor avoid, take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing; do not merely endure, be unattached,’¹ was Swami Vivekananda’s dictum to sincere spiritual seekers. Does this imply that we should behave like inert beings, devoid of all judgements, and not ‘seek’ what is worth­while and ‘avoid’ what is worthless? Far from it. Does this imply that a family man does not have to ‘seek’ to make a living or ‘avoid’ adverse circumstances for the welfare of his family? Not at all. Does this imply that someone need not ‘seek’ to be honest and ‘avoid’ dishonesty? Of course not. Does this imply that someone who lacks the ability to drive a car not ‘avoid’ driv­ing the car when called for? Surely, he or she would lead himself or herself and others in the car to disaster! It is irresponsible not to abstain from doing what one is incapable of accom­plishing. What then does this dictum imply?

This dictum of Swami Vivekananda has nothing to do with sustenance, aptitude, or moral evaluations. It is about handling emo­tional cravings and egoistic clingings that every sincere spiritual seeker must carefully transcend. It implies dealing with concretised habits and mental fixations that continue to dominate the way we lead our lives. Fixations tend to hinder our inner energies because they are involuntary and repetitive, and fail to really connect our being with what we do. We continue to do what we do out of sheer emo­tional habit, driven by a semi-conscious, pas­sionate mind. And we avoid doing certain things though they may be of immense value to our lives. Our preconceived notions of what is ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’ bind us to rigid conceptualisations, forcing us to be selective in our lives and work. We do not demarcate between the ‘desirable’ and the ‘undesirable’ with a clear mind. To a large extent, because of our personal likes and dislikes we confuse our notion about things for the experience of the things themselves. We continue to be swayed between the feeling of pleasantness of ‘desired work’ and the feeling of unpleasantness of ‘undesired work’. Seeking fulfilment only through a particular kind of work is a mental limitation, because it constricts our potential and ability to progress. As a consequence, we are bound to be frustrated and depressed when we are deprived of doing what we like and are compelled to do what we dislike. This, however, cannot lead to the equanimity that allows us to meet every kind of experience with a strength of determination and a softness of flexibility. Without this ­equanimity, we are a long way from true con­tent­ment and real peace.

Moreover, society does not value every work equally. It lauds some and demeans ­others. Swayed by societal opinions, we too tend to build a false self-image by seeking to do some work and avoiding others. We then begin to live a false life, working only out of per­ceived social pressure. But that leads to dis­integration in our personalities, and we become inauthentic. Our work becomes me­chanical, not creative. For, creativity springs from the depths of our integrated being. ­Evading reality can never make us happy. It only creates conflict and frustration.

There may be various reasons why we avoid taking up something. We may fear sheer physical fatigue—that it may drain our energies and leave us depleted. We tend to forget that the very act of working with a free mind rejuvenates us and fills us with a sense of well-being. For the fear of the unknown and the loss of our comfort zone, we may prefer to stick to what we are ‘used to’ and justify that we can only do what we are ‘capable of’. This self-deception can never lead to self-fulfilment. Fear is an indication that our minds are resisting entering a new domain, leaving behind the familiar for something unfamiliar, something larger than the world we usually experience. If we cannot transcend our fear of unfamiliar domains of this world, how are we going to transcend this world itself and enter the realm of the Spirit?

The only way to liberate ourselves from these conditionings is through the practice of ‘neither seek nor avoid’, as advised by Swami Vivekananda. This practice expands our awareness, deconditions us, and enables us to accept whatever unfolds without attachment to the pleasant nor aversion to the unpleasant, born of our own emotional and egoistic constrictions. If we can experience the flow of life without grasping or condemning, we are on our way to enlightenment and freedom.

The practice of this ‘karma sankalpa ­tyaga’ makes us open-minded to accepting whatever comes our way. Openness liberates us from rigid choices and concretised habits. Far from turning into inert beings, as some fear, we enhance our self-awareness because our minds are no longer distracted by the emotional dualities which have been throwing us out of balance all these years. We become aware of our true motives and perceive things with an unprejudiced mind. This helps us attenuate the influence of our egoistic clingings on our lives. Being rooted in this self-awareness is what karma yoga calls as having a ‘witness attitude’. We merely witness the excitements of our minds and the anxieties of our egos as the play of Nature, without getting influenced, dominated, or enslaved by them. Self-awareness connects us with our inner being. We start feeling a sense of wholeness, of being total, and are fully present in the given work. We feel one with the work, whatever that work may be. ‘Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it be after his heart. But the intelligent man is he who can convert every work into one that suits his taste,’² as Swami Vivekananda says. He wanted all work, physical or mental, to be done with equal ease and efficiency. That is the significance of his instruction: ‘You must be prepared to go into deep meditation now, and the next moment you must be ready to go and cultivate these fields. You must be prepared to explain the difficult intricacies of the Shastras now, and the next moment to go and sell the produce of the fields in the market.’³ The attitude of ‘neither seek nor avoid’ accomplishes this training of the mind. It leads to a state of consciousness that is unaffected by external conditions and internal impulses. We would no longer do any work for personal excitement or social ap­proval, but rather because it would be the best thing to do in the given circumstances.

Openness to work is openness to all aspects of life itself, for is not life a constant activity? Openness to life expands our consciousness, and we become connected with others, not by the egoistic self-assertion of preferences and aversions but through love and sympathy on an impersonal plane. Since we do not seek anything or fear losing anything, we allow the experience of life to unfold itself. We begin to love all equally and unconditionally.

Swami Vivekananda powerfully asserted: ‘Teach yourselves, teach every one his real nature, call upon the sleeping soul and see how it awakes. Power will come, glory will come, good will come, purity will come, and everything that is excellent will come when this sleeping soul is roused to self-conscious activity.’⁴ The ‘sleeping soul’ is roused to ‘self-conscious activity’ through self-awareness and working with the mind free from the duality of ‘seeking’ and ‘avoiding’. Creative energies stream forth spontaneously in such free minds. And excellence in everything is the natural consequence of such awakening.

With the continued practice of this attitude, we stop worrying about what is good and bad for us and allow the Divine to guide our lives. We achieve true self-surrender to the Divine. The ‘individual will’ gets liberated from emotions and ideations and becomes a part of the ‘Cosmic Will’. Realising that it is the Cosmic Will that propels all work, we cease to regard ourselves as ego-centric agents. Life now stands fully consecrated to the Cosmic Will. The mind becomes the pure conduit of the Cosmic Power. The body functions as an instrument of the Cosmic Action. All egoistic conditioning breaks down completely, and we fully participate in the Cosmic Sacrifice. The work we do is perfect because it is now according to the Cosmic Rhythm. All the complexities of the mind and the struggles of the ego fall off. Complete detachment is achieved, as Swami Vivekananda wanted. The inherent bliss manifests, because our lives are in tune with the Divine. We become divine and free.

 Courtesy: Vedanta Kesari

References: 1) CW, 7.14  2) CW, 7.508  3) CW, 3.447  4) CW, 3.193

 

Growth of the Inner Man

A spiritual growth takes place from individuality to personality. He or she ceases to be merely an individual. He or she becomes a person. I am using two English words which we often use interchangeably. But there are precise meanings to each of these two words: individual and per­son, individuality and personality. Individuality is centred in the ego that is tied to the organic system. But as soon as one grows from the individual into the person, one transcends that organic limitation; one transcends that ego that is tethered to the organic system. It is then only that one develops the capacity to communi­cate healthily and happily with other people, to dig affections in other people, to express oneself in all inter-human relationships in spontaneous acts and modes of service. 

Accordingly the philoso­phy of human excellence emphasizes the truth that the individual must grow into the person, individuality must grow into personal­ity. That growth is not a physical growth; neither is it a mere intel­lectual growth. It is a spiritual growth. It is a wonderful concept of human development and growth: the individual growing into the person. The late Sir Julian Huxley, famous British biologist and humanist, has given a scientific definition to the word ‘person’ and ‘personality’ (Introduction to The Phenomenon of Man by Teilhard de Chardin):

Persons are individuals who transcend their merely organic individuality in conscious participation.

It is a beautiful and meaningful definition. When you are a mere individual, you are self-centred. Individuality is self-centredness. It seeks freedom for itself and is not inclined to con­cede it to others. But, it is an essential first stage in human develop­ment. Before birth, a baby is part of the mother’s body; after birth, it gets a physical individuality and identity. After about two and a half years, the ego, the sense of ‘I’ sprouts in it. This is a new unique initial datum, and the focus of all its further growth and development. And the first education of every human baby is the strengthening of its individuality by the strengthening of its ego. By appreciating whatever it does, the rest of the family members help its ego to grow in strength. The baby wants the world to be centred in itself. This is beautiful, and is needed for its growth; but that growth should not stop at that individuality, an important step of human growth. It must grow into the person; it must develop into the personality.

At the stage of individuality, the baby seeks only its own free­dom and pleasures; but, at the stage of personality, it develops the spiritual capacity to respond to the human situation around it and respect the freedom of others. 

This is the sign of its psychic and spiritual growth and maturity. It is this growth, continued during its adolescent years, that makes it develop into the full personality of a democratic citizen, in whom the value of social responsibility is added to the value of individual freedom. Freedom and responsi­bility constitute the growth of individuality into personality. An individual is merely free; that makes him or her a demanding entity: I want this, I want that. And such an individual often collides with other individuals. That is why the late Bertrand Russell compared mere individuality to a billiard ball. The only relationship of one billiard ball with another billiard ball is collision. They cannot enter into each other. But a human being must have the capacity to com­municate with other human beings, to enter into each other, to work as a team with others. But only if one becomes a person does one develop this precious human capacity. 

What we call the capacity for team work is essentially a capacity that comes to one when he or she grows from individuality to personality. We can then dig af­fections in other people, and have others dig affections in us; we can then live and work together with other people, both at home and in society, arm in arm, and achieve full implementation of our national and human objectives, through work efficiency, peace, har­mony, mutual respect, and service.1

Learning to Be

We normally limit the concept of growth to the physical, in nature and man. We speak of economic growth, industrial growth, population growth, and so on, besides the physical and intellectual growth of the individual. But side by side with these, and more significant than either, there is also the spiritual growth of man. A few years ago, the Unesco had established a commission of enquiry about education of man in the post-war era; it was presided over by the then French Education Minister, later, Prime Minister, Edward Fauvre. The commission issued a report, and I was very much struck by the unique title of that report, namely, Learning to Be. Indeed, so far as man is concerned, education should essentially be learning to be, and only secondarily, learning to do. But never merely learning to do. When you stress learning to be, you have to go beyond the human muscular dimension, his mental dimension, and even beyond his merely intellectual dimension, says Vedanta. The Unesco report it­self does not go so far, though its fine conclusions and suggestions cannot stand without that further penetration.2

Character Centred in Buddhi

This integrated training of intellect, will, and emotion is what makes for richness of personality and strength of character. Such a training helps to evolve within the individual a new personality value, a new focus of strength and resource. This is buddhi, in the lan­guage of the Gita; it may be translated as enlightened intelligence. 

At the level of the ego and manas or sensate mind, intelligence is narrow, self-centred, and unsteady, being at the mercy of instincts and impulses. In the service of this intelligence, human knowledge and power express themselves as unsocial and sometimes anti-so­cial forces, in manifest or subtle forms, bringing sorrow in its train to the individual and society.

Says Bertrand Russell in his Impact of Science on Society (p. 121):

Unless men increase in wisdom as much as in knowledge, in­crease of knowledge will be increase of sorrow.

Buddhi connotes this ripening of knowledge into wisdom. Intel­ligence at the buddhi level creates a pattern of what Sorokin calls altruism in human character. It cannot function except in a creative and constructive way. Detachment and stability, resourcefulness and sympathy, are the hallmarks of such a character, at once effi­cient and human.3

The Power to Digest ‘Power’

Often, when a person achieves power, he does not know how to digest it, how to use it for the good of man. He becomes inebriated with it, just as a man becomes intoxicated with madhu or sura, i.e., wine. The Sanskrit word for inebriation is mada, and the Mahabharata tells us that it should be converted into its reverse, i.e. dama, which means perfect self-discipline and self-control.

And this dama (perfect digestion of sensory energy which is the opposite of mada or inebriation) and its sister discipline of shama, perfect digestion of psychic energy, constitute the moral and ethi­cal self-discipline of man, according to every system of Indian reli­gion and philosophy.

By means of such self-discipline alone can one digest power, be it political power, intellectual power, or money power, and give it a humanistic orientation. By mere intellectual development alone, you can never digest either power or any tendency to exploit or harm other people. 

But a slight growth in spirituality arising from such self-discipline can make all the difference. Such spiritual growth is the birthright of every man, woman, and child, says Vedanta, because it is built into, is inherent in, all human beings.4

Dharma or Science of Human Values

A human society without dharma is inconceivable. You may have plenty of adharma, evil behaviour, but still one section will always be practising dharma. Absolute adharma is not possible in any society. But when too many are prone to adharma, that society goes down and down. It will have mutual conflicts and fights, mutual killings, nobody will be happy, nobody will be fulfilled. Evolution then becomes stagnant at the organic level. It will not continue to higher and higher levels, of which ethical and moral and humanistic values form the first social stage of spirituality, and bhakti continues to lead one to the further stages up to spiritual realization.

So, what is the source of this dharma or science of values? The Atman, the ever-present Divinity hidden in every human being. ‘Hidden’ is the word. You cannot see It, you cannot feel It, yet It is there. How many things are there in nature which are hidden! But science is able to discover and bring them out. A proton in a piece of matter—it was hidden till nuclear science discovered that proton and even utilized it. 

Similarly, the Divine in the heart of the human being is a fact, is a truth. It is not a dogma, it is not a belief, it is not a creed. It is a profound truth. Satyam, Truth, is the word used by the Upanishads, or even satyasya satyam, the Truth of truth. Prana vai satyam, tesam esa satyam, ‘Nature and her energies are truth, the Atman is the Truth of that truth’, say the Upanishads. If this body is true, the Atman is the Truth of that truth.

So, this Infinite Atman is not available on the surface of experience. We have to seek It at the depth of the human personality.

[Here is the universal rule of ethics:] ‘Do unto others what you expect others to do unto you.’ This statement is expressed both in negative and posi­tive forms: ‘Do not do unto others, what you do not want others to do unto you’; ‘Do unto others, what you expect others to do unto you.’ That teaching has been developed in Europe by Emmanuel Kant, German philosopher. One criterion of ethics he mentions is that you should conduct yourself in such a way that, if all others were to do the same thing, everybody will be happy.

So many such statements you will get in writings on ethics. These are all for human education, to guide conduct and behaviour, so as to create a healthy society and put the human being on the road to the goal of evolution which is spiritual liberation.

Parents must strive to leave to their children a healthy society. If they leave to them an unhealthy society, they will be doing great harm to their children, and children’s chil­dren. That social responsibility we have to take up; but we have not done that after our political Independence. 

We have completely ignored that whole idea. So now, when we have started a little self-criticism in India, we have to take advantage of our philosophy, Vedanta, and its science of values, which we have discussed earlier and which is getting strength and support from modern biology. We have come across biology’s support to the Vedantic teaching of over­coming the tyranny of the sensate and the quantitative and achieving spiritual growth, adhyatmika vikasa. For this, our animal tendencies should be checked, our dehatma-buddhi, ‘the idea that the body is our self,’ should go; we have seen how modern biology expresses this truth in its own way; ‘Unless the mammal in us dies, the man in us cannot live’, in the words of Sir Julian Huxley quoted in an earlier lecture.

Therefore, this idea of dharma as the science of values, as social ethics, where we try to do good to others, try to help others, serve the interests of others, even while attend­ing to one’s own interests, which is the fruit of a little spiritual growth, may be, it is unknown to the person, must be cultivated by people by manifesting even a little of their inherent spiritual nature, the Atman, what the Vedic sages realized as the Divine spark that is hidden within all. If I do not do so and ignore my own divine nature, I cannot but do evil, I cannot but become anti-social and thwart the human evolutionary process.

We can choose to do good or to do evil; we have that freedom; by experiencing our spiritual oneness with others, we learn to serve people; many evils are removed from society thereby, including corruption and violence. That feeling of oneness with others cannot come when we are slaves of our genetic system; then we will be a source of evil to ourselves and to others. Once one becomes aware of the Divine spark within, one’s conduct changes. One’s self reaches out to the other selves in society in increasing measure. This is called atma-vikasa, expansion of the self.5

References

1. Dynamic Spirituality for a Globalized World, p.238-240 

2. Ibid, p.260 

3. Ibid, p.278-279

4. Ibid, p.272 

5. Practical Vedanta and Science of Values, p.127-129