Dualism Persists

In the context of human society and human relations, an idea cropped up in my mind when I was watching TV in a friend’s house while staying for few days. It is the concept of duality, or dual lives, or dual personalities (it is different from the psychological concept of split personality). This dualism is deliberate, selfish, and constructed by human being to live in this world. This I came to conclusion while watching religious channels like Samsakara and Astha in TV. The preachers say beautiful, soothing things to the ear. They say some great things, and which are actually needed by the tormented human society, afflicted by the issues of deception, trickery, greed and the vices which humans love to domesticate and love to nurture in own beings. The speakers picked up a theme from Hindu mythology such as Ramayana and Mahabharata and contextualize them to cater to the needs of the present society. A good thing indeed. They preach non-violence, selflessness, social service. They also talk about how to have peace in mind, how to have devotion to God, to have meditating mind and so on. They narrated the stories of Hanuman’s devotion to Rama, and love and surrender of Radha to Krishna and so on. These are really good, and not only that, I am reasonably sure, if a person follows these words sincerely, then there will be great improvement in him and surroundings, no doubt.

But when I think about the practical implications of such an exercise, I find myself dismayed. The analogy narrated by Swami Vivekananda often comes to my mind in this context. He differentiated between a pundit and a yogi. A pundit reads so many things, he is a good narrator, good orator, quotes from scriptures like Vedas and Upanishads with full authority, but while coming to practice he is a nut. While he teaches others to control over their anger, he is an angry man, for example. While he teaches others to conquer desire, he in fact is a slave of this vice, for example. Swami Vivekananda says it is better to be a yogi, than to be a pundit. Yogi is not a scholar, is not well versed in scriptures. But whatever, however few, noble things he knows or learns, he practices. He learns anger is not good, and now he is a man of peace. Now he knows desire has to be conquered, and he conquers it. Hence, while yogis are a rare species, pundits are numerous. While a yogi like Ramakrishna Paramahansa is a rare sight, we find hundreds and thousands of pundits (even I doubt whether all of them have mastery over scriptures) flock our streets, TV sets, and wear the clothes of yellow, and portray themselves as yogis. Some of these pundits do not forget to give them a facial in a beauty salon before public appearance. If preaching for them is a profession, then they are job holders, doing their job, as we do in our work places. But to be a yogi, to be a preacher of noble virtues, one has to be in ‘job’ 24 hours and throughout the life. Putting in the language of Sri Aurobindo, 'all life is yoga.' It is not like preaching for the record, and in the next moment you become a person of all ordinary desires and vices. Ramakrishna was illiterate, and could not write his name correctly, but we all know how great he was, how saintly he was.

But the dualism concept goes much deeper and much farther. This is not confined to the preachers, but spread to the people, including the organizers, who come to listen to the preachers. While these pundits and so called pundits may number hundreds and may be thousands, the people who flock to listen to them number hundreds of thousands. Let me talk about organizers. They are usually rich people. I understand that. Without money power, it is difficult to organize huge events like these ones. Arranging the venue, providing all the facilities like carpets, chairs, etc. to carry on the activities or arranging media and recording system and air conditioning or fans, and to look after the pundit and his group, all need money. The organizers provide money, and also raise money from the listeners and followers. I have no problem, no objection with that. I am concerned with how far these organizers follow the teachings of the pundits. We all come across stories how these people become rich by following foul means, by following short cuts (by avoiding routes of hard work and efforts, while I am saying this obviously I am not referring to all organizers, there are always exceptions). There is also a familiar story how a businessman was putting sugar particles into ant holes, so that the vice he earns by adding sand to sugar in his grocery shop can be compensated by putting few sugar particles into ant holes, for the vice of adding sand to sugar, or stones to rice, can be compensated /balanced by offering alms to beggars or putting sugar in ant holes and so on.

My central question is: are the organizers or the people who contribute to these events are motivated by this spirit of ‘balance’ and ‘compensation?’ If that is the spirit, if that is the underlying motivation, then the whole price in organizing such events is zero, as it is seen, viewed from a commercial, business point of view. It is like killing an animal, and to balance the sin, you nurture another animal. In fact, the concept of fear in religion that if you commit sin you will be punished in after life, and if you commit virtue you will be suitably rewarded in after life is so strong, so motivating, that I see in most of these events, most of these organizations, there is a sense to capitalize on this fear factor. They are motivated by this end game of ‘balance’ and ‘compensation.’

Then what is the end result? It is like coming back to square one. The pundit says you remain calm, think ill of none. You listen to it carefully, and also you know that it is a great thing to practice in life, but the moment the pundit jumps to the second sentence, you forget it, you think about humdrum daily life. It is like Guru Nanak finding a person performing Namaz on the street, while actually thinking about his lost flock of sheep while performing the prayer. Hence, this is the dualism, which must be avoided, curbed and nullified. The only positive thing I can see in these activities is just diversion of time in some harmless things. From that point of view, it may be a fine thing. But, I do not think that is the sole purpose of organizing these events, where millions of people spend time and huge sums of money.

At the end this dualism persists. Leo Tolstoy says, the ‘kingdom of God lies within you.’ Unless the human being realizes the God ‘within,’ all the ‘outside’ practices such as listening to pundits, or going to temples, mosques, gurudwaras, churches and synagogues will be vain. It is the ‘within’ or the inner self of human being that is reflected in his ‘outside’. Unless that realization comes in thought and practice, this dualism will continue with all its vigour, prompting a great soul like Adi Shankara calling the activities of the world as Maya or illusion, because that is not the truth as we see, that only pushes us to live in a world of dualism, in which the outer self, the show, the veneer predominates over the subtle, the inner and the soul.