Culture and Man

By M. S. Gopalakrishnan M.A.

MAN has an endless capacity to talk. He attaches little importance to his acts. There is a deathless desire in him to honour culture and tradition. The growth of civilization is rooted in him. Modern civilization is not the evolution of emotions in him. He has learnt to stifle his emotions with that strength of intellect registering the facts of science. Science wants him to analyse Nature. With tolerable and intolerable ambitions he starts dissecting Nature to find his Creator’s face. As he looks at Nature with a mind different from that of the scientist man betrays his ignorance of life’s purpose.

Life is culture normal and simple. We have not the patience to conceive life in the right manner. We approach it in suspicion. We take it as an evil necessity. We think we belong to the State and not to ourselves or humanity. We become political beasts knowing no quiet abode or solace in the soul.

Our ancestors worshipped Nature. They too knew the secrets of Nature which had a spiritual meaning for them. We are concerned with adding and spending; with little love for work we labour for hours like automobiles. Most of us pretend to possess a highly developed sensitive mechanism which in fact is weak. Even with the growth of refined thoughts man is seen still in possession of primitive instincts.

Where is culture? What has happened to our minds?

Our minds have nothing of their own in them. The mind of each person carries the thoughts and emotions of another.

Human mind is a store-house of vicious thoughts. It needs purification at every hour of the day, at each stage of life. Culture turns to ashes all the unwanted ideals. It has an ideal, the aim of pure emotions, to reach the perfect self in man. His imperfect self, his ego distorts and dims his otherwise good vision and he looks at the universe in a suffocating smoke.

As a product of Nature, possessing the attributes of Nature, the mind of man must be essentially a spotless mirror. But the environments and circumstances in which it develops impart a very good deal of non-essential ideas, which in turn develop the ego in him. This imbibing of a number of meaningless words lead even the greatest of men to the stinking pit of egoism, where he rots helpless devoid of integrity, sincerity, and faith.

The natural way of living is no more seen and the simplicity of existence is dead. As he has disfigured the world around him, man dwells in his own thoughts. He sees his own corpse but has not the strength for contempt. He laments and shudders. If one ventures to show his moral courage he is suspected as an anarchist, an enemy of Society, a traitor to the State, or a devil against God. The morals of State and Society are preached while this planet is crumbling to ruins. Still the fight for life is fought by the crawling worm and the superman.

The soul of humanity is culture which aims at finding “the perfect expression of beauty” which we call Reality. Clean thoughts arise in the hearts of those whose sympathy embraces humanity. Enchanting beauty is moulded by the eminent personalities whose love expanded beyond the limits of flesh and its urgencies. It is that beauty found in works of arts and sciences which we call culture. It inspires us to calm the agitation’s of the heart; it attempts to clean its own birth-spot, the human mind. Man and the living world around him subsist in an unifying culture.

The world we live in has many masters to decide its destiny. Destiny is decided not by man but by natural law. Man gasps in pain for the masters of men are a prey to their vilest desires. They have insulted Adam and disobeyed Eve; Have our minds no potency to struggle for the establishment of justice, the language of the Gods? Have we lost identity with our own companions on Earth? Faith of man in man is not seen. All know that they do not see the quiet, pellucid eyes of culture; but no one has a wish to profess it. Man speaks that he fights for peace, democracy, and civilization. When he has stabbed at that divine personality in himself, the most intense and glowing atom in him cannot but extinguish itself in calamity. Many sages proclaim that they have known the meaning of culture. Have they comprehended the purpose of life? Silent dreamers talking symbolic words and interpreting the dust-ridden pages of ancient tomes can never save a decaying civilization. We think we advance; really we have shattered the steps we trod to reach the spot where no lamp is lit to guide us further. When we gaze on the world around us with that emotional intensity essential to lift the veil of ignorance our afflicted minds see the lands of mortals with blood-spots and bone-heaps.

Man reads; but does he feel? Man thinks he thinks, but of what and how? Man acts, but with what motive? Is he cultured in the truest sense? Is his mind normal, simple, pure and magnificent?

Innumerable philosophic, metaphysical and scientific doctrines and conventional and customary practices and rituals have broken the delicate walls of human consciousness. Out of chaos man emerged with a conscience, the presence of which is to show him his own errors. He takes to that way of life which is not the cultural way and so ignores his own sense of values. He finds weight in the words of X and Y who appear to him favoured by fate and sent by the angels. In the happiness he sought in his works he found a bitter pill. That is the position an average man finds when left to himself.

In a moment of inexpressible tranquillity, the seeker after truth, in blissful meditation done with utter detachment, assimilates the meaning of culture. He becomes normal and simple. His simplicity is not a pose and he finds a purpose for every struggle waged in earnestness. He never speaks. He thinks to that moment when thoughts desert him senses succumb to his will and Nature stands radiant and unadorned before him. Profound is his silence and the brilliance of his eyes reveal that the law of nature is the law of human conscience. That is culture,–life finding its own fulfillment in its own beginnings. Learn to become innocent as the children in the cradle with the wisdom of Einstein and Tolstoy. Then you understand the value of emotions which severs your kinship with the Chimpanzee and the Orang-utan.

It is now the day for man to think more of his frustrations which cloud his naturally pure mind. True culture is not a lesson to be learnt but a state to be experienced. To experience this state is not a difficult task provided we decide to laugh at death and dictators. We need not believe in supermen as they are only a few miles away from us, ahead of us to reach the goal.

Our destiny is not to convert the globe into a purgatory, but to introspect. An introspection that makes us see the world not as a ball of chaos, but as the source of our actions and happiness. If we do not question the nature of things and swallow others’ views as they were or as they are, how can we be certain that the sayings of the famous dead and living personalities which we treasure in our memories could make us men of learning, men of culture?

Of all the days one has to live, that day, that moment when death completes life, when man separates himself from man and dissolves into the elements which composed the corpse he carried is the most cruel and the most painful. Though unaware of the purpose of culture, he becomes conscious of the futility of existence. It is this last moment which needs pure consciousness and satisfaction in him coupled with the truest affection of others for him.

If we remain true to our own individual ideals and be conscious of that mysterious power, the ruling force of the universe animating the creative mechanism, we stand on divine ground with all simplicity and chastity in our beings. In life we gain the peace prevailing in the Himalayan tops and in death the Kingdom of the Father who is in Heaven.

Culture flows like a meandering brook adjusting its course to its own harmony. Culture crosses unfathomable oceans, climbs huge peaks of snow and forests and cuts new tracks through the scattered turbulent nations of the world. Nations become flooded by this swelling beauty of culture. Their convulsive diseases are cured their distorted shapes change. Man begins to think that he is a citizen of the world, the object of the earth below his feet. He realises that he never more belongs to one particular state or society or to one square plot of ground where his mother lay to deliver him to his father whose responsibility it was to see to the proper growth of that individual and his apprehension of Truth in himself.