Looking At Life: The Stoic

Life is real; life is earnest. There is no getting away from it. It is not given to us to realise, in all its implications, the meaning and value of life. And yet a little study and introspection and the companionship of the wise, may enable us to glimpse something of God’s plan which is believed to be Evolution–evolution of life as well as form. From the mineral up to man, and from man up to God, the progress is continuous. To the extent that we put ourselves in tune with the Infinite, and perform the duties of the station in life to which we are called, we made ourselves efficient instruments in the hands of a Power that sweetly and mightily ordereth all things, and always makes for righteousness. This fundamental faith is at the of all systems of thought which have shaped men’s minds through the ages, and subdued their wills to Something that is far, yet near, transcendent as well as immanent, seated, so to say, in the heart of all beings.

But, from time to time; certain attitudes are developed, by individuals as well as groups–attitudes which run counter to the generally accepted notions of right an wrong. They indicate, in exaggerated forms, the point of view of cultivated minds that have pondered over the evils and the seeming inconsistencies of life. To them this simple faith in a beneficent and all-wise Power is an over-simplification, a way of escape from the realities that confront us on every side. Of different ways of looking at life, Stoicism is by far, the most powerful, and, to the unwary student of life’s problems, the most cogent.

The common, and very mistaken, conception of Stoicism is that it is a denial of the joy of existence, that the Stoic always courts suffering and revels in it. But in their origin, both Stoicism and Epicureanism were theories as to how one might be happy though subjugated or enslaved. As Will Durant puts it; Stoicism is the apathetic acceptance of defeat, and Epicureanism the effort to forget defeat in the arms of pleasure. The Stoic Zeno argued that philosophic indifference was the only reasonable attitude to a life in which the struggle for existence is so unfairly doomed to inevitable defeat. If victory is quite impossible, it should be scorned. “The secret of peace is not to make our achievements equal to our desires, but to lower our desires to the level of our achievements.” According to the Roman Stoic Seneca, “If what you have seems insufficient to you, then, though you possess the world, you will yet be miserable.”

It is remarkable that Stoicism drew its votaries from all ranks, from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius down to the slave Epictetus. Life according to nature is the ideal of the Stoic. Marcus Aurelius is full of studies of nature in the devout spirit of “passing from nature to nature’s God”. The fountain of all virtue is the life of subordination of self to more general interests–to family, country, mankind, the whole universe. The four cardinal virtues are wisdom, i.e., the knowledge of good and evil; justice; fortitude; and temperance. Temperance, mark you, not asceticism. Of these fortitude is easily the most important. One need not go out of one’s way to invite suffering and pain. Butwhen suffering does come, one must have the strength to bear it, strength of mind as well as of spirit. In a celebrated passage Epictetus says:

“Never in any case say, I have lost such a thing; but,
I have returned it. Is thy child dead?–It is returned.
Is thy wife dead?–She is returned. Art thou deprived
of thy estate?–Is not this also returned?”

But, after all, Stoicism is a philosophy of negation. Man should learn not merely hook to face sorrow, but also how to seek happiness in the many things of beauty that lie all around him. Epicurus, who was in actual life as severe and simple as Zeno the Stoic, supplied the needed corrective to the Stoic attitude. He held that apathy is impossible, and that pleasure–though not necessarily sensual pleasure–is the only conceivable, and quite legitimate, end of life and action. We must not avoid pleasures but select them. Epicurus is no epicurean in the vulgar acceptation of the term. He exalts the joys of intellect rather than those of sense; he warns against pleasures that excite and disturb the soul which they should rather quiet and appease. In the end he proposes to seek not pleasure in its usual sense, but ataraxia– tranquillity, equanimity, repose of mind.

Francis Bacon accepts this view of pleasure, for he says:

“Are not the pleasures of the affections greater than the pleasures of the senses, and are not the pleasures of the intellect greater than the pleasures of the affections? Is not that only a true and natural pleasure whereof there is no satiety?”

But Bacon is no believer in the Stoic suppression of desires. “Let not a man trust his victory over his nature too far,” says Bacon, “for nature will lay burled a great time, and yet revive upon the occasion or temptation. Like as it was with Aesop’s damsel, turned from a cat to a woman, who sat very demurely at the board’s end, till a mouse ran before her.”

The middle path, between asceticism and indulgence, was what the Lord Buddha declared as the correct rule of life, even as Sri Krishna admonished his disciple against the mortification of the body, which according to him led not only to needless suffering but caused intense pain to Himself, who was seated within the heart of man.

Right through human history, the Stoic view has, within limits, been admired. The limitation of wants, the practice of contentment, the striving after equanimity, the hardening of one’s self against the blows of fortune, are all fundamental maxims of later ages; and a qualified form of the subordination of self to the general welfare is an essential part of most modern theories virtue.

It is, however, against the exaggeration and the over-emphasis of the Stoic attitude that saner philosophers have fought. For example, the Stoic is never tired of speaking of the fleeting nature of all pleasures, of the impermanence of all Beauty, of the need to so order our lives as to make all life a preparation for Death. But the wise man will take his pleasure as it comes to him, knowing that it does not last for ever, while he bears pain with fortitude knowing that “even this will pass away”. There is enough of suffering and sorrow in life. There is no sense in seeking to add to this volume of suffering by telling oneself every moment that the smile of an innocent child may be followed by a fit of sobbing, that the flower in full bloom is bound to fade before the end of the day, that the charm of the beloved is of small account because, some day sooner or later, that fair form must be consigned to the flames. This constant and futile contemplation of decay and death is a sign of morbidity. And when this morbidity develops into a malady, the tasting of delicious food is imagined to be a sin; so too the listening to good music and the rapt admiration of sunrise and sunset. “You are becoming a slave to the five senses,” our friends would tell us. I have a vivid re-collection of a bhajan party where the voices were out of tune and the instruments made discordant noises. When I pleaded that music must fall pleasantly on the ear so as to induce the proper devotional mood, I was told that the object of the bhajan was to sing the praises of the Lord, and the moment you began to love sweet sounds your attention was diverted from the Lord! This is like saying that you cannot taste a cup of nectar, unless a drop of poison was mixed with it. Otherwise, you would be in danger of becoming addicted to nectar; the drop of poison will supply the requisite alloy to the gold of the nectar! And, that way, your faith will be strengthened!

Stoicism represents a mood. It answers to something deep down in our natures. Time after time our hopes are dashed to the ground, our dreams cruelly broken. Those whom we love are snatched away from us by death, and the friends who meant so much to us become indifferent. The joy of life seems to be slipping away from us. It is then that the Stoic view appeals to us and we seek shelter in a philosophy of negation. In lands where the twin doctrines of Karma and Re-incarnation are either not known, or not held to be valid hypotheses, the discontent is particularly acute. But to those of us who have learnt to value the main tenets of Buddhism or Hinduism, death is not the end of life, nor birth its beginning.

Through long ages of evolution we err and reap the consequences of those errors. There is a divinity that shapes our ends, but, within fairly well-defined limits, we can exercise our will and shape the future by our present thoughts and deeds, even as the present is being shaped by those of the past. With this ground man strives after perfection through the performance of duty, the service of his fellowmen, and the spreading of kindliness all around. But these virtues constitute their own reward, and the virtuous man is not necessarily the prosperous man or the happy man judged by outward conditions. But the attitude of viewing praise and blame, victory and defeat, happiness and misery, with the same calmness and equi-vision, helps us to the right perspective towards life and its problems. This is the Gita view. And it is a view which is gaining acceptance in an ever-increasing measure.

Self-reliance is a noble quality. To turn inward and commune with our deepest self is the mark of the exalted soul. But there are moments, rare but exceedingly precious, when this faith in ourselves seems to break down, and something within us cries out for succour to something apparently beyond us. These are the moments when religious experience touches its loftiest points, and the mystics and the prophets gain a vision of the Infinite. It was such a vision that was vouchsafed to Arjuna, when in his distress he turned to the Charioteer seated beside him. It is best therefore to realise that there is Someone waiting to help.

This sense of a Higher Power watching over man, and yet dwelling within him, is expressed by Marcus Aurelius thus:

“He liveth with the gods, who at all times affords unto them the spectacle of a soul, both contented and well pleased with whatsoever is pleasing to that spirit, whom (being part of himself) Jove hath appointed to every man as his overseer and governor.”

The indwelling Light is, in essence, the same as the Light of all Lights–Jyotishaam Jyoti. Man’s destiny here below is to realise this essential identity, and so regulate his life as to be worthy of the grace and beneficence which the All-wise is ever yearning to bestow on all beings. The Stoic view of life needs to be flavoured with this faith in things eternal.

It is thus that the spirit of Virgil exhorts Dante:

“Remember thee, remember thee, if I
Safe e’en on Geryon brought thee; now I come
More near to God, wilt thou not trust me now?
Of this be sure; though in its womb that flame
A thousand Years contain’d thee, from thy head
No hair should perish. If thou doubt my truth,
Approach; and with thy hand thy vesture’s hem
Stretch forth, and for thyself confirm belief.
Lay now all fear, oh! lay all fear aside.
Turn hither, and come onward undismay’d.”
–THE DIVINE COMEDY
(Canto XXVII)

(By Courtesy of All India Radio, Vijayawada. December 7, ’53)