Religion: The Indian Understanding

Defining a concept in terms of a series of oppositions and dualities is perhaps what comes naturally to our epistemology and semantic experience. Viewed from this angle, a consideration of religion too involves a series of polarites: Holy - Unholy, Sacred - Profane, Tran­scendent -Immanent, God - Devil, Salvation - Damnation, believer - Non-believer, spiritual - Secular and This Worldly - Other worldly.........

A definition by negatives, however, does not take us far. For our linguistic structures and modes of discourse are deeply influenced by our cultural conditioning and internalization of experience. Communication across different cultures, at times, breaks down since certain motifs defy translation across cultural frontiers. How does one, for instance, convey the notion of criminal behaviour to the member of a so-called primitive tribe whose tribal wisdom has alchemised all criminal traits into benevo­lent action? The analogy holds true in the case of religion as well. As Winston L. King remarks:

            The very attempt to define religion, to find some distinctive or possibly unique essence or set of qualities that distinguish the “religious” from the remainder of human life, is primarily a western concern. The attempt is a natural consequence of the Western, speculative intellectu­alistic and scientific disposition. It is also the product of the dominant western religious mode, what is called the jude-Christian Climate or more accurately, the theistic Inheritance. The theistic form of belief in this tradition even when downgraded culturally is formative of the dichoto­mous Western view of religion. That is, the basic structure of theism is essentially a distinction between a transcendent deity and all else, between the creator and his creation, between God and Man....

Many practical and conceptual difficulties arise when one attempts to apply such a dichotomous pattern across the board to all cultures.¹

I

It therefore follows that in assessing the oriental religions, espe­cially Hinduism, we must apply standards that are native to the spirit of such religious cultures. More than any other eastern religion, it is perhaps Hinduism that is most distinguished by a many-sided vision and a large­-hearted catholicity. Indeed, to many an unsympathetic alien mind, such a feature might appear amorphous and lacklustre:

            Where it asks is its soul? Where is its mind and fixed thought? Where is the form of its body? How can there be a religion which has no rigid dogmas demanding belief of eternal damnation, no theological postulates, even no fixed ideology, no credo distinguishing it from antagonistic or rival religions? How can there be a religion which has no papal head, no governing ecclesiastical body, no church, chapel or congregational system, no binding religious form of any kind obligatory on all its adherents, no one administration or discipline.²

Religion, according to Sri Aurobindo, is in essence, Man’s relation­ship with the Unknown. Every religion must contain in itself an image of Man, his origin and his destiny. Sri Aurobindo’s view of religion and his conception of Man are largely based on the premises of the Vedas and the Upanishads. Man, according to such a view, is not a chemical or biological accident, a product or a plaything of chance, “the thinking reed” of Pascal. Ancient Indian Wisdom recognizes the fact that it is Conciousness that is the source of all creation, including Man. He has not only the physical or bodily self, “Anna Kosa” buthe also has many layers and planes of being in an ascending order: There is in him, the Vital or the Life World, “Prana Kosa” theMind, “Manah Kosa.” And beyond still, though not quite discernible now, there are the “Vijnana Kosa” and “Ananda Kosa,” described as those of knowledge and bliss.

Man, according to this view, was urged to have a growing aware­ness of all the selves of his being. Not only was he supposed to seek a legitimate fulfilment of his body, life and mind, he was to realize, above all, the spirit, the soul or the indwelling Godhead in him. For indeed

            Beyond Mind, Life and Body there is a Spirit and Self, containing all that is finite and infinite, surpassing all that is relative, a supreme absolute, originating and supporting all that is transient, a one Eternal. A one transcendent, universal, original and sempiternal Divinity or divine essence, Consciousness, Force Bliss is the fount and continent and inhabitants of things. Soul, Nature, Life are only a manifestation or partial phenomenon of this self - aware Eternity. ³

How can Man realize his potentialities, when he is constantly confronted by the very opposite of his “Ultimate Aspirations”: bondage, ignorance and death. In Sri Aurobindo’s words:

A deep enigma is the soul of Man
            His conscious life obeys the Inconscient’s rule,
            His need of joy is learnt in sorrow’s school;
            His heart is a chaos and an empyrean,
            His subtle ignorance borrows wisdom’s plan;
            His mind is the Infinite’s sharp and narrow tool.
            He wades through mud to reach the Wonderful,
            And does what Matter must or Spirit can.

            All powers in his livings soil take root
            Hoping to grow and dominate the earth
            This little creature mind that would be great
            Is Nature’s fool and God head’s struggling birth,
            A demigod and a demon and a brute,
            The slave and the creator of his fate.⁴

II

Unlike some other religions like Christianity that strove to cut the Gordian knot of life by adjuring the flesh for the sake of the Spirit, Indian religion took a balanced, realistic and tolerant attitude towards Man and his elemental nature. It held up four necessities as the basic goals of human life:

First, it imposed upon the mind a belief in a highest Consciousness or state of existence universal or transcendent of the Universe, from which all comes, in which all lives and moves without knowing it and of which all must one day grow aware, returning towards that which is perfect eternal and infinite. Next, it laid upon the individual life, the need of self-preparation by development and experience till man is ready for an effort to grow consciously into the truth of this greater existence. Thirdly, it provided it with a well-founded, well-explored, many branching and always enlarging way of knowledge and of spiritual and religious discipline. Lastly, for those not yet ready for these higher steps, it provided an organisation of the individual and collective life, a framework of personal and social discipline and conduct, of mental and moral and vital development by which they could move each in his own limits and according to whose own nature in such a way as to become eventually ready for the greater existence. ⁵

Religion in India, contends Sri Aurobindo, recongnised the need for a strong spiritual order and multiple approaches. This was provided for in various ways that avoided a doctrinaire and sectarian spirit. There was, first of all, “an ever-enlarging number of authorized scriptures” having an equally large number of permissible interpretations. None of these authoritative texts were, however, allowed to be turned into “instruments of ecclesiastical tyranny.” Another tool for order was Kuladharma, a power of the family or communal tradition. Further, the Brahmins through their religious authority ensured a certain religious discipline. Finally, and most characteristically, order was secured by the succession of Gurus or spiritual teachers, “Parampara who preserved the continuity of each spiritual system and handed it down from genera­tion to generation.”

Approaches to the goal were many, since the second underlying idea of the Indian religion was “the manifold way of men’s approach to the Eternal and Infinite.”

And finally, Hinduism believed that the Supreme can be made by each individual soul in itself because “there is something in it that is intimately one or atleast intimately related with the divine existence.” ⁶

Indian religion in Sri Aurobindo’s view, has passed through three main stages: the Vedic, the Upanishadic and the Puranotantric. The Vedic Age of India was witness to

            An extension of the psychic significance of the godheads in the cosmos. Its primary notion was that of a hierarchy of world’s, an ascending stair of planes of being, in the universe. It saw a mounting scale of the worlds corresponding to a similar mounting scale of planes or degrees or levels of consciousness in the nature of Man. A Truth, Right and Law sustains and governs all these levels of nature.⁷

These truths were meant for and revealed to only a few knowl­edgeable souls. For the rest, the greater mass of men, gross and physical, held unfit for a spiritual life, the Vedas were basically a chronicle of Nature worship or polytheism.

The Vedic efflorescence, adds Sri Aurodindo, found a culmination in the Upanishads as evidenced especially in the Chhandogya and Brihadaranyaka. While the knowledge of the Supreme was still re­stricted to men of the higher classes, the Kshatriyas and the Brahmins, nevertheless, the mighty force of that seeking “swept through the higher mind of the nation and fertilised the soil of Indian culture for a constant and ever-increasing growth of spiritual consciousness and spiritual experi­ence.” The period also saw the emergence of the great philosophies, the composition of the immortal epics, the creation and consolidation of mighty empires.

The third, Purano-Tantric age saw a transformation of the earlier symbolic truths of the Vedas into new Pantheons. The Vedic gods were replaced by the great trinity: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. As Sri Aurobindo describes:

            The house of fire was replaced by the temple, the Karmic ritual of sacrifice was transformed into the devotional temple ritual........These new concepts stabilised in physical images were made the basis both for internal adoration and for the external worship which replaced Sacrifice. The psychic and spiritual mystic endeavour which was the inner sense of the Vedic hymns disappeared into the less intensely luminous but more wide and rich and complex psycho-spiritual inner life of Puranic and Tantric religion and Yoga.⁸

Religious culture in India has attempted to realize its basic objec­tive through two main ways, First, it has tried to elevate the natural Man in society through an ascending series of life-stages till the individual is ready for the spiritual levels, and secondly, it has always kept the Highest end before the mind at every stage.

To accomplish its first goal, Hinduism fashioned out an elaborate system. As Sri Aurobindo explains:

            The frame of its system was constituted by a triple quartette. Its first circle was the synthesis and gradation of the four-fold object of life, vital desire and hedonistic enjoyment, personal and communal interest, moral right and law and spiritual liberation. Its second circle was the four­fold order of society carefully graded and equipped with its fixed eco­nomic functions and its deeper cultural, ethical and spiritual significance. Its third, the most original and indeed unique of its englobing life patterns was the four-fold scale and succession of the successive stages of life, student, householder, forest recluse and free super social man.⁹

Spiritual progress of Man in India was always governed by the characteristic idea of Adhikara. While all individual beings are portions of the same divine Soul, still in actuality, there are infinite differences between men. There is a need for each individual to grow according to his social stratum and needs, according to his inner law of being, his law of nature, his Swabhava and Swadharma. Three broad types of men can be discerned, comparable to the Tantric distinctions between the animal man, the hero man and the divine man, Pasu, Vira and Deva or according to the Gunas:

            First, the Tamasic or Rajaso-Tamasic Man, ignorant, inert or moved only in a little height by small motive forces, the Rajasic or Sattwo-­Rajasic Man struggling with an awakened mind and will towards self-­development or self-affirmation and the Sattwic man open in mind and heart and will to the Light standing at the top of the scale and ready to transcend it. ¹⁰

The enormously rich system of rituals, ceremonies, rites and pageantry that one notices in Indian religion was actually ment for the first type of seekers. Though these appear to be signs of an ignorant mind cast in a half-awakened religionism, they have their own utility and rationale or the “soul shrouded in the ignorance of material nature.”

These categorisations, for the most part, were not rigid distinctions or insurmountable divisions, but only a gradation. Each of these stages was easily accessible to all the members. And the exceptionally gifted souls could always bypass the intermediate stages. Self-exceeding was the constant refrain and hall-mark of this religion. It created the Yoga of works, the Yoga of Devotion and the Yoga of knowledge.

III

One may wonder as to why such a puissant, many-sided and catholic religion should suffer a decline. Certainly, the spread of the religious truth and vision from the chosen few of the Vedic Age to the increasing numbers in society was both a historic necessity as well as evolutionary need. And as always in such a process, there is involved a certain loss in the intensity of vision and revelation. Like all else, religion too must pass through “the Symbolic”, “the Typal” and “the Conventional” through “the Individualistic’ “the Subjective” ¹¹

The decline in the Indian religion coincided with the general decline and loss of vitality of the Indian culture. External events, rituals, ceremonies, one’s particular birth and station in life had begun to take a precedence over the earlier fluidity and freedom of the human spirit. A time had come to break free from the shackles of the Conventional Age and take the human evolution to a greater culture. A time when the Indian religion, despite its lofty conception and design, could correct some of its excesses, certain tendencies like other-worldly monasticism, that did violence to the Kernel of the Hindu religious experience. The religion of the future would be a life-asserting spirituality that would grant the utmost freedom to every human soul. Enough harm has already been done in the name of institutionalised religion. It is in this direction of an individual religion and not a revival of the past that the future of the Indian religion lies: A religion that embraces all aspects of life and provides a meaning of life, the Kurukshetra, urging us on to a life of Progress, Perfection and Harmony. For, without such a searchlight, life would remain a hopeless shadow-play, a meaningless phantasmagoria and an occasion for de­spair. As Sri Auobindo observes:

            It is true in a sense that religion should be the dominant thing in life, its light and law, but religion as it should be and is in its inner nature, its fundamental law of being, a seeking after God, the cult of spirituality, the opening of the deepest lie of the soul to the indwelling Godhead, the eternal Omnipresence. On the other-hand, it is true that religion when it identifies itself only with a creed, a cult, a church, a system or ceremonial forms, may well become a retarding force and there may thereafter arise a necessity for the human spirit to reject its control over the varied activities of life. There are two aspects of religion, true religion and religionism. True religion is spiritual religion, that which seeks to live in the spirit, in what is beyond the intellect, beyond the aesthetic and ethical and practical being of Man, and to inform and govern these members of our being by the higher light and law of the spirit. Religionism, on the contrary, entrenches itself in some narrow pietistic exaltation of the lower members or lays exclusive stress on intellectual dogmas, forms and ceremonies, on some fixed and rigid moral codes, on some religio­-political or religio-social system..... ¹²

IV

To sum up: In order to assess the strength of a religion, we need to have standards that accord well with the spirit of a given religious culture. Indian religion, as expounded by Sri Aurobindo, appears as catholic, inclusive and creative. It gave the widest possible freedom to the individual to have a relationship with the Supreme, the Absolute, the Unknown. Monasticism, physical renunciation, denial of life or illusionism were never at the heart of the Indian religion, though some of these strands might have gained currency at certain epochs, admittedly to the great detriment of Indian culture. Indian religion fashioned out an ingenious religious culture that took care of the smallest possible differences in human temperament and behaviour. It considered all aspects of life as the legitimate field to carry the stamp of a religious vision. The unfortunate decline of the Indian religion cannot be revoked by a revival of the past religious spirit and forms. It can only be achieved by shaping the wisdom of the past into a dynamic spirituality of the future. Such a spirituality would be synthetic and integral in character; it would include the best of the religious wisdom of the world. A new Man and a new World “the earliest preoccupations of Man” ¹³ would then turn out to be his ‘ulti­mate’ ones.

¹ Winston L. King The Encyclopaedia of Religion Vol.12 (New York: Mac Millan Company, 1987), P.282
² Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, Vol.14 Centenary Edition (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1972), P.138.
³ Foundations, P. 125.
⁴ “The Human Enigma,” Collected Poems, Cent Ed. Vol. 5 (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1972), P.148.
⁵ Foundations, P. 124.
⁶ Foundations, P. 138.
⁷ Ibid, P. 144.
⁸ Foundations, P .152.
⁹ Foundations, P.159.
¹⁰ Ibid, P.
¹¹ Sri Aurobindo, The Human cycle Pondicherry: Sri Aurobido Ashram Press, 1962) p.3
¹² The Human Cycle, pp.237-38.
¹³ Aurobindo, The life Divine, Centenary edition (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1972), P. 1.