Ethics: An Integral Part of Religion

An influential and growing body of opinion holds that the days of religion are over, and that secular ethics is fully adequate to the regulation of life. By and large, Nehru seems to have shared this view. Thus Andre Malaraux, the noted French intellectual in his book Anti-Memoirs, quotes Nehru as saying, “Humanity lacks some thing essential. What? A sort of spiritual element which holds in check the scientific power of modern man. It is now clear that science is incapable of regulating Life. Life is regulated by virtues.”

Such identification of spirituality with ethics is altogether too naive. It ignores the extraordinary complexity of the workings of the human mind. The objection to it comes not so much from the side of religion, as from science, especially from recent psychology. Long before Freud, William James has stressed the part played by the subconscious mind in human experience and behaviour; and sought to explain how a large part of religion lay in techniques for coming to terms with the subconscious. Subsequently the idea was developed from various angles by Freud and lung and a host of other investigators. Although they differ greatly in regard to the mode of approach, as well as their conclusions, they are all agreed about the dynamic function of the unconscious in our lives. Hence they are all clubbed together as “depth” psychologies.

Our problems, personal and social, are thus seen as having their roots in the unconscious, and as being the outcome of a conflict between the conscious and the unconscious. The solution of these problems obviously depends on a resolution of such conflicts. Human drives have their origin in the unconscious, and conscious professions are in the main “rationalizations” or justifications of unconscious motivation. It is the dream life rather than surface awareness that offers a glimpse into the depths of being. During the waking life, contact with the unconscious cannot be established directly or “consciously,” but only indirectly through myths and symbols: they are the language of the unconscious. This realization is leading to a wholly new evaluation of their role and importance. Such being the case we can imagine that conscious and wilful ethics is but a poor barrier against the over-powering upsurges from the unconscious regions. The will is essential but far from sufficient.

Here then we are up against the great dilemma: the knowledge and the practice of virtue are wholly different things. That is the gist of evil-minded Duryodhana’s lament, “Alas, I know the good, yet I am unable to follow it; I know what is evil, yet I cannot desist from it.” But even Arjuna’s problem is no other. He asks in the Gita (III, 36) “What is it that compels a man against his own will to do evil?” The answer is that when a man feels acutely confronted with the limits of his will, he instinctively craves the support of something which is not a creature of his will. It matters little whether this “other” is named God, or the Law, or anything else. The immemorial experience of mankind is that such a buttressing power lies at the of appearances. It does not thrust itself on us, but is accessible if we attune ourselves to it. In the words of the Bible: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.”

The secret of Mahatma Gandhi’s power lay in his co-ordination of religion and ethics. Our mistake is fondly to imagine that the two can be divorced, and that we can retain a secular ethics while at the same time discarding God. Gandhiji’s strength consisted in the rhythm of the exertion of will and its surrender, each reinforcing the other. Pride or will is the greatest obstacle to its own efficacy, paradoxical though this may appear. That will is unconquerable which is capable of saying “Thy will be done”!

The process is not so difficult as it may look at first sight; and it can be divested of all the paraphernalia of conventional religion. Not faith but a willingness of the heart is all that is needed. If one assumes and cultivates a “presence” which watches every thought and deed, the mood will grow stronger with each affirmation. It will act as a check as well as a stimulant capable of experimental verification. We know to what an extent behavior can be affected by the feeling that we are being secretly spied on; or how guarded we shall be in our talk if we believe that a concealed microphone is recording it. But a posited inner, “presence” can censor our thoughts also. The point is that even mere suspicion can prove as effective as actuality. It is so with the notion of God, conceived as the Inner Ruler (Antaryamin). It is a tacit “presence” which is there all the time, even when we are not aware of it. To become aware of it is the core of all religion, we may say, “Take care of the presence” and the ‘presence’ will take care of our ethics”. More concretely, I should say that the “Presence” I have in mind is that of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba.

Jesus was referring to the loss of such awareness when he asked, “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” No doubt this has been understood as meaning that one has to make a choice as between the world and the soul, and that he cannot have both. And it is true enough that men have sought in religion a way of escape from the world. But the great dictum is worded conditionally, and is capable of another interpretation: “It would indeed be an irreparable loss if man in his greed for the things of the world should pay for them with the integrity of his soul”. This alternative, which is the converse of the other, is not less valid, and makes out a case for the co-­existence of the world and the soul.

This awareness does not inhibit activity, but eliminates egoism. The question here is not one of the “existence” or “non­existence” of God in the objective sense. But the awareness makes one perceive a “presence” in which, in Gandhiji’s words, the Law and the Law-giver are one. Merging in this “presence” one reaches into the depths of being, and experiences what has been variously described as “comic consciousness (Whitman), as “the oceanic feeling” (Freud), or the sense of the “Holy” (RudolfOtto).

There are many varieties of such experience; but ethics has no place for any of them. On the other hand, religion includes ethics as an integral part of itself. An ethics which excludes religious experience is self­-stultifying; and is no match for science which plumes itself on its “ethical neutrality”.

Gandhiji used to say that the opening lines of the Isa Upanishad embodied all the religion and ethics we need: “Realizing that everything is pervaded by God, eschew greed, and let all enjoyment be tempered by renunciation. This is the sole key to a sane and active life”. The Gita also stresses the same idea: Yoga is skill in action; and such skill lies in a balance between effort and renunciation. Popular wisdom in ancient India had its maxim: Excess (greed) is to be avoided in everything – Ati sarvatra varjayet.

The foundation of such an ethics is a sense of limit. Thus the Buddha advocated the Middle Path; and the ancient Greeks prized “moderation”. Till recently Europe too cherished this value. Thus Montaigne asked “Can there be excess in virtues?” and himself answered: “No, if there is excess, it ceases to be virtue”. A faint echo of this sense is discernible in our world “economy”.

But modern civilization has “cast prudence (economy) to the winds”. Ours is an economics of waste. It is a record-breaking process which wants more and ever more of whatever it be. What is urgently needed is an ethics which will keep this extravagant greed in check. What will set a limit to the actions undertaken by the partisans of the good? What independent principle is there to control the excess of the upward and onward drive of “progressive”     determination?  A purely pragmatic account of the good leads necessarily to unmeasured conduct. As Dr. G. P. Grant has said, “The idea of limit is unavoidably the idea of good”.

Summing up, the equating of religion with ethics is detrimental to both. Essential elements of religion find no place in ethics, e.g., a sense of the sacred (numinous), the perception of a Law which links up the numinous with everyday life, an I-Thou relationship (to use Martin Buber’s phrase) with a Centre glimpsed through similar relationships with human beings and even with the cosmic objects, a cosmogony accommodating such experiences; symbolic techniques based on a psychology of depths as well as heights linking the conscious with the unconscious, and finally a scheme of morality in line with total human experience and activity. Otherwise, we shall be cooped up in a sterile ethics which, in Tagore’s words, “dance precariously on the single hope of humanity”.

The most perfect blend of religion and ethics for our own time is to be found in the teachings of Bhagavan Shri Sathya Sai Baba.

(courtesy – ‘Sanatana Sarathi’ April 1975.)