Darwin's "Survival of the fittest" theory & Hindu Vedanta

If the above Darwinian theory is applied to only the corporeal body, what happens to the soul, if there is one?

Hindu philosophy gives a shocking answer.

The goal of human life is release from the cycle of life & death as postulated by Sankara "Punarapi jananam, punarapi maranam...." (पुनरपि जननं, पुनरपि मरणं) So the soul, in its perfection, should not don a body again, that is in Darwinian terms, should not be corporeal again. Only those "fittest" (still not having achieved spiritual perfection) do "survive" (the unending cycle of birth & death). 

So the Hindu Vedanta also signifies the "anta" of the corporeal body as such.

A variant of this idea was also present in the Roman Catholic monastic order. Instead of struggling to corporeally survive, the highest goal of both monks & nuns was "martyrdom."

In a lighter vein, listeners to a talk by a monk of the Ramakrishna Order were shocked to hear him declare the goal of human life is "Birth Control"! What he meant was, the spiritual aspirant should lead such a life that there is no next (corporeal) birth for him!

Religion & Reform

Given that the Roman Catholic Church had become corrupt, instead of removing the excrescences, the foundations  themselves were tampered with by Martin Luther. He threw out the baby (of spirituality) along with the bathwater (of corruption.) As preached by Moses in his Ten Commandments & confirmed by Christ in his Sermon on the Mount, the first duty of mankind was to love & obey God. All others like honouring parents & helping the poor & sick were only secondary & aids to the above, like the Computer aiding most human activities now. Incidentally this fundamental truth exists even in the youngest Semitic religion, Islam (the meaning of which is surrender to the Will of God).The fall-out was, the earlier Christian Saints were those who were in communion with God (mystics) like St.Teresa (of Avila) & the later ones only social service providers under a religious garb, like St.Teresa (of Kolkata). This led to a loss of spirituality & a corresponding increase in worldliness. Worse, demonising the Pope & Catholics was institutionalized by others even after significant reforms in the Catholic Church, symbolically stoning them like the Muslims do during Haj in Mecca. The schisms among the Christians were brilliantly parodied in Jonathan Swift's satire, "The Tale of a Tub."

Fortunately in Hinduism, the oldest of them all, any minor aberrations were taken care of by periodical appearances of religious reformers. In the nineteenth century, the most dramatic of them, Sri Ramakrishna, was the first to proclaim that all religions are true, putting to rest irrational ideas like "One True religion" & "Chosen people", propagated by the Semitic religions. This Universal Truth of all religions got global currency first by his disciple Swami Vivekananda & later in the twentieth century by Sri Satya Sai Baba, who by his charisma & miracles gave a quantum jump to the inclusiveness of Hinduism.

Utopian Societies

The problem of human evil has always occupied the mind of mankind. Even religious leaders have opined that it is inherent in human nature. Hindu cosmology states that it is cyclic & righteousness declines with the Yugas.

But the American writer Richard Bach wondered what if a culture grew up without evil? What would it do with all the energy that is now spent on destructive activities? A world where we choose our highest right & not our darkest wrong & where we lift each other up instead of always putting each other down? The result was a book called "Curious Lives" where these ideas are worked out by a society of ferrets.

A similar idea was worked out in Elizabeth Gaskell's "Cranford" (1853). This was specific to a semi-rural town in pre-industrial England. Interestingly, this town was inhabited mostly by spinsters of independent means where economy was virtue & waste & ostentation were anathema. The mindset of these dear ladies could not comprehend a small (presumed) theft without alarm. They would rush to the aid of any one of them in dire straits unanimously. They were so naive that they would not enter into a business enterprise, even for livelihood, without taking the permission of the established traders. Even more surprisingly, the established traders would gladly allow them & even send some of their customers, recommending that better goods were sold there!

Sadly this was the only work of Gaskell in these lines, her other novels dealing with ordinary humans in all their exasperating diversity.

Two Biographies of two famous Sitarists

To consider Namita Devidayal's "The Sixth String of Vilayat Khan", first, on her own admission, she wanted "to find that sensational angle to...produce a page turner ..the rivalry between the (subject of her book) & Ravi Shankar....like the film "Amadeus" did between Salieri & Mozart. Given that, as some one close to Vilayat Khan said "He speaks the truth only by mistake" & much of the narrative is from the subject's perspective, the reader may be left in no doubt as to who Mozart is.

Apart from this, the writing leaves the reader in doubt as to the musical knowledge of the author, as she shies off from any remarks of depth. Add to this the lack of an index & a discography, & one has a quite shallow work on hand.

In stark contrast to the above, is Swapan Bandyopadhyay's "Nikhil Banerjee - Down the Heart of Sitar". The author, being a Professor of English & a Sitar player himself, brings knowledge & authority into his writing. Avoiding Ms. Devidayal's sensationalism, he quietly presents the salient facts of Pandit Banerjee's life & music, even though the book is shorter. There is a discography & details of Ragas created by Nikhil Banerjee, but no index again. Opinions of seniors & peers are included to give a rounded perspective on the man. Here also, given the mendacity of the subject of the earlier book, his comments about the subject of this book, may be taken with a pinch of salt!

Two non-fiction classics which are "literature" & meant for the layman

First is "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith. Though it is the founding work of Capitalism, it is surprisingly humane & says that to serve our best interest, we should necessarily serve others' needs. So benevolence is the best way to serve our self-interest.

This tome is divided into five chapters.

1. Division of Labour (Specialisation)
2. Nature & Use of Capital
3. Different Wealth in different nations
4. Systems of Political Economy
5. Revenue of the Nations

Surprisingly, the book written in 1776, before the Industrial Revolution, remains in essence, as valid in the 21st Century as the most famous book on Economy.

The second book is Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species." This was the first work to present an alternative view of creation to the Bible. Another unique point is the same idea occurred to Alfred Russel Wallace also. In 2015, it was voted by scholars as the most influential book on mankind.

This is divided into chapters like Sporting plants & blue pigeons, Drawing borders between species, The Struggle for Life, Survival of the fittest, The Horse's Stripes, Difficulties in this theory, Instinct, Rules & Mules, Reading the rocks, The Rise & Fall of Species, The Geography of Life, What living things share & This view of Life.

Though these works were written for the non-specialist, they are overly long with numerous examples, rendering them difficult of access to the present day reader, which is a pity. The purpose of the present write-up is to celebrate the advent of popular, condensed (& in the case of "Origin", illustrated) editions of these two classics, pointing out how relevant they are & bringing them to a wider readership.

To fear or love God ?

As God in all religions is omnipotent, it is natural to fear or love him. In religions practiced by unsophisticated people, he (or she) is feared as in the case of the Gramadevathas of our villages. Even in the Vedas, gods like Agni, Varuna etc., are propitiated by appropriate offerings to grant the worldly desires of the worshiper.

In the universal scale, the founding religion of the Semitic sects, Judaism also follows the same idea, of a revengeful God. "Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" etc. Only with the advent of Christ, did the idea of loving a merciful God was preached. Unfortunately, in the next Semitic religion, Islam, only fearing Allah & his wrath, became all consuming again. Nowhere in the Quran are the believers exhorted to love Allah. (Only the minority Sufis believe in loving Allah.)

In Hinduism, the end of the Vedas, Vedanta or the Upanishads, went further in helping to realise God. In the Avataras, God assumed first animal form & then human, (corresponding roughly with the theory of evolution) becoming lovable rather than fearsome, (the lone exception being Narasimhavatara !) the supreme example being Sri Krishna. The later God-men like Sri Ramakrishna & Sri Satya Sai Baba totally preached unconditional love of God, by showering their devotees with "love of a thousand mothers."

In conclusion, it may be safely assumed that fearing God goes hand in hand with desiring only worldly benefits whereas loving God is to transcend worldly life & merge with the Divine.