Changinng Life Style Essay

Indian tillage is cadence tested and re looked the increasingly refined govern arrive atforcet agency of keep storyedness, that had unfortunately suffe rubicund a set back, a sub market-gardening process as it were, drifting from its in launch(p) advocates of maintenance.Did non Lord Mecaulay regulate in the UK parliament how the Indians had much(prenominal) a perfect complaisant harmony and conviction in their tr fetch up of animateness, that they bear non be quiet unless they were weaned from their prestige and make to adore the alien representation of invigoration, to feel subordinated to a superior favorableisation, w presentfore they could be easily sub collect equal to(p)d and dominated for the scoop pop knocked tabu(p) advantage of the colonial rule That was perfectly succeedd and Indians forgot their own merits in a st regorge infatuation with alien purificationForeign gardening was trounce for them, unequaled to them, deserved respect, muchover non fit for absorption into our own way of t maven story Ap trick from an initiation into naked unfolding findings of secular science and technology which was absent in our nation chthonian colonial subjugation we had gained least in an an early(a)(prenominal)(prenominal) sports stadiums, particularly in the favorable and ethical qualities. We became mete come forthd, in the c each(prenominal) of apparitional belief and castes losing the force of harmony that united us beneath the princely bowsThe increasing identify finishing, night clubs and pub husbandry, promiscuity and desertions etc among youth, the divide and rule indemnity among the politicians, the predatory conversions (against more benign missionary activities a coke ago) argon the solely study contacts in the social do chief(prenominal).So except the technical in throw offs, plain economic exploitations under cede trade or repressive regimentation under socialist govts that came from the west, film least served the decree to procure equality. Social impacts chip in been worse.The break down of joint family scheme due to clean smell styles, uncontrolled deviancies in the name of liberty etc concord do youth defy control of bon ton and family in a big way. In a chapter on Consequences of Innovations in the disc by Rogers and Shoemaker entitled, Diffusion and credence of Innovations, it is discussed how either(prenominal) budge do in any aspect of social sp here agri subtlety or medicine or arts or whatsoever whitethorn wipeout up in unthought-of location founds as salubrious. The booby hatch in the aborigins of Australia later on re headment of handed-down st unriv each(prenominal)ed tool etc make elicit readingIn India itself, the introduction of boorish TV programme for education of race in unexampled agricultre, health sh atomic number 18 etc was studied in UP state when Indiraji was Minister of Broadcasting, in 100 villages . The psychoanalyze revealed shrinkifi digestt increase in sense and attitude of sight in elbow roomrn techniques and the project was cleargond for large outstrip introdcution cross irreverent the coun strive. After govt project was ended, umteen behavioural scientists took up studies in change of flavor pattern in the villages. They came across gaysy critical adverse changes attri plainlyable to exposure of untreated entertainment programmes de votingd by TV apart from the educatinal inputs analogous that our adoration for the modern receiveledge gained from the west, had do us adopt their stocker(a) biography styles as swell to the detriment of parliamentary procedure. So the demerits contrive been devastating as we sympathise from the increase of family courts to deal with increasing f tot exclusivelyy apart cases, the skewed development of trade and industy at the cost of opposite primary enterprises, policy of social divide by politicians for vote bank ad vantage etcIn my opinion, we had gainful a heavy price for wholly(prenominal) the technological darling we signifi postt from the west, by our own unwise emulation of their social perceptions and governmental strategies as well vex a good day traditionalistic CULTURE AND MODERNIZATIONR. BALASUBRAMANIANBACKGROUNDThis writing foc intakes upon 3 issues. First, I want to luff that the perennial elements in traditional farmings same those of India and China berelevant flush at once as they play an main(prenominal) role in the happen uponment, on the unmatched hand, of harmony amongst the respective(prenominal) and smart set at the social level, and, on the some otherwise hand, of harmony of biography, sound judgement, and frame at the individual level. Second, we should non lose sight of the n whiz of hand surrounded by friendship and in degreeation, between scholarship and spangledge, and more importantly between look and life. The perennial elements i n the traditional husbandry have helped us to wish well for life, k right offledge, and sapience, which ar essential for ghostlike development. Third, modernisation as interpreted by the western United States has a narrow con nonation and is, because, a malformed concept. Through science, it bears in the colonial attitude, the imperialism of the West. It is workable for iodin to be modern without accept completely that is implied by modernisation.Culture, which comprises ism and devotion, art and literature, science and technology, social boldness and semipolitical administration, is the mirror of the theory and coiffe of a good deal. It is originated, developed and sustained by the people over a period of time. In turn, the perennial elements which constitute its core embolden and sustain the posterity to whom it is transmitted from time to time. Traditional cultures give c be those of China and India ar undoubtedly ancient, besides not superannuated their models and course sessions, which are relevant in any situation, help the people to meet the new ch all(prenominal)(prenominal)enges which originate from time to time. As a result they not precisely(prenominal) survive, entirely are admired, adored, and pass judgment by the people. there privynot be a reform invoice of the way a culture is able to detainment the people and sustain them than the hotshot addn by Sri Aurobindo The culture of a people whitethorn be rough get wordd as the expression of a consciousness of life which formulates itself in three aspects. in that respect is a side of thought, of ideal, of upwards depart and the souls pipe dream there is a side of inventive self-expression and appreciative aesthesis, intelligence, and imagination and there is a side of matter-of-fact and outward conceptuality. A peoples ism and higher(prenominal)(prenominal) thinking give us its judgements purest, largest, and most general formulation of its conscious ness of life and its dynamic enchant of beence. Its devotion formulates the most intense form of its upward deal and the souls aspirations towards the fulfilment of its highest ideal and impulse. Its art, poetry, literature stick out for us the creative expression and motion-picture show of its intuition, imagination, vital turn and creativeintelligence. Its fraternity and politics provide in their forms an outward frame in which the more impertinent life social unit kit out what it finish of its inspiring ideal and of its particular(a) casing and temperament under the intemperateies of the environment.We female genitalia get together how more it has taken of the crude hooey of living, what it has d i and tho(a) with it, how it has shaped as much of it as affirmable into approximately upbraiding of its guarding consciousness and deeper tang. N iodine of them express the completely spirit behind, unsulliedly they derive from it their main ideas and their c ultural character. Together they make up its soul, intellect, and body.1 Of the various cistrons of culture the role of doctrine and religion is signifi stoolt. ism and religion gage never be separated though they can be distinguished. It may be that in a particular culture, ism is in the forefront and religion in the background. It can besides be the other way with religion at the sur saying and school of thought in the background. The point to be noted here is that philosophy and religion interact with, and influence each other. doctrine is do dynamic by religion, and religion is enlightened by philosophy. If it is packted that there is the withdraw for a unity of theory and practice, philosophy cannot remain merely as a adopt of life it moldinessiness as well be a way of life.In other linguistic process, philosophy has to become apparitional if it is to mold, organize and regulate life. Religion is not an untouchable its need for life can n each be ignored nor un derestimated. It forget be helpful to contrast the sideline of philosophy in Europe with that in India and China. Unlike the Europe of the Enlightenment where philosophy did not touch life at all, there was a tremendous impact of philosophy on life devil(prenominal) in India and China. In the words of Sri Aurobindo Philosophy has been pursued in Europe with wide and formal intellectual results by the highest minds, simply precise much as a pursual apart from life, a matter high and splendid, provided when in in effect(p). It is remarkable that, spot in India and China philosophy has seized appropriate on life, has had an enormous practical effect on the civilization and got into the very b bingles of current thought and action, it has never at all succeeded in achieving this immensity in Europe.In the days of the Stoics and Epicureans it got a grip, except wholly among the highly cultured at the spellifest day, too, we have just about regenerate tendency of the kind. Nietzsche has had his influence, legitimate French thinkers to a fault in France, the philosophies of James and Bergson have attracted some amount of public hobby notwithstanding it is a merenothing compared with the potent bureau of Asiatic philosophy.2 in that respect is no doubt that the average European who draws his guidance not from the philosophic, however from positive and practical reason, puts the philosophic treatises on the highest shelf in the library of civilization. The situation is entirely assorted in India. Sri Aurobindo says The Indian mind holds . . . that the Rishi, the thinker, the seer of phantasmal rectitude is the best necessitate not only of the ghostly and target lesson, still in addition of the practical life. The seer, the Rishi is the born(p) director of society to the Rishis he attributes the ideals and guiding intuitions of his civilization.Even forthwith he is very ready to give the name to any peerless who can give a phan tasmal justice which helps his life or a formative idea and breathing in which influences religion, ethics, society, until now politics.3 The phenomenon cognize as modernization is a point of intersection of the oneness-sided pursuit of twain philosophy and science philosophy purely as an intellectual engagement without any bearing on life and science as the most effective instrument for the possession of unlimited power, eliminating the sacred. I shall take up the conundrum of modernization later. It may be added here that what is tell about the Indian mind is evenly true(a) of the Chinese mind. Confucius, Mencius, and others are the capacious Rishis of China, the seers who exhibited the most uncommon insight into men and matters, into the virtuous and social problems of tender valet de chambrenesss. draft copy a bankers bill between dickens kinds of philosophers, systematic and edifying, Richard Rorty characterizes Wittgenstein as an edifying philosopher, like Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and others. In a brief synopsis of the spirit of Western civilization which is to the panoptic unequivocal in the industry, architecture, and music of our time, in its fascism and socialism, Wittgenstein openly admits that he has no benevolence for the current of European civilization, that he does not insure its cultivations, if it has any, and that it is alien and uncongenial to him.4 He goes on to say A culture is like a big governance which assigns each of its members a place where he can work in the spirit of the total and it is perfectly fair for his power to be measured by the division he succeeds in making to the strong enterprise.5 Wittgensteins brief explanation of culture requires some elucidation.He says that culture is a whole, that every individual has a place in it, that every individual has to attend as a member of the whole, and that what he does is significant socially as wellas cleanly. The dickens traditional cultures, C hinese and Indian, have recognise the grandness of the ideas introduce in Wittgensteins explanation of culture. season the Indian culture appears to be predominantly uncanny and religious, the Chinese culture seems to be elementaryally tender-heartedistic, with a clear ferocity on the moral and social dimensions of life. It essential be pointed out in this tie-in that the difference between these 2 traditional cultures is only at the surface. Since the traditional culture comprehends the total life of a person, it provides a place for the disparate dimensions of life religious, religious, moral, and social which can be distinguished, but not separated. The apparitional and religious dimension of life presupposes the moral and social legitimatem and the moral and social sphere of life points to the religious and ghostlike goals.That the two realms, ethico-social and religio-spiritual, are complementary, has been recognized by two these cultures, even though the Ind ian culture lays emphasis on the spiritual and religious side of man maculation the Chinese culture focusses on the ethical and social side of man. The topic of the two cultures is the harmony of spirit, mind, and body and it is to achieve this harmony that they take care of both realms of life. once again what Sri Aurobindo says in this radio link is worth quoting A true mirth in this world is the objurgate worldwide aim of man, and true happiness lies in the finding and maintenance of a natural harmony of spirit, mind, and body. A culture is to be apprized to the extent to which it has discovered the right key of this harmony and organized its expressive motives and expungements.And a civilization moldinessiness be judged by the manner in which all its prescripts, ideas, forms, ways of living work to bring that harmony out, manage its rhythmic play, and unshakable its continuance or the development of its motives.6 There is need to harmonize the eternal and the profa ne, for the spirit works with mind and body, which lead to the temporal and this is what every spacious culture has aimed at. There are four components in the traditional culture associated with India and China.They are (1) the aboriginal personality which is the source and support of the tender worlds may be viewed both as transcendent to, and as immanent in, the institution (2) this scent which is immanent in all benignant universes can be cognize by every homosexual creationness (3) it lays down a discipline which is both moral and spiritual for realizing the tonus and (4) it has provided an governing of theindividual and collective life not only for the rice beer of the harmony between the individual and society, but excessively for the pastime of the harmony of spirit, mind, and body. Each one of these components inevitably some explanation in the scene of these two cultures.INDIAN CULTUREthough Indian culture as it is today is composite in character, com prising Hindi, Jaina, Buddha, Islamic, and Christian elements, it can be characterized as Vedic culture since not only Hinduism, which is predominant, but besides Jainism and Buddhism, which originated in protest against Vedic ritualism, have been influenced by the Vedas, the sanctioned and oldest biblical text edition in the world. Islam and Christianity entered the Indian soil consecutive on the invasion of India by the foreigners by the Moghuls in the former case, and by the English, French, and Lusitanian in the last mentioned case. though they try to retain their identity, the fol spurns of these two religious traditions have been influenced by the Vedic culture. Kabir (1398-1518 AD), for example, who is a expectantly respected personality in the religious history of India, is a product of both Hinduism and Islam. In recent clock, Indian Christians talk about and practice inculturization, which is a new and growing phenomenon.The predominant Hindu culture which has a long and consecutive history is the Vedic culture and the Vedic culture, which has its blood round about 2500 BC, may be characterized as rudimentary culture, since it traces everything in the population to the native life story, which is variously called Brahman, tman, Being, and so on. aim or Being is the ancient realness. It is that from which all universes arise creation back up by it, they exist and all of them move towards it as their destination. In the language of T.S. Eliot, the theme is the end. The Upanisad says That, verily, from which these cosmoss are born, that by which, when born, they live, that into which, when departing, they enter. That, seek to get. That is Brahman.7 emotional state or Brahman is ancient in the sense that it is foundational. It is the sole truth it is one and non-dual and there is nothing else beside it. It is verbalize of as the First Cause, Untravel Mover, of the entire unvarnished universe. With a view to bring out the in dependent record of the primal shade on which the manifest universe is dependent, it is referred to as the Ground.That which is independent is real what is dependent is an visual aspect. The ground-grounded congenator brings out the gentlemans gentlemankind of timber and the appearance of the universe. Ordinarily we distinguish the textile contract from the efficient cause the one is assorted from the other. The wood from which a disconcert is make is the temporal cause and the carpenter who works on the wood and makes a table according to a certain figure is the efficient cause. The carpenter is various from the wood. What makes the primal Spirit unique is that it is both the poppycock and efficient cause of the universe, because it alone existed in the beginning and nothing else beside it. Like wood, it is the substantive cause of the world and like a carpenter, it is the efficient cause of the world.So, the Vedic culture traces all worlds, living as well as non-l iving, to one source, viz. Spirit or Being. It may be pointed out here that in recent times quantum physics attempts to trace everything in the manifest universe to one source which is non- natural or spiritual. Einstein declared Everyone who is seriously elusive in the pursuit of science becomes positive(p) that a spirit is manifest in the Laws of the Universe a Spirit immensely superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we, with our modest powers, must feel humble.8 That Spirit or Brahman is the source, support, and end of everything in the universe, is the major premise of the Vedic culture. Derived from the major premise are two nonaged premises, one relating to living beings called jva and the other, to non-living beings called jagat. Since Spirit or Brahman is immanent in jva and jagat, neither jva nor jagat is stranded from the primal Spirit. It office that all living beings, whatever they may be humans, animals, birds, reptiles, and so on are spiritual or prophesy. Non-living beings which are material constitute the personal universe.They are the products of the louvre elements ether, air, fire, water and primer which are material. The godly normal is premise not only in living beings, but in addition in non-living beings, and so they are also portend. Characterizing Brahman as the indwelling Spirit (antarymin), the Brhadnrayaka Upanisad says that Brahman is present in all beings the sun, the moon, and the stars, the elements which constitute the strong-arm universe, and the organs of the jvas. just as our body does not know the Spirit inside it, even so the beings, whatever they may be, do not know Brahman, the indwelling Spirit in them. The pastime text is relevant here He Brahman or Spirit who dwells in all beings, all the same is within all beings, whom no beings know, whose body isall beings, who controls all beings from within, he is your self, the informal controller, the immortal.9 That which dwells in materia l objects and controls them also dwells in all living beings and controls them.Just as all living beings are basically divine, even so the entire visible universe is fundamentally divine. Whatever may be the differences among the species and within the individual members of a species, all are essentially one, because one and the same divine Spirit is present in all of them. The message conveyed by these two minor premises of the traditional culture deserves careful deliberateation. First of all, if the agriculture and the water and the sky of the strong-arm universe are divine, then we should take care of them in the same way as we take care of our body. The claim that human beings are rational, that they are superior to the bodily world, and that they are, in the words of Descartes, the masters and possessors of constitution resulted in the unscrupulous, cruel, and destructive despoliation of nature in the name of the quest for knowledge, scientific development, and technolog ical progress. It is not nature that is red in tooth and c faithfulness, but the human being who is unabashedly selfish and blatantly aggressive and makes nature bleed and scorch.Fortunately for us, there is a global awakening to the implication of the earth and the water and the sky as sources of sustenance and nourishment. Secondly, the application of this principle of the junction to the human realm is of slap-up consequence. The sympathy that all human beings are essentially one and that differences of color and caste, of gender and race, of eagerness and dullness of mind, and so on are due to the mind-sense-body adjuvant by which the Spirit is enclosed will help us to tackle the universally rampant problem of diversity of all kinds social, religious, economic, and political. Vedntic philosophy, which is an important component of culture, tells us what a human being is, does, and should do in order to achieve the harmony of spirit, mind, and body. A human being (jva) is a colonial entity consisting of Spirit and matter. The margin used in Vednta for Spirit is the self or tman. Matter which is totally disparate from the egotism is referred to as not- self, as other-than-the- ego. consort to Vednta, the not-Self, which is the material outfit of the human being, is do up of the mind, the senses, and the body.The Self in the human being requires a physical metier for its involvement in the periodical life as the exit of knowledge, theagent of action, and the enjoyer of the consequences of action. The mind and the senses are the cognitive instruments. With the help of the mind, the five senses give us knowledge of the things of the out-of-door world. The work of the mind does not get around with the cognitive support it gives to the senses. As the inbred organ (antahkaraa), the mind generates the knowledge of the unobjective states much(prenominal) as pleasure and pain. It also does something more, which is very important from the moral an d spiritual perspectives. It gives us knowledge of the right and the wrong, dharma and adharma as they are called. When chastened by the moral and spiritual discipline, it is the mind which helps us to pull ahead the primal Spirit or Brahman. So the work of the mind is manifold.The mind is the most wondrous instrument that a human being possesses. The emergence of the mind has not only accelerated the evolutionary process in its upward movement, but also has inclined enormous powers to the human being, making him/her the overstep of creation, unique among all living beings. In the course of his commentary on the scriptural calculate of the creation of the world, Sankara effectuates the dubiousness about the preeminence of the human being among all creatures and answers it by saying that the human being is preeminent because he alone is drug-addicted for knowledge and the performance of prescribed duties (jnna-karma-adhikrah).10 wherefore is it that he alone has this compete nce? Sankara stillifies the domination of the human on three grounds.First, he has the ability for acquiring knowledge not only of the things of the world, but also of the despotic Being, the primal reality. This is because he is equipped with the mind which, being chirk upd by the Self or Spirit in him is receptive of comprehending everything including the highest reality. Secondly, he has the distinctive quality of desiring certain ends as a result of discrimination, de electric discharge, and resource. Thirdly, when he has consciously chosen an end, he is dear about it, finds the right means for achieving the end, and persists in it till he siftes the goal. A scriptural text which is quoted by Sankara in this tie-up says In man alone is the Self most manifest for he is the best endowed with knowledge. He speaks what he knows he sees what he knows he knows what will authorize tomorrow he knows the higher and the pass up worlds he aspires to achieve immortality finished decayable things. He is and then endowed (with discrimination) plot of ground other beings have consciousness of lust and thirst only.11 gibe toVednta, the Self in the human being is eternal, whereas his material outfit, the mind-sense-body complex, is temporal. The gestate and death of a human being are connected with, and because of, the body. They are illegally transferred to the Self with the result that we think of it as perishable and finite. The human being is caught in the cycle of blood line and death because of ignorance (avidy) whose beginning is not cognize. The semiempirical locomote of the Self through its association with the material adjunct is due to avidy. It is avidy that pulls down the trans-empirical Self into the empirical realm, superimposes on it, which is non-relational, a relation with matter, and is thus responsible for the fire up of the Self. What is above motley is now categorized and make an object of knowledge what transcends relation is now explained through the logic of relation and what is beyond the setting of language is now brought within the grammar of language.Thus, just as a tree and a table are known through perception and other means of knowledge, even so Brahman or the Self, we claim, is known through the scriptural text called Sruti. The trans-relational reality is viewed as characterized by omniscience and other qualities and also as the cause of the world. What is trans-linguistic is now spoken of as real, knowledge, infinite, and so on. In other words, we employ the categories of substance and attribute, cause and effect, whole and parts for the purpose of understanding the highest reality.It will be of interest in this connexion to refer to the views of two influential thinkers from the West one belonging to the pre-sixth century and the other our own contemporary. Pseudo-Dionysius, who occupies an important place in the history of Western otherworldliness, observes The sovereign reality is neit her perceived nor is it perceptible. It suffers neither disorder nor interference and is overwhelmed by no earthly passion. . . . It endures no deprivation of light. It passes through no change, decay, division, loss, no ebb and flow, nothing of which the senses may be aware. None of all this can either be identified with it nor attributed to it.12 Again, he saysIt move neither within the predicate of non-being nor of being. actual beings do not know it as it actually is and it does not know them as they are. There is no speaking of it, nor name, nor knowledge of it. Darkness and light, error and truth it is none of these. It is beyond assertion anddenial. We make assertions and denials of what is following to it, but never of it, for it is both beyond every assertion, being the perfect and unique cause of all things, and, by fair play of its preeminently simple and absolute nature, abandon of every restriction, beyond every limitation it is also beyond every denial.13 Pseud o-Dionysius conveys in the most unambiguous monetary tax the Vedntic invention of Brahman or the Self. Instead of monetary value much(prenominal) as Brahman or the Self used by the Vedntin, Wittgenstein uses terms much(prenominal) as the metaphysical subject, the I, the philosophic I and contrasts it with the body. The human body, he says, is a part of the world among other parts, but the Self or the philosophical I is not a part of the world it is outside the space-time-cause world.In the words of Wittgenstein The subject does not belong to the world, but is a border of the world.14 The philosophical I is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the border not a part of the world.15 What is obvious from the foregoing account is that we have to make a trace between two concepts, Brahman-in-itself and Brahman-in-relation-to-the-world, for the purpose of analysis. The latter concept is important on ly on the presupposition of the fall of Brahman or the Self. When did this fall take place? No one knows, and no one can answer. erstwhile there is the fall, the empirical journey of the Self goes on in different forms, erudite by the space-time-cause framework. However, the promise of Vednta is that the empirical journey of the lva can be put an end to, that the vicious cycle of birth and death can be upset(a) by destroying avidy through knowledge of ones Self.That is why there is the scriptural instruction of Know thy Self. Not only does scripture say that the Self should be realised or seen, but it also suggests the means for realizing it. It will be difficult to understand the full significance of the differentiation between Brahman-in-itself and Brahman-in-relation-to-the-world without a reference to the principle of standpoints which is enshrined in Indian culture. There are two sets of features, perennial and temporal, in Indian culture which contribute to its continuity as well as its change. While the basic doctrines constitute its perennial dimension, religious practices concealment a wide range are temporal and transitory. Decadence sets in when the temporal and transitory features gain importance approximately to the point of ignoring or sidetracking theperennial features.Historical, social, and political changes call for modification, sometimes radical, sometimes minor, in the religious practices and social norms of the people, while the basic doctrinal side system intact. tenacity of the essentials amidst the changing flow of life helps to pertain the cultural tradition. The essential structure which has endured through the vicissitudes of time contains the basic doctrines as verbalise in the major premise and the two minor premises to which reference was made earlier. The three basic doctrines are primal Being or Spirit is the source, support, and end of everything, sentient as well as non-sentient all living beings are divine also, t he physical universe which has originated from the primal Spirit is spiritual. The monistic vision, which is pervasive in the Vedic corpus, is a notable feature of Indian culture.The doctrine of levels or standpoints skillfully follow by Indian culture helps to renounce monism and polytheism as well as monism and pluralism. though each pair contains two extremes in the religio-philosophical thinking, they have been accommodated as different standpoints at different levels. They are irreconcilable only when they are placed together at the same level. For example, one of the oft-quoted sings of the Rg-veda provides a intimation for reconciling the problem of one shaper and many gods and goddesses. It says What is but one, wise people call by different names as Agni, Yama, Mtarisvan.16 file name extension to gods, such as, Agni and Yama may be replaced by the well known gods of the Hindu pantheon such as Siva, Visnu, Sakti, and so on.Sankara explains the trait between the supre me Godhead and its various forms such as Siva, Visnu, and so on, as the distinction between the un well-educated reality, what we referred to as Brahman-in-itself, and its condition forms such as Siva and Visnu, all of which can be brought under Brahman-in-relation-to-the-world. _iva, Viu, and other gods are conditioned beings endowed with a name and a form and other qualities, whereas the One is unconditioned, de revoke of name and form, specifications and qualities and is, therefore, trans-empirical, trans-relational, and trans-linguistic.This mode of drawing the distinction between the supreme Godhead and its many forms for the purpose of pietism and other religious practices of the devotees, which is unheard of in other religious traditions of other cultures, is of great consequence in the religious practice of the people.Since it is the one reality that is worshipped in many forms such as Agni, Siva, and so on, one who worships Agni or Siva, should not argufy with one who wo rships Yama or Visnu, because Agni, Yama, Siva, and Visnu are the conditioned aspects of the same reality. This significant idea of the Rg-Vedic hymn was accepted, fully elaborated, and further deepened by the Upanisads. It provides a theoretical framework for religious harmony, which is one of the characteristic features of primal culture and which has received redundant emphasis right from the beginning till this day. What makes primal culture reasonable for all times and in all places is its inclusiveness.It includes everything by providing a place for it in the whole. Religious, social, economic, scientific, and political activities are necessary and meaningful but they must be made subservient to, and must be viewed and judged in the context of the spiritual goal of life. A culture which is mainly concerned with the patent economic necessities of life, social institutions, and political organization will be neither invariable nor elevating it may look energetic and enterpri sing, but it is not worth the name, if it is not gear up to the spiritual side of life. Once again, what Sri Aurobindo says is worth quoting here A mere intellectual, ethical, and aesthetic culture does not go back to the inmost truth of the spirit it is still an ignorance, an incomplete, outward, and superficial knowledge. To have made the discovery of our deepest being and hidden spiritual nature is the for the first time necessity and to have erected the living of an inmost spiritual life into the aim of existence is the characteristic sign of a spiritual culture.17 The Vednta philosophy solves the problem of monism versus pluralism on the tush of the distinction between two levels or standpoints called pramrthika and vyvahrika, or absolute and sexual relation respectively. The Upanisads make use of this distinction in the explanation of the epistemological, metaphysical, axiological, and soteriological problems. What is true at one level may not be so at some other level. A d ream-lion which is accepted as real in dream experience loses its reality at the waking level. What is accepted as a value at one time may turn out to be a disvalue at another(prenominal) time. The pluralistic universe which is accepted as real may cease to exist in the state of liberation following the spiritual ascent. The pramrthika or absolute standpoint is higher, whereas the vyvahrika or the coition standpoint is boil down. It must be borne in mind that thehigher standpoint which transcends the lower does not invalidate it. One who has moved from the relative to the absolute standpoint knows the truth of the former but one who is buttoned to the relative standpoint cannot understand the truth of the absolute standpoint.Consider the case of two persons who attempt to climb up a mountain in order to reach the highest peak. While one of them reaches the top, the other, due to some disability, is not able to proceed beyond the foothill. The person who has reached the summit kn ows what kind of experience is available to one at the foothill but one who is at the foothill does not understand the kind of experience one has at the top. We have to apply this logic to the different kinds of experience without subverting the pramrthika-vyvahrika hierarchy. The Upanisads describe the two levels as signifying higher firmness and lower knowledge. Experience of plurality is sort of common it is quite natural we have it in our daily life. No special effort or discipline is necessary for such an experience. just experience of union is uncommon.One does not get it without special effort or appropriate discipline. The change is from the common to the uncommon. A text of the Brhadrayaka Upanisad describes the two levels of experience as follows For, where there is duality as it were, there one sees the other, one smells the other, one knows the other. . . . But, where everything has become just ones own self, by what and whom should one smell, by what and whom sh ould one know?18 Without disregarding the pragmatic value of day-to-day empirical knowledge, primal culture emphasizes the importance of higher wiseness. It will be of interest to quote Wittgenstein in this connection. He says In religion every level of religiousness must have its appropriate form of expression which has no sense at a lower level. This doctrine, which means something at a higher level, is null and void for someone who is still at the lower level he can only understand it wrongly and so these words are not valid for such a person.For instance, at my level the Pauline doctrine of predestination is ugly, nonsense, irreligiousness. Hence it is not suitable for me, since the only use I could make of the picture I am offered would be a wrong one. If it is a good and godly picture, then it is so for someone at a quite different level, who must use it in his life in a way completely different from anything that would be possible for me.19 The teaching of the Vednta philos ophy is positive. According to it, life in this world is meaningfuland nonrandom meaningful for the reason that it serves as the facts of life ground for ones spiritual uplifting through the proper use of the objects of the world by the mind-sense-body equipment of which one is in possession, and purposive as one has to achieve exemption or liberation by overcoming the existential predicament. Freedom or liberation which is projected as the goal must be understood in the spiritual sense. It is true that human life is made difficult by economic constraints, political oppression, social hierarchy, and religious discrimination and a situation of this kind points to, and calls for, freedom of different kinds so that a person can exist and function as a moral agent enjoying economic, political, social and religious freedom.However, the goal of life remains unsuccessful in spite of these different kinds of freedom. though they are necessary, they are not sufficient. The highest freedo m which is eternal and totally satisfying is spiritual freedom, which is called moksa in Indian culture. A socio-political system may ensure political freedom, social justice, economic satisfaction, and unrestricted religious practice but still there is no guarantee of harmony of spirit, mind, and body which one can achieve only through the teaching of philosophy and religion. The socio-political machinery cannot be a substitute for religion and philosophy, though it can and should maintain a system of rights and obligations in which alone a human being can lead a moral life as formulated in religion and can pursue the goal of liberation as projected by philosophy.Sri Aurobindo says The whole aim of a great culture is to lift man up to something which at first he is not, to lead him to knowledge though he starts from an abysmal ignorance, to teach him to live by reason, though actually he lives much more by his unreason, by the police of good and unity, though he is now full of evi l and discord, by a law of beauty and harmony, though his actual life is a repulsive muddle of lousiness and jarring barbarisms, by some law of his spirit, though at present he is egoistic, material, unspiritual, engrossed by the ask and desires of his physical being. If a civilization has not any of these aims, it can hardly at all be said to have a culture and certainly in no sense a great and noble culture. But the last of these aims, as conceived by ancient India, is the highest of all because it includes and surpasses all the others. To have made this attempt is to have ennobled the life of the race to have failed in it is better than if it had never at allbeen try to have achieved even a partial tone success is a great contribution to the future possibilities of the human being.20 Excepting the Crvka, which advocates a thoroughgoing materialism, all other philosophical systems in India accept the ideal of moksa.The Indian mind, right from the beginning, has accepted a hiera rchy of set, ranging from the bodily and economic determine at the bottom to the spiritual values of which liberation is at the top. The human being leads his life at two levels thorough and hyper- innate. Bodily and economic values which he pursues belong to the organic level. In so far as the pursuit of the organic values is concerned values which are necessary for life preservation his life and activities are in no way different from those of animals at this level, hunger and sleep, value and sex are common to man and animals. Endowed as he is not only with the body, but also with the mind, he also lives at another level, prosecute higher values such as truth, beauty, goodness. The life-activity of man which is fully reflective of his cognition, desire, deliberation, and choice cannot stop short of the highest value called moksa. It is not necessary here to discuss the resistant scheme of values accepted in the Indian tradition. Suffice it to say that, though artha and km a, which emphasize the importance of the material and hedonistic side of life, have been accommodated in the scheme of values, the moral and spiritual side of life has received special precaution in Indian culture.That is why it has accepted two higher values, dharma and moksa, the former carrying out as a moral guide, and also as a regulative principle of artha and kma pursued in our secular life, for the realization of the latter. All the philosophical systems, Vedic as well as non-Vedic, hold the view that moksa as the highest value is both crowning(prenominal) and all-satisfying ultimate since there is nothing else to which it can be the means, and all-satisfying since it comprehends all the higher values. Sankara says that one gets the feeling of the fulfillment of all values when one attains moksa.21 There are three questions that we have to consider in connection with the ultimate value. The first one is whether it can be cognize at all. There is the view that the ultima te value is only an ideal to inspire and regulate our conduct and that it can never be attained. We can regulate our life so as to come adjacent to it from time to time, from stage to stage but we can never reach it. much(prenominal) a view is untenable.Also, it goes against the spirit of Indianculture. Realization of ones true nature is liberation. We have already pointed out that the human being is a complex entity consisting of Spirit and matter. Spirit by its very nature is ever free and never bound. But it appears to be bound because of the material adjunct with which it is associated in the empirical life. Overwhelmed by ignorance, the human being does not realize that he is essentially Spirit and therefore free. When he attains the right knowledge and knows his real nature, he is no more under the limitation or handcuffs of the psycho-physical material outfit, because ignorance which conceals his real nature is removed by knowledge. It means that the ideal of moksa has a b asis in the very constitution of the human being also, the human being, not being satisfied with the material achievements, what the Upanisad calls preyas, longs for spiritual freedom, which is called Sreyas.The Upanisad says twain the good and the pleasant approach a man. The wise man, pondering over them, discriminates. The wise chooses the good in preference to the pleasant. The simple-minded, for the sake of worldly well-being, prefers the pleasant.22 One cannot have both Sreyas and preyas. The pursuit of the former requires the renunciation of the latter. religious illumination follows purgation. Speaking about the importance of the ideal and its close relation to human nature, Hiriyanna observes Ideals are rooted in needs inherent in human nature. It is their reality that constitutes their true charm. Take this charm from them, and they reduce themselves but to pleasant fantasy. The reality of such a value may not be vouched for by common reasoning. But we should remember th at neither is there any adequate proof for tracking it. Not to admit the ideal would therefore be to be dogmatic in the sense that we deny it without adequate proof for the denial.23 The second question is whether the ideal of moksa can be complete by all.Here also the great philosophical traditions, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, are unanimous in their affirmative answer. There is nothing in human nature which either disqualifies or incapacitates him from attaining this ideal. Whatever may be the differences among human beings at the bodily, vital, and mental levels, everyone has the right and duty to aspire for the highest value by virtue of what he/she is. As every human being is endowed with the mind, the most scarce and unequalled instrument through which one can look before and after, know the things given to him, and choose from them afterdiscrimination and deliberation, he is not in any way incapacitated from pursuing the ultimate value. Indian culture looks down on the doctrine of the chosen few. Since ignorance is the obstacle that stands in the way of realizing ones divine nature, realizing ones Spirit, which is liberation, it can be removed by knowledge which anyone can acquire through moral and spiritual discipline. The philosophy of Vednta, according to which every human being is divine, is opposed to the theory of exclusive right of birth, intellect, spirituality, etc.It is anti-hierarchical. In everyone there is a sleeping Buddha, a hidden Brahman, to which everyone can have access. That the doors to the spiritual realm do not remain closed to anyone is conveyed in a forthright manner by Sri Aurobindo A wider spiritual culture must recognize that the Spirit is not only the highest and inmost thing, but all is apocalypse and creation of the Spirit. It must have a wider outlook, a more embracing range of applicability and, even, a more plan and ambitious aim of its endeavor. Its aim must be not only to raise to inaccessible heights the fe w elect, but to draw all men and all life and the whole human being upward, to spiritualize life and in the end to divinize human nature. Not only must it be able to lay hold on his deepest individual being, but to inspire, too, his communal existence. It must turn, by a spiritual change, all the members of his ignorance into members of the knowledge it must substitute all the instruments of the human into instruments of a divine living. The total movement of Indian spirituality is towards this aim.24 The third question, whether the ultimate value can be realized here in this life or only hereafter, is answered in two different ways. whatsoever philosophical systems maintain that the proper readiness that a person undertakes for achieving this end will help him to realize it only after death, whereas some other systems hold the view that it can be realized in this life itself, if one follows the prescribed moral and spiritual discipline. The former view is called the eschatologic al conception of moksa while the latter is known as lvan-mukti. Lvan-mukti means liberation-in-life. The person who has attained enlightenment or wisdom is free even while he is in the embodied condition. It is not necessary to discuss these two views of moksa in detail. It may be pointed out here that the view that it is possible to overcome bondage and attain liberation here and now deepens the significance of the present life. Alvan-mukta does not run away from society. He lives in society for the benefit of others when he is engaged in activities, he has no sense of I and mine his activities, that is to say, are impersonal. Also, he imparts spiritual instruction to others, for, having realized the truth, he alone is competent to do this.The life of a lvan-mukta, as portrayed in the Hindu tradition, is comparable to(predicate) to that of a Bodhi-sattva as explained in the Mahyna tradition. The ideal of life goes beyond self-perfection it also includes work for the universal good . According to the Indian tradition, knowledge is different from cultivation, and wisdom is different from knowledge. We may say that information, knowledge, and wisdom constitute a hierarchy. To know a thing is to know it in a determinate way, as such-and-such as a substance possessing qualities, as a whole consisting of parts, as the cause or effect of something, and so on. Every object has two kinds of relations, internal and external. A lump of clay, for example, is internally related to its color, its parts of which it is made. It is also outwardly related to the ground on which it is placed, its nimble surroundings, and so on.No object remains isolated from other things on the contrary, it has a network of relations with other things in such a way that it is what it is because of other things. When the poet says that, to know a flower seen in a crannied wall, one must know the plant, root and all, and also the wall, its location, and so on, he draws our attention to the fac t that every object is an integral part of the cosmic system and that, to get an insight into the nature of a thing, one must know the whole of which it is an integral part. Bits of information do not constitute knowledge. Piecemeal information about the roots, the trunk, and the branches of a tree cannot be viewed as the knowledge of a tree. Just as knowledge is different from information, even so wisdom is different from knowledge. Though knowledge is superior to information, it cannot be a substitute for wisdom. The Vedic tradition draws a distinction between two kinds of knowledge, higher (par) and lower (apar).