Change, thy Name is Existence
Seventeen months into
office and there is a lot of talk about the BJP as being no different from the
Congress. “No change at all” is the current lament of all those who had voted
BJP to a resounding victory in pursuance of their desire for a change from the
Congress. Arun Shourie, the veteran BJP intellectual has gone on record with a
devastating blow calling BJP as Congress + cow with a still more hurting add-on
“ … looking at the way
economy is being managed at present, people have started recalling the days of
former prime minister Manmohan Singh”. This is a perfect illustration of the desire
for change that is in the DNA of every
human being.
This need for change has
been emphasized by the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus (535-475 B.C) who
wrote: “The only thing that is constant is change”. This sounds trite now as
his statement has been overused, nevertheless it is a truism, an obvious truth.
From the womb to the tomb, we constantly experience change. Samuel Beckett known for his wry humour caps
it when one of his tramps in Waiting for Godot says “It's never the same pus
from one second to the next.” We change just as Nature’s seasons change, its
flowers and trees change. Nature seems to accept change as a fact of life while
we humans are apprehensive about change even when we know that it is
inevitable. Maybe Nature is wise to know that change in her case is cyclical,
while we know in humans it is irreversible. Yesterday goes into the annals of
human history and cannot be re-lived today. In much the same way, today
disappears into the realm of memory when tomorrow takes centre stage. We cannot
retrieve or undo yesterday and whether we accept it or not, today is definitely
a changed day.
These reflections do
not occur when we are young, when we are mentally and physically energetic,
when we are at work, howsoever pedestrian that may be. This is because the
cause and effect of what one does everyday link it to the next day demanding
from the doer a change in the form of reversal of the previous day’s action or
an improvement of it. No one cribs about the change that is necessitated by
his/her actions at that busy period of his/her life. Also many wish for a change from the daily
humdrum of life, from the wearisome constancy of work such as staring into the
computer screen or attending to the small chores of cleaning, washing, dusting,
cooking, driving etc. One yearns for change for the betterment of one’s life
style, for the augmentation of one’s income, for rise in one’s stature- in
short for one’s upward mobility in all respects. The politician is ready to change sides if
that would assure him a lift up in the political space of the party he
embraces. There is no ideology or principle involved in changing side; it is
sheer desire for moving forward in one’s social and political circle. Robert
Brault gives an apt analogy about change which he designates as ‘the other side’
: “A child on a farm sees a plane fly overhead and dreams of a faraway place. A
traveler on the plane sees the farmhouse below and dreams of home.” It is the
desire for change that makes voters vote out incumbent party and vote in, the
opposition. In US it oscillates between Democrats and Republicans, in UK
between Conservatives and Labour /Liberals, in India between NDA and UPA-
between rightist and leftists, or between right of Centre and Left of Centre.
But when we grow old
when our services are no longer needed on a quotidian routine, we begin to feel
the change that we had accepted all along is no longer welcome. The world seems
moving while we, the retirees have become supernumeraries. The change from an
active life to a quiescent life heralds a change in our attitudes and approach
to life. Looking at the next generation caught in the hurly burly of life , we
forget our own past when we had enjoyed
being caught up in the whirling, tumultuous vortex of life and wonder
where all these fretful fever and stir for ch,ange will land them! While in
retirement we find a sudden urge towards prayers and meditations, visits to
temples and gurudwaras, to holy places and lectures by men in red ochre or
saffron robes to display our artificially induced sense of calmness as opposed
to the state of agitation and movement that Gen next is in. Why this frenzy for change to a new pursuit of
yoga and religiosity, when all one needs is a cessation of all desire for
change? New fashions, new hairstyles,
new gadgets, new music, new art forms, new dance are frowned upon by the older
generation, as they sit and rock in
their easy chairs for they love to be rooted to the changeless idiom of the times they grew up.
“Crazy generation” is the epithet we bestow on the Gen next, saying it has no
time to enjoy leisure, to cultivate taste for arts and aesthetics, where taste
is limited to the savouring of the past. “Don’t change” is the new mantra for the old
who spends all the time in nostalgia about the great past. Oh! What a change
has come over us in our old age when we desire changelessness.
This is because we have
forgotten what our wise sages from very ancient times had written about change,
the recognition of its inevitable recurrence in our life and the need to
confront it with courage and dignity. The Brahmanas
( the prose treatises on sacrifices and worship) and the Upanishads (the philosophical treatises) speak about change that
comes as we grow in years with reference to our attitude to religion. The
Upanishads recognize that religion of a man (here used in the generic sense)
cannot be and ought not to be the same throughout one’s life. With the growth
of mind, the childhood ideas change and so do the perspectives. This process
continues as life progresses through various stages. The first characteristic
that overlooks rituals and sacrifices signals freedom of thinking, free from
all the orthodoxy that surrounds the sacrificial rituals connected with
worship. It liberates thoughts from action and thus makes free thinking the
highest form of divine worship. It is freedom of thought that leads to the unique
feature of the Vedanta philosophy that the ideas of an old man are different
from those of a child or a grown up adult. The first stage of growth from
childhood to boyhood is marked by disciplined learning where the young learner
is a passive recipient of knowledge from his teachers. The second is that of
the householder who follows without questioning the duties prescribed by the
Manusmriti and the religious law books. The third is when he goes grey and
having finished his duties leaves the family and seeks to meditate with freedom,
the problems of life and death. When the evening of his life comes, he gives up
all nonessentials (most religious differences arise out of the non-essentials)
and clings to solid eternal truths that, he expects, will carry him through to
the end. This is when he reads the Upanishads or learns its doctrines from a
learned teacher and develops free thinking to understand the true relationship
between Brahman and Atman-the Oversoul and the living soul. The exoteric(the
external rituals) is given up and only
the esoteric (the core inner truth)remains as the guiding light of his last
moments. The Upanishads that form the last part of Vedanta do not mention the
prayers or the Gods or the rituals enunciated in the Samhitas and the Brahmanas
but traces back to the happy unconsciousness of a child’s faith in the Supreme
One.
The four stages – childhood, boyhood, youth and adult manhood –are a testimony
to change that is at the core of existence.
No comments:
Post a Comment