Tuesday, 27 October 2015

Change, thy Name is Existence



                                                     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.  

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