Life, a laughing matter

Aug 27, 2010, 12.00am IST MURALI A RAGHAVAN.

Humour relieves boredom, eases tension and enlivens the atmosphere. Laughing at oneself is a good way to keep one's ego in check. Yet `serious' spiritual seekers tend to think that humour and spirituality are poles apart. This is far from the truth.

Evolved masters have a sense of humour, and they often use humour to drive home a point. Gurus like Kanchi Paramacharya, Ramana Maharshi, Swami Chinmaynanda and Swami Dayananda Saraswati sprinkled their talks liberally with humour.

Swami Chinmayananda was once scouting for a suitable venue in Chennai to hold his Geeta Gyana Yagna. Most temples, under the dominant influence of Brahmins, were reluctant to help out. Finally, one of his disciples rushed to him with the news that a Muslim was ready to make available his empty bungalow for the purpose. "But there is a problem," said the disciple, "the house is believed to be haunted." On hearing this, the Swami quipped: "What a wonderful opportunity! I've never seen a ghost in my life!"

Every morning, Ramana Maharshi would walk up the Arunachala hill. Once a stranger spotted him all alone, and wishing to have darshan, he walked faster and managed to overtake the Maharshi and stood in front of him, blocking his way. With folded palms he said " Swamiji, this is a great day for me. You have blessed me with your darshan." The Maharshi responded: "This is really funny. What darshan you're talking about? It is you who have come before me and given me your darshan."

On another occasion a group of American devotees who were seated at a distance from Maharshi because of the crowd, asked him whether they could move forward so that Maharshi's grace will be upon them. Maharshi replied that he has no objection to their moving forward but his grace was always there for everyone irrespective of proximity. The group, nonetheless, pushed forward and almost came near him. After some time the devotees requested Maharshi to place his palms on their head so that they can receive the grace in full measure. An amused Maharshi said: "Next you might ask me to sign a bond and take me to court if you imagine that the grace has not worked!' The entire gathering burst into laughter.

While delivering a discourse on the Gita Swami Dayananda Saraswati narrated the following story: There were three terminally ill patients and the doctor asked them to express their last wish so that he could arrange to fulfill them. The first patient said that he would like to meet the priest and confess. The second said that he would like to meet his entire family. The doctor took care of the requests. He turned to the third patient who muttered: "I'd like to see another doctor."


A scholar approached Kanchi Paramacharya and boasted that he was an expert on the Gita. The seer asked him if he could spare some time to hold a 10-day discourse at the local temple. The scholar assented. On the first day 50 people were came to hear him and the attendance dwindled on subsequent days. The scholar said to Paramacharya and said: "What sort of a town is this? No one seems to be interested in the Gita. On first day there was a crowd of 50, second day 25 and on the third day there were only two persons to listen to me!'
With a twinkle in his eye the seer remarked: "Why fret? When Krishna spoke the Gita there was only one person to listen to him!"

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Mind-Matter Divide in Science, Philosophy

Mar 10, 2004, 12.00am IST
RANJIT NAIR.

The root formulation of Indian philosophy goes back to Dirghatamas, the Rig Vedic philosopher, who said ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti, or the Real is one, though the wise speak of it variously. How the fundamental unity of the Real could be reconciled with the diversity of phenomena was a key problem in Indian philosophy. Philosophy in India emerged as a rational, discursive exercise when orthodoxy, which regarded the Vedas as revelation, was challenged by major schools like that of Buddhism, Jainism, the Ajivika and the Lokayata.
The origins of western philosophy are usually attri-buted to Plato challenging the gods of Homer for their all-too-human behaviour, substituting in their place truths established through dialectical argument. Indian philosophy arose against the demand that claims on the veracity of a text or principle should be subjected to the canons of argumentation. The schools of logic emerged out of the attempt to formalise rational debate, to distinguish between valid arguments and fallacies. It is remarkable that all schools of Indian philosophy accepted perception as a means of knowledge. The great Shankara asserted that even if hund-red scriptures maintain that fire is cool and non-radiant, that would not prove it.
Indian philosophy and modern science share common features, at the level of parallels, isomorphic themes and problems. First, the search for unity resonates with the holy grail of the theory of everything in theoretical physics, which began with Albert Einstein. The search for a fundamental theory, Steven Weinberg says, lifts human life above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
The second similarity concerns the debate on the nature of reality and the ability of our concepts to represent reality. Vedantic and Buddhist schools rejected the Nyaya view that the real was expressible. For the Upa-nishads, the fundamental realm is where words return, unable to reach with the mind. Nagarjuna, the Madh-yamika Buddhist philosopher, argued that concepts were inadequate to describe reality by exposing the inner contradictions of concepts like motion and rest, somewhat in the manner of Zeno, the Eleatic philosopher. Here we may recall the debate between Einstein and Niels Bohr, the former maintaining that physics should give a causal, observer-independent account of reality, while the latter believed that microphysics had to be content with a pastiche of concepts for the same physical system.
Third, the mystery of the self or consciousness, which, as atman, is identified with the fundamental reality or Brahman in the Upanishads. Modern science lacks an adequate account of the mind. The strict separation bet-ween mind and matter enforced by Descartes, allo-wed matter to be viewed as pure mechanism, expli-cable in causal terms. Major schools in Indian philosophy such as the Advaita Vedanta, posit the atman/brahman as the sole reality and phenomenal reality as maya, neither absolutely true nor abso- lutely false. Barring the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger, who affirmed his commitment to the Advaita Vedanta in a tract written shortly before his fundamental papers on wave mechanics, few physicists regard a unitary consciousness as the fundamental rea-lity. Buddhist philosophers, on the other hand, regarded consciousness as a composite of factors.
However, the application of quantum theory runs against the Cartesian grain of disenchanting the mate-rial world. It unifies East and West, mind and matter.
(The author is Director, Centre for Philosophy and Foundations of Science, New Delhi)

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