Harmonious coexistence is the secret of life. Lack of harmony often led to the fall of individuals, families, nations and even civilizations. What is desirable is integration and holistic approach. God has written each line on the brow of every nation, every civilization, Joseph Mazzini, Italy’s patriot philosopher believed. But some of these civilizations were trapped in the vortex of de-coherence and final decadence, leaving only a few civilizations to live for good.
Except one or two like the cultures of India or China, the other ones either died or were aborted because most of them lacked in coordination and coherence or couldn’t develop a holistic approach to life. Greece and Rome for instance died and departed from the screen of time to shrink into the group of what the philosopher historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee termed ‘Dead Civilizations’. None has so far analyzed the reason for this so deeply and rationally as Sri Aurobindo, India’s philosopher of nationalism and integral yoga did. To this Indian yogi the secret of success lies in the integral and harmonious approach to things and events both in the lives of individual as well as societies and nations. Those who couldn’t harmonize failed, Aurobindo opined.
Aesthetics without discipline, discipline without beauty
Greek civilization, for instance, was glorious. But this glorious Greece ignored all the aspects of life except aesthetics. Beauty was to Greece everything and in everything the Greeks sought to see it, in a beautiful body, a pretty flower and what not. Theirs was an aesthetic culture which gave least importance to anything except beauty. A body may be weak, ill-disciplined, ill-trained and bereft of exercises, but would suffice and sustain the Greek sense if beautiful. Everything they would overlook but beauty. Greeks cared only the aesthetics. But the Greeks couldn’t orchestrate the path to attain this Beauty which is ‘joy for ever’. The Greeks had the aim but neither knew a little of the path to realize it nor did they care for it. Theirs was a civilization exclusively aesthetic. Widely different was the nature of its successor civilization, Rome. It lived with all the required calculated steps and training. It trained its young militarily right from early age. Its coliseums gave the best physical exercises to the youth to be the best physiques with robust body and protruding muzzles, but cared little for the physical beauty. Romans preferred strength to beauty. The strictly disciplined and ferocious Roman Phalanx backed by a constitution of the merciless justice of Pax-Romana was a juggernaut no contemporary state would dare to fight.
Theirs, Aurobindo says, was an ethical civilization wherein discipline sidelined Beauty. If the Greeks stressed aesthetic aspects of life and sidelined the ethical, Romans proved the exact reverse. Strictly wedded to the ethics and disciplines of life, they rebuffed the aesthetics. If the Greeks longed to enjoy the Beauty, they lacked the path leading to it. Romans had the disciplines and set the track. But to where?… they did not know. One had the aim, the other had the track, but the both failed to harmonize the means and the end. Both the civilizations, having lacked in harmonizing and adjusting, could not flourish for good. They perished.
India’s Civilizational Strength: Truth, beauty and bliss
It is here that the enduring nature of Indian civilization becomes relevant and worth wondering. India had the sense of Beauty and strict disciplines to enjoy it. Truth, Beauty and Bliss were the key-words of her culture and their harmony, she knew, would lead to life’s perfection. Sadhana, tapas or strict disciplines helped her enjoy the Beauty which is Truth and Bliss. It’s almost like the Sruti and laya combine in music wherein the former orchestrates the later into something like a well kept garden rather than becoming a wild forest. The trio satyam-sivam-sundaram was on the forehead of her national culture as the hallmark of her civilizational continuity. Rome and Greece died, but India continues her historic journey as the living or eternal civilization. Discipline made her life enduring and beautiful.
Yoga is this disciplining of life. Yujsamadhau, Samadhi is the core of yoga in all the walks of life. It is in Samadhi one enjoys the state of being in union with whatever one engages in. “He who is the most active in the midst of the greatest calmness and most calm in the midst of the greatest activity alone knows the secret of life”, says Bhagavad Gita. It is in fact the equanimity of mind that helps one to be successful in achieving life’s goal. Yoga is the state wherein one identifies his individual consciousness with the cosmic consciousness or realizes oneself as microcosm of the entirety. The yogi realizes, his is not a separate existence but part of the whole and sees himself in others and vice-versa. It’s almost like the salt doll of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s parable diving down the sea to fathom its depth and finding itself dissolved in the vast oceanic salt, never to return to its individual separateness. One realizes oneself as the very part of the cosmic existence which is nothing but himself. He loves himself as the sadhana or preparation to love the entire world. The Love becomes divine. The yogi thus realizes the principle of universal mutuality which is the quintessence of sanatana dharma.
The need for yogic leadership in the modern world
‘Samadhiyate iti samadhi’ – samadhi is keeping dhi in sama position or balancing the intelligence. Kalidasa says a good painting can come only from samadhi. In fact irrespective of any difference between science and art, all the great creations come only from balanced intelligence and equanimity of mind. This being the truth, it may not be strange if one doubts whether Einstein or Schrodinger were men of samadhi. Such men of samadhi can manage irrespective of situational difference.
They are the real yogis. “The world lies at the feet of the ruler who governs with benevolent regards for his people”, says the Tamil poet Tiruvalluvar. But the present ideal of administration has turned entirely different with a greedy group wooing the people to get installed in the saddles of power. Consequently, government has become a trade and administration a mere profession. Those getting into the seats of power through gimmicks and tricks cease to represent the best mind of the nation or the highest national instincts. They cannot address great issues with all the greatness they require. They use the high words and noble ideas as the mere claptrap of their party, a falsehood seen commonplace.
Present world appears to be lead by men of limited mental faculties fraught with avarice, selfishness and recklessness. Years ago Sri Aurobindo said, only an enlightened one with highest perfection can lead the society towards a harmonious perfection of life on earth. Having risen above the lower limitations, he can view everything from an exalted plane. With a complete inner knowledge and a higher surpassing knowledge, he can guide the world humanly as God guides it divinely. Because like the divine, “he is in the life of the world and yet above it”. The presence of such people is highly desirable in all walks of life, because they control the mind, intelligence and sense organs with equanimity to manage life, things and events. He is the sthitaprajna skilled in the art of life, a yogi. True yoga is skill in work, karma- Yogakarmasu kausalam.
