attachment” to a great living Ideal “makes the will keen and unlocked”18 and energizes his spirit so much
that a person can “roll on like a flood over the sorrows, sufferings and calamities of the world with love,
sympathy and service and with the message of Beloved the Lord, with a knowledge and activity that
illuminates the way of the dull, and deteriorating depressed”.19 He who does not have the good fortune of
being concentric on a great Ideal runs the risk of being pushed back to a world of complexes. His
complexes, his negative, debilitating and destructive impulses and emotions threaten to rend his being into
bits and induce him to “recede towards the ebb of life. . .”20 Thousands of years ago, the Gita said in very
emphatic words that he who is not concentric on an Ideal tends to have an unfortunate life.
ukfLr cqf¼j;qÙkQL; u pk;qÙkQL; HkkoukA
u pkHkko;r% 'kkfUrj'kkUrL; oqQr% lq[ke~AA (2.66)
nasti buddhi ayuktasya na cha yuktasya bhavana
na cha bhavayatah shantih ashantasya kutah sukham (2.66)
A person who is not attached to an Ideal is devoid of real
wisdom and lacks a positive outlook in life. As such a person
does not have a positive outlook, he is not at peace with himself;
and as he is not at peace with himself, how can he ever be
happy?
This is what Sri Sri Thakur said, though in a different idiom, and observed that “He who is devoid of an
Ideal roams with dull and dusky eyes, . . .lacking in worldly common sense”.
But in Sri Sri Thakur’s utterances, the word Ideal does not mean an idea or a set of ideas. However
inspiring, lofty or sublime an idea or a set of ideas may be, it is not an Ideal as conceptualized by Sri Sri
Thakur and spelt with an initial capital letter. An Ideal in this sense is a Krishna, a Christ, a Buddha or the
like who embodies the wisdom of all past prophets. He is a person who inspires the hope, strengthens the
perseverance, energizes the will-power and invigorates the inner strength of millions of people around
him and creates and develops in them a positive and proactive outlook towards life. In Sri Sri Thakur’s
vision of life an Ideal ought to be understood as someone “who infuses the thrill of animation, extension
and augmentation” and proves to be “the Way of sufferers to life and light”21. Thus, religion for Sri Sri
Thakur is nothing but “the act of binding oneself with the Ideal, in love, worship and admiration and to
live on accordingly in an acceleration of one’s being and becoming”.22
18 Message, 1.44.
.
19 Message, 1.15.
20 Message, 1.170.
21 Message. 1.201.
22 Message, 1.124.
A person is much more than the statements that he may make and, similarly, a living Ideal, a seer,
a prophet, a purushottam satguru is in this sense much more than all the lofty ideas expressed by great
personalities in the past. No idea can ever prove equal to the loving and inspiring human touch of a living
Ideal who integrates and enlivens all the wisdom of the past and expresses it in the idiom readily
acceptable to the ethos of his age. In this connection Sri Sri Thakur had to say the following:
The degeneration of humanity began at that moment when the unseen God
was made infinite and, ignoring the seers, the worship of their sayings
began.23
Robert Allen, a multimillionaire of America, and a source of inspiration for numerous people around him,
once said:
Study anyone who’s great, and you’ll find that they apprenticed to a master. . . Therefore,
if you want to achieve greatness, renown, and superlative success, you must apprentice to a
master.24
If we apprentice to a billionaire, we can hope to be a billionaire; if we apprentice to a hermit, we can hope
to be hermit. But if we want to develop in such a balanced manner that we can have the best of both the
material and spiritual worlds, if we want to organize our inner and outer resources maximally creatively, if
we want to “live tremendously with an uphill exuberance of life and light”25 we have to actively adhere
to a purushottam satguru, to an overlord of all the secrets of success.
Sri Sri Thakur’s concept of becoming may seem to be the same thing as Darwin’s concept of biological
evolution, particularly in view of the fact that Thomas Huxley, a great supporter of Darwin’s theory of
evolution, has, in statements like the following, used the word becoming by way of elucidating Darwin’s
theory:
The different branches of science combine to demonstrate that the universe
in its entirety can be regarded as one gigantic process, a process of
becoming, of attaining new levels of existence and organization, which can
properly be called a genesis or an evolution.26
It needs to be emphasized here, however, that Sri Sri Thakur’s concept of becoming is not the same thing
as Charles Darwin’s concept of biological evolution. According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, the
individuals in a species are competing with each other for the sake of their survival and so the relationship
23 Satyanusaran, p.1.
24 Jack Canfield, The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. New
Delhi: Harper Collins, 2005, p. 299.
25 Message, 1.202.
26 www.darwin-literature.com/l_quotes.html
between them is the relationship of rivalry and hostility. Just as the individuals in a species are competing
with each other like enemies, different species of a genus are also competing with each other in a similar
manner and with a similar attitude of hostility, trying to have survival advantages over each other.
Organisms having survival advantages genetically transmit those advantages to their offspring. The result
of this competition and rivalry is that certain individuals in a species, like certain species in a genus,
survive whereas all others perish in the struggle for existence.
Sri Sri Thakur’s message, however, is not the message of hostility and rivalry but of harmony and a
dynamic togetherness with the environment. His message of a harmonious togetherness with the
environment can be understood in two parts: (i) his vision of nature, i.e., the earth with all its rivers, seas,
mountains, forests, and animals, and (ii) his vision of the human environment in which an individual lives
and works. The view held in this book is that if we want to understand Sri Sri Thakur’s vision of nature in
its true perspective, we should consider it in the context of some of the leading attitudes to nature in
human history.
The typical attitude of the West during the last few centuries has been the attitude of conquering nature.
Bacon, a great supporter of the exploitation of nature for human welfare, said, for example, that Nature
had to be “hounded in her wanderings”, “bound into service”, “put in constraint”, and made a “slave”. He
said that the job of a scientist was to “torture nature’s secrets from her”.27 Francis Bacon, however, was
not the only person who held this opinion. William Lawrence, a Massachusetts Episcopal bishop said that
“Man, when he is strong, conquers nature,”28 and similarly, William Pope Harrison, an editor for the
Methodist Church, said that “Dominion over the earth is the condition of man’s residence upon the
globe.”29 This attitude that nature had to be conquered became amply evident when the media almost all
over Britain and the United States announced Edmund Hillary’s success in climbing over Mount Everest
as “man’s conquest of Mount Everest”. The underlying assumption behind all these statements was that
this earth with all its resources was only meant for man’s enjoyment and that he had, therefore, the
authority to use it, abuse it or over-exploit it the way he wanted. To put in White’s words, “nature has no
reason for existence save to serve [humans]”.30 One of the very important factors behind this exploitative
attitude was the psychic victory in the West of anthropomorphism over paganism and animism. Pagans
believed in the existence of a divine spirit in rivers, trees, mountains, and every other phenomenon of
nature, and likewise, animism believed in the existence of a soul even in plants and animals. With the
advent of the Industrial revolution in the West, pagans and animists were laughed at and ridiculed as
ignorant, superstitious and primitive-minded people. The mind-set that resulted from this anti-pagan, antianimist
attitude took the "spirits" out of the trees, mountains, and seas. Once the spirit was taken out of the
trees, mountains, rivers and the like, inhibitions to the exploitation of nature vanished altogether. The
ghost-busting theology that came into existence made it justifiable for man to exploit nature in a mood of
indifference to the feelings of natural objects. It reduced nature to the status of man's monopoly. It would
be naïve to over-generalize, however, and to say that everyone in the West always favoured this attitude
of over-exploiting nature. There were very strong dissenting voices at times. During the first half of the
thirteenth century, St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), for example, advocated a life of harmony with
27 s
28 www.atribute to Hinduism.com
29 Ibid.
30 In 1967, a brief but influential article by UCLA History Professor Lynn White, Jr. appeared in the magazine, Science.
Entitled, "The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis.” Quoted in
that a person can “roll on like a flood over the sorrows, sufferings and calamities of the world with love,
sympathy and service and with the message of Beloved the Lord, with a knowledge and activity that
illuminates the way of the dull, and deteriorating depressed”.19 He who does not have the good fortune of
being concentric on a great Ideal runs the risk of being pushed back to a world of complexes. His
complexes, his negative, debilitating and destructive impulses and emotions threaten to rend his being into
bits and induce him to “recede towards the ebb of life. . .”20 Thousands of years ago, the Gita said in very
emphatic words that he who is not concentric on an Ideal tends to have an unfortunate life.
ukfLr cqf¼j;qÙkQL; u pk;qÙkQL; HkkoukA
u pkHkko;r% 'kkfUrj'kkUrL; oqQr% lq[ke~AA (2.66)
nasti buddhi ayuktasya na cha yuktasya bhavana
na cha bhavayatah shantih ashantasya kutah sukham (2.66)
A person who is not attached to an Ideal is devoid of real
wisdom and lacks a positive outlook in life. As such a person
does not have a positive outlook, he is not at peace with himself;
and as he is not at peace with himself, how can he ever be
happy?
This is what Sri Sri Thakur said, though in a different idiom, and observed that “He who is devoid of an
Ideal roams with dull and dusky eyes, . . .lacking in worldly common sense”.
But in Sri Sri Thakur’s utterances, the word Ideal does not mean an idea or a set of ideas. However
inspiring, lofty or sublime an idea or a set of ideas may be, it is not an Ideal as conceptualized by Sri Sri
Thakur and spelt with an initial capital letter. An Ideal in this sense is a Krishna, a Christ, a Buddha or the
like who embodies the wisdom of all past prophets. He is a person who inspires the hope, strengthens the
perseverance, energizes the will-power and invigorates the inner strength of millions of people around
him and creates and develops in them a positive and proactive outlook towards life. In Sri Sri Thakur’s
vision of life an Ideal ought to be understood as someone “who infuses the thrill of animation, extension
and augmentation” and proves to be “the Way of sufferers to life and light”21. Thus, religion for Sri Sri
Thakur is nothing but “the act of binding oneself with the Ideal, in love, worship and admiration and to
live on accordingly in an acceleration of one’s being and becoming”.22
18 Message, 1.44.
.
19 Message, 1.15.
20 Message, 1.170.
21 Message. 1.201.
22 Message, 1.124.
A person is much more than the statements that he may make and, similarly, a living Ideal, a seer,
a prophet, a purushottam satguru is in this sense much more than all the lofty ideas expressed by great
personalities in the past. No idea can ever prove equal to the loving and inspiring human touch of a living
Ideal who integrates and enlivens all the wisdom of the past and expresses it in the idiom readily
acceptable to the ethos of his age. In this connection Sri Sri Thakur had to say the following:
The degeneration of humanity began at that moment when the unseen God
was made infinite and, ignoring the seers, the worship of their sayings
began.23
Robert Allen, a multimillionaire of America, and a source of inspiration for numerous people around him,
once said:
Study anyone who’s great, and you’ll find that they apprenticed to a master. . . Therefore,
if you want to achieve greatness, renown, and superlative success, you must apprentice to a
master.24
If we apprentice to a billionaire, we can hope to be a billionaire; if we apprentice to a hermit, we can hope
to be hermit. But if we want to develop in such a balanced manner that we can have the best of both the
material and spiritual worlds, if we want to organize our inner and outer resources maximally creatively, if
we want to “live tremendously with an uphill exuberance of life and light”25 we have to actively adhere
to a purushottam satguru, to an overlord of all the secrets of success.
Sri Sri Thakur’s concept of becoming may seem to be the same thing as Darwin’s concept of biological
evolution, particularly in view of the fact that Thomas Huxley, a great supporter of Darwin’s theory of
evolution, has, in statements like the following, used the word becoming by way of elucidating Darwin’s
theory:
The different branches of science combine to demonstrate that the universe
in its entirety can be regarded as one gigantic process, a process of
becoming, of attaining new levels of existence and organization, which can
properly be called a genesis or an evolution.26
It needs to be emphasized here, however, that Sri Sri Thakur’s concept of becoming is not the same thing
as Charles Darwin’s concept of biological evolution. According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, the
individuals in a species are competing with each other for the sake of their survival and so the relationship
23 Satyanusaran, p.1.
24 Jack Canfield, The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. New
Delhi: Harper Collins, 2005, p. 299.
25 Message, 1.202.
26 www.darwin-literature.com/l_quotes.html
between them is the relationship of rivalry and hostility. Just as the individuals in a species are competing
with each other like enemies, different species of a genus are also competing with each other in a similar
manner and with a similar attitude of hostility, trying to have survival advantages over each other.
Organisms having survival advantages genetically transmit those advantages to their offspring. The result
of this competition and rivalry is that certain individuals in a species, like certain species in a genus,
survive whereas all others perish in the struggle for existence.
Sri Sri Thakur’s message, however, is not the message of hostility and rivalry but of harmony and a
dynamic togetherness with the environment. His message of a harmonious togetherness with the
environment can be understood in two parts: (i) his vision of nature, i.e., the earth with all its rivers, seas,
mountains, forests, and animals, and (ii) his vision of the human environment in which an individual lives
and works. The view held in this book is that if we want to understand Sri Sri Thakur’s vision of nature in
its true perspective, we should consider it in the context of some of the leading attitudes to nature in
human history.
The typical attitude of the West during the last few centuries has been the attitude of conquering nature.
Bacon, a great supporter of the exploitation of nature for human welfare, said, for example, that Nature
had to be “hounded in her wanderings”, “bound into service”, “put in constraint”, and made a “slave”. He
said that the job of a scientist was to “torture nature’s secrets from her”.27 Francis Bacon, however, was
not the only person who held this opinion. William Lawrence, a Massachusetts Episcopal bishop said that
“Man, when he is strong, conquers nature,”28 and similarly, William Pope Harrison, an editor for the
Methodist Church, said that “Dominion over the earth is the condition of man’s residence upon the
globe.”29 This attitude that nature had to be conquered became amply evident when the media almost all
over Britain and the United States announced Edmund Hillary’s success in climbing over Mount Everest
as “man’s conquest of Mount Everest”. The underlying assumption behind all these statements was that
this earth with all its resources was only meant for man’s enjoyment and that he had, therefore, the
authority to use it, abuse it or over-exploit it the way he wanted. To put in White’s words, “nature has no
reason for existence save to serve [humans]”.30 One of the very important factors behind this exploitative
attitude was the psychic victory in the West of anthropomorphism over paganism and animism. Pagans
believed in the existence of a divine spirit in rivers, trees, mountains, and every other phenomenon of
nature, and likewise, animism believed in the existence of a soul even in plants and animals. With the
advent of the Industrial revolution in the West, pagans and animists were laughed at and ridiculed as
ignorant, superstitious and primitive-minded people. The mind-set that resulted from this anti-pagan, antianimist
attitude took the "spirits" out of the trees, mountains, and seas. Once the spirit was taken out of the
trees, mountains, rivers and the like, inhibitions to the exploitation of nature vanished altogether. The
ghost-busting theology that came into existence made it justifiable for man to exploit nature in a mood of
indifference to the feelings of natural objects. It reduced nature to the status of man's monopoly. It would
be naïve to over-generalize, however, and to say that everyone in the West always favoured this attitude
of over-exploiting nature. There were very strong dissenting voices at times. During the first half of the
thirteenth century, St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), for example, advocated a life of harmony with
27 s
28 www.atribute to Hinduism.com
29 Ibid.
30 In 1967, a brief but influential article by UCLA History Professor Lynn White, Jr. appeared in the magazine, Science.
Entitled, "The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis.” Quoted in
Post a Comment