One of the predominant themes in Indian mythology, art and
literature has been that of the conquering of demons- external and internal. It
is always easier to conquer or fight something that is visible or Dristeya. To
conquer the invisible or Adristeya of which only inference is possible poses
the real challenge. We as humans have the distinction of intellect and ability
to make decisions that separates us from the animals which are driven by
instinct. Our ability to choose is what makes us human and since we are able to
choose, our actions which have consequences are our sheer responsibility. No
action is without a consequence. You cannot throw a pebble into the still water
and not expect a ripple. There will be one, no matter how minute and beyond
perception.
Perception has been given primordial importance in Indian
school of thought. It is claimed to be a reliable source of truth or Sat.
although perception has its own limitation of delusion and misperception. The standard example of seeing a snake in a rope
is the most popular. We are limited by this misunderstanding, for however small
amount of time. But the end of this misperception is another perception only.
You go back and check to realize that it was just a rope and not a snake as you
have perceived it to be. A lot of philosophers have claimed that whatever is
perceivable is what exists or whatever exists must be perceivable. How do you
know that a certain land exists or does not if you haven’t perceived it?
Dristeya, at the end, becomes a reliable source of knowledge- of good and of
bad.
As much as Dristeya is important, the Indian school retracts
no hands when it comes to the Adristeya. Both are important to understand the
cosmos holistically. We cannot see a lot of things but that does not negate
their existence. Philosophy and science then needs to work in tandem to enquire
into them. Similarly, the Indian School also places a great deal of importance
on the concept of Abhaav or not-present. A pot that exists at your place is
not-present at my place and hence I know of its presence by its absence. Its
presence is conceivable even when it is not present. The theory of Cause-effect
relationship says that a lot of things are present in latent form that is they
are present by their sense of absence. Like a pot is not present in the clay at
the moment but there is a potentiality and that’s what makes it present in the
clay which when molded will form into a pot. Without Abhaav it is very
difficult to know what to look for. What you lack is more important than what
you need to acquire. We are directionless without this sense of missing. But as
Emanuel Kant has put, “our knowledge of what we cannot and do not know is
limited”, it is very difficult to always point out what is missing.
Sankhya and Yoga School of philosophy claim that we could
find liberation (freedom) by Gyaan only that is knowledge about what is true.
When you realise who exactly you are, you are free. Nothing can bring you down
or disturb your equanimity. The School obviously put a lot of emphasis on
realising the essential or spiritual you free of the Prakriti (or Maya) but
that can be narrowed down in the modern times to understanding who exactly are
you? This has been a very difficult to answer but the source of the problem and
the solution to the same lies in what the western philosophers have claimed to
be the Mind.
Indian School of thought does not classify brain or mind as
a single entity working in tandem with the physical body to exist and perform
action in the world. The Indian school divides the thinking seat into atleast
four categories.
.Buddhi or Intellect which helps in analysis
.Manas or Memory
.Ahankara or Identity or personalistic ego
.Chitta or the eternally pure thought or intellect
Our Buddhi or intellect allows us to make decisions and
analyse situation. Manas, which is a bundle of memory of experiences from the
past acts as feed data to Intellect. These are value neutral. They have a
cause-effect relationship. Like you touch the surface of a hot lid. The sense
of heat is fed into intellect and Manas provides the information that this has
been hurtful in the past and you take the decision of stop touching it. But
what if you are a psychopath who loves to burn himself. You will experience
this pain as pleasure. This is a where the Ahankara comes as the locus of your
interests, likes and dislikes. Whatever you identify yourself as, your actions
or thoughts will produce an effect on your chitta or the locus of sensitivity.
You will either like or dislike a certain thing depending on the identity we
create or have. When our thoughts or actions (through manas and buddhi) are
aligned with Ahankara, we feel satisfied but when it does not then there will
be conflict of conscience. This conflict of conscience is the source of internal
turmoil which is nothing but an enhancement of Dvesha or dislike in Chitta
which always tries to be in equilibrium. When you are clear about your identity
or what you identify yourself with, any kind of action in the environment that
does not align with your personality will not bother you. Picture this, if you
are teetotaler and were standing in front of a liquor outlet, the bottles will
create no ripple of craving in you. This certainty of self is difficult. We are
almost always sure about the gross nature of substance or things that can
affect us. The external things. But what about the subtle ones? Which feelings
or thoughts align with my identity or the professional, personal identity I
want to have. We have often never pondered about them. Most of us haven’t. And
the day we figure out this at the subtle level that is at the most internal
levels of self-identity, we will know what will and what will not affect us. We
will stop being reactive and start being proactive. All those thoughts or
feelings that don’t align with our identity, we will treat them as agents of
the great “Mara” who sent his army to distract Buddha from attaining Nirvana or
Enlightenment.
The Bhumi-Sparsha Mudra (Touching the earth) of Buddha is the
epitome of Enlightenment proof where Buddha is seen touching the earth which
quakes as a proof of Buddha’s enlightenment. Mara and his agents which are
nothing but agents of worldly pleasures and sensual cravings are seen standing
on one side of the Bodhi tree unable to falter the reaches of Buddha’s
enlightenment. Buddha, in the simplest of terms, was certain about what he
wants to be or had his Ahankara fixed. And when that has been achieved no matter
of Mara’s distraction can destabilize him.
We are all trying to align our thoughts and actions with our
identity every day since we gained conscience. The agents of Mara have
presented themselves in several ways of sense pleasures along the years and
rather than we shaping their existence according to our self-identity, we have
somehow allowed them to shape our identity. If we have not been very cautious
about what we acknowledge, for how long we acknowledge them, we are always at a
great risk of finding our identity being shaped by external factors and alien
thoughts. Forming a strong personal identity is the root essence of an
authentic existence.
Jaina philosophy talks about two kinds of influx of karmic
matter (or karma). One when the action is performed and the other when the
thought of the action arises in the mind. The sense experience feeds
information into the intellect and the manas tries to associate a sense of
pleasure or pain as a future feed data depending on how we allow our identity
or self to be shaped by that experience. Jaina says that the real withdrawal
begins in the mind and then it happens in the action. The karmic influx ends in
the head. If we remove the austerity of spirituality from the philosophy and
look at it objectively trying to figure out a way to explain our habits and
choices and associations, we will all come to a conclusion that we allow
certain things to happen to us, knowingly or unknowingly, because we have over
the years started to believe in a certain kind of self-identity. This keeps
changing, as it always has been but we feel that the intellect or buddhi takes
precedence in forming a certain attitude but in reality their agreement with
Ahankara is what makes the difference. We will never be contented till we have
a conflict of conscience and when Shankya and other schools of thought claimed
knowledge to be the source of liberation, they probably meant this that
realizing the reality of our identity automatically helps us filter the influx
of experiences of the world and their effect on us.
As Buddha has rightly pointed out, “We are
what we think. All that we are arises with
our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world”
