Morality and Spirituality are two Distinct
Phenomena
A few days back a story drew media’s
attention the most. A woman called her paramour to her house and in the evening
when they both were making love she triggered a bullet into him. Police came
and arrested the woman claiming that she broke a law by killing a person and
she would be punished accordingly. Some neighbours said that it was highly
immoral to spend time with one’s paramour by the time they are not committed to
each other. Others said that it was not ethical to call a person to your home
and kill him in the name of love. Pujari Ji said that the religion was going to
sink if such love relations would be fostered to kill others.
By the evening this matter became the
centre of discussion of the entire neighbourhood and then the whole locality.
Everyone was expressing same or similar views. In the evening a small boy came
and turned the tables just upside down. He solved every thing. He said that
every one of those critiques was so despaired because the inhabitants of that
colony, including the critiques were not spiders. The entire problem was there
because that was a society of homo sapience and not of the six legged web
weaving insect.
In Australia
Right from the beginning, the societies
used to lay down and then approve some practices to meet the requirement of Minimum
Friction Within. These societies then laid down the standards of ‘good’ and
‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ etc. All these were meant
for the smooth working of that society. Some societies laid down the moral code
of conduct for the slaves also. It was highly immoral for a slave to have an
eye on his master’s wealth or woman. In some societies like old Hindu and
traditional Muslim it was highly immoral and unethical for a woman to violate
her husband’s wish. However in some other societies e.g. trained and nurtured
in the modern western values such morality in itself is highly immoral because
it violates the equal status of women.
Hence in a given society only those values
and norms are moral and ethical which are in the better interest of that
society. A society always tries to live as long as possible. This is a bid of
survival of a society as a unity. In doing so it makes choices between the
beneficial and detrimental to the objectives set out by it. It regulates the
behaviours of its subjects. It requires its members to follow a set of
practices. This practice is the morality of that society. For eventualities,
when under new and unprecedented circumstances such practice is not available
as recommended, that society lays down some criteria also to be guided with.
This set of criteria is called the ethics.
‘Ram steals bread’ shows a moral violation.
Morality is violated. This action is not in conformity with the society which
had laid down the moral ‘do not steal’. ‘Ram fed a starving person’. The
morality is uplifted. It is in conformity with the moral ‘Help the needy ones’,
‘feed the hungry ones’, ‘save other’s life’. But sometimes “Ram steals bread to
feed a starving person”. Here is a conflict within morals. The problem is
resolved by having resort to the criterion provided by the ethics.
The morality, the ethics and the practices
recommended by them are to regulate the behaviour of an individual towards
others. These others may be the other members of the same society or the
members of some others societies.
Subsequently societies developed their
political set ups also to evolve new practices; enforce them and also punish
for their violation. This branch assumed the name of the law and law Courts.
But this all including the morality, the
ethics and the law were only to regulate the outer behaviour of a subject. This
is all external; imposed from outside; enforced from outside and observed from
outside. No society or system will object to your most contrary beliefs and
notions so long as your external conduct is in conformity with its morals or
laws. The societies have nothing to do with your internal fabric. They are in
expectations of your external conduct to be in conformity with their practices
– the morals or the ethics or the laws.
All morals, ethics and laws presuppose the
existence of others. This existence of others is independent of anyone else in
the society. The morals, ethics and the laws are all Bipolar Processes. It
envisages YOU the doer and those OTHERS who would face the result of your deeds.
These morals, ethics and the laws are the bridges bridging the individuals. For
all the morals, ethics and the laws (hereinafter these will collectively be
termed as External Trio) the existence of plurality of individuals is an
essence. Without a plurality and the interconnections amongst that plurality
this External Trio is void ab initio. It is meaningless. It loses its worth.
Now take the spirituality. But before
entering the domain of spirituality the meaning of “Bipolar Process” ought to
be made clear. This “Bipolar Process” was discussed in
the preceding paragraphs while dealing with the issue of the External Trio. It
was said there that this External Trio is essentially a Bipolar Process involving
“You” and “the Others”.
The outside world enters you as sensations
through your senses. Your mind processes these sensations and produces information
or knowledge for you. All the empirical knowledge has two components. One is
the sensation from the outer world and the other is the processed product of
your mind.
When the concepts of one person are
expressed to others it is through verbal conversation. In all verbal
conversations there are generally two elements one relates to the fact
regarding the sensation you received through your senses and the other is the
mental element provided by your mind. When the facts are in contradistinction
to each others a mental element is taken recourse of to overcome the stagnation
of contradistinction of facts. “Ram steals bread to feed a starving person”
involves two facts (may be moral or legal or ethical) in contradistinction to
each other. The matter is resolved by a mental process giving more weight to
one fact over the other.
These mental elements embedding the
sensations are called thoughts. The thoughts are essentially based on
sensations received by your senses. May be, some thoughts appear to be free
from the empirical basis. But it is not so.
You may think of an animal with the tail
like a horse and the body like a lion. But it is nothing more than a new
permutation – combination of your sensation about tail, horse, lion and body
etc. Your mind gives these combinations new names as a child gives different
names to the different shapes made from the same clay.
Your thoughts are essentially a mixture of ‘you’
and ‘the outer world’. The world is present in your thoughts in the form of raw
sensations and you are there as the mental element. All your thoughts are,
hence, bipolar. One pole of your thoughts is the crude information in the form
of sensation and the other pole is you in the form your mental element. Your
all thoughts including morality, ethics and law are mixtures of this bipolar
material. Your thoughts are not purely YOU.
You do not exist purely in your thoughts.
Your thoughts are not You. Your thoughts are “something” mixed with you.
Presently that something is not termed as good or as bad. But that “something”
makes outside world flow from outside into you. That “something” facilitates
encroachment for the outer world over you. Your thoughts are an ‘encroachment
upon you’.
English philosopher David Hume said that he
sat into meditation and found nothing as “me” inside him. He found only a train
of thoughts flowing from one end to the other. The flow was quite turbulent. No
rule of flow was there. Thoughts originated randomly. Lived randomly; and
disappeared randomly. At last Hume declared that there was nothing as “me”
inside.
The observation of Hume was correct but his
conclusion was incorrect. He could not recognize that the reason for his
illusion was a psychological habit. He found a train of thoughts inside and
concluded that there was nothing beyond that train.
You are born without thoughts. You receive
only sensations. As you grow you are taught to give words to those sensations.
When these words shroud your sensations they give rise to thoughts. You are
brought up with thoughts. You are motivated to create more and more thoughts.
This creation of thoughts is then appreciated as your intelligence. You are
made to grow in perpetual association with thoughts. In your unawareness you
become addicted to your thoughts. You are never told that your thoughts are
only a way of interaction with outer world and that you exist beyond your
thoughts, and that you exist prior to your thoughts.
What Hume observed as a train of thoughts
was only his psychological addiction. Neither he tried to see beyond that
addiction nor did anybody lead him beyond that addiction. He remained entangled
with his bipolar existence. Most of you also do the same. You find a thought
train running inside you. You identify yourself with that thought train. You are
appreciated by the outside world and by yourself also for more and more
thoughts inside you. You are overshadowed by your thoughts. You take yourself
as granted as a cloud of thoughts. You feel satisfied because others appreciate
you. This is again bipolar.
You feel satisfied not because you find it
a satisfactory state but because others say that you should feel satisfied
being shrouded in thoughts. Now you are trapped in the vicious circle of Bipolarity.
More you identify yourself with the bipolarity more it encompasses you. More
you are encompassed by the bipolarity more you identify yourself with it.
Bipolarity exists only
by the time it encompasses you. It makes you believe that you are not you but
you are that Bipolarity. Indian school of thoughts called this Bipolarity
as Jagat and its encompassing power as Maya.
It may sound new to some readers that the
real existence beyond the empirical sensations is possible. But it is the
truth. The need is only to uncover (and not to discover) it. By closing your
eyes you may try to feel the existence without the sense of viewing. By closing
your ears you may try the same for without the sense of hearing. The same can
be repeated for other senses taken one or more at a time. People generally ask
if it is possible to exist without all five senses and the sixth one the mind.
To such people it is explained that it is all possible. You daily exist without
your senses during your REM sleep (dreams). Likewise you go beyond this state
and exist without your senses and even without mind in your deep sleep. You can
exist, initially for small durations, without your senses and mind.
The Indian school has found a solution and
named it Dhyan, Dhaarna and Samaadhi. These are the
techniques which liberate you from the encroachment of the outside world. These
techniques make you pure from the intrusion of Bipolarity. The
methodology used in these techniques, is termed by the Indian scholars as
spirituality. The spirituality sifts out the Bipolarity from you and
your vision. You start losing your misidentity with the Bipolarity. The
spirituality makes you free from the incarceration of Bipolarity. In fact,
spirituality is your existence prior to the start of Bipolarity. The
spirituality is your existence beyond and untainted with the Bipolarity.
It gives you realization regarding the nature of Bipolarity i.e. the Jagat,
its encompassing power the Maya.
In bipolarity you exist seeking your image
in the eyes of others. Bipolarity is a web of expectations – expectations in
you regarding others and expectations of others regarding you. You do things
and acts not because of you but because of others. You speak truth not because
of you but because of canons. You help others not because it flows from your
existence but in expectation of heavens in expectations of reward of beautiful
sirens.
In spirituality, you exist untainted. You
exist in awareness of your form and substance. You exist without the help of
others. You exist in yourself i.e. without an expectation of your being in others.
You transcend the bipolarity and exist in unipolarity. Now you are not thoughts
but you are an existence. You are not an entity now but you are a part of an
infinity; you are an infinity. Here your existence is unipolar. You exist in
yourself. You have transcended the bipolarity.
Spirituality is a new concept for the west.
New at least, on the level it is being discussed here in this article. One
Danah Zohar has propounded her idea on spirituality. She has worked to show
that spiritually awakened people perform better not only in the spiritual arena
but also in the domain of worldly affairs. She has then given about 12
characteristics of spiritually awakened people i.e. those who have spiritual
intelligence. She propounds that spiritually awakened people generally prefer
moral way of living. Spiritually
awakened people have a holistic view of the problems.
It appears that Danah has read about
spirituality but has never been able to attain it. Her effort is misleading as
it does not distinguish between the spirituality and morality. It tries to show
the morality as a synonym of spirituality and vice versa. She has never
realized that it is like inferring the existence of a man from the shawl he
wraps over his shoulders. If the spirituality is inferred from the morality
then the same spirituality can also be inferred from his lies, cheating and
other vices. If the existence of a man is inferred from his shawl then why it
is not inferred again from his shirt, gloves or undergarments. Danah has no
answer.
It is again proposed here that the
spirituality is independent of all other things. It does not require you to be
in relation with others. It is a state of existence which starts when
everything else ornamental to the existence ceases to be. The spirituality is
the essence while the morality is only contingent to it. You may wear different
clothes but you remain you. Your existence does not depend on your dress. If
you start inferring your existence from your dress then this will also be
incorrect. In that case sometimes there would be a scarecrow under the dress
and the results would be incorrect. You will be repeating the mistake of Danah
Zohar of inferring spirituality of a man from his morality. Better not to do
it.
Morality is nothing more than a suitability
in a given set of conditions. That’s why different societies have different
moralities. Even the same society may have different moralities at different
points of time. Had there been a ‘Redback Spider’ critic it would have seen the
conduct of the human being highly immoral where the same females copulates with
the same male again and again repeatedly. A value highly praised in the human
morality would be strongly abhorred by the spiders.
A moral value (and so is the true of the
complete External Trio and any thing having worldly meaning) is only contingent
to you. Your spirituality is the domain. Everything else is an auxiliary. Only
You are the truth.
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