Axioms in life !

Some two thousand four hundred years ago, in the city of Athens, the first democratic court of this world brought two charges against a septuagenarian man; one for corrupting the young generations with malice of thoughts and secondly for showing disrespect to the city Gods. The guilt was proved and the accused was sentenced to death. The man had brought the philosophy to the streets of the city…the scholars, peasants, artisans, masters, servants, pimps, ladies, noblemen and even the beggars used to listen to his words that simplified the purpose of life and living through it.

On the dock, he stood up and explained before the judges in the Athenian Agora, about the greatest fallibility of human life. “It is not my crime that convicts me, but the rumour and gossip that by whispering together you are persuading yourselves to convict me; to prove that I am guilty. By nature, rumour is very light to lift up, but heavy to carry and hard to put down and it doesn’t disappear once one indulges her in life.”

The city of Athens was in trouble to accommodate a new form of democracy and people were anxious to know about the new form of governance; these complexities had a confluent influence of both in risking the conviction of the man, who raised a few fundamental questions about life and expressed his thoughts to settle those too. A nation can take questions when it is stable with ideas and confident with knowledge, but it fears the same questions when it is split and vulnerable, both in ideas and knowledge. The time was wrong for the Greece and the world and the death of the man was not untimely, but unjust—as cruel as the thoughts so precisely killed some two millennia ahead.

The man was Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, who brought the fundamental questions of life on public discussions. It was not a disturbing note for to start even at that time, but as he always cautioned that “written words” had tremendous power to influence mind of people and it could be good or bad, but would have merciless impact to add virtue or vice to human soul, in days to ensue. It was that stage of early age of pursuing knowledge that took refuge to written scriptures instead of the earlier form of oral pool of knowledge.

His death did neither stop rumour to make more men as her slave nor did his ideas die as the democratic court had thought. It could only happen for a simple reason that his questioning on life was simple and everyone in the streets could connect to such questions. What is worth in living; what is beauty, what is honesty, why love is precious and so long “whats” and “whys” in the flow. And, in essence, it all spoke about a simple string that these were all the axioms in life along which the life prospers. These are the primary pillars upon which life rests. There is nothing to hide; the love, the hatred, the agony, the pleasure, the warring roar of people, the merciless torture of powerful, all so relevant and true, but nothing to hide, but to confine to a single objective, whatever harsher and harder it might be, to be award goodness to it. It is all to know yourself, the world being a mirror to know what you are, what is fear, what are your thoughts, what are your virtues and what are your vices. Explore your deceit and integrity, truth and lie, love and hate; all so within you and rectify. “The unexamined life is not worth living, what is the reason for living life, other than to love it”, he said.

The tragedy of life lies in defining the objective only. The source of happiness, if remain unidentified, makes the happiness illusive. Every facet of human expressions is role specific. The love for the children cannot be and should not be expressed in similar manner to the parents. Aiming life depends on identifying roles and shaping up goals to such roles in such a manner that it brings happiness to whatever one does to honour those goals and roles in life. And, there breeds the discontent.  I wanted to be a doctor, but have become a teacher; you wanted to an artist, but have become a technician. The dreams and destiny are pulling the life from two directions, sacrificing the happiness in between. Now, the essential questions that the great philosopher raised have become so relevant. Is it the happiness anyway affecting either of the faces; my dreaming to be a doctor and becoming a teacher. A little deeper thought takes us to a simple answer, “NO”, at the end. The dream of being a doctor and living a life of a doctor has nothing to interfere with not becoming it so long the principles of life are concerned. The principles are the axioms in life, which cannot be broken; we simply break ourselves against it.

It brings my soul to wail whenever I read the last part of the great epic, Ramayana. Mahakal has come to meet Rama and got Rama to promise that he would kill anyone interrupting their discussions. The beloved brother, Lakshmana, had to meet Rama and he knew that he should not enter as it would compel Rama to kill him, yet he had to. Lakshmana had to die as Rama had never desisted from adhering to his promises. Sages opined if Rama disowned Lakshmana that would be similar to killing him as Lakshmana would not live once being disowned by his revered brother. Lakshmana moved slowly, alone, toward river Sarayu. None accompanying, none bidding farewell. His feet were steady while his soul was delightful as he perceived his happiness has been fulfilled in that mortal life in company of such a wonderful experience of life; in love, hatred, faith and misfortune. Silently he dipped into the water never to reappear. What was a life for Rama to live through? He was to be king of the largest nation. He had to sacrifice it and he did it happily. He had acquired immense knowledge; had the purity of love in experience. He had to fight with a great man only to recover his wife, Sita, whom Ravana had abducted but never touched. Sita had to prove her chastity as the rumours in democracy put down Rama to oblige. Did Rama have any doubt over her chastity? The wisdom of Rama never justifies it that he had any doubt, yet he had to dishonour the respect that Sita deserved. The role specific departure in pursuit, perhaps, made him more unhappy than Lakshmana and Sita, who never deviated from the paths of happiness in defining roles and goals, at least in the epic. Rama too took the path of self-sacrifice. He was too moving slowly towards river Sarayu; but thousands of people accompanying—some crying in sorrow, some in pleasure of accompanying Rama. He too dipped into the water never to reappear, but was it full of delight for him as was for his beloved brother? Never know, if so; perhaps, not.

Almost contemporary to Socrates, lived a prince in the cradle of the Himalayas. He left his royal home to seek for the ultimate truth in life. His journey was strenuous, yet meaningful; it offered only enlightenment—the sacred truth of life. He professed four noble truths in life; the life is full of sufferings, craving is the source of sufferings, the cessation of suffering is the pursuit and the path of cessation leads to enlightenment. People raised questions, “What is worth in living when it is only full of sufferings?” The answer offered was much simpler than wheat people expected. Unless the life undergoes through sufferings, it cannot find it source, and unless one finds the source of sufferings, the cessation of sufferings can never happen and the path shall never lead to enlightenment. These are the axioms in life. One needs to experience pain to learn the meaning of pleasure and value it. The endless battles of cravings within mind shall end in valuing profound peace, if the battles are to secure the honest, righteous and principled choices of life. Love is material so long it breeds upon desire. The desire leads to own up the loveable. The possession leads to desire to control it. And the control over the loveable leads to death of love. The illusions in life are those passions that breed upon desire, whatever sacred and pure they might be. The joy in life is only attainable in compassion and peace. The selfless man was Siddhartha, the Buddha.

 I love my daughter. I want her to be disciplined, educated and joyous. In pursuit of such dreams, my love generates a sense of desire; the craving to see my daughter succeed in the way I perceive the world. I want to secure her in life; forfeiting her own wisdom, own values. I dictate but do not let her learnt what is truth as I fear that truth is hard and I never want her to face such harsh truth. That craving guides her to take a wrong path that never leads to anywhere, however fast she runs, whatever attainments she has, whichever tiers of successes she reaches. She learns to belief in wrong pedestals that my perceptions persuaded to have trust in. The bond—the sacred bond—has been shattered by me in pursuing my cravings in guise of my love. Such love is worse than hatred. It erases both the divinity of love and trust from her mind.

Wise men have so generously shared their wisdom. The history, the religion, the philosophy and the creative art are often touched by lights of their wisdom too. But, it all had fallen prey to our perceptions, our own manipulations and social voids. The essence of life has not succeeded to retain true meaning beyond those few people who felt it, valued it and lived it to the fullest.

Why should I be honest? The most common question wanders through the corridors of the life. Why should I love when someone ignores me? Why should I not fight to secure my possessions? So many questions. One wise man says, “Okay, you don’t be honest, if that pleases you. But, will you say it so to your children? Would you suggest them that they need not be honest, truthful, trustworthy, loving, caring, concerned? Tell me, if you agree.” There ends the tale. Yes, there is no answer as to why should one be honest. It is one of the axioms in life. Life evolves with some fundamental truths. Such truths hold life to secure itself as an opportunity to suffer, through sufferings learn the value in it, find true love that inspires life to offer itself in loving—to do, to be and to aid—and to explore the path that will lead to profound peace of mind—without any desire, any greed, any fear and any bond.

I want to be good and my goodness tells me to be compassionate, to be generous, to be faithful, to be helpful to others. The compassion if brings joy in mind is the true; if it tempts to raise desire to be recognized as generous even within the confine of own mind, it is illusion. It lacks the fundamental truth in its offering. You sincerely want to address many inconveniences of people around you; you are selfless and the people have no transactional relationships with you too. But you have neither adequate resource, enough strength and required access to reach them all. Does it generate discontent in your mind? One needs to value what is the circle of concerns; I may have concerns over many aspects of life. One needs to value the circle of influence also. I cannot do something or my resources do not permit me to do something. One can stretch the circle of influences by learning, assimilating, cooperating, and socializing; only if there is no craving for recognition in doing so. It is only to enhance own character strength, own assessment of pain and pleasure in life. So more stretched it is, closer it would be to the circle of concern; only if one wants to offer the life to merge both the circles in oneness; else the consequence would be disastrous. The discontent rises when they mismatch. The influence works where concerns do not reside and concerns breed where influence never dreams to reach. Mostly, we are victim of this mismatch. Our dreams are illusions; without any logic, any sincerity and any devotion. We dream whatever suits us; I want to be as smart as Mr X or as beautiful as Ms Y. The dreams have no meaning except generating a wild chase. The colour, race, caste, religion, gender and many other sources of inequality have been in the world only through generation of such misplaced perception and opportunism. There is neither pride nor glory in being a patriot if one fails to adhere to basic values of life. The efficiency without ethics help us reaching a wrong place faster. I wanted to be a doctor but become a teacher. What is frustrating in it? Did it anyway ruin my purpose of living; living a life with all fundamental values of life; any hindrance to even seek for the ultimate truth? I am denied a lift in my career; and blame my misfortune, the bias in the political system or the whims of the selection board. Does it really matter in interfering with the life’s pursuit? Have I ever thought in an unbiased manner that Mrs Z may really be more knowledgeable or has proven her acumen in the field that is primarily the job to be done on the lift in office? Or, even when the system chooses a less qualified person above me, do I think it is unjust as I am more qualified for the post in any unbiased assessment and I should seek the justice in appropriate office? Does it reflect my ambitions in life have hindered the goals of life to attained? Does this pain of betrayal have no other value except the betrayal of lack of justice? In any manner, does it interfere with my pursuit to seek for the truth in life—the happiness, the peace and the enlightenment? One needs to ponder sincerely.

Life has no shortcut. One has to undergo pain, yet seek for the divine truth through loving life, loving living, loving the pains and the pleasures, loving doing any act of goodness, loving to be honest, loving to be faithful, loving to be truthful, loving to be life in prosperity of love only. These are the axioms in life and they need never to be proved or challenged. Once one challenges honesty, integrity, love, peace, compassion, cooperation, appreciation, pain and pleasure, the basic foundation of life gets challenged. The life bears absolute nothingness once it deviates from such pillars of life. Whatever material successes it may seem to have attained are only tragic art of betrayal of life. It is the death in disguise of a life.

Tolerance in life

When I wrote my Civil Services exams, “Tolerance in life”, was the essay that I opted for without much bargaining. After thirty-four years in service, neither “tolerance” nor “life” bears any discernible evidence of existence in me, perhaps. It is not an obituary of my life or my tolerance that has prompted me to write a few lines here. I have almost a different influencer to seduce my thoughts and pen to express which I have never felt worthy enough to be expressed before.

The tolerance, as I grew up and learnt, does not bear the meaning nowadays except in those dull dictionaries. It is a concept that sleeps silently as a sepia photograph inside an ancestral album. It’s a loss of inheritance! And, it has so far been so intense a belief for me that I started really doubting if it ever existed. When Professor Hilbert, a great mathematician in Gottingen University was once asked by the then Nazi Minister of Education, “Is it really true, Professor, that your institution suffered so much from the departure of the Jews and their friends?” to which Professor responded in a surprisingly calmness, “Suffered? No, not at all. It didn’t suffer, Herr Minister. It just doesn’t exist anymore!” Similar had been my feelings about the existence of tolerance in life.

I was fortunate to have grown in a home, where I had had enough—voluntary or compulsive—exposure to the presence of some renowned people in the field of academics, and, knowingly or unknowingly, my childhood learning was grossly influenced by the humility, wisdom and expression of tolerance of those stalwarts. When the smell of the Jesuit fathers was yet to evaporate from my cheeks, my exposure to a new world of rebellion left quite a substantial dint onto that innocent growth of tolerance in me and it died pretty swiftly as I entered into the prime of my youth. Yet, the myth surrounding the Bengali intelligentsia has its crafted veil to be neatly draped around me and I remained tolerant without being one in the core. The life has also learnt to be lifeless in the meanwhile. So, the game was a pact, and the pact was the essence of the game. Collaborating together to defraud the other over a bet who gets bankrupt early.

As I was saying about my childhood; the phase one never forgets even in the worst departure from life. I continued to see those learned men discussing in ever smiling face—sitting upon the open balcony facing the road and the public—over a cup of tea. People used to gather and listen to them. Whenever any question or a contrary view would come even from any naïve source, they used to explain what they had so far learnt, where it would be found as a reference and would patiently express eagerness to know where the new knowledge came from. I never found them agitated on any occasion.

Over the years, the wise men faded, one by one, and once I realized that time has silently put out the last lamp too. And, my entire life of tolerance has had its silent death in such an inauspicious manner that I don’t even remember when and where I last found it alive. The life continued to thrive in its proud vest carrying a dead soul inside. And, I never felt it an unenjoyable situation in my pursuit of illusory knowledge and peace. It’s been a win-win case, with both winning, in failing to live through, with utter serenity and fulfilment.  

A few days ago, my wife received a link from a friend in Bangladesh, which provided us an opportunity to listen to her octogenarian father, a renowned academician in the neighbouring country and the world, delivering an address to the Alumni of a famous university at its Reunion meet. I floated through his lecture. Such humility, such patience, those chosen words that never hurt but inspire only, and those fluent waves of thoughts intermingled with the innocence of a child and the awe in experiencing the grand texture of knowledge; it all surrounded me and carried me to my lost childhood. I could see my transformed belief of a non-existent tolerance evaporating into a shapeless sky while fresh air of innocence began to fill in. My thoughts began to liberate a whole new wave of vitality; a lost feeling of reassuring the self that nothing can rob your innocence so long tolerance allows your life to pursue what it aspires truly at the end—the truth. The seeds of wisdom lie only in tolerance. The tolerance is not a compromise, not an adjustment, not a bargain; it is to withstand all illusions that life presents in its trial, to keep life unperturbed by comfort and luxury of thoughts, to steer away life from the traps of unlearning the pure knowledge, to keep the innocent lamp of childhood aflame forever in the midst of strong winds of misleading opinions and manufactured doctrines. It is a strong yes to say a strong no even sacrificing the life in enduring utter humiliations that the mankind has ever experienced. It is what that keeps the life alive.

The innocence of the soul of a child of eighty years has so gracefully inspired me to disinter the hidden gems in the deepest of my treasures of life—the essence of tolerance in life—that I start believing again, “Yes, the life still bears the prospect of resurrection.”