NANI
PALKHIVALA interviewed Swami Chinmayananda in December 1983 on
the eve of his ‘International Spiritual Camp’.
A short while before the interview the Swami had occasion to view
a video show of the American film ‘The Day After’. His
reaction: “Let
them place an atom bomb at every street corner. They dare not use
it…” What
if they do dare: “Let us wipe out the whole mankind and recreate
a new world. The spirit will survive.” says the Swami. He’s
an optimist.
Excerpts:
It was said by Swami Vivekananda and after him by Rabindranath
Tagore and Sri Aurobindo that it is the great destiny of India to
be the spiritual leader of the world. But we hardly find ourselves
qualified to fulfil that role today. In fact, we seem to be farther
away from that kind of destiny than we were when we became a republic.
What do you think about this
The masters who said so were not wrong.
But what they meant is not what we understand by it now. When
they talked about the destiny of India they were not referring
to India in terms of its geographical composition. They were
talking about the people of India. We as a people have got
a psychological make-up, I mean we are born with a certain
moral temper, a decency so to say (let me not call it culture),
which we don’t
find in other parts of the world. But
we have not been giving the people a chance to
live their moral lives, either through education, or by example
from our leaders – even
parents are not living up to it. We have acquired a false value system.
If we discard this system entirely, resurrect our innate moral values,
we could still provide spiritual leadership to the world. It must start
with education. That is my firm conviction. That is why we have started,
though I am a Swami, schools all over the country, some 30 to 40 of them,
where we insist on moral values. And the type of students coming out of
the schools is more than creditable. I am more than satisfied with this
experiment. Slowly parents too are realising the importance of moral values
in building the character of the children. The change cannot take place
overnight. It is a matter of cultural development, which necessarily involves
a long period of time. But it can be achieved in a course of one generation.
If in one generation Hitler could convert a depressed Germany into a monstrous
power, we can do it the other way also. A monstrously immoral, vulgar
and corrupt country can be awakened to its moral fibre. But this must
come from the top, the leaders must change and set the example. Then
the followers will be plenty. You will have noticed these yatras carrying
Gangajal. What a tremendous response they got from the public. They had
not done publicity by radio, TV and all that. Only the word of Mouth!
Even villagers from the remotest part of the country participated. This
only means that the moral core is still intact. This is the time for
a revival. But after some time, when the climate of immorality percolates
deep into the villages, I don’t know what will happen. That will
perhaps be ‘The Day After’.
You have made three points. One, the moral core of our
people is still intact. Two, throughout its history this country
has taken its morals from its leaders – given great leaders
it has risen to great heights, and in times when the leaders
were corrupt it has invariably suffered. So, what this country
needs is not so much political leadership as moral, spiritual
leadership. The third point you have made is about the right
kind of education which instils moral values into its students. This is very important. I most readily
agree that your schools are a creditable experiment and represent the
core of what can develop into a national institution. But what we find
in most universities today is that even the standards we inherited
when we became a republic have been devalued. Do you think that if some
kind of a spiritual bent is given to our education that would be worthwhile?
It doesn’t
have to be religious, it can remain secular. But it can be based
upon ethical, moral, spiritual foundation. Do you think that is possible?
It is possible. I have
been giving a lost of thought to this issue. Education implies
three things. It must prepare the student for a vocation,
a profession, to face the challenges of life. The second
thing it must prepare him for is what pertains to the
moral question that arises in the pursuit of his vocation.
At every stage he faces the question, am I doing the
right things or am I wrong. In my point of view, really
speaking there is no corrupt man. Everyone will be shocked
if I say so. But the point is that today’s
corrupt man does not know that he is corrupt. He has no standards
for comparison. He sees his neighbours doing it, everybody else doing
it. So why should he not do it, he argues to himself. Moral valuation
is just not possible in the absence of standards or an ideal. Not
that the ideal can always be reached. But the ideal helps comparison
at least to the extent of appreciating how far one has gone away
from it. And the third thing a student must imbibe from his education
is the sense of beauty. What one does may be morally right, but is
it beautiful, or is it ugly? The sense of beauty which has been a
part and parcel of our heritage is no longer there. If we can instil
these three things among the students, if we can impart to them a
certain moral texture then they will be able to face the challenges
of life with courage and composure, revolting against immorality,
against anything that is base ugly or vicious. Our history is strewn
with the lives of great men, the sacrifices they made, the way they
stood up to worldly temptations and stuck to their ideals. Our literature
is a storehouse of their great deeds. We have only to expose our
children to this literature. We don’t
have to tell them what is good and what is bad. We just have
to give them these stories and leave them to their imagination.
They can imbibe the right things. This is my experience
in our school.
Swamiji, I have had occasion to tell some of our leaders
that we ought to introduce in our schools and college curricula the
fundamentals of our culture. But I am met with the argument that
India is a secular state. Do you agree with my answer to them that
we are a non-denominational state in the sense that we have no state
religion, but we are not an atheistic state, not a state where spiritual
values have to go by the wayside. Would you agree that Indian culture
does not have a communal bias to it and that it is philosophy of
life intended for whole world? Should we not view the Bhagwad Geeta
and the Upanishads in that Light?
You see, the point is this. It all
depends on whether you are looking at the scriptures with
the heart or with the head. To those who are looking at
them with the heart, it is religion. Those who are looking
at them with the head will say that these scriptures propound
a way of life, a culture. They may se in them a solution
for every problem in life, how o face the challenges of
life, how to maintain the integrity of the community, and
how to enhance the beauty of the individual. In any case,
why should anybody be frightened of religion? Seventy-eight
percent of this country’s population is
Hindu. If these Hindus are not to do anything
to rise up, get united strong, ready to make
sacrifices for the country, how can the country
rise? The remaining 22 percent may go up, advance,
I admit. Let them, I will congratulate them.
But the minorities alone do not make a country.
I quite agree with you. I am not a Hindu, but my feeling
is that you cannot have discrimination in reverse, you cannot discriminate
against the major community just because they happen to be so. But
that is the situation we are witnessing today.
That’s right. It is because of politics. But what I wanted
to say, is that it is unfair, indeed absurd to weaveimaginary
fears and problems in the name of one little word called secularism.
It is politically absurd. But these very politicians are very religious,
superstitious I should say. Astrologers, tantrics have a flourishing
business, thanks to them. The value system is something entirely
different, the values enshrined in the Bhagwad Geeta – these
are now very badly needed all over the world. Foreigners
are realising this. You know, in American Universities, in
Boston University for example, Bhagavad Geeta is prescribed
as a text book.
In fact, so great a thinker as Ralph Waldo Emerson believed
that ancient India had reached the summit of human thought. Despite
all our satellites in the sky, frankly today we seem to be far
less civilised than ancient India was. Civilisation is an act
of the spirit and if the spirit is not there all your material
achievements mean nothing.
That’s right, because any amount
of improvement in the outer world at the
cost of the inner world is no improvement.
Man is becoming weaker and wilder and the
world is supposed to be more civilised. What
does this mean, except stark tragedy?
One of the issues which
is engaging the attention of the world today is nuclear
armament. Millions have seen the film THE DAY AFTER,
and there is growing movement for disarmament, to shed
whatever nuclear weapons we have. But the communist countries
are closed to this propaganda. There these armaments
will remain and will multiply. People in the free world
think that they have a right to dictate their governments
to discard nuclear armaments. Don’t you think this
is a short-sighted policy, which would lead to one half
of the world, disarming and talking about peace, spirituality,
etc. and the other half arming itself to the teeth.
This is not New. It was the same issue in the Mahabharata war. Arjuna
with his spiritual ideology, love and concern says he would not
fight his cousins. Krishna’s answer: “What a fool you are. You
are not fighting your cousins. You are fighting against an ideology.
If you believe that your ideology is right, you must fight those who
oppose it.” Fighting as such is neither moral nor immoral.
It becomes so depending on what ideology you are espousing. So
it is unfair to say that one party must unilaterally disarm,
discard its weapons. That will only make the other side unnecessarily
powerful, and too much power would mean too much immorality.
If there must be disarmament, it must be with mutual agreement.
But I must say this is an issue pertaining to a symptom. The
disease is deep down in the human mind itself. It has been polluted.
Not just the atmosphere the ecologists are talking about, but
the moral atmosphere is choking. And when you analyse it, as
Krishna did for Arjuna, what difference does it make whether
you die in your bed at home or are blown off in a holocaust?
In fact, I would say, it is better to die together in a mass,
than alone. We must rise above the idea of death, the suffering
and the pangs it involves, and look at the moral values, the
principle behind it. The situation today has been brought about
by man’s
craze for material acquisition, the craze for power. As our rishis
rightly said, material acquisition may give you pleasure but
not happiness. But mankind, particularly the Western world, went
bout material acquisition almost with a one-track mind and we
have been losing the moral values for a long period of time.
As a result our minds have been poisoned and we are projecting
that poison all around. I would rather say let it go on for the
world finds its own solutions for such crises. I am sure my grandfather
thought that the world was coming to an end because they discovered
the cannon. But the world has lived on. And today we think that
there is no protection against the atom bomb. Defences will be
evolved in time. This is how it has been ever since the first
ape man learned to throw a stone. So, let them multiply nuclear
weapons. Let there be an atom bomb at every street corner. But
I tell you, they dare not use it for they know the consequences
too well, they know that if America is sizzled, Russia too will
be sizzled in the next half hour.
Many historians have referred to the phenomenon of cycles,
an era of development, growth, spirituality followed by a period
of degradation and decacy, corruption and folly. We do seem to
be living in the second type today. Do you think there is a reasonable
chance of a turn of the tide by the end of the century?
Arnold Toynbee has talked about these cycles. In Chinese
philosophy they call it Wui Wue, the turning point. In India
too Hinduism has gone through many, many cycles. But at the
right moment, when decay is at its lowest, the intrinsic
vitality of Hindu culture throws up a master with his feet
firm on the ground and his head above the clouds, whose clear
wisdom ushers in a revival, I would rather say a fresh lease
of life. This has happened again and again in India right
from Vedic times to our own 20 th century. The one push given
by Swami Vivekananda led to a crop of great leaders and revitalised
the country and brought freedom to it. And now comes this
poison of secularism. Correctly understood, secularism is
a good concept, the right thing for a country like India.
But the way it has been interpreted, as if it is opposed
to religion, it has become poison. Let me give an example.
Only the other day they made a monogram for my ashram in
which they inscribed the words “Hindu
Seminary”. But some of the trustees objected to this,
they said the government would look at it with disfavour.
Now, can I call it a Christian seminary? I am not teaching
Christianity there, I am teaching Hinduism. What is wrong?
Hinduism is a beautiful science, even the West is accepting
it lock, stock and barrel. But here in India they think it
all against the interest of the country. I am sure, in spite
of this phobia against the very word Hindu, the intrinsic
vitality of Hinduism will show itself up at the right moment.
