Mahatma Gandhi valued freedom. He thought of chaos as negation of our responsibility - for the pursuit of self-interest. He summed up our responsibility in his 'Seven Social Sins', a keynote on how social evil can run asunder - politics without principle; wealth without work; commerce without morality; pleasure without conscience; education without character; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice
We are all fond of metaphors, or similes - be it life, career, or any conversation. For most of us, the metaphor of gadgets, not their inner working, is imperative, also important. Well, to pick another allegory - the ancient Greeks always thought that the mind worked like the catapult. This was not because the catapult as a contraption was made of wood and cord.
Aristotle contended that the mind was the establishing principle of the body: "That is why we can wholly dismiss as unnecessary the question whether the soul and the body are one: it is as though we were to ask whether the wax and its shape are one." Plato believed that the mind represented a dissimilar kind of substance from the body, just as much as other Platonist philosophers embraced and eulogised the idea.
Yet, the fact is Aristotle holds as much ground today, as he did before, with his doctrine, not just standpoint, of the mind being the process rather than a distinct, if not detached, object. You'd think of a modern metaphor in the context. The essence of artificial intelligence (AI) celebrating the Aristotelian precept and percept as computation.
There has to be a reason for everything, including metaphors. Immanuel Kant, for instance, based all our hopes and aspirations on reason, and nothing else. He 'purged', or dismissed, all alternatives as varying forms of delusion, although he alluded grudgingly that our reason was restricted in its latitude, or range. He believed that our 'true self' mirrored our frame of mind. This, he observed, reflected the most fundamental, or essential, philosophic, or metaphysical, questions - whether or not our answers to such questions were beyond our perimeter of thought and/ or rational interpretation, or grasp.
You'd think of this contextual awning as a cascading paradox in Kant's writing, because if reason, as he admitted, is our best, also strong, friend, it could just as well fail, most often in the end. This leads us to one big question: how can knowledge of the ultimate be ever possible? Or, how could it also ever serve as the basis for all our hopes, or goals?
This leads us to delve into what Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel articulated as the conception of the self with a relational underpinning - where the self is linked as a 'thing' fixed within its relational essence. This may appear as being contrary to intuition, or common sense expectation, too. Yet, it provides a resourceful platform for understanding the self at the causal level as a solitary entity that also depicts harmony. You'd think of this whole facet as being a part of the relational equation. Or, you'd embark on the idea of what Kant visualised as 'two-worldly' living, founded on the limitations of reason.
The best part of this metaphor is modern science allows us to clasp appearances, what with the idea of reality being earmarked as our article of faith. This, yet again, follows the Kantian model of metaphysics - what with its natural proclivity for reason that corresponds to the metaphor, soul, or prana, in Eastern philosophy.
Philosophy is the exposition of two encasing modes - a roadmap to knowledge, or compendium to living, and its metaphor. This emerges from the precise appreciation of human existence in terms of our journey through life. It drives us from Dante Alighieri's darkness to light and from appearance to reality.
What does this connote, or signify? That our voyage would only be fruitful when we liberate ourselves from the shackles of 'self-subjugation' to freedom, not chaos.
Mahatma Gandhi valued freedom. He thought of chaos as negation of our responsibility - for the pursuit of self-interest. He summarised our responsibility for each other in his 'Seven Social Sins', a keynote on how social evil can run asunder - politics without principle; wealth without work; commerce without morality; pleasure without conscience; education without character; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.
A prototype of values and courage, a modern roster, or aphorism. It reflects Gandhi's sublime vision - a powerful reminder of the times we now live in today, and tomorrow.
Gandhi also thought of responsibility in the context as a three-legged stool - responsibility for self, self-discipline for others, generosity for all living beings on this planet (as also leadership). It 'cultivates' in us the urge to move towards industrious independence, too - of a percept that we are all together in an interdependent world, and worthy no matter what we own, or who we are by way of colour, race, creed, career or status. The whole thing for a responsible person is celestial drama, a will of god, or supreme entity. This makes it easy for oneself to adopt a humane, also patient, disposition. The idea broadens the spaces we share, no less.
The onus is, therefore, on us, and us alone, no matter our divergent perceptions. We have to foster the notion of harmony at the heart of our responsibility to each other. It is something that begins early in life and gets eroded, at times, when we grow up.
It's something that we learned from our considerate parents - parents who never resorted to intimidation.
It's also taking responsibility for our own worldview, while keeping in touch with the four - fire and air, earth and water - elements of life.
As David Abram put it so perceptively in his book The Spell of the Sensuous: "To listen to the forest is, primordially, to feel oneself listened to by the forest, just as to gaze at the surrounding forest is to feel oneself exposed and visible, to feel oneself watched by the forest." In other words, it is all of us, and all the parts of us - of how we pick our options and make our own choices, or decisions, while 'finding' our own Gandhi in our minds and hearts.
Is this asking for the impossible?
Nidamboor is a wellness physician, independent researcher and author
A version of this article appears in the print on June 29, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.