Uniqueness of Devatma

Devatma declared His manifestation to be unique in the evolutionary process of Nature. What does it mean?

 

Evolutionary interpretation of uniqueness is that the higher principle includes the earlier level from which it has risen. The earlier constitites its material on which it functions and raises the same material to new organisation.

 

When Devatma declares his uniqueness in this evolutionary sense, it means highest spiritual process in Nature.

 

Devatma felt it did not distract from his uniqueness in the least to knowledge human parents. It is claimed for Christ that he was born of a virgin mother, Mary. Such a claim rests on founding uniqueness on exclusion of biological foundation of life. Sex is regarded as a sin and one form of sex is born in sin.

 

Again, He did not claim that the divine operated through His parents to give rise to his manifestation. He accepted the facts of evolution with open arms. His birth was under the same laws of biology as of other living beings.

 

He did not think it compromised His uniqueness to build home. He did not give up his wife and children during and after His development of ideal life and philosophy as Buddha did.

 

Nor did He declare His wife to be His mother as Rama krishna Parmahansa did. This way of hypnotizing oneself is traversty of truth and impoverishment of ideal life.

 

It rests on denial of specificity of relationships to women. Woman stands to man in the relationship of mother, sister, neighbour, aunt, class-fellow, wife, colleague and as co-member of human species. This is the factual social situation. Each ethical response must be based on proper appreciation of the specificity of each social situation. The ethical response appropriate to a mother is not appropriate to a wife. An ethical response appropriate to a sister must be different from the appropriate response to a class-fellow, or to a colleague. Fine qualitative and tone differences must characterize the ideal responses. To give emotional response appropriate to mother, to every woman because it is noble, is just like giving tragic emotional response to all plays: tragic, comic, melodramatic, because such response is aesthetically superior. We understand that in art such single response proves that the man lacks sense of art appreciation and his art response in poor in quality and height even though the response is aesthetically superior, in abstract. It is time to see this truth in moral life. It is poor moral life which tars all relations to woman to that of mother and gives that response to it. It is not a thing worthy of appreciation for it exposes ethical dullness in perception and response to it. It is not a thing worthy of appreciation for it exposes ethical dullness in perception and response. It is held in art that since each great aesthetic product is unique, the response to each of it to be ideal, must be unique. This makes for diversity and richness and comprehensiveness of art experience. In the same way our moral life in relation to woman can be diverse, rich, comprehensive and hence ideal when we develop proper ethical response to each specificity of relationship in which we stand to woman. We realize the glory of the woman far better when we appreciate the specificity of relationship between her and us and give the discriminative ethical response to it than by hypnotising ourselves to believe that all women are either mothers or sisters and give robot-like two-fold responses. It shows intellectual stupidity and moral fanaticism.

 

Devatma based His  relationship with woman on specificity of relationship and at no time declared His wife to be His mother. He lived the life of an ideal husband with her. He felt this as integral to His unique spiritual life. He lived it as beautifully as His light and life dictated it. His uniqueness was inclusive of the human institution of marriage.

 

In the sphere of knowledge, He showed the same inclusiveness. He accepted sense experince, reason consciousness as integral to His state of spiritual illumination. He did not hold that truth is attainable by rejection of all equipment which we inherit from animals. The uniqueness of man in knowledge is not to reject sense experience found in animal life but to evolve it in scientific knowledge. This uniqueness of man is not to cut adrift from sense experience and fall into traces to get spiritual illumination. Spiritual truth needs spiritual equipment but this equipment is not exclusive of human equipment but inclusive of it. Devatma never hypnotized himself into unconsciousness. The unconsciousness is a state of matter and the lowest life. Naturally such an experience should be of ‘all is one’ without distinction and difference, i.e., experience of blankness. Consciousness has come in evolution of man to make him sensitive to differences and novelty in his situation and in the light of this knowledge to make distinctive responses. Hence higher experience must not abolish consciousness but evolve it. He raised consciousness to truth discovery in spiritual field by incorporating in it the principle of truth and goodess.

 

His position in relation to the aesthetic experince was also same. He thought it integral to his spiritual life to enjoy art experinces. His truth consciousness would never allow Him to blur the specificity of art experiences and to lump all aesthetic experiences into one. He never fell into the error of thinking that the beautiful is limited to be the spiritual, nor did He consider that the beautiful is independent or autonomous of the spiritual. He recognised legitimacy of sense and emotional beauty in art and drama and himself enjoyed it on His birthday celebrations. His disciples, some of His tallest, played part in Drama for the occasion.

 

Thus His uniqueness was comprehensive. It comprised of discriminating  moral experiences in all social and cosmic relationships, discriminating intellectual  experiences of truth discoveries in spiritual field, discriminating aesthetic experiences about beauty in sense and spiritual fields.

 

On the facts of evolution He built up His life of uniqueness. If evolution is guide to anyone, it declare with thousands of tongues that higher is found on the earlier. Life is founded on consciousness. Virtues are founded on instincts and sociability. The higher is inclusive of the earlier contents. Its height is the quality of organisation it affects in its earlier stages of development. If the uniqueness in excellence is founded on its earlier stage, the highest uniqueness will be inclusive of all uniqueness of excellence. This was his destiny.

 

The uniqueness of a living thing in contradiction to inanimate things, is function of nutrition and reproduction. Devatma included this uniqueness of life in proper and civilized satisfaction of them. He did not think it proper to humiliate his body by starving it, torturing it as it has been traditional in our country. But he realized the futility of it and declared it so. Body must be fed, fed well according to its needs. Man has improved his needs of food. His higher principle of aesthetics requires that food should be properly dressed, should have proper taste. Devatma accepted the civilized way, the human way. His food was beautifully dressed and He enjoyed all the tastes which were consistent with food values. He took physical excercise, went to walks, took care of his body according to his laws of health. He felt the opposite of what is the traditional in religion, to be integral to spiritual life. He declared that spiritual life is compromised by neglect of body and its needs. The living body is a unique manifestation in Nature. This uniqueness must be taken up and integrated in the higher uniqueness which is humanity. So we must relish our food, satisfy our aesthetic and social sensibilities through it.

 

He did not go about in loin-cloth, nor moved in sanyasi garb. He dressed in full, dressed beautifully. He gave thought to His dress on the occasion of His celebrations. He dressed neat and dressed in clothes of cut and design in daily life.

 

He lived in a beautiful house, furnished with beautiful articles and pictures. In the light of evolution he saw his uniqueness to include all uniqueness of excellences.

 

Animality is unique compared with plant life. Animality is characterized by movement. He moved about freely. He travelled. He never stuck to a place like a Parmahansa. His uniqueness felt offended by such immobility. He enjoyed going out to see beautiful scenes and historical monuments. Animality is characterised by sense experience. He accepted this principle in His methodology. Senses are not hindrances. They are the help to the ideal of knowledge.

 

He accepted humanity as unique. Human uniqueness consists in his intellect, in his higher senses and in his altruistic life. He showed respect for intellect by His love of education. Education is the true environment for intellectual development. He was the student of scientic literature throughout his life. Development of intellect is human uniqueness which he cultivated with care to the end of his life. He developed the higher senses of beauty, order, cleanliness, duty, discipline, puntuality, honesty, self-respect, self-confidence, self-help, &c for these are human uniquenesses. He developed altruistic feelings like justice, reverence, gratitude, service, sympathy, responsiveness to the needs of others, moral indignation, magnanimity, good-will, loyalty, courage &c.

 

All such excellences are human uniqueness. His uniqueness is inclusive of human uniquenesses. His uniqueness could not exclude these human uniquenesses.

 

He was able to do this due to the higher principles which He developed in him –the love of truth and goodness. His love of goodness could not allow him to rest content unless He developed all the virtues. His love of truth could save his virtue from their blind spots. Every virtue when carried beyond a point becomes a disvalue. Brotherly love may stand in the way of justice. Justice may stand in the way of brotherly love. Our virtues can lead us wrong. Hence, human beings are not safe even with their virtues.

 

His uniqueness consists in organizing the uniqueness of excellence of all levels of evolution on the principle of truth and goodness, just as human uniqueness consists in organizing excellence of animal llife on the principle of mutuality and rationality, just as uniqueness of plant life consists in converting inorganic matter into organic matter.

 

In so founding and developing the uniqueness of His manifestation on the process of evolution, He destroyed the dualism between the biological  life and moral life, secular life and spiritual life and provided in Himself the best guide for man. If my ideal guru was a person who neglected civilized way in matters of food, I would consider my civilized way of eating as concession to wordly life and not really worthwhile. If my ideal guru was an unmarried person or a person who has given up wife or hypnotised Himself in considering her his mother, i cannot but regard married life as a concession to weakness of the flesh. All my satisfactions will be tainted with the humiliation that after all this is not worth doing. If my ideal Guru turned into a hermit, scantily dressed, I will not feel happy to stay in a bunglow or putting on clothes of cut and design. But in being a disciple of Devatma I feel no moral and spiritual humiliation in the satisfactions of food, dress, shelter and sex. In all their right satisfaction, I share the heartbeat of the evolutionary process, the highest spiritual process in Nature.

In fact, as Devatma organized the satisfactions of these biological and social urges on new principles of truth, His life offers us light and strrength to model our satisfactions as high as our capacities can allow and hence, can drive spiritual benefit from them of exceptional nature. Our human uniqueness of scientific knowledge and altruistic life gets best environment of growth under His life, for His life has organised both of these things on superior pattern of truth.

No wonder Devatma declared that the uniqueness of His manifestation is a unique opportunity for man to realize the best in him.