Stone Alive

This article appeared in the January 2012 issue of Back To Godhead (India Edition)

Stone-Alive

Presence of joy is higher than absence of sorrow

By Abhijit Toley

I was zooming along a beautiful tree-lined highway when I slammed on the brakes. Screeeech! Thud! Generally, when you run over a squirrel scampering across the road just a little too late for you to stop, you get a sinking feeling. Unless you’re stone-hearted, the next few minutes are not joyful. The guilt of having taken a life lingers until it’s replaced by more important things. But this time I was not gripped by remorse; I had just run over not a squirrel but a rock. Stones are, by definition, already dead. Stone-dead.

Life of a Stone

Suppose for a moment this stone has life. It still has all the characteristics of a stone, but now it knows it exists. No matter how many trucks choose to run over it, it feels no pain. It is, after all, just a stone. And, just as befits a stone, it doesn’t feel joy when spring is right round the corner. Isn’t that a most coveted state of existence? Granted, there’s no exhilaration in life, but not a bad price to pay for escaping the agony of being crushed under the nonchalant tires of some nameless truck. Yes, the stone is happy to be alive!

Wait! This does not sound right. Are we saying a stone’s life is better than ours? Suppose you go and open your heart to someone: “I have a problem. Why am I suffering like this?” and that someone replies: “Because you’re not dead.” This is not an answer that will fill your heart with happiness. Neither will such a stone hearted reply help you. Yet, there are many philosophers who say this—perhaps not as bluntly, but it is pretty much the essence of their philosophies. You are suffering, yes. Suffering is because of your desires. Put an end to your desires; do not rejoice for anything, and do not lament for anything. And so on. What they are suggesting, really, is that you must eventually (not immediately) develop the qualities of a stone.

This philosophy is called impersonalism, and it has many flavors, all with a central theme: ultimately, the highest truth, the source of everything, is a unvariegated oneness. Therefore since the ultimate truth is quality-less oneness, attaining the ultimate truth lies in merging oneself into that oneness. Once merged, all dualities disappear, so there’s no happiness or sorrow, no pleasure or pain, no good, no bad—no feeling at all. Sounds a lot like our friend, Mr. Stone. And what’s more, in that merged state, all individuality is lost in the merger.

Why Impersonalism is so popular

Let’s think about this for a moment. Who will get really hooked on a philosophy whose end goal is negation of everything that characterizes life? The immediate answer that pops into my mind is those who are so totally frustrated with their lives that their lives have become unbearable. To them, the philosophical escape to a featureless oneness sounds like relief. They do not mind the concomitant relinquishing of their pleasure, either, since they don’t have much to rejoice about in their lives.

The other people who tend to relate to this philosophy are those who understand the miserable and temporary nature of this world. Since their understanding is based on a sound philosophical understanding of the temporality of all things in this world, they choose not to be a part of anything and to strive for desirelessness.

So yes, people do have valid reasons for accepting impersonalist philosophy. But if I were to write an essay on the happiest day of my life,” I doubt I will be able to glorify a day I spent doing nothing, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, and with no one around. Instead I imagine will glorifying a day I spent in nature or joking with friends. We seek the surge of joy.

Why then is the impersonal philosophy so prominent in the world? Because most people hardly ever get to live the “happiest day of their life.” And even if they do, their time of happiness is just too fleeting that it stands as insignificant when compared to the number of mediocre or pain-filled days in their lives. So to make all their days “happiest” they redefine happiness as oneness, even a sense of nothingness—and something they will achieve in the future. Happiness becomes the absence of sorrow, and since we can’t seem to have worldly happiness without its counterpart worldly unhappiness, they’re willing to relinquish what they would normally consider joy to avoid their suffering.

But what if we could live that “happiest day” forever? Would we still choose no-feeling? What if we lived in a place where every step was a dance and every word a song? A place where not only is there no sorrow but where happiness abounds? Who in their right minds would reject such a place and opt for a mindless existence devoid of anything at all?

Beyond Impersonalism

The make-or-break question is whether such a place of boundless happiness exists. It does. This place is called the spiritual world, the kingdom of God, a place full of life and joy, where all the inhabitants are ever engaged in the loving service of God and as a result are completely blissful. The essential difference between this world and the spiritual world is that everything in the spiritual world is eternal and full of knowledge and bliss. We know from our experience in this world that it’s just the opposite: everything here is temporary, ignorant, and filled with sorrow at one point or another. Further, the oneness the impersonalists hope to achieve is simply the light of the spiritual sky rather than the spiritual world itself. Anyone convinced about the existence of the spiritual world will naturally choose to go there.

Those philosophers who choose the spiritual world are known as devotees of God. By serving God, even in this world, the devotees experience spiritual bliss. They do not have to try to become desireless because all their desires are centered on serving God, which brings them joy and no sorrow. Contrast this with the impersonalists’ understanding of desirelessness—no desires whatsoever. The impersonalists do not know that the spiritual kingdom of God exists beyond the oneness of the spiritual sky. Therefore they settle for the lower platform of happiness defined as “absence of sorrow.”

Our journey started with a dead stone. Then we wandered into nothingness with our imaginary Mr. Stone. Fortunately we crossed the featureless oneness and arrived at where we really wanted to be—the spiritual world. Since everything there is spiritual, even the stones are alive and full of eternality, knowledge, and bliss. Stone-alive!

Bygone Times

November 04, 2007.

It is Sunday evening in the middle of the Diwali Vacation. I have just returned from a nearby Botanical Garden, a typical family park where Sunday evenings are full of small children just freely enjoying themselves on the various play toys while the elders just sit around and relax. Some children were sliding down slides, some were swinging on swings, and some were just running around behind each other. The air was full of shouts and screams punctuating the general background of the loud murmuring sound made up of the various voices. The dust raised by all the playing kids permeated the air all around along with its typical fragrance.

The whole scene took me back to my childhood days which I have spent just like a lot of other children born in middle class families in India. I have grown up playing a lot of cricket and a lot of other sports. And typically, in school days, evening time is the play time! Lot of evenings I have spent playing my heart out and then later sitting around with buddies chatting away long into the night. It was one of our favorite pastimes. And therefore, the dusty fragrance of the evening and its feel are very much synonymous to those childhood memories of mine. In the garden today those memories were evoked just a little bit. But what really struck me was the unbridled fun the small kids were having.

Alas! Time waits for no one and its only a matter of time that these days whiz past us. Suddenly, one day some sights and sounds and smells evoke the memories of those bygone days and we start wishing that we were little kids again. Why? We long to experience once again that stress free life in which we are not entangled in the mesh of responsibilities that is so typical of adult life. When we are kids, we go to the park and just play to our heart’s content because we are not anxious about anything. We are totally dependent on our parents for everything, with full innocent faith that they will provide whatever is required for our well being. But as soon as we grow up we are expected to “stand on our own feet”. Now, we are expected to not be dependent on others, but others depend on us in one way or the other. That’s one way of saying that we are put into some kind of responsible position in which we are accountable to someone or the other for whatever we do. We are no longer free to do whatever we want and leave the rest to our parents. Our freedom is lost! So we yearn once again to become a kid who is fully dependent on the mercy of his parents and who has full innocent faith in their benevolence.

Well, what all I have written above is not really something new. One will find such a stream of thoughts in a lot of mundane literature which does talk a lot of times in a very nostalgic way about the passing away of good times. I have read a lot, and “bygone times” is quite a recurring theme in most popular literature. And in most of them one thing is common in one form or another – sorrow that that which was once, now is no more. While reading a lot, I observed that most of the very successful popular literature, prose or poetry, is based on some past or present sorrow. I reasoned that this was because sorrow is the strongest emotion felt by human beings, more acute that any kind of joy could evoke. This reasoning though sounded correct, was also a bit depressing. To figure out that the sorrows of life are more of a reality than the joys is not a pleasant discovery. But it must be true, otherwise why has the world not produced at least one compelling literature that is all about ever expanding joy? I know of great tragedies (in literature) but I don’t know of any great good fortune stories. I was really curious to find at least one literature that is based not on sorrow but on joy.

Lord Krishna has stamped this material world in the Bhagavad Gita as a temporary place full of misery. Indeed, one of the reasons of the misery in this material is its temporary nature. That which is dear to us will inevitably be separated from us sooner or later. Everyone is either lamenting for what he has lost or is fearful of losing what he currently possesses. The knowledge of the temporal nature of everything material in itself is not sufficient to give anyone happiness though. This knowledge alone can only depress one further and produce a negative outlook towards life in the knower. It is indeed better sometimes to have no knowledge instead of partial. Since most people only know this partial truth and do not know the solution to this problem, they tend to totally ignore the problem and try to cover it up by a lot of temporary pleasures pretending to be happy. Or they make mental adjustments and try to become indifferent to this partial truth which they consider as the ultimate. All this generally leads to the hedonistic self-destructive tendencies that are quite common in the modern man. This then is the plight of those bereft of the knowledge of the Supreme Absolute Truth – the eternal, all knowing, ever blissful Personality of Godhead - Lord Sri Krishna!

The other part of the knowledge that this material world is a place of a temporal nature is that there exists a place which is eternal and where the effect of time is conspicuous only by its absence. There the little baby Krishna never grows old and always immerses His mother Yashoda in an ocean of transcendental ecstatic maternal love. There the cowherd boy friends of Krishna never stop playing with Krishna in the forests and plains of Vrindavan. There everything is ever fresh and new. There is no question of becoming nostalgic about bygone good times because there time never goes by! Not only that, there everyone is a soul surrendered unto Krishna and is totally dependent on the mercy of Krishna without any pretensions about ones own position as the dependent. This then is similar to a small child’s total dependence on the benevolence of his parents and thus all the souls in the spiritual world experience unlimited freedom as explained earlier in this article. Of course, in the higher mellows of devotional service, this dependence on Krishna is covered up by Krishna’s mystical YogaMaya potency so that Krishna can enjoy beautiful intimate relationships with His surrendered devotees thus giving them and Himself immense joy. But this forgetfulness of dependence on Krishna is different from the forgetfulness of the pretentious souls of the material world. Having this complete knowledge does not depress one in this material world but inspires one to transcend the limitations of material existence and attain the spiritual world.

My curiosity about a literature based on ever increasing joy found its fruition when I came across the Srimad Bhagavatam. This is one great literature which speaks about the glorious qualities and pastimes of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His unalloyed devotees. This literature was compiled on the basis of complete knowledge and quite fittingly is thus full of ever increasing transcendental joy. Thus, ignorance is only temporary bliss, partial knowledge is quite dangerous, and complete knowledge is complete eternal bliss.

Thus, this glorious movement of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Srila Prabhupada is providing me all that I always sought. My quest for the sublime has ended in my most fortunate discovery of His Divine Grace. Well, the quest might have ended but the journey has just begun. I have to go a long long way yet to attain the ultimate goal of life – Love of God, Krishna Prem!

Yours in the service of Krishna,
Abhijit.