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Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s32: XLI Some Objections to Śaṁkara’s Ethics Considered

Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s32

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XLI Some Objections to Śaṁkara’s Ethics Considered

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The ethical views of ŚaṀkara have been the subject of much criticism, and we may briefly consider the several charges.¹ If all that exists is Brahman, and if the world of plurality is a shadow, there cannot be any real distinction between good and evil. If the world is a shadow, sin is less than a shadow. Why should not a man play with sin and enjoy a crime, since they are only shadows? What shall it profit us if we fight wild beasts and sacrifice our interests in seeking virtue in this dream of life? If moral distinctions are valid, life is real; if life is unreal, then they are not valid. This objection falls to the ground if we do not accept the merely illusory nature of the world. Virtue and vice have moral weight for the supreme end.

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¹ For an acute criticism of the ethics of the Advaita Vedānta and Deussen’s reformulation of it, see Professor Hogg’s article on “Advaita and Ethics” in the Madras Christian College Magazine, December 1916.

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On the view of the metaphysical identity of the individual and the Absolute, it is said, there is no warrant for ethics. If Brahman is all, there is no need for any moral endeavour. This objection rests upon a confusion between reality and existence, the eternal and the temporal. ŚaṀkara does not say that the essentially imperfect and incomplete series of temporal events is the same as true timeless Brahman. The metaphysical truth of the oneness of Brahman does not in any way prejudice the validity of the ethical distinctions on the empirical level. ŚaṀkara says: “Fire is one only, and yet we shun a fire which has consumed dead bodies, not any other fire; the sun is one only, yet we shun only that part of his light which shines on unholy places, not that part which falls on pure ground. Some things consisting of earth are desired, such as diamonds and beryls, other things likewise consisting of earth are shunned, dead bodies, etc."'¹ Even so, though all things are Brahman ultimately, there are certain things to be avoided and others to be desired. The statement "I am Brahman" (aham brahmāsmi) does not mean direct identity² of the active self with the ultimate Brahman, but only identity of the real self when the false imposition is removed.³ The ethical problem arises, because there is the constant struggle between the infinite character of the soul and the finite dress in which it has clothed itself. While the natural condition of man is one of integrity, the present state of corruption is due to a fall from it by the force of upādhis.⁴ Our struggle with imperfection will have no meaning, if we rise to a point of view from which we behold the real. The struggle will go on until the isolation from the infinite is broken down. Until the finite soul realises that it is Brahman, it is at unrest with itself and feels homesick for its native country. We have duties and destinies as finite agents. Each individual is responsible for his work, and work done by one individual cannot be completed by another.⁵

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¹ S.B., ii. 3. 48.

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² Mukhyasāmānādhikaraṇya.

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³ Bādhasāmānyādhikaraṇya.

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⁴ Eckhart asks: "What would it avail a man if he were king and knew it not?" The kingdom of heaven is a lost province.

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⁵ S.B., iii. 3. 53. See also iii. 2. 9.

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The ethics of Śaṁkara is said to be intellectualistic, for avidyā or non-discrimination is the cause of our bondage.⁶ Mithyājñāna of the jīva is the basis of all experience and activity; samyagjñāna or knowledge of oneness leads to freedom.⁷ As the distinction between the highest self and the individual is one of false knowledge,⁸ we get rid of it by true knowledge. All this leads one to believe that salvation is the result of metaphysical insight, and not moral perfection. Deussen regards this feature of the Advaita Vedānta as its "fundamental want." "Rightly," he says, "the Vedānta recognises as the sole source by which we may reach true knowledge, true apprehension of being in itself, our own 'I'; but it wrongly halts at the form in which it directly appeals to our consciousness, as a knower, even after it has cut away the whole intellectual apparatus, and ascribed it to the not ‘I,’ the world of phenomena, just as it has also, very rightly, indicated as the dwelling of the highest soul, not as Descartes did the head, but the heart.”¹ If the one and only existent Brahman is already perfect, and if all that we have to do is to assert its reality and deny the reality of everything else, there is no motive for ethical action. If the only way to escape the evils of finitude is simply to deny them, there is no room for any earnest ethics. We need not be serious about conquering hatred or changing our nature. But we have to remember that avidyā, though it is predominantly a logical concept, signifies, in the metaphysics of Śaṁkara, a whole attitude of life. “Avidyā is the conceit that the ‘I’ consists in the bodily nature; hence arise the worship of the body, which is passion, the despising of it, which is hate; thoughts of injury to it rouse fear, and so on.”² False knowledge is the basis of all selfish desire and activity.³ Avidyā is the finiteness of the finite individual impelling him to lead a life of desire and strife, consequent on the ignorance of his oneness with Brahman. Vices of character are not merely follies and errors, but perversions of will, and violations of the voice of God. Frequently Śaṁkara uses the one compound “avidyākāmakarma,”⁴ where avidyā represents the cognitive error of looking upon the diversity of individuals as real,⁵ kāma the emotional response towards the object and karma the practical act, to gain it or avoid it. It is this whole attitude of individualistic action that is rooted in a confusion between the real and the unreal, that leads to saṁsāra.⁶ Kāma is born of avidyā, and karma is the result of kāma. The state of freedom is said to be the removal of the error, the restoration of the true desires and the suppression of all selfish endeavour.¹ The discipline of moral life includes the suppression of selfish activity, the development of true desires and the overcoming of empirical individualism. Until the last happens, we are not perfected in nature. We may suppress our kāma, we may act for the welfare of the world, but there is no security that we should not succumb to the temptation of a false desire or a selfish activity at another moment of our life; but until we cut the very roots of eager desire and petty egoism, until avidyā is abolished, we cannot be sure that we shall occupy the impersonal attitude of true enlightenment. The moral man is disinterested by chance; the saint is disinterested, thanks to his enlightenment.²

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⁶ S.B., ii. 3. 48.

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⁷ S.B., i. 2-8. See also iii. 2. 25 and iv. 2. 8; S.B., i. 3. 19.

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⁸ Mithyājñānakṛta eva jīvaparameśvarayor bhedo na vastukṛtaḥ (S.B., i. 3. 19). See S.B. on Gauḍapāda's Kārikā, Introduction. Cp. jñānaṁ vinā mokṣo na siddhyati (Ātmabodha). Vivekāvivekamātreṇaiva (S.B., i. 3. 19). See also Aparokṣānubhūti, p. 14.

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¹ D.S.V., p. 59.

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² Dehādiṣv anātmasv, aham asmīty ātmabuddhir avidyā; tatas tat-pūjanādau rāgaḥ; tatparibhavādau dveṣaḥ; taducchedaḍarśanād bhayam, etc. (S.B., i. 3. 2).

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³ S.B., Kena Up., Introduction : Saṁsārābījam ajñānaṁ kāmakarma pravṛttikāraṇam. Again : “Avidyākāmakarmalakṣaṇaṁ saṁsārābījam” (S.B. on Kena Up., iv. 9).

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⁴ S.B. on Muṇḍ. Up., iii. 1. 1.

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⁵ Avidyākalpitaṁ lokaprasiddhaṁ jīvabhedam (S.B., ii. 1. 14; i. 3. 19).

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⁶ Anātmadarśino hy anātmaviṣayaḥ kāmaḥ; kāmayamānaś ca karoti karmāṇi; tatas tatphalopabhogāya śarīrād upādānalakṣaṇaḥ saṁsāraḥ. (S.B., Tait. Up., i. 11.)

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¹ Sarvavāsanākṣayaṁ sarvakāmavināśaṁ sarvakarmapravilayam.

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² See a very suggestive article by Professor Hiriyanna on this question in the Proceedings of the Indian Oriental Conference, Poona, vol. ii. Speaking of the distinction between true enlightenment and æsthetic delight, he says: "To use Śaṁkara's words, the ever recurring series of kāma and karma, or interest and activity, constitutes life. The elimination of kāma and karma while their cause avidyā continues in a latent form marks the æsthetic attitude; the dismissal of avidyā even in this latent form marks the saintly attitude" (p. 241).

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Śaṁkara distinguishes parokṣajñāna or logical learning, which we derive from books and teachers, that the supreme self and the individual are one, and aparokṣajñāna or anubhava, which is the experience of the seer who has surrendered his sense of separateness and realised his oneness with the Supreme.³ Śaṁkara tells us that the former is incapable of releasing us from bondage. Commenting on the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad,⁴ Śaṁkara says that one must raise oneself step by step from the state of mere learning (pāṇḍityam) to that of childlike simplicity (bālyam)⁵ and from it to the state of the silent muni, and last of all to the state of the true Brahmin, who renounces in spirit all possessions and pleasures which are different from Brahman and so likely to bring subjection. The Advaita is both a philosophy and a religion.

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³ Cp. Varāhopaniṣad. Asti brahmeti ced veda parokṣajñānaṁ eva tat Aham brahmeti ced veda sākṣātkāras sa ucyate.

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⁴ iii. 8. 10. See also Chān. Up., iv. 1. 7.

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⁵ Cp. St. Matthew, xviii. 3.

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Enlightenment results in experience immediate and certain.¹ It is not the pursuit of a remote ideal.

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¹ Anubhavārūḍham eva ca vidyāphalaṁ na kriyāphalavat kālāntarabhāvi (S.B., iii. 4. 15).

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In the same spirit it is maintained that cittaśuddhi or purification of the heart is a necessary prerequisite for spiritual realisation. This involves the increasing domination of the sattva quality and the suppression of rajas and tamas. It is brought about by disinterested work and practice of spiritual exercises. It does not supersede morality, but implies it. "When and to whomsoever the notion of the personal ego conveyed by 'I' (aham) and the notion of personal possession conveyed by 'mine' (mama) cease to be real, then he is the knower of Ātman."² Until selfish desire (kāma) is suppressed, avidyā cannot be rooted out. Jñāna has a larger sense than its English equivalent, knowledge. It is true wisdom, life at its highest stretch.³ It is not the acceptance of a given dogma, but the living experience of which the intellectual apprehension is but the outward symbol. Śaṁkara has no great admiration for abstract intelligence. The highest intelligence, according to him, consists in the knowledge that intelligence alone is not enough. The end, it is true, is the destruction of avidyā, but we cannot get rid of avidyā by simply denying its reality. We are not said to know Brahman simply because we have a speculative notion of its being. Brahmajñāna is the spiritual realisation of our rootedness in the eternal, which remains an abiding possession, a part of our very being.

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² Upadesasāhasrī, xiv. 29. See also xiv. 141. See also S.B. on Kena Up., Introduction.

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³ See Plato's Timæus, p. 90; Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, x. 7.

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It is said that it is a weakness of Śaṁkara's system that he does not regard moral values as ultimately real. Moral distinctions have a meaning only so long as our ego is sharply marked off from whatever lies outside its body in space and beyond its experience in time. The moral world, which assumes the isolation and independence of its members, belongs to the world of appearances. The duties commanded and the claims that call for satisfaction are both alike the personal affairs of individuals. The command and the claim are based on the assumed independence of the finite individuals.

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So long as we occupy the standpoint of individualistic moralism, we are in the world of saṃsāra, with its hazards and hardships. Moral growth consists in a gradual correction of the individualistic point of view, and when the correction is complete, the moral as such ceases to exist. So long as the latter persists, the ideal is unrealised. The end of morality is to lift oneself up above one’s individuality and become one with the impersonal spirit of the universe. But, so long as there is a trace of individuality clinging to the moral subject, this lifting up can only be partial. To attain oneness with the infinite, on the basis of the finite, is evidently an impossible task. To realise the ideal, we must pass beyond the moral life and rise to the spiritual realisation in which the life of finite struggle and endeavour is transcended. So Śaṃkara insists repeatedly on the inadequacy of moral goodness and finite striving, so far as the ideal of perfection is concerned. Karma cannot lead to mokṣa. The finite as finite must be transcended. Avidyā, which is the basis of all finite life, must be overcome. We must break through the circuit of saṃsāra, of ignorance, attachment and action (avidyākāmakarma), to recognise our oneness with the supreme spirit. However moral we may be, so long as mere goodness does not take us beyond the finite and break the barriers of avidyā, perfection is beyond us. So Śaṃkara argues that we cannot win mokṣa by any amount of striving; for all karma, whether it be observance of Vedic rites or devotion to God, leads only to a conservation of the finite as finite, and involves us in saṃsāra, or the struggle of the finite for the infinite, endlessly prolonged. Release from this revolving wheel comes through jñāna, or the insight which lifts us out of our individuality into the oneness with the infinite.¹ Morality is of the nature of development, and cannot lead to a realisation of the truth which is self-existent. If moral progress is the central feature of man’s life, there is no stage at which he can say that he has realised the goal and attained his nature. If God is the nature of man, there is no point in moral progress when the individual can say “I am God.” He who conforms to moral rules cannot feel that he has realised his self. If moral life were all, the most brilliant career is a futile thing, love a fleeting illusion and happiness an ever-receding goal. St. Paul¹ insists on the impossibility of redemption through the law. Whatever we may do, unless we surrender our selfishness, we cannot be saved. We may fulfil the law of morality from selfish motives, but it has not much moral value. To get rid of the sinfulness of our nature, our avidyā as Śaṁkara calls it, Paul demands faith and Śaṁkara jñāna, which alone lifts us above our finiteness and above the possibility of sin. Salvation is not a question of invention or construction, but of discovery or unveiling. Morality has always a reference to something beyond itself, but jñāna or pure beholding or realisation is complete in itself. It lacks nothing, has no aim or purpose. The śruti declares that the self-existent eternal freedom cannot be achieved by action.²

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¹ The attitude of the late Professor Bosanquet on this question is analogous to that of Śaṃkara, and his interpretation of the justification by faith is similar to Śaṃkara’s view of release through jñāna. Cp.: “We are one with the whole by faith, and not in works. Here our inadequacy is done away. This is the very meaning of ‘saving experiences.’ We throw ourselves upon the grace of the universe and find in oneness with it an adequacy which is self-contradictory for us as finite agents” (The Meeting of Extremes in Contemporary Philosophy, p. 173). See also Mind, N.S., vol. xxx. p. 98.

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¹ Epistle to the Romans iii, viii, x, xiii, and the Epistle to the Galatians ii and iii.

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² Nāsty akṛtaḥ kṛtena. Śaṁkara comments akṛto mokṣaḥ kṛtena karmaṇā nāstīti. See also S.B. on Tait. Up., Introduction. Again: “An action is that which is enjoined as being independent of the nature of existing things and dependent on the energy of some person’s mind . . . knowledge is the result of the pramāṇas (pramāṇajanyam) which have for their objects existing things and depends entirely on existing things (vastutantram), and not on vedic statements or the mind of man” (S.B., i. i. 4). See also S.B., i. 4. 22. The Mādhyamikas regard the equipment of wisdom (jñānasambhāra) as leading to absolute freedom (dharmakāya), while the equipment of merit (puṇyasambhāra) leads to the body of bliss (sambhogakāya) (Mādhyamikāvatāra, iii. 12). See Keith’s Budd. Ph., p. 277.

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If we remember the sound canon of interpretation, that the best way to arrive at a true meaning of a religious formula is to consider the heresies it is intended to deny, we can appreciate what seems Śaṁkara’s unnecessary emphasis on the futility of the karmamārga for the final end of perfection. He felt that the Mīmāṁsakas had bent the bow too much on the side of works by declaring that mere ritualistic formalism was adequate for gaining us freedom of spirit. His denial of the adequacy of works to salvation is a reaction against the exaggerated emphasis which the Mīmāṃsakas place on Vedic ritualism. Ultimate freedom is nothing more than the removal of ajñāna. “The attainment of the highest is merely the removal of avidyā.”¹ “On the removal of avidyā of the nature of Brahman, one abides in one’s own self and attains the supreme end.”² To know Brahman is not to gain an object which we did not possess, but is realising our true nature of which we were unconscious. When avidyā is destroyed, vidyā shines of itself,³ even as the piece of rope is known when the false notion that it is a snake is refuted.⁴ Mere karma, which has for its effect transitory occurrences, cannot lead us to the eternal fact of freedom. Karma cannot dispel avidyā, since the two are not antagonistic. When knowledge is said to precede karma, it is not the highest spiritual insight, but external knowledge of this or that object. Karma is always undertaken for the fulfilment of desire.

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Mokṣa is incompatible with the presence of desire. Karma has no meaning unless the individual has faith in his own agency and distinguishes the object from himself⁵; but so long as these distinctions subsist, mokṣa is unattainable. “Mokṣa is impossible with a perception of difference, and karma is impossible without a perception of it.”⁶ The acts performed are expected to yield one of the following results: “Production of a new thing (utpatti), change of state (vikāra), consecration (saṃskāra) and acquisition (āpti)”; mokṣa is none of these.⁷ Karma has preparatory value, but it is essentially based on a partial view, and so cannot lead us by itself to the ultimate goal. Jñāna or spiritual insight is the only means to freedom.⁸ Śaṃkara insists on this fact sometimes with an unnecessary emphasis. “It is unreasonable to think that the knowledge of Brahman, before which all notions of distinctions of deed, doer, fruit, etc., vanish, can possibly require any extraneous thing as its complement or concomitant aid in accomplishing it; nor can its fruit of freedom require any such; therefore jñāna cannot consistently with itself require karma as its concomitant help or complement."'¹ Śaṁkara admits that the performance of obligatory acts (nityāni karmāṇi) helps us to undo the effects of our past sins, while those who desire specific objects may resort to acts intended to secure their fulfilment (kāmyāni karmāṇi).

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Both these satisfy the individual with cravings and desires for a time, but neither helps him to reach life eternal. The Mīmāṁsaka holds that, if we avoid interested and forbidden acts, exhaust by enjoyment the fruits of karmas which already have begun to operate, and ward off sins of omission by the performance of obligatory duties, without any other effort, mokṣa can be attained. Śaṁkara says in reply that there are ever so many karmas which have not begun to operate and whose effects cannot be exhausted in one birth; these will involve us in other births, whereby fresh karma will go on accumulating. There is no hope for us until we get rid of the desires which give rise to karma. The desires are traced to avidyā, and so only vidyā, which annihilates avidyā, can take us out of the clutches of karma.² Brahmavidyā removes the very basis for these external observances.³ What counts is not outer conduct but inner life. Its torturing problems cannot be solved by a reference to rules. Our secret hearts, our prayers and meditations help us to solve the problems of life. The highest morality therefore consists in developing the right spirit. The secret of moral genius lies in the spiritualising of our consciousness. Moral life is the necessary result of spiritual insight. Till the latter is gained, moral rules are obeyed in an external fashion.

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¹ S.B., Muṇḍ. Up., i. 5. Avidyāpaya eva hi paraprāptiḥ. Avidyānivṛttir eva mokṣaḥ.

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² S.B., Tait. Up., Introduction. “Avidyānivṛttau svātmany avasthānam paraprāptiḥ.

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³ S.B., iii. 2. 21.

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⁴ S.B., ii. I. 14.

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⁵ S.B., Chān. Up., Introduction.

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⁶ S.B., Kena Up., Introduction.

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⁷ S.B., Tait. Up., ii. 11.

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⁸ *Ātmabodha*, p. 203.

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¹ See S.B. on Kena Up.

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² S.B., i. I. 4. Cp. Plato: "Those who have practised the popular and social virtues which come from habit and practice without philosophy or reason are happiest in the round of transmigration; for it is probable that they return into a mild and social nature like their own, such as that of bees or wasps or ants, or it may be into bodies of men, and that from them are made worthy citizens. But none except the philosopher or the lover of knowledge, who is wholly pure when he goes hence, is permitted to go to the race of the gods" (Phædo, p. 82).

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³ Idānīṁ karmopādānahetuparihārāya brahmavidyā prastūyate (S.B., Tait. Up., Introduction).

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In another sense, moral obligations are relative to the state of the individual. Morality, in the modern world, is confused with social values, but the latter are not the whole of values. Not only our views of society but our thoughts of God also count. A Robinson Crusoe on a desert island even without Friday can cherish values.

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Śaṃkara holds that the knowledge of the inner self is antagonistic to karma, and cannot coexist with it even in a dream. If there are cases recorded in the scriptures where householders performing karma possessed the sacred wisdom and transmitted it to their disciples, Śaṃkara retorts that these statements cannot override an obvious fact, for " the coexistence of light and darkness cannot be brought about even by a hundred rules, much less by mere indications like these."¹ This whole discussion is permeated by the ambiguous usage of the word karma. If karma means activity undertaken by an individual for the fulfilment of this or that private end, it is inconsistent with spiritual insight. Impersonal action, on the other hand, undertaken by an individual after gaining insight for the sake of general ends, does not bind the doer, does not commit him to the life of saṃsāra. Karma, in the former sense, cannot coexist with spiritual insight.² If jñāna and karma are opposed as light and darkness, it is karma in the sense of selfish activity and jñāna in the sense of unselfish wisdom. According to Śaṃkara, what the released soul does is not to be called karma. The activity of the liberated soul for world-solidarity (lokasaṃgraha) is not karma strictly speaking. Commenting on the passage of the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad which reads, " sporting in self, delighting in self and daily acts, he is the best of those who know Brahman,"³ Śaṃkara remarks that the view that the combination of karma and knowledge is allowed by this text is only " the prattle of the ignorant."⁴ That some sort of activity is admitted cannot be denied. All that Śaṃkara affirms is that it is not activity which we ordinarily call karma, for karma is based on egoism.¹ In another passage he says: "To one who knows, no work will cling even if one performs works during his whole life—thanks to the greatness of knowledge."² Karma is the name for all activity which leads to continuance of existence in saṃsāra, and this is opposed to true knowledge. The other kind of activity is not to be called karma, since it is not due to kāma or selfish desire. The freed has suppressed his selfish desires (akāmayamāna). On the other hand, in certain passages where his interest is to insist on the freedom of the released soul from the trammels of saṃsāra, he declares that, since all activity is painful in effect, no activity is possible at all for the liberated.³

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¹ Vidyā karmavirodhāc ca na hibrahmātmaikatvadarśanena saha karma svapne 'pi saṃpādayituṃ śakyam . . . yat tu gṛhastheṣu brahmavidyā sampradāyakartṛtvādiliṅgam na tat sthitanyāyam bādhitum utsahate; na hi vidhiśatenāpi tamaḥprakāśayor ekatrasambhavas śakyate kartum. Kimuta liṅgaiḥ kevalair iti (S.B., Muṇḍ. Up., Introduction).

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² See S.B., Īśa. Up., 18.

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³ iii. I. 4.

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⁴ Asatpralapitam evaitat. See also S.B., Chān. Up., Introduction.

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¹ Karmahetuḥ kāma syāt (Tait. Up., S.B., Introduction).

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² S.B., iii. 4. 14. See also S.B., Chān. Up., ii. 23. 1.

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³ S.B., ii. 3. 40.

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Asceticism is a charge that is frequently levelled against Śaṃkara’s ethics. In a hundred ways Śaṃkara urges that there is never anything worthy of pursuit in empirical life.⁴ Illness and death come, if not to-day then to-morrow, to ourselves and those whom we love, and nothing remains of all we love on earth but dust and ashes. Nothing on earth can offer a sure foothold for the soul of man. The futility of saṃsāra and attachment to it are indicated in the familiar story of the traveller who, to save himself from the wild beast that is pursuing him, gets into the dried-up well. But at the bottom of the well there is a dragon with its jaws wide open to devour him. He cannot get out for fear of the wild beast, he dare not descend for fear of the dragon, and so he catches hold of a branch of a wild plant growing out of a crevice of the well. He grows tired and feels that he must soon perish. Though death awaits him on either side, he still holds on, clinging fondly to the wild plant, but lo! there are two mice, one black and the other white, gnawing the trunk of the wild plant. It will soon give way and break off and the traveller cannot escape the jaws of death. Even so, we who are travelling on the circuit of saṃsāra know the pitfalls of our life, know that all things to which we cling will inevitably perish, but in spite of it all, we find some drops of honey on the leaves of some wild plant and are busy licking them. Though we know that the dragon of death awaits us, though we know that the white mouse and the black, day and night, are gnawing through the branches to which we cling, we still are tempted by the tree of life. The dragon is there, but that does not matter, the honey is sweet. We take the tree for the truth and do not want to face the terrible fact that nothing in saṃsāra can satisfy the infinite in man. Śaṃkara tells us that the supreme fulfilment is the result and reward of supreme renunciation. It is reached when desire is dead and pleasure and pain alike are cast away. The most perfect virtue and the loftiest intellectual vision are inadequate for the purpose of spiritual perfection. Śaṃkara insists on a life of self-sacrifice and asks us to free ourselves from attachment to the body. The enemy of the soul is not the body as such, but our bondage to the body and the sense of mineness.¹ The released soul before death is possessed of a body, but its presence is not inconsistent with the freedom of spirit. It is because the body in the ordinary individual offers a thousand hindrances to the free growth of the spirit that we find Śaṃkara arguing that the life of the spirit is repressed and hampered by union with the material body. The appearance of asceticism is due to the repeated exhortations to crucify the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof.

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⁴ Cp. 1 John ii. 15-17 "Love not the world, nor yet what is in the world; if anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the proud glory of life, belongs not to the Father but to the world; and the world is passing away with its desire, while he who does the will of God remains for ever" (Moffatt's E.T.).

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¹ Śataślokī, p. 15.

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It is said that there can be no sense of social life or civic duty in Śaṃkara’s world-negating philosophy. There is no need for us to take any interest in the world if it is a lie. Śaṃkara, it is said, insists on redemption from the world and not of it. He does not demand a change of the world, but exhorts us to escape from it. There is no incentive to improve the existing social institutions. That the case is not so bad as it seems is evident from the life of Śaṃkara, which is a standing refutation of the charge that the existent world-order with its institutions is a thing to be escaped from. His whole philosophy refutes the assumption that individuality depends on separateness. Man has to purify himself from the defilements of the world, strip off all clothing, leave behind everything unworthy. He must break away from the slavery of selfhood, passion and sense. A deliberate surrender of all personal feelings and preferences, a self-stripping to the point of apparent nothingness, a "flight of the alone to the alone," means eternal life. The emphasis in Śaṁkara is not on retirement from the world, but on renunciation of the self. It is easier to flee from the world than from the self. Śaṁkara asks us to suppress our selfishness, and, if that requires solitude and retirement, these are advised as means to an end. One who has completely shaken himself free from selfishness is at liberty to take upon himself the task of the world. His attitude will be not world-seeking or world-fleeing, but world-saving. The perfect man lives and dies, not for himself, but for mankind. It is, however, true that Śaṁkara asks us to be in the world but not of it, even as a drop of water is on the lotus leaf without getting mixed up with it. The part of wisdom is to dream with our eyes open, to be detached from the world without any hostility to it.¹

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¹ Referring to Schopenhauer's statement that "the study of the Upaniṣads has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death," Max Müller says: "Schopenhauer was the last man to write at random, or to allow himself to go into ecstasies over so-called mystic and inarticulate thought. And I am neither afraid nor ashamed to say that I share his enthusiasm for the Vedānta, and feel indebted to it for much that has been helpful to me in my passage through life. After all, it is not everybody who is called upon to take an active part in life, whether in defending or ruling a country, in amassing wealth or breaking stones; and for fitting men to lead contemplative and quiet lives, I know no better preparation than the Vedānta. A man may be a Platonist and yet a good citizen and an honest Christian, and I should say the same of a Vedāntist" (S.S., p. 193).

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The criticism that if we interpret mokṣa as the haven of peace, where all life is stilled, consciousness and personality are suppressed, then we can attain to it only by ceasing to be human, takes us beyond our present point to the larger question of the relation of the infinite to the finite, since morality belongs to the system of things finite. Logically, it is the question of the relation of intuition to intellect, spiritual insight to logical knowledge. While the latter depends on the former, we do not know how exactly the two are related. The empirical world depends on Brahman, and we cannot say how. Even so the moral life is related to the spiritual mokṣa;

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how, we cannot say. To divorce one from the other, intuition from intellect, Brahman from the world, religious realisation from moral life, is to justify the criticism that for Śaṃkara the world is an illusion, our knowledge a lie and our moral life a mockery. But Śaṃkara, again and again, declares that the world has its roots in Brahman. We have to pass through the world of phenomena to get beyond it. As the pathway to the real lies through the phenomenal, the pathway to perfection lies through moral life. Though the end is something in which the ethical as such is transcended, it does not follow that the spiritual has no relation to the ethical. The seeker is nowhere encouraged to give up the duties of the world or devotion to God. The unreality of the moral situation arises only when the function of morality is fulfilled. The final good is not a beyond, while the moral struggle here is a scene of error and failure. It can be realised here and now. To say that the moral effort is relative, is to recognise the element of the ideal in it. The consideration that the distinction of good and evil is relative to our finite level, does not invalidate its observance in the world of practice. The unreality of the distinction has no meaning for those who fetter themselves in chains of selfishness and prolong the misery of finite existence. Śaṃkara does not jettison law altogether, but holds that the approach to freedom lies through the gates of law. Intellect rests on intuition and moral life on spiritual freedom. It is the germ out of which the flower of perfection evolves.

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