Rising Sun

 The beauty and prevalence of philosophy

Philosophy is a field of study that forms the basis of every other field of study and human behavior. Everyone has a philosophy in life, whether they know it or not. Most people discard the idea of discussing philosophy as armchair speculation that has no effect. Or rather, they may call philosophy “not their cup of tea”. In fact, however, a philosophical idea that is understood and internally accepted by someone can lead to deep changes in their personality and behavior. What’s more, we all actively evolve mentally throughout our lives (especially in the early stages of our lives) which means we are assimilating new information available to us and modifying our philosophy of life.

But the hallmark of a true philosopher is their ability to objectively view different philosophical treatises without attachment to a particular stance. This ability to stay detached when studying philosophy is what distinguishes a philosopher from an everyday user of philosophy in life. Philosophers are the real movers and shakers of the world, as they form the seed of movements and revolutions that change the way the world operates for millennia. 

An age of rage

My intrigue in philosophy dates back to my adolescent age when I tried to rationalize the difficulties I faced in the transformation and the humiliations associated with adolescence. Our brain tries to find a way to weave a story that can explain anomalies in its understanding of the world. This especially is heightened in the adolescent age when the brain starts developing its own view of the world (from the childhood brain that depended on elders for guidance).

I was a year too early for my class. I was the youngest in my class, and so I was a late bloomer. When all my classmates started growing taller, I remained at 5’ 5”, when they sprouted facial hair, I remained clean and when they got deep voices, I still had my squeaky childhood voice. Accordingly, I faced the downside of group dynamics. Being mocked for all the deficiencies that I as a “male” had, life at school did become quite hellish. Around the same time, I met a girl who was to be my first crush who was 5’ 7” and though we became good friends, she was proposed to by a college-going guy. I was left bewildered about the randomness of the world and the futility of any attempt at anything. The feelings were especially intense given the hormones that flowed through me back then. Being a believer in God back then, I wondered why God would give me such intense feelings for someone, only for it to be left frustrated. This was the time I decided that I am to achieve in life through my own efforts and rise in stature and power. I focused on academics and became a school topper in my board exams. Not to mention, by this time, I grew up to be 6 feet tall and ticked all the checkboxes of puberty. My life philosophy of hard work and achievement, however, did not give the satisfaction that my hollow heart yearned for, though I turned out to be a sensitive and empathetic kid, having gone through emotional hell myself.

Foray into spirituality

It was at this time, my crush (who was still a good friend) invited me to her home for a spiritual session (a Satsang organized by members of ISKCON, her parents being staunch followers). The philosophy that I heard had an impact on me which I couldn’t explain at that time, coupled with the friendly people, good food, and of course, the presence of my crush. It put me into contemplation about the same question I had about the feelings I had.

 

However, I had to leave my city and join college in Chennai. But, coincidentally, preachers from ISKCON were preaching at my college. Attending their session gave a sense of enlightenment to me. All the unfulfilled feelings aligned with the explanation provided by the philosophy. The preachers started with the faith I had in God and developed over the concept of the soul. Once that was done, they established that the soul’s nature is to love and serve God eternally. That is its loving position. This aspect literally put tears in my eyes as I slowly assimilated this philosophy. That I did have someone who I could love unconditionally and someone who loves me back so too.

It made so much sense, that I achieved a state of serenity that my other friends clearly longed for, by searching elsewhere – in girls, drinks, and achievements. After 2 years of following the philosophy, I decided to dedicate my life, once I complete my college education, to spreading Vaishnavism – as a celibate monk.  My focus on the core aspects of the philosophy – “being humbler than a blade of grass being stomped upon” and “more tolerant than a tree being cut down” – strengthened my resolve severalfold. My faith in God became so solid that I hardly had any doubt in His existence. I brought many people into this path. 

Clearly, though I was applying the philosophy to my maximum extent in my life (which is the goal of all philosophers), I could sense that I was becoming close-minded to the external world.

Deviation and crying in the wilderness

Though I was a staunch practitioner, I did have some doubts, which remained in the background owing to all the things that went right (I made people lose bad addictions and control anger, improve focus, whatnot). The doubts that remained in the background were the cosmological concepts in the scripture – the earth being a flat disc supported by a tortoise and balanced by four giant elephants. This particular conception troubled me a lot.

Right when I joined Infosys, after my graduation, I was surrounded by a different set of people. Here I met a friend who’s a staunch atheist. We had some heated debates during dinners. Though I never backed off, at one point, when he raised the argument of cosmology in scriptures, I was stunned. It set me on a thought journey that lasted a year. The amount of doubt kept building up and people were not able to solve my questions in ISKCON. This eventually built up, even as I was planning to become a monk just months away. The final nail was when a senior devotee argued for the flat earth theory in order to corroborate the cosmology in the Bhagavata Purana. This sealed the coffin that was my phase of intense spiritual practice. I quit, demanding independence. The decision was especially tough – this being in a cult environment for 5 years during my young adulthood.

Once I quit ISKCON, owing to the close-mindedness I noticed that people acquired with years there, I was left with no purpose, no friends, and no solace. I had a tough time coping up with the outside world and lose the guilt I felt for leaving ISKCON. An apt analogy for my time in this phase of life could be that of an injured baby deer lost in the thick wilderness, in danger.

This was the time I realized the importance of having a guiding philosophy in life, which is not all-consuming and cult-like. I needed balance.

The sun that rose

From such a state of bewilderment, the only thing that helped me sail through and not relapse into my toxic dependence of ISKCON and its philosophy was my open-mindedness and eagerness to grow out of that phase through conscious culturing of another point of view of life. The pathway of essentialism (which assumes that we have a definite nature, and one has to abide by that nature) was no longer for me. It was time for me to relinquish all my conceptions of definite meaning in the universe, which lead me to the phase of nihilistic bewilderment and finally to be introduced to the hope of the world – existentialism.

I actively heard and read Friedrich Nietzsche’s work. The philosopher himself had struggled with his staunch childhood faith in the Christian religion and having rejected it, struggled with nihilism. His work “Thus spoke Zarathustra”, is a masterpiece that propounds his solution to nihilism. Existentialism is a loose definition for philosophical systems that arose especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, rejecting essentialist themes in philosophy that dominated for millennia. It asserts that we do not have a certain specific nature to abide by. Instead, we are the narrators of our own story, the artists of our own masterpiece and the arbiters of our own destiny. 

The philosophy of existentialism healed my wounds and empowered me to take the reins of my life back into my hands. I no longer depended on an authority figure for direction. The effects of cult conditioning started wearing off. The nihilistic wilderness started disappearing from sight.

Goethe mentions that philosophy to him is something that he can apply in his life. What else is the use of philosophy if not? It becomes meaningless speculation otherwise. Thus, my life throughout, I have been practicing the philosophy I took interest in, consciously. I have always felt in control of my life and the power of individualism that I feel, cannot be described in words. I am truly a detached individual, who can be the kindest person, but also be the coldest if needed. Philosophy empowers one to rise from lows, deep lows and abysses. But being open-minded is the only way one can keep growing. For that is how the world operates. Change being the only constant in this universe, which is in constant flux. Do I believe in the soul or God now? I am not sure. I am not against the ideas, but I am not for them either. I do know that I am different from inert matter and that my actions matter to my sense of meaning and direction. If not for meaning, I would just be a set of firing neurons in a valley of voidness and randomness that is the universe. Philosophy helps build meaning and identity to us, specks of dust, on a bigger speck of dust called a planet.