Moral Pursuit of Lower Values

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Hinduism, as a cultural system is mystical in character. No cultural

system in human history other than Hinduism has developed as a

mystical system. In all other cultures, mysticism is made an element

either of religion, or, to be exact, of theology (e.g. in western

religious) or is explained away in a still more reductionist manner

psychologistic or sociologistic (as for example in the two humanist

cultures). Hinduism alone has directly become mysticism.

Consequently, Hinduism qualifies for the total yet open cultural

system.

 

Culture is the realisation of values, of all values, in theory and

practice. Religion is the realisation of only the ethical values—

preter-social and social (in preter-social, superhuman and subhuman;

in social, correlational human and gregational human). So, the

cultural system can be said to be the whole, of which the religious

system is a part. The two systems—cultural and religious however

become one in those cases where the culture is religious in its

overall character, where the mystical freedom (moksha) is either not

valued at all or not the highest value of life.

 

In Hinduism, the end is moksha. This permeates the whole of Hinduism

as a culture system. So, the overall character of Hindu spirituality

is not religious, it is mystical. And it is not exclusively mystical,

that is to say, it does not shun the other and lower values of life.

It transmutes them. It prevents the fixation of feeling on them. It

desists from drawing the line at a subsystem. The lower values all

get oriented to moksa. For each it becomes the pursuit of perfection

in many an activity or form of life or vocational duty.

 

In no other culture than Hinduism, the pursuit of lower values of

life has been meticulously made moral, artistic and aesthetically

mystical to yield unbounded joy out of the pursuit. Take for example

the Arthasastra dictum on the pursuit of wealth (artha):

 

"...enjoy in an equal degree the three pursuits of life—charity,

wealth and desire—which are interdependent on each other. Any one of

the three, when enjoyed to an excess, hurts not only the other two,

but also itself".

 

Sri Krishna says he is the desire (kama) in the psyche of all living

beings. He has also given a mystical orientation to moral obligation

(dharma): `Better die doing your own duty than try to do fearfully

somebody else's duty or gregational egological supererogation (dharma-

raksha): `I descend when the ethos and ecosystem get polluted; I

kill the wolves and save the lambs.'

 

—From Hindu Ideology by B.S. Sanyal