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B Mahadevan1
Human beings represent the highest stage in the order of God’s creation. Swami Rama Tirtha
said, “God sleeps in the rocks, wakes up in the plants, moves about in animals and thinks in
humans”. Endowed with a power of discrimination and free will, human beings represent the
ultimate in terms of the possibilities of evolution and attainment of perfection. Even when this
is the case, for an average individual the biggest confusion pertains to his/her notion of what is
the ultimate journey that he/she is undertaking. Are we supposed to reach a stage of
perfection? Once the notion of perfection is understood then an individual faces the issue of
ways and means of attaining them and the challenges in the process.
We live in an era of great technological progress and material growth. In fact, the growth
trajectory is such that what we could not do in the last, say 2000 years, we could achieve in less
than a century. A fall out of this progress is also that the achievements unwittingly had other
consequences as well. For example several studies point to the fact that the rate at which we
are exhausting fossil fuels and emitting toxic gases into the atmosphere in the last 100 years
has been much more than what we managed to do in the previous 1900 years.
The notion of a complete or a perfect person
Despite all these technological and scientific progress that we are witnessing now, the basic
question of what makes us a perfect human being has not been addressed clearly by the new
scientific progress. When can we call ourselves to have reached a state of perfection or
completeness? If one needs to reach a state of perfection what are likely to be his/her life goals
and aspirations? Is there a manner in which we must approach life? Is there a structured
process in our journey towards the notion of perfection? In fact one wonders if these questions
are in the domain of scientific inquiry at all.
It appears that answers to these questions require deep and repeated contemplation of these
ideas, conducting valuable experiments in one’s own life and gathering insights and
experiences. Out of this journey, one can distill the wisdom and perhaps hope to seek some
answers to these questions. Should everyone go through this experiment? If so, is it not quite
likely that we may end up reinventing the wheel? Is there a way we can tap the experiences of
others who have treaded through the same path.
This is where we can turn our attention to the ancient wisdom. Our ancestors have deeply
contemplated on these aspects of life, recorded their life experiences and passed it down the
generations. Every society with very long existence and traditions would have such distilled
piece of knowledge and wisdom stored in their culture, social customs and literature. It is
handed down the generations through the ages.
1
B Mahadevan is a Professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.
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In India, these rich experiences are codified and preserved in a vast amount of ancestral
knowledge. These are organized systematically in Vedas, Upanishads (both collectively known
as Shrutis), in Smrutis, Itihasas, Puranas and a host of secondary but important literature (such
as six Darshanas, works of great seers, rishis and thinkers of yore).
Our ultimate destination
Our ancient literature has a rich mix of diversity. The Rig Veda proclaims that while truth is one,
there may be several ways of articulating it (@k< st! ivàa> bhuxa vdiNt). Several works have their
own positions on several matters pertaining to the exact notion of perfection and the means of
achieving our goal. Notwithstanding these differences, they all converge on a few important
fundamental aspects. One of them of immediate relevance pertains to our ultimate goal in life.
No matter whatever is our starting point and the path, the destination for our journey is one of
liberation. Every human being must eventually realize true liberation and total freedom (of the
soul in today’s common parlance).
Freedom connotes many meanings. However, in this context it amounts to reaching a state
wherein as we engage in a host of worldly pursuits we will not be hampered, constrained,
challenged and stunted in our journey towards self‐evolution. In reality these obstacles
primarily happen on account of the inability of our mind to handle situations as they emerge.
An individual who has liberated himself/herself from the clutches of worldly constraints
including the cycle of birth and death is indeed considered to have attained perfection or a
sense of completeness.
The Practical Meaning of Completeness
How are we to practically operationalize this concept of completeness? Is it an ivory tower idea
or a holy state of existence that we will suddenly reach one day or is there a way we can
endeavor to reach this state? If that is so, what are the intermediate steps in this process? The
Taitriya Upanishad points to three things that can potentially characterize the notion of
perfection. These are Shanti, Samruddhi and Amrutam. Let us understand it in some detail.
First of all it must be clear to us that by perfection we mean something which cannot have
scope for anymore improvement in the state of affairs. If there indeed was a scope for
improvement, then the improved state will replace the older notion (which has just been
displaced) of perfection. If we continue this argument, we must at one stage reach a situation
where no more improvement is possible. That stage is called perfection.
Shanti denotes a state of mind that is devoid (or rather beyond the domain) of satisfaction,
happiness etc. It is very easy to understand that the world of satisfaction and happiness could
often be a moving goal post and therefore there is no state of being satisfied or happy.
Moreover they are often paired with their opposites (dissatisfaction and sadness respectively).
Therefore, satisfaction or happiness cannot be a measure of perfection. Shanti is a state of
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mind, where these attributes such as happiness, satisfaction may exist in reality but may not
determine the ultimate mental makeup. It is an eternal state.
Samruddhi denotes a state of mind that experiences a sense of totality or completeness or
fullness. Again in order to reach this state of mind, we cannot rely on the physical and mental
aspects of what we mean by full or complete. Therefore, it is a state that is achieved even when
the physical reality in front of us may not fully describe the notion of completeness.
Amrutam means a state of immortality. If we train our mind towards physical aspects of life and
try to understand immortality, we may miserably end up in missing the essence. How can
physical things be immortal? They are all invariably subject to a universal law of deterioration
and decay over time. Even the best of the scientific discoveries cannot address this limitation.
They can at most postpone this eventuality by some time. What do we then mean by
immortality as the goal?
It is clear that these measures of perfection are not those pertaining to the physical aspects of
one’s life. Also, the usual methods of addressing these in the normal physical world may not be
adequate for us to address this notion of perfection. That brings us to the related question of
the process of attaining this perfection.
A pathway to this journey of perfection
Lord Krishna addresses this issue in the Bhagavad Gita and offers useful guidelines on how an
individual could organize his/her journey towards perfection. It appears that there are three
stages in this journey:
In the first stage an individual must master the art of handling the world “outside”. As
long as we live in this mortal world, we need to deal with activities, people, entities and
issues emerging out of these interactions. Therefore, we need to learn to reach a stage
where these aspects cannot throw severe constraints and challenges in our journey
towards perfection.
As we understand the need for dealing with the world “outside” we will inevitably find
that it depends on our ability to also deal with the world “inside”. Every one of us have a
very active world inside. If you are in doubt please close your eyes for a few minutes and
see what you experience. The world inside is ruled (or often ruined) by the all‐powerful
mind. Therefore, our journey to perfection will also need skills for taming the mind and
using it as a friend in our journey.
If we are able to manage the world “outside” as well as the world “within”, we are ready
to take the final step in our journey towards peeping into the domain of perfection. In
order to do this, we need an expanded meaning of life, life purpose and our
understanding of the reality itself. The reality is indeed an intricate relationship between
us (Jeeva), the physical universe that we see around us (Jagat) and the all‐encompassing
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Lo
ord of the creations (Ishwara). We
W need too know thiss, contemplate on thiss and
in
ntensely practice to expeerience this ultimate reaality.
The figurre below illustrates the p
process and related issu es in this jou
urney.
Gita – A
A handboo
ok for our jjourney to perfection
n
Bhagavad d Gita is con
nsidered to b be one of th he greatest ttexts in this country primmarily becau use it
addressees this issue and therebyy helps humaan beings acchieve perfection and co ompletenesss. It is
one of th
he three main works in tthis countryy (known as Prasthaana Treya). Thee journey and the
pathway are provide ed in great deetail in the GGita.
In a nutsshell the 18 chapters in the Gita are broadly d ivided into tthree tripletts of six chapters
each triplet Lord Krishnaa deals with certain ideaas and addreesses certain
each. In e n core issuess. The
figure be
elow has a scchematic of this. In the first six cha pters, theree is a dominaant discussio on on
Karma Yo oga. An indiividual is takken and analyzed in the context of w work. An ind dividual neeeds to
manage the world “outside”
“ ass well as the world “w
within” in order to surp
pass this stage in
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his/her jo
ourney of pe
erfection. W
We therefore find a num ber of ideass for these inn chapters 1 to 5.
The sixth
h chapter pro
ovides ideas for calmingg the mind annd focusing it on a fixed idea.
In the se
econd triplet the individ
dual’s persppectives are broadened. This is a nnatural extension
because once an ind dividual learnns to managge the worldd of action and thinking, there is a d desire
to evolve e even more e. Again in GGita, we findd several gu idelines for us to underrtake this paart of
the journney. The grand theoryy or the Law
w of Conserrvation of D
Divinity is esstablished in
n this
triplet. Through that Lord Krishna establishe es the relatioonship betweeen Jiva – Ja agat – Ishwa ara.
In the lasst triplet, the
ere is a greaater discussioon on the suubtle aspectts of the nottion of perfeection
and meaans of achievving it. The role of our behavioural practices (G Gunas & Sw wabhava) and the
need to m modify them m into right pproportion iss a major toppic of discusssion.