Though Morality Commands Conformity,
All Moral Progress is Due to Nonconformists
S. Radhakrishnan
Mr.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975)
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Mr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan wrote several
significant books on Indian philosophies, and helped
expand the cultural bridge between Eastern and
Western views. His books have a number of points in
common with the original theosophy of Helena P.
Blavatsky.
The following text is reproduced from “An Idealist
View
of Life”, Unwin Books, London
in 1932, fourth impression, 1970, 280 pp. (See pp.
155-157).
At the closing of the fragment, Radhakrishnan says:
“The
lives of heroes like Buddha and Jesus are not merely
truthful
and austere but beautiful beyond all dream.” In fact,
the
traditional narratives of the lives of Buddha and
Jesus are
both legendary and not historical. Yet they are most
truthful
in their teachings, and Mr. Radhakrishnan’s sentence
is
perfectly correct from the theosophical viewpoint. Ancient
mystical legends are profound expressions of universal
truth, although they require a deeper reading than the
literal one.
After discussing in previous pages Art from the
point
of view of intuition, and having said that “Art as the
disclosure of the deeper reality of things is a form
of
knowledge” (p. 152), Radhakrishnan goes on to examine Ethics.
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
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In our ethical life also, intuitive insight is essential for the highest
reaches. The hero who carves out an adventurous path is akin to the discoverer
who brings order into the scattered elements of a science or the artist who
composes a piece of music or designs a building.
Mere
mechanical observance of rules or imitation of models will not take us far. The
art of life is not a barren rehearsal of stale parts. “The man that is not an
artist”, cried Blake in one of his most arresting paradoxes, “is not a
Christian.” Life is a game which ends
only when one retires. It calls for the exercise of skill and adventure. The
player of mettle is a master of technique. When he grasps the position, with a
sure insight he moves forward. In the chessboard of life, the different pieces
have powers which vary with the context and the possibilities of their
combination are numerous and predictable. The sound player has a sense of the
right and feels that, if he does not follow it, he will be false to himself. In
any critical situation the forward move is a creative act. It springs from the
self by the laws of its nature. There is a secret, organic, inevitable fatality
about it.
The
moral hero follows an inner rhythm which goads him on and he has the
satisfaction of obeying his destiny, fulfilling his self. By following his deeper nature, he may seem
to be either unwise or unmoral to those of us who adopt the conventional
standards. But for him the spiritual
obligation is of more consequence than social tradition. The inward constraint
is more important than the law imposed from without.
He
craves for inward truthfulness, utter sincerity, and not conventional
propriety. He is fighting for the reshaping of his society on sounder lines.
His behaviour might offend the sense of decorum of the cautious conventionalist
and it is sad to feel that men of vision and creativeness have suffered at the
hands of social leaders, though not always without justification. They
illustrate the tragic truth that when any one grows better than his fellow men,
he incurs their hatred. Crucifixion is the way in which we honour our supreme
guides and teachers.
The
cold calculating men who are careful of appearances will never fall grievously
low, though they will not soar high. Only the deeply sincere can make fools of
themselves. The Gospel of Jesus is antinomian as compared with pharisaism.
“Love and do what you like”. Love takes
us to the deeper secrets of life and gives us a more integrated view than
intellectual subtlety and a few plain moral rules can do. Though morality
commands conformity, all moral progress is due to nonconformists.
Society
judges all acts according to well-known common standards. It assumes that everything
is susceptible of scientific or impersonal treatment. It regards men as
machines and reduces every personal problem to general terms and decides the
moral worth of individual acts in the light of typical situations and moral
formulas. We are slaves of a mechanical system of ideas. Rationalist codes of
morality sacrifice flexibility and richness to correctness and consistency.
Professing to act on principles, our intellectuals are cut off from the deeper
sources of vitality and their souls are at strife with their minds. Life, love
and suffering cannot be so easily handled.
No
two events or conjunctions of events are alike. We must look at each of them as
a unique situation, as an absolutely free and living adjustment to the
circumstances and not a mechanical adaptation to a preconceived end. Only men with a delicate conscience and deep
love, who have found themselves on a higher level, whose minds are guided by a
deep sense of realities, and who have developed a sense for the right and the
true can understand other people’s feelings and problems. They are the souls
who are able to endure the evil even though they do not succeed in removing it.
They have a knowledge of the foundations; they have seen into the seeds of
time.
It
is only in moments of supreme freedom that we are or get near to the deepest
self in us. In daily life we act on useful conventions devised for the normal
situations, and even in great crises most of us are uncapable of grasping the
opportunity to respond with our whole self. But there is no work, however
lowly, no drudgery, however toilsome, no passion, however vile, that cannot
engage the self in us and yield this serene content if only the individual is
spiritually alive.
Virtue,
said Socrates, is knowledge; only it is not intellectual knowledge that is
teachable.[1] It is knowledge which
springs from the deeper level of man’s being. It is acquired by the raising of
one’s mind, the growth of one’s
consciousness. The deeper a man is rooted in spirit, the more he knows directly.
To one of ethical sensitiveness, the path of duty is as clear as any knowledge
we possess. In its perception we come as
near to absolute certainty as it is possible for us to do. We have in it a case
of intuitive apprehension, though later reflection may discover reasons for its truth.[2]
He
whose life is directed by insight expresses his deeper consciousness not in
poems and pictures as the artist does but in a superior type of life. He leaves
behind the world of claims and counter-claims. He is indifferent to the
morality which is a matter of checks and balances, for the highest morality
which is not law but love is a necessity of his being. The lives of heroes like
Buddha and Jesus are not merely truthful and austere but beautiful beyond all
dream.
NOTES:
[1] Actually, Plutarch wrote an
excellent essay showing that virtue can and must be taught. (See “Can Virtue Be
Taught?”, in “Moralia”, Plutarch, vol. VI, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, translated by W.C.
Helmbold, 1939, 2005, 528 pp., pp. 4-13.)
But virtue must be taught in deeper ways than by words only. It can also
be taught by example, to those who are apt to learn. Radhakrishnan is right in
saying it cannot be taught in mere words. (C. C. A.)
[2] Cp. Bradley: “We know what is
right in a particular case by what we may call an immediate judgement or an
intuitive subsumption’. [Ethical Studies,
22nd edition, (1927) p. 124.] (Note by S. Radhakrishnan)
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