Power and Context of Rand

Rand is hated not because she argued for power or against altruism; I hate (well- hate is not the best word, I know) her because I am convinced she is plain wrong logically and scientifically. Her observations and philosophy harm and retard social and (even) individual growth. We'll talk this in detail towards the end of this write-up.

A major line of reasoning that was brought  up by Lissome and others to question the relevance of analyzing Rand now was about the time when Rand produced he work .This point can only be valid. Ayn Rand was a product of her time (well, most ideologues are, for that matter), for sure. But if Ayn rand's ideals had a shelf-life and were indeed fugacious, we had better abandon them without ever taking any serious notice at them in this day and age. Most of us would agree that's hardly the case. If we believe that we need to be contextually conscious when dissenting Rand's thoughts, we need to be so as well when we are ready to get worked up in defense of her views.

The question of selfishness vs. altruism has been timeless, and it was Ayn Rand who raked it up before global psyche, colored it with standoffish political passion and disseminated this debate over generations.

Rand is more powerful than most of her epistemologically rigorous predecessors for just one reason ' she wrote fiction, she spoke through her characters. It doesn't matter much that she was just one of the last and latest in a line of like-minded ideologues, as long as John Galt is more influentially potent than a Nietzsche or a Schopenhauer.

Rand is here to stay.  In a world that is getting estranged from painful quests for truth for truth's sake, a swell-head's dream dressed-up dissemblingly in storybooks naturally finds more takers than any tedious treatise can do.

Selfishness: How 'natural'?

The question of selfishness driving altruism is only as valid as the argument that I posed in my article- that altruism drives selfishness in the same degree, if not more. But this is not very obvious unless we sit down and think hard. One point among the winsome set of arguments of my friend who got me write this article goes : 'Even something as basic as reproduction and continuity, with the responsibility and labor pains it entails, would have found few takers, had it not been for the instinct of selfish orgasmic pleasure. Therefore, selfishness does rule us in basic and altruistic endeavors.' Let me see how much I can agree here. Though science have moved on a bit since it related the drive for genetic continuity directly with amatory affairs (some life-forms that have to settle for less exciting asexual reproduction do indeed take even more trouble to immortalize its DNA), for its logical compulsiveness, let's take up point to reflect on. Yes, nature can't do it more foxily: to first please a life-form for bearing the offspring to compensate the inevitable trouble and trauma for getting it out. But subscribing to nature's bliss is not selfish, even in the most banal or brutally twisted selfish semantics. That the pleasure is on the individual side of house doesn't qualify it selfish either. I am not for this propensity of using individuality, instinct and selfishness - all interchangeably, as customized concern to tackle diversity and fragmented plurality as promoted by nature is at the diametric end of selfish tenets.

Back to the question of 'natural' selfishness. In my last post, I have left a few mentions as to how Darwinian genetics is 'conveniently mistaken' by ratifiers of selfishness and elitism. As Andrew Brown puts it:

“Selfish”, when applied to genetics and biology, doesn’t mean “selfish” at all. It means, instead, an extremely important quality for which there is no good word in the English language:

Nature is not hell bent on selfishness, as it is well aware how an organism is benefited of being good with others.

Let's pause a bit and do some elementary math:

Take this scenario. I am some cute herbivorous species (think Bugs Bunny), on my day out to nourish myself.

Ha ' there! A clump of 8 carrots, smiling at me!

Wait a minute ' I am not hungry enough to have all of them myself, I can eat 3, at best.

Let me see how I can quantify my benefit from eating up my share and keeping mum about my finding from the rest of the world.

For calculation's sake, I randomly attach a factor of 6 per unit.

           So my payoff value if I stay selfish is,

            3*6 = 18          à (1)

Now let's see what happens if I decide to do an altruist and plan to share 8 carrots with me and those around me. Who are all out there in this neck of the woods? I can see my brother, my cousin and some sucker who is a total stranger in town.

We sit together and the feast is on. Each of us grabs 2, which makes the value of each share to be 2×6 =12. When I munch it down, I get full payoff. But my brother shares only half my genes, so the genetic payoff from my point of view when he eats them is ½. My cousin is genetically distant to me by 1/8. Our good old stranger is a genetic alien ' so zero benefit.

            Here is the total altruistic pay-off:

             (1×12) + (1/2×12) + (1/8×12) + (0*12) = 19.5            à(2)

Definitely a higher than the selfish number 18 - that too, when we had assumed no returns at all in giving a share to the stranger. But then, when this chap stumbles upon a catch next time, chances are high that he shares that with me. So payoff fraction of him would always be greater than zero, making the altruistic payoff even greater than 19.5.

Did someone say genetics is just certified selfishness?

Excellence and Mediocrity

I doubt if Mediocrity can qualify to be the product of any sort of conspiracy that Ayn Rand's characters keep whining about. Nor is it a manifestation of an ideology or a 'thought-school' based on interests of collective. Mediocrity is just a state an individual is doomed to find himself or herself in when s/he falls short of certain benchmarks of expected excellence. (Mediocrity striving for excellence will still be mediocrity until it meets this benchmark; so striving doesn't make it any prettier either.) Benchmarks are works of society, of collective. It is the collective that conceptually give birth to this disputable abstraction of 'mediocre individual' and so, if there is any conspiracy on the part of collective at all, it is not for or by mediocrity but against it. The world never fends for chickens.

Mediocrity has huge constraints in hatching a plan up, devising a blueprint and orchestrating its systematic execution. Well, if it can ever do that, it ceases to be mediocrity.

The pertinent face of mediocrity is never one of a cunning conspirator, but of a hapless henchman or wretched slave. By all means, smarties can conspire more; they can raven more. Yes; excellence doesn't always transmute into power, and power into predation, but excellence can invariably drive power to its corner of benefit. Authority fueled by excellence can manipulate and deceive much effectively than mediocrity can ever dream of.  Excellence, as much as it propels the world forward, can stamp down the lives of the dim ones and can keep them in eternal darkness without letting them realize it ' ever. Here is when conscious selfishness dons its diabolic tunic and casts its foggy shadow over the pleasant lines that separate of excellence from authority and predation.

So what does that mean?

Intellects the world over have two choices:

            One - to live a life that's best suited to the milieu of the world that made them

            Two- to live a life that's tuned to their own interests

When talents turn selfish, they tend to neutralize - if not annihilate - each other rather than complimenting them. This can be uglier than any unrest on the part the so-called 'mediocre section' of human race for meager existence. It's something like this: if a superpower gets on a war with another, the ruins would quite predictably be far above the ground than a bow-and-arrow scuffle between two rivaling tribes in deep Africa. Well, well, I know 'healthy competition' is a good phrase; what I am saying is that it's not the best. The world has never got a chance to taste anything like 'supreme co-existence' yet. But that's the problem of the world, not of co-existence. The trouble is that we have no way of measuring what we have been losing without collaboration; all we have are certain yardsticks to gauge our gains by way of competition. If each physicist gets exposed to every other's researches as and when they happen, the scientific community would have reconciled theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity decades back and come up with TOE. I am not sure who is going to win in the battle of nerves between Microsoft and Google; but I know this much that, if they ever collaborate, there will be three predictable winners: Microsoft, Google and the world.

Now talk me about results!  With a mixed-up mind in a vainglorious façade, selfish brilliance would always find it hard to fit their work in the picture of larger interest that fails their comprehension. This dodging of things end-to-end doesn't help much in the way of value of your output. Again, selfishness also results in a sort of a baffled sagacity, when you find yourself busy filtering your friends from foes all through the course of your work. There can't be a worse distraction! To say it short, if half the time is to be spent in calculating the curvature of your pocket alone, believe me ' you are in for a botched business. 

Now, do you think it's easy? Do you think working for something more than yourself is a cakewalk? It takes real cast-iron balls to give yourself up when  To cocoon to your shell and call out how cool you are is kid's play. It's this shell that's the 'refuge' of a feeble dreamer, and not mediocrity. Though none of us in flesh and blood is as schizophrenic as Rand's characters, we all have a capability to think up a Galt or Roark inside. We are hard-wired to identify with this ilk. How many of us have never at least once tempted to think the world around to be unfair with us?  How many of us don't have this inward looking secret admiration that we are among those handful of honorable goodies that are not treated highly enough for what we are? I think I am qualified to be Roark; you think but it is you - even when we both hold diametric views and interests. In performance appraisals, the employee who got the plum rating and the one got the lowest would both feel himself to be Roark - the former thinks he is passing through the vindication-stage of his life and the latter, the persecution-stage. We all, as these multifarious organisms as we are, carry a certain baggage of narcissism interlocked in persecution mania.

That's precisely why Rand is a hit. She titillates our ego, helps forget our obligations, amplifies our misconceptions and pampers our escapist self - all so subtly. It's a clever, psycho-emotional trap - at best. This approach presents us with some charmingly skewed versions of reality that potentially helps us overlook our genuine flaws quite a bit. If Roark couldn't sell an idea the way wanted, it's because that nerd of an architect was a bad negotiator. Face it.

Finally, the pick is between intellectual cannibalism and intellectual symbiosis in a world dabbed with diversity. Preserve your uniqueness, but bear in mind we are here to paint the destiny of world rather than pompous self-portraits; the world doesn't want them. Excellence is incomplete without an open mind, a broad worldview, an appreciation of plurality, histo-political consciousness and contextual prudence. In the world of excellence, purpose is king. I am not. You are not.

Tailpiece Dreamlet

2050, a pleasant Valhallan morning.

I walked into the majestic silence of memorial park.

Sunbeams mopped the mist off his tombstone:

+

R.I.P.

Here sleeps Howard Roark , the impossible.

The-go-getter-turned-'go-get-a-life'er

Died of Paranormal Narcissism

- Architect-

(Specialized in: Castles in the Air.)

Hey , Howard ; Let me give it back to you:

I don't think of you.

Ayn Rand (1905-1982): Not talented enough to be an artist, not rigorous enough to be a philosopher, cult figure of libertarians, fascists, and rationally self-interested white middle-class middleschoolers and insecure college students everywhere — is the most overrated pulp novelist in the history of intellectual sophistry and the biggest ***** since Cato to have an Institute named after her. - Somebody

Is selfishness "cool"?

Some years ago, I got over Ayn Rand and discovered that I really love others.

We find it so pleasing to see an honest smile, and feel even more so when we return it. Nothing in the world can parallel the joy of helping a less-fortunate fellow human cross a crazy highway. You would get me right had you ever renounced a seat for a stooping grandma while traveling or bothered to share your food with a child whose hunger-filled eyes beseeched your mercy. The simplest yet most important argument that would go in favor of being selfless therefore is that it, just in contrast to the general perception, is what comes natural to us. If you feel itchy being called selfish, there should be some problem with selfishness; that's plain and simple. As Einstein puts it :

There is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.

Now, all these arguments are quite obvious and to a very great extent, clichéd. They have been soft targets of a section of polemic intellectuals; the ideology of the love-thy-neighbor keep getting drowned in the opulence of philosophical or logical radicalism trumpeted by fervent supporters of “constructive selfishness”.

It is not as difficult to moralize the virtue of selfishness as we think it to be. Ayn Rand is the best example; she is darling of millions of respectable men and women across the glob, thanks to the fact that Selfist ideologies such as Objectivism are mesmerizing, motivating celebration of self-worth and it can resonate well with anyone who take himself or herself so seriously. Just that the relatively recent ones among them are sugar-coated quite a bit to not look repulsive.

For instance, ideas of Rand are greatly indebted to Nietzsche's. We see flashes of all Randian heroes in Nietzsche's conception of a certain 'great individual': an abysmally narcissistic, savagely megalomaniacal, manifestly unrealistic, implausible super human. Nietzsche was, however, hopelessly blunt and arrogant in his views. He was categorical in proclaiming that the despair of society is far less significant than the suffering of the 'great individual':

The misfortune of all these small folks do not together constitute a sum-total, except in the feelings of mighty men

Well - that is so unkind of Nietzsche, to say it soft. Ayn Rand is polemic, radical and aggressive, but less merciless. But I find "five v's" to be common in all expositions of selfish doctrine: volume, vehemence, vengeance, vanity and volatility.

These are symptoms, and wait - I will tell you of what. What do the rather composed ones among us do with an idea? We conceive it, we ponder over or sleep over it, we make a choice on the mode of its ex-pression, we sound it out as sensibly and powerfully as we can, get due feedbacks and retreat. But what if we have an agenda rather than an idea? We get suddenly conscious as well as rhetorical. We use one mishmash of words after another, take a look at that from a distance, come back to rehash what we wrote in order to “better convey” the meaning. We get voluminous, vehement, vengeful, conceited and volatile. Selfish ideologies are in general plagued by these off-putting traits, but are simple ' very simple- in essence.

The much-known virtuous selfishness can be summed up as in these two arguments:

(1) Being selfish is and should be all about fulfillment of a set of actual, objective needs, and therefore, natural and desirable. All human beings have objective biological and psychological needs, and one’s actual interests are identified by reference to these needs.

(2) If everyone looks after himself or herself, world as a whole would sooner or later turn out to be a better place to live in. There is no moral obligation per se to do things for the sake of others.

How well-founded are these arguments? Let us try examining the logical validity of each:

Fallacy of 'Needs Theory'

The first argument - being selfish is and should be all about fulfillment of certain actual, objective needs, and therefore, natural and desirable - characterized by Rand’s objectivist approach of life, is more complex the other one and is more susceptible to interpretations that are at odds with each other. But we would rather go by its obvious substance.

Rand in her philosophical treatises on virtue of selfishness sort of preempts asking the question as to who benefits from a particular act by constraining her reader to look straight at the cherries she picked from her objectivist garden. She puts a hard-stop to this basic and most important question presumably for that it possesses huge potential to upset her applecart of objectivist philosophy of selfishness at its most basic level. Let us not omit the question in our analysis though, as we would not like to see a ’subjective omission’ when analyzing selfishness championed by objectivist philosophy.

I have serious objections to accepting the 'objective-needs' theory as something that naturally implies the virtue of selfishness. Here is why:

(i) Every human has needs and their existence and interests are to be driven by these needs. But how are the needs met ? In all systems and structures of human existence known, almost every human need can be satisfied only by means of direct or indirect efforts of a collective of some kind. Food is a need , but I can help myself in meeting it only to the extend of serving the end-product in my platter and all the acts that precedes mine are executed graciously by multitudes of human collectives. Same is the case with all other needs for my survival. The human collectives might not have me in their minds when they were doing their job, but that doesn’t mean they were doing their work all for themselves. Granted, the workers have motives in doing their duty in term of compensation, but they appreciate the fact that they are not the beneficiary of their work. So , in essence, the fact that a service provided by a human individual or collective is compensated doesn’t logically imply that the service is done for selfish reasons , as, for that to be entirely selfish, the service should benefit and only benefit the self of the worker. As a result, it is absurd to assert that any need-fulfilling service is provided with selfish motives.

(ii) An objective need to which a human being is a beneficiary can only be of two types (1) he/she is the sole beneficiary of the fulfillment of a need (2) he/she is one among a group of beneficiaries that share the welfare caused by fulfillment of a need. The latter case is an obvious departure from the pro-selfish arguments that proclaim individualistic need-fulfillment to be the driving force behind all human activities.

Think of this : I need a bridge across the canal in my town to drive and get to the other side, but the need is not mine alone as I am not the lone beneficiary. If the provider and receiver of a service that enables need-fulfillment are explicitly mindful of the fact that none of them is the exclusive beneficiary of the need-fulfillment, it is logical fallacy to assert the service has been received on selfish grounds.

(iii) Now, let’s consider the former case of this last classification of objective needs. There are indeed individual needs that address exclusively a singular human being, but are objective, as they are applicable to all humans. Again, let’s take our example of food - the most important one of primary needs. It’s a need that satisfies my hunger and mine alone. We may thus be quick to add it to the kitty of ‘objective’ actual needs that are guided by natural, inherent ego-centric human drives.

But is it really my need alone that I need to eat?

The answer is no! I, as an ingredient of a human composition, have to stay alive and healthy to be able to contribute to the constitution of the collective social machinery that has nothing in particular to do with my own self- interests. It is not entirely my need that gets satisfied when I eat, but also your need of having me work for you. In that way, there is no real “need” may be subjective, but none of them is purely individualistic either. There is no reason to believe that a human-being do what they ever do solely for himself or herself. And as we are talking about ‘objective’ needs, again, it’s absurd to think of subjective thought process that underlies as the motivation to do the work.

From this standpoint, both longing and fulfillment of all human needs- objective, actual or otherwise- are therefore social and selfless in nature and are way off the bounds of individual interests.

Note that I haven’t ascribed any negative or sinister dimension to the ’selfishness’ linguistic throughout the analysis; we use the word ’selfish’ in pretty much the same way Ayn Rand and other champions of ‘virtuous selfishness’ love to see it.

Why is it not enough to look after just you?

Let’s now go over the second argument which is more powerful, prevalent and imposing: If everyone takes good care of himself or herself, world eventually would turn into a better place to live.

This statement is more or less equivalent to remarking that letting an individual focus on his or her interests would translate into meeting social interests at length. Is this correct?

I would like to start tackling this point with an interesting analogy once made by Bertrand Russell in another context. If you are firing at a target, even if you are a bad shot, you are more likely to hit the bull’s eye than any other equal area. But if you are firing at something else, the chances of hitting the bull’s eye would be exponentially lower, and would depend entirely on some weird luck. If you address individual problem at an individual level, you are most likely resolve the individual’s issues than any social issues. If you, on the other hand, would try to address the social issues directly, it’s more likely that the issue gets resolved than it does when you address individual ones. So it’s sheer common sense that addressing social issues straight -regardless of disparate individual interests- can benefit society and humanity than doing it in any other way.

And that’s not all. There is yet another reason to believe social existence is not as simple as objectivits and selfists understand it. Individual and social issues lie in separate plains and they seldom converge. Social issues result from problems that are mainly collaborative and synergistic, and not many of them could be resolved by a reductionist approach. Individuals are mere ‘nodes’ in the vast social fabric, and the characteristics that a collective framework possesses vanish once we treat the system after breaking it down to its elementary units. And this last set of characteristics of the collective would not only favor a harmonious social existence, but are highly essential for an optimal individual existence. Also, the probability of the welfare of my society fueling my well-being is far more than my well-being helping my society’s welfare. All these can mean only one thing : when somebody fine- tunes their life to best address one’s own interests alone, it hardly helps himself or the community he lives in. As the greatest of all social scientists, Adam Smith puts it across:

Restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections to constitute the perfection of human nature.

Thirdly, If your interests constantly militate against those of people around you and you have no sufficient faculty to assess if yours are actual, objective interests, your judgments may fall apart yielding unacceptable acts, and you will keep getting alienated from the rest. Irrespective of the loftiness your goals and virtues of your motives (if any), you will never be reciprocated with anything good by the world around you .Results? - Personal declension and social disintegration.

Darwinian Traps

As we saw at the outset, one of the major arguments for selfishness and against altruism is a variation of Darwinian principle of Survival of the Fittest. The "fittest", as far as this brand of argument goes, should be selfish enough to enforce their interest on the weaker ones. Again as per our good old Nietzsche, the "fittest" (he terms them the "noble class") must create their own definitions of right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, honor and disgrace. They are not obliged to align themselves with weaker class morality or social framework, as they "spontaneously create values" for humanity. (Sounds familiar? Yes ' The more you study Ayn Rand, the more willing you would be to call her a whiskerless Nietzsche.)

Similar to any other shallow theory that has its roots in Social Darwinism, Selfism /objectivism too take evolutionary principles too literally, unmindful of the huge incongruity in employing a biological theory in understanding a social framework. Social Darwinists tend to draw direct parallels between complex, statistically driven process of Natural Selection and simpler, lawfully regulated human choices for assimilation, collaboration and inheritance. It was not uncommon, until mid 20^th century, to find strong Darwinian influence in most social theories. How many of us are actually know that it was Herbert Spencer, arguably yet another ideological ancestor of Ayn Rand, who coined the phrase Survival of The Fittest ' which has almost become synonymous with Charles Darwin and his Theory of Evolution.

Spencer, Nietzsche , Ernst Haeckel and Rand were all making a serious mistake : the term "fittest" in the evolutionary biology doesn't have, in reality, anything to do with the "fittest" in a sociological context. In biology, an organism is fittest when it has an ability to reproduce most to proliferate their kind. The "fittest" to a Social Darwinist is someone like Ayn Rand's John Galt or Nietzsche's Super Human. It's preposterous to "naturalize" the hysteric self-importance that Rand's characters demonstrate by instancing the selfishness that the genes exhibit in the process of evolution. Even life sciences, for that matter, don't suggest an innate selfish drive of any kind for humankind. As Richard Dawkins, author of the phenomenal book "The Selfish Gene", have clarified:

Some critics say that I was saying [in my book] that selfishness and other nasty ways are an inescapable part of our nature. This error is easy to fall into, if you think genetic determination is absolute and irreversible. In fact, genes determine behavior only in statistical sense.

However, it was puzzling initially for Darwin to see altruism prevail in varying degree across the species. The explanation was quite difficult, as natural selection theorizes that altruistic members are always at a ’selective disadvantage’ relative to their selfish buddies. Then why are certain members, or some communities, exhibit unmistakable altruistic traits? The answer is simple: communities constituted only or mainly of selfish organisms would go extinct for a variety of reasons. Darwin himself was highly aware of this fact, as much as other big names in evolutionary biology. One of his famous quotes goes:

In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed

Collaboration does not entirely reflect altruism or complete lack of selfishness, but the importance that Darwin attributes to collaborative subsistence categorically establishes the need to “look around” in order for humans to successfully survive and evolve. A human being is dissimilar to any other species in almost every way. We have a history; we have a certain cumulative wisdom; we have collective subconscious. All these dictate a certain pattern in the way we behave, and this pattern doesn’t always align with individual-interests. In different degrees, this pattern gets reflected in our social existence - be it in the form of etiquettes, civility, concern for others and downright altruism. For this very reason, we can’t address individual conducts, rights and interests in isolation; no analysis is complete without accommodating our collective, non-biological yet integral human traits. A 'fully selfish human' is, if anything, an oxymoron.

Implementing Rational Spirituality : A Brave New World

“You tried to convince me of three major points so far, Swami:

One, spirituality is desirable and everybody rightly craves for it; Two, prevalent spiritual beliefs do not comply with reason and science much; Three, established rational ideologies don't really defy spirituality.

But I am still not clear why you are insisting on being rational while practicing spirituality…"

"I must insist, because it is our duty to be rational. I wouldn’t have suggested you to be rational, had you been a part of a theocratic or insular society. We are fortunate enough to express ourselves freely and fairly, practice any faith and follow any philosophical system.

So, you have to realize how privileged you are. Mind you, you are a lot luckier than many individuals across the glob, even the thinking patterns of whom are being dictated by the state. Here, I am not asking you to defy God or existing religious beliefs blindly; all I am asking you is just to validate everything you hear. We know there are still some societies authoritative enough to amuse themselves by chopping of your limbs and genitals or stoning you to death just for the ostensibly inexcusable sin of thinking free. For them, it is blasphemous ' let it be. In such societies driven by religious values, it may be a sin to think rationally; but it is even deplorable a sin to do otherwise in an open society."

 "But Swami, we are humans and we are special, aren't we? Why can't we consider we have some special access to some inexplicable realms of spirituality? You are again speaking as if we are just animals with an advanced brain "

"Of course- that is what we really are: smart animals! How dare you think we are different from the rest of reality?

Going by the simplest explanation of life, you and all the rest of beings on earth have all started the journey from the light brown “primordial soup” formed somewhere in this blue planet which again is nothing more than another speck of dirt that found its separate existence from another bigger material formation during a tryst with one of the numerous bodies drifting and swirling all around aimlessly. How can you think you are macrocosmically special?

Progressive evolution might have conditioned your brain so as to help you claim incontestable intellectual superiority in this planet, but you still share around a highly dismal 99% of your DNA with the plant you water, the housefly you spat to death and the horse you ride on. How can you think you are genetically special?

You share your existence with some 30 million distinct forms of life here, while there is an estimated probability of at least a million of like ecosystems within the very galaxy you and me live in, and if you try extending this number to the known limits of universe, the best of number crunching machines you have would proverbially fret. How can you think you are biologically so unique?

How can you think you are physically special when physical sciences say even your absolute position in this universe cannot ever be estimated since there is no real frame of reference and every single mention of material positioning in this cosmos is relative ?

All the pursuits of genuine, natural, scientific or even metaphysical theories underline till it pierces page that despite all our dreams, hallucinations, delusions, whims and desires, the objective reality stands, with majestic elusiveness but magnanimous accessibility. You are a part of the grand reality. You are just not exceptional."

"All right ' then tell me how does rational spirituality add value to my life"?

 "The problem we discuss is one that every one of us faces - the reluctance to live consciously. Conscious living is the quality of knowing what you are doing any given point in time while you are aware as to why you are doing it. But it is not necessarily as simple as it may sound. It takes immense perseverance and a formidable but natural inclination for delayed gratification to be a conscious survivor. Some of us are simply scared to take this up challenge.

Still, many of us lead a consciously rational material life, by planning our career, family, investments and retirement life. That is good and essential. We simply apply sheer commonsense and simple cause-effect paradigms here: We know we are heading for a potential trouble if we don't invest. We know we won't be able to clear our exams if we don't study properly.

But there is another dimension to conscious living. Conscious living is not only about leading a life with a blueprint of actions for years to come, but is also about how you define its meaning. When you conceive the idea of adding some meaning to your life and relentlessly pursue the truth, I would call it a consciously rational spiritual life. And mind you - this is entirely different from the sort of spiritual existence that religions teach. It is different from the purported spirituality practiced by an astounding majority of the world population who visit places of worship with a closed mind and zombie like trance - either because they are supposed to do that or in order to ensure so sort of divine assistance to their actions.

Irrational spiritually is no better than intoxication. Anything that cheats reason and logic is self-deceiving if not self-destructive. It is an insult to our being as an intelligent species. It is like living an intellectually vegetated existence. It is like ascribing our brain - the kernel of all human achievements - the status of a mere cuspidor.

Rational spirituality has something else to offer. The most important sine qua non of this genre of spiritually conscious life is reason. Being rationally spiritual is to be in a relentless pursuit of truth and wisdom, while consciously taking the pain of rationally appraising every bit of information we get and reaching a conclusion using both our inherent and acquired systems of logic. It is the process of disengaging our day- old irrational ‘auto pilot’ and switching over to a smarter but less familiar mode of operating life, thereby taking absolute control of our material, intellectual and emotional existence.

I would sound a bit unconvincing when I say the best way to stay “connected” spiritually is to be “grounded” seamlessly. Connectedness here is quest of the ultimate with your entire intellectual prowess and Groundedness is the usage of reason and Science as means the means of doing it. Einstein had expressed his way of doing this: "I am satisfied with the mystery of life’s eternity and with knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature"

"Can you give me a model to follow?"

"Spirituality is about supreme pleasure, and supreme pleasure is about supreme awareness. The biggest testimony to this argument is the life of the greatest of all Gurus who taught the world the ends and means of Spirituality: Buddha!

Buddha’s greatest spiritual achievement is his attainment of the “enlightenment”. Now, tell me - what was that state of enlightenment here? Did he see God?  Did he now start snaffling ashes straight out of thin air?  Did he start bending spoons by looking at them? Do you believe he managed to lift himself up a few feet from the ground on attainment of this?

No - there was no difference in his abilities but one after getting enlightened: that he now “knows"! He now knows why he is here. He now knows what life does mean and does not mean. He now knows what constitutes miseries of the world. He knows himself!

Goal of spiritual pursuit is knowledge. Ultimate goal of spiritual pursuit is ultimate knowledge. I know some would like to ease their task by calling this ultimate knowledge God. Let their belief save them - if everybody knows it already, why to pursue!"

"Are you asking me to be a Buddhist?"

"Oh, no - absolutely not! I am not recommending Buddhism the religion, but just instancing such a life by Buddha the man. Neither have I asked you to renounce everything the way Siddhartha did.

He walked on this planet some two and a half millennia back. All he is said to have attained though his apparent spiritual sojourn were undoubtedly influenced by the cumulative human wisdom till his time. 

But we live in a different point in time.

We are now bestowed with a boundlessly huge delta of information since the time of Siddhartha.  We have to, by all means, do justice to that. We cannot just stamp down millions and millions of minds that contributed to our collective knowledge in-between.

Had Buddha been alive in the age of scientific awakening, I imagine, he being a genuine seeker truth, his interpretation of world would have been a lot different!  He would take evolution into consideration. He would also consider all theories about formation of the cosmos. He would try to understand Genome. He would also be impelled to consider the way our lives have changed since - new wars, new rulers, new lands, new politics, new life-styles, new attires, new preferences, new media, new transport, new deceases and hence new problems!

So, Buddha’s pursuit for an answer to worldly problems would find a new context. And, with all respect to the eternal significance of his teaching, it is wise and safe to presume that he may have to find further answers to the problems, again by yet another intellectual-spiritual sojourn."

"Well, tell me then ' how can I put rational spirituality in practice? "

"Who am I to advise you; I am just a friend! But if you ask me what I think I would do to implement this in my life, here is my answer:

I would indulge in extensive sessions of critical but sensible introspection and put in my best efforts to elucidate what my current idea of spirituality is. Then I would conform whatever concepts I have, no matter however crude or ingrained they are, into the purest form of self-enquiry in such a way that it assists me in my attempts integrate myself with truth and reality.

In the process, I would entirely do away with all my ideological prejudices and intellectual rigidity. I may not succeed, but I would be an unabated optimist throughout. Science and reason, along with all cumulative human wisdom, would be my guides, while my senses, mind, soul and intellect would be set free to awe the grandness of the unknown.

I conceive my journey to be a self- propagating spiral of positivity - every open door I see I will enter, every extra bit of knowledge will stimulate me, every tiny accomplishment will be celebrated, every moment will be cherished.  In the pursuit, I will happily succumb to the inevitable.

Thrilling, isn’t it?"

(Concluded)

Is Rational Spirituality possible ' Analyzing Ideologies.

Spirituality a taboo for accepted rational frameworks: a myth?

"Swami, do you think spirituality is really a no-no for rational ideologies? Is a rationalist not supposed to identify himself with the ways of mind, to acknowledge its extreme convolution, or to tap potential values or delectations it offers to life? "

"Good question, especially since we have just examined if spiritual leaders really care for reason, and the answers we got were not very encouraging. While such a discussion was rather beneficial for the spiritualists to introspect, what you are now asking is of use to the less religious (the exact phrase Swami used was "religiously challenged") among us.

See - for being able to draw in a meaning to the whole discussion of reason in spirituality, we need to make sure that the ideology has been followed by a definite crowd. There is no meaning, for example, to dissect epistemological Rationalism in its fullest just to see how we can relate spiritualistic notions to the ideology. A more constructive exercise would be to examine some of the ideologies that are, or at least were, closely tying in with the social mainstream. What are we going to do with the philosophical views that are spending their lives in metaphoric "cellulose-asylum' in philosophy books or those who have never set out from the cortical cobwebs of their conceivers?

So, let's have a purpose-built discussion here, keeping in mind the general nature of all rational ideologies, which stresses on logic, reason and proof. The obvious sine qua non for our analysis is that, in the sort of spirituality we consider here there is no room for pranks, ticks and charms, bogus rituals, make-believing or any other esoteric shallow knowledge (though being esoteric in it cannot be considered irrational, but where there are no seamless interfacing systems in place with natural reasoning, such ideas cannot be entertained.). Let's see if any major established system of thought in which the major chuck of practitioners or admirers of rationalism falls forbids its practitioners from being spiritual"

As it turned out, I witnessed something more than what Swami promised. Towards the end of each segment of analysis, I saw Swami slipping into slightly subjective discourses - from which I could easily deduce his ideological inclination.

"Swami, despite all corners busy gearing up to a hasty entombment of Communism, I strongly believe it is still a force to reckon with. Like it or not, 'Left' in India is Marxism-Communism-Socialism for many, as is the case elsewhere in the world. And I know many leftists are exceedingly puzzled as to what approach they would espouse on Spirituality. I wish to hear from you on this arena first"

"I agree. As the most influential rational ideology the planet has ever witnessed, it is emphatically essential to start our discussion at this point. But the challenge here is to accommodate and address this at the application level. I am not ready to take up that futile challenge here. Communist parties may have their agenda cut out based on their geo-political consideration. But be mindful that our goal is not to dissect the ideologies, to analyze it from a historical or societal perspective and to pronounce a verdict, but is merely to look for what the underlying thought-system has to say about sublime-cognition, spirit, mind, soul and spirituality. Same is applicable to all discussions we are going to have.

At the conceptual or the ideological level, I prefer to choose Marxian Dialectical Materialism for analysis. Dialectical Materialism defines boundaries to human cognitive space in terms of sensory possibilities. World, physical or metaphysical, objective or subjective, spiritual or materialistic can thus be perceived as a totality of what human senses can ever experience. Everything you think, feel or do is a product or a reflection of material realities and conditions. Spirit is not so much of a detached reality than it is a product of material conditions. This is very similar to what science says. Now, the interesting finding here is that, while explicitly defining the materialistic world as having objective reality independent of mind or spirit, Dialectical Materialism does not ever deny the reality of mental processes. It just holds that all mental and cognitive states could arise only as products and reflections of material conditions. Spirituality is no exception!

So, if you have an inclination towards Marxism and want to live a spiritual life, you can heave a sigh of relief ' your ideology doesn't prevent you from being spiritual as long as you consider all your experiences as reflections of your material being - just not to venture to combine or reconcile materialism with any form of idealism!

That said, I won't recommend anybody to be a Dialectical Materialist in order to be rationally spiritual. Anybody who is not currently associated with this flavor of Materialism may find it being synonymous with Marxist authoritarianism; it may fail to live up to the need of the hour ' one that satisfies a stressful world that is fed up with too much of materialism already. However hard we try, we can't overlook the dubious distinction of Dialectical Materialism as being too overbearing to assist a genuine pursuer of truth. We need to move ahead from that point, as being judgmental just distracts us from our goal.

"Well ' Swami, I know you wish to be known more of a Humanist than anything else ."

" a rational, secular Humanist"

I know why he resorted to couple of adjectives here. Lately, it was me who invited Swami's attention to an ideology that a major Indian political party, which is known for its overt religious disposition, has adopted as their declared, official philosophy: Integral Humanism. Swami had been visibly worried at the use of the term "humanism" here, but in the end, Swami and me spent a long and interesting hour discussing this, and we both wondered how easy is it to propound a "new philosophy" just by renaming an ancient set of beliefs and by defying established ideologies using incredibly simplistic statements like : "..We do not want socialism because it lets the law of Marx prevail. We don’t want capitalism because it makes people take sleeping pills to go to sleep "!!

"All right ' a rational, secular Humanist. Speak on "

"The strength and weakness of Humanism is its unparalleled flexibility. Interestingly enough, the words rationalism and humanism are used more and more interchangeably these days. Even though Humanism as a philosophy doesn't vary much from what Rationalism has to offer, Humanism is widely adapted as a preferred ideology for many over plain rationalism partly, I think, due to the way it simply sounds. It might well be taken for some ideology that celebrates human potential and existence, and rightly so.

It does acknowledge the human endeavors in molding and existence in individual, societal and worldly contexts. Humanism is immensely liberated, doesn't ideally stand for any set of defined principles whatsoever. This innate generality of Humanism has paved way to countless movements worldwide using in its name ' some are good and others are well ' may be unacceptable to most. Secular Humanism is an ideological denial of all supernatural and religious beliefs; but strange are the ways of politics and organizations ' they can bend and bulge anything in their favor. But in general, humanism, to me, is the best ideology one can adopt in his life.

The most important facet of Humanism is that it doesn't support mind-body dualism. It considers a human being to be a complete system and unit in itself with body, mind and personality as its components or characteristics. Being entirely autonomous, any detached existence for soul or spirit before or after life is obviously not advocated. That is quite acceptable for reason, isn't it? But our question here is if it holds back one from exploring any potential of human soul. Not only does it answers this question in resounding negation, but humanism categorically celebrates human abilities to make well thought out, reflective, matured decisions in life and gives complete liberty to an individual to apply any, all or a subset of his composite abilities for betterment of himself and humanity.

In a nutshell, Humanism more or less encourages spiritual pursuits!"

"Fair enough! Now, don't get irritated; I know you don't particularly like Ayn Rand; but I would like you to talk about Objectivism now.." !

"Do you really want me to do that? Firstly, we may not be able to measure the influence and reach of Ayn Rand's Objectivism as an ideology. I doubt how many of her tight admirers of "Atlas Shrugged" or "The Fountainhead" would actually have adopted Objectivism as their life's philosophy. What I have observed so far is that, Ayn Rand's followers, by and large, only include staunch advocates of radical Capitalist values and a handful of over-zealous tender-brains with unreasonably blotted ego. I am not sure if they really know what they say when they try their wits end to bracket Ayn Rand along with top-notch Philosophers and genuine pursuers of truth. I regret to say this, but she was not more than a frustrated refugee from erstwhile Soviet Union who didn't have any control whatsoever over her emotions as well as over her writings "

"Stop, please. We can have another discussion to work out your distaste. For the time, please let me know how Objectivism would look at spirituality"

"An Objectivist stand on Spirituality can only be analyzed with the help of Objectivist theory of perception. Here again, as in the case of any rationalistic philosophical stream of thought, we can see that all cognitive activities are explained through the rational and natural correlation the senses and the sensed. The prime distinction here, though, is that Rand argues that knowledge or awareness is not absolute, and it is wrong to pursue absolute knowledge unmindful of the object and context of such knowledge. Same holds good for any spiritual attainment. This is how I would interpret Objectivist spirituality here. True Objectivists are welcome to comment.

If spirituality can ever provide anything other than our normal experiences, that can only be considered as an aberration in one's own interpretation of whatever perceived, due to the complexity and enormity of cognitive data during the spiritual exercise. The data collected by our senses are absolute, our sensory capabilities are absolute, but the potentiality of reasoning based on the sensory data would have forced us to circumvent the actuality of the experience. Thus it is highly likely that we would interpret the spiritual experience to be either unnatural or hallucinatory. But here again, it doesn't explicitly say that spiritual experiences are non-existent or irrational."

"Is that all?

"There can be no end to this discussion. There are dozens of such ideologies lining up for consideration, literally. Humanism itself manifests into Transhumanism through Religious Humanism. We have Secularism and its Indian version. We then have naturalism through Epicureanism. But make no mistake dear, there is no ideology I mulled over defies either the existence or the possibilities of spirituality."

Next: Spirituality minus religion, Part-5: Solution, Conclusion

Is Rational Spirituality possible ' What do some of the best minds have to say?

My conversation with Swami on Rational Spirituality continues..

.

"The world has seen a host of great teachers and spiritual Gurus. Are you saying that they all lack conviction and accuracy? Didn't any of them provide us with enough guidelines to approach Spirituality from a rationalistic point of view?"

"This was what I was coming to. There have been plenty of attempts to explain spirituality logically, philosophically, scientifically and even empirically. A dozen books can be written on the researches conducted and theories formed on this subject. But let's have a cursory overview of some of the efforts through history and see if they actually succeeded."

"I think we can start with Nirvana, can't we?"

"Yes. The first attempt of its kind in history to actually "explain" spiritual life and practice might be found in ancient Indian texts. In those, Spirituality was related with attaining the state of "Nirvana". Nirvana is defined as the supreme goal of the meditation disciplines. The concept was slightly altered and carried forward in Buddhism, in which it signifies "the transcendent state of freedom achieved by the extinction of desire and of individual consciousness." (We will examine Buddhist theories in a little more detail later). The goal of Nirvana-oriented spirituality is the realization of this truth. With this realization, ignorance is destroyed, and, consequently, all craving, suffering, and hatred is destroyed with it.

So far, so good. Nirvana speaks about a goal, a state to be achieved. Even if we shouldn't be so dogmatic as to ask for scientific explanation of a theory which was devised three millennia back, there is another major shortcoming for this theory which we can't ignore ' the theory itself! Nirvana speaks of a state of utter extinction, not of existence. Nirvana is but a perishing state. Any hypothesis that is characterized by the complete denunciation of material world can not even figure in a rational discussion ' simply because we are trying to bind a theory to simple science and practice, and not trying to "interpret" ( read fabricate) it to suit our pre-defined agenda, as many modern day Gurus do. "

"I too agree that Nirvana was subjected to a good deal of interpretations ' especially by Indian Spiritual Gurus, and it is still being "

Swami broke my words up to start his:

"India-born philosophers have played key roles in making spirituality not only "modern", but even a fashion - from Jiddu Krishnamurthy to Aurobindo, and from Osho to Shri Shri Ravishankar. (There are other names too, of course. But I don't think our subject here is "The Secrets of Necromancers"). Some of them were undeniably great intellectuals up to whom any thinking individual can only look with great awe and adulation. "

"Then why are you not looking up to them for your so-called 'rational' answers? "

"I did exactly that; but not sure if their theories provided me with what I was looking for ' let us examine:

Philosophers like Jiddu and Osho were, unfortunately as I would like to term this, a sort of "temporal spiritualists". One can not analyze their theories just by reading them; the effort also demands knowledge as to when and why they wrote them. They re-framed and revised their theories many times. Jiddu for example, subsequent to his countless preaching, renounced any claims to being a World Teacher and began a career of writing and teaching. Osho (despite his theory on meditation ' that it is something that can just happen, a state that one can be in, not something that one can do - which is worth an analysis and very close to the hypothesis that spiritual pleasure is hardwired), again just to give an example for his flip-flops, altered his teaching on unrestricted sexual activity because of his growing concern over new-world diseases.

Spirituality and science should be taken with extreme seriousness, and I doubt if any philosopher who keeps changing his theories just under the influence of social or political circumstances can do justice either to himself or to the grandeur of the subject he deals with. In addition to all this, we can never even find a single scientific fact that substantiates their teachings or writings."

"But I strongly presume that Aurobindo would have been better suited for your pursuit "

"True, Aurobindo does belong to a different ilk. He, I think, was the first to formulate a dialectic mode of salvation for the individual and humanity. His theory of "cosmic salvation" ( his version of Nirvana) goes like this: "enlightenment comes from above (thesis), while the spiritual mind (super mind) strives through yogic illumination to reach upward from below (antithesis). When these two forces blend, a gnostic individual is created (synthesis)." The theory is strong enough to make ripples in a rational mind due to its stunning uniqueness and unprecedented candidness. So, next natural question that pops up is this: "Fair enough ' now, what is yogic illumination and how it is explained?" And the answer to this in Aurobindo's teachings (briefly) is that the "yogic illumination transcends both reason and intuition and eventually leads to the freeing of the individual from the bonds of individuality, and, by extension, all mankind will eventually achieve moksha (liberation)".

Bad luck! We are talking about reason here; we can not afford such transcendence. "

"Fine. Now, just to get a sense of how extensive your research is - who do you think are the most logically coherent spiritual pursuers of our times? How many of them were of any help?"

"For me, the most impressive among them are Capra and Wilber. Fritjof Capra did a highly admirable attempt to explore parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. He rightly observed that the Physicists do not need mysticism, and Mystics do not need Physics, but humanity needs both. It is a wake-up call for all dogmatic theorists. But mind you, this is no reason why spiritual philosophers, Gurus and mystics needn't necessarily owe rational and logical explanations of their theories to humanity.

Kin Wilber approaches spirituality with due seriousness. He comments that radical transformative spirituality is extremely rare, anywhere in history, and anywhere in the world, and most of the world population takes it so lightly. He says : " you must have noticed that the word “soul” is now the hottest item in bestselling book titles?but all “soul” really means, in most of these books, is simply the ego in drag. “Soul” has come to denote, in this feeding frenzy of translative grasping, not that which is timeless in you but that which most loudly thrashes around in time, and thus “care of the soul” incomprehensibly means nothing much more than focusing intensely on your ardently separate self. Likewise, “spiritual” is on everybody’s lips, but usually all it really means is any intense erotic feeling, just as “heart” has come to mean any sincere sentiment of the self-contraction. All of this, truly, is just the same ole translative game, dressed up and gone to town…" A candid lamentation from a true spiritual philosopher!

But the moment Wilber traded in Darwinian Evolution for the Theory of Intelligent Design, I got pretty much convinced that he is no exception from the prejudiced rest. We will hark back to this subject later.

There are also certain interesting masters like Marianne Williamson, who tried to cut out a self-study paradigm in spiritual psychotherapy as in her “Course in Miracles”. Though completely Theo-centric, the book deals with non-sectarian, no- denominational spirituality. We also have quite a few Gurus who evade the need of a God in spirituality. There are still others uses the term "rational spirituality" for the process of seeking “rational” explanations to extra-natural stuff.

I have then gone through the major works from a legion of "spiritual experts/Gurus/guides". They include Sylvia Browne, Deepak Chopra, Iyanla Vanzant, Norman Vincent Pearl, Caroline Myss, Neale Walsch and even some monks who sell Ferraris. (With that satiric reference to Robin Sharma whom I personally like, Swami proceeded to conclude the second part of our discussion. Swami maintained a strong reservation about many of the Modern-day spiritual teachers, and is used to disparagingly call them 'professional spiritualists')

But none among them seems to be indulging in a divergent thinking intensive enough to help us in doing away with the elusive metaphysical aura hovering spirituality.

So where are we? Where is the rational explanation we need? Though many of them sound convincing, which of these theorists provide an explanation keeping in mind the fact that humans are no different from the rest of reality? The answer is - nobody. "

"So - where will we go from here?

"We will now examine some existing rational ideologies. That means we are now going to approach the puzzle from an entirely different angle. Let's try if we can undo the tangle from the other end of twine."

Next: Spirituality minus religion, Part-4: Is Rational Spirituality possible ' Analyzing Ideologies.