Their questions are designed to make us think critically about our experience as Hindus in America (which, coincidentally, is one of the purposes of Swadharma!), so I thought I’d share them now, so we can ponder this food for thought:

I. What is your current relationship to Hinduism and current religious practice?
II.     To what extent has your relationship to Hinduism changed or stayed the same since coming to college/grad school?
III.    How does your practice and conception of Hinduism differ from your parents’?
IV.     How do you or do you not present yourself as a Hindu to your friends, colleagues, professors and the university community?

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What I find really interesting about this is that, in a certain sense, it doesn’t matter at all. It is entirely possible to take the categories we are presented with unquestioningly, and use them to structure our appreciation of Carnatic music — indeed, that is precisely what pretty much everybody in the audience had done until today. Of what use, then, is such historical investigation?

This question is of immense importance, not just for the relatively obscure field of South Indian classical melodic structures, but for the entirety of the South Asian (and hence South Asian American) effort to make sense of our heritage. For a variety of reasons (largely attributable, in my opinion, to the epistemic rupture caused by colonialism), we have been cut off from older ways of thinking and living, and are hence struggling to make sense of our past as we march towards the future. The question we need to ask ourselves, as TMK has done in this field, is very simple: does history matter? Do our past customs and traditions mean something to us? Are they worth preserving and investigating?

I should clarify that there are two things that can be meant by “disregarding” history.

1. The first is to actually believe that all the categories we use to understand the world, all the texts we have, everything we call “culture” or “tradition”, are eternal and unchanging. This view is deeply problematic and leads to severe, crippling misunderstandings of our past and therefore our present. This is not what I’m talking about here.
2. I’m more interested in the second possibility: that we acknowledge our past, accept that things were different and things have changed and things will change, but then consciously decide that there is no present relevance to studying the past. This is more like saying, “sure, R.D. Burman’s music came before A.R. Rahman’s and may have influenced it, but I’d much rather listen just to ARR, or for that matter, to that new DJ in that new up-and-coming club down the street.”

The second choice is a historically conscious choice to choose to disregard the effects of our past on our present and our future. And it will have moral, ethical, political, even aesthetic consequences. (Well, most things do, but you’d need history to tell you that!) What are those consequences, and are we okay with them?

I’m curious to know what y’all think about this matter. I’ve been thinking about other formulations of this question off and on for a while now, and those of you who know me probably know where I stand on the matter I’d love to hear from you all.

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Then, should self-analysis also be balanced?

At least in my own life, I have seen that constant, unrelenting self-analysis is often tiring, and sometimes self-defeating; however, I also believe that this same self-analysis, though it occasionally has negative consequences, has legitimately helped me improve more than I would have been able to otherwise. It has enabled me to look inward and improve myself instead of constantly blaming others; and while this process is sometimes exhausting, I’m inclined to believe that this is a good thing.

Is there a better strategy for self-improvement other than relentless self-analysis? Should we be balanced between “letting go” and “looking inward”? Or is this a case where the “middle path” does not apply?

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“There are some who are really the salt of the earth in every country and who work for work’s sake, who do not care for name, or fame, or even to go to heaven. They work just because good will come of it. There are others who do good to the poor and help mankind from still higher motives, because they believe in doing good and love good. The motive for name and fame seldom brings immediate results, as a rule; they come to us when we are old and have almost done with life.

If a man works without any selfish motive in view, does he not gain anything? Yes, he gains the highest. Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not patience to practise it. It is more paying from the point of view of health also. Love, truth, and unselfishness are not merely moral figures of speech, but they form our highest ideal, because in them lies such a manifestation of power.”

This is Swami Vivekananda’s most powerful insight — work done selflessly is more rewarding than work done selfishly. But is it a valid insight? As with any text, these are merely words on a page, words that could have been perverted, intentionally or not, through the hands of scribes over the years. For that reason, we have to carefully examine the claims through our own experience. Is unselfishness something that we can confidently apply to our lives, or is it something that we should live more carefully, testing its truth?

In order to answer that question, we have to answer an even simpler question — what is unselfishness? At first glance, the synonym altruism comes to mind, but that doesn’t help much. Turning to the zoological definition of altruism, we find: “Instinctive behavior that is detrimental to the individual but favors the survival or spread of that individual’s genes, as by benefiting its relatives.” This is a bad definition for spiritual seekers, since unselfishness is not always constrained to one’s kin. The philosophical definition of altruism is more promising: “[An] ethical theory that regards the good of others as the end of moral action; by extension, the disposition to take the good of others as an end in itself.” This is a good working definition of unselfishness — regarding the good of others as the end of moral action.

Now, if that unselfishness is the ideal to which Swami Vivekananda inspires us, the question of why be unselfish still remains. It’s an important question to ask — unselfishness, together with love, is Vivekananda’s choice ammunition in bombarding readers with moral inspiration. Be unselfish, he says, give unto others, and pray before the Lord and the strength to continue serving will fill you. Enchanting words — but are they true? What if praying before the Lord fails to give us the strength to serve others? What if being unselfish is just self-abuse by another name? What if unselfishness is God’s illusion on humanity, testing us to see if we blindly believe what we are told by self-styled prophets?

These are important questions to ask, but not to answer — the answers to these questions are irrelevant because the value of unselfishness is self-evident. My most satisfying moments were not when I have obtained something I wanted, but when I have assisted someone successfully. This is not to say that selfish action is bad — simply that I find unselfish action more rewarding. If you are the type of person who can’t think about the welfare of others, then you are not a bad person — you are simply missing out on a more rewarding course of action. On the other end of the spectrum, if you are the type of person who is always there for other people, and you feel stretched to the limit, it is not bad to take time for yourself to recuperate. Unselfishness is desirable because it is a satisfying principle by which to live one’s life, but it need not dominate our lives. To be attached to unselfishness is dangerous — it is important that you are able to detach yourself from unselfishness.

That said, ultimately the validity of Swami Vivekananda’s insight is left to your personal experience. Even if you receive no gratitude in return, be unselfish, because you feel it is the right thing to do.

I leave you with a quote from Dr. Albert Schweitzer:

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”

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Why do I value the things I do?

Why do I value selflessness above selfishness? Why do I consider honesty more ethical than lying? Why do I struggle to achieve self-control instead of satisfying my immediate desires? Why do I admire sincerity more than acting skills?

What is it that prompts me to value moral development more than intellectual enhancement, and to value intellectual effort more than social aptitude?

In essence, how can I know that my value judgements are correctly placed?

There are several ways for me to justify my beliefs. Here are three:

1. Scripture: For those who like to see a scriptural basis for beliefs, Chapter 12 of the Bhagavad Gita outlines the qualities of the ideal devotee; Chapter 16 describes both divine and demonic qualities. For many, this itself might be reason enough for many to strive for such ideals.

2. Universality of the Ideal: For me, what has been a stronger reason to follow Sri Krishna’s suggestion is the universality of those beliefs –as I pointed out in a previous post, it seems like many of the world’s religions seem to project the same image of the ideal. The idea that so many religions, through so many different paths, have arrived at similar conclusions, is really comforting to me. And more than comforting, it serves (for me, at least) as a sign that there is some validity to these suggestions.

3. More recent figures — Sri Ramakrishna, Gandhiji, Mother Teresa — have practiced such ideals and the difference in their lives is apparent.

Ultimately, I think the question of whether these ideals are legitimate or not comes down to this: does practicing them make me better off? Do I feel stronger, do I feel happier, do I feel more confident, as a result of following these ideals?

I have found that struggling to put things into practice is sometimes painful — it is easy to stumble and fall, to get in over your head, to misinterpret and distort reality and fool yourself into thinking you are working towards your goal,  to fall prey to fear and lack of self-confidence, to let the feeling that you are the only one that cares about this stuff get to you — but the joy of actually practicing what you preach is immeasurable. The feeling of calm that you get when you know you are in control of your emotions and reactions, for me, is infinitely better than worriedly awaiting the stresses of life; the power you get from living in the moment and comforting someone who may not be able to return the time you’ve invested in them is uplifting…Small glimpses of what it would be like to constantly practice these ideals are what have kept me dedicated to continuously struggling to reach what I have chosen as the ideal.

At the same time, I understand why it is easy to question whether such struggle is worth the effort — most of us are at a stable equilibrium point before embarking on such journeys, so why bother changing that?  I’m not sure what made me willing to disturb that equilibrium and search for something better. And, what alarms me is that I’m not sure how exactly I chose what I’ve come to define as “better.” Somehow, these seemingly arbitrary values that I’ve picked (influenced by Hindu scripture, my culture, and the lives of those I admire) have become a huge part of me — and luckily, the occasional successes I achieve have shown me that perhaps my judgment wasn’t misplaced.

Still, the question remains — is there a more logical way to pick what we think of as ideal?

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