This week we started discussing the details of Hindu Culture. Swami Chinmayanand said that when a group of people live together for a long time in a particular geographical area, living a certain value, the special fragrance that emanates from that group is said to be their culture'.
The influence over this geographical area is external or internal with ideas/thoughts. Human influence has built great cities, buildings and structures. The material influence is all around us. Similarly, the influence is over the collective internal thought. In this regard Swami Chinmayananda said "Man's control of external nature is called Civilization… His control of the internal nature is called Culture."
Prakriti is the inherent nature. Inherent nature of many creatures is based on instinct. They follow their instincts to take care of themselves. Humans too are born with the inherent nature or Prakriti. This drives their interests and likes. There is however a chance that we transgress these inherent prakriti. These transgressions make nature distorted, also known as vikriti.
Human capacity has the ability to control these transgressions. This capacity is culture or Sanskriti. This word is formed out of Sam (Very well) and Kriyam (That which is done). Our objective is to learn hindu culture or our Sanskriti to keep all vikritis in check and enhance our Prakriti.
Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa was comparing the human material pursuits to a vulture that can soar very high but still keeps its eyes on the dead lying on the ground. So, we could be accumulating a lot of academic degrees but still not be able to check the vikritis and have low spiritual maturity.
So, it is possible that we pay attention to material things around us and associate reality of things based on their observability by sense organs. This is materialistic culture or Bhautika samskriti. On the other hand, there are those that understand that whatever is not observable by sense organs can still exist. For example, sound waves exist but we do not see them, and x-rays exist even if we do not see them. There is an aspect of culture that may not be apparent but expresses itself through ideas and thought. This is called Spiritual Culture or Adhyatmika Samskriti. Hindu culture is a spiritual culture.
Spiritual culture is refining the human being to a higher finer level. We discussed a few examples to illustrate this point. The raw material taken to paint a picture could be some paint, canvas, easel and some paint brushes but the artist could transform this raw material into something special. The painting material may be less than a few hundred dollars but the painting itself could be worth millions of dollars. Similarly, the fabric could be made of different materials - jute, cotton, silk etc. The process of refinement is what is making it special and worth a lot more than the total of all the individual components that went to it.
Leo Tolstoy was demonstrating this point by showing the difference between cost of iron and wheels with spokes out of the iron. These wheels if they get used as gears in a watch will cost a lot more.
We then brainstormed using a collaborative digital whiteboard to answer the question - "Why College?". The students put in different ideas like "building a career", "making money", "making friends" etc. There are 2 important things here - one is to refine/enhance our capacity and learn, the other is to understand that the main purpose of entering college is to graduate from it successfully.
Similarly, we did brainstorming to answer the question "Why Life?". We have many different goals here too depending on the stage each of us is in. However, we still have the common theme of learning to get the most out of life. The concept of using Sanskriti to improve ourselves is relevant here too. Moreover, we must understand that the ultimate goal is to learn from our culture which draws a roadmap of human life. This roadmap not only gets us through life effectively but it also helps us understand how to 'graduate' successfully from the earth.
In the next class, we will continue to learn about the law of consequences in our Lives.
regards,