Wisdom in the days of coronavirus

Wisdom in the days of coronavirus

Wisdom is the ability to see situations in relation to ultimate ends, whether these ends are assumed as oneness with God, or attaining moksha, or moral perfection. The modern world – the world of autonomous, self-contained individuals – is one of discontinuities. It affords many advantages; but it is, as TS Eliot says, ‘a heap of broken images’. Ancients’ vision was different from this. The ancient custom of memento mori was that of exhibiting a skeleton at a feast in order to remind the banqueters of the fate that awaited them. The awareness of the hidden link between banquet and death distinguished a banqueter from a glutton. It is no civilisational gain that they become one.

Today we don’t need to have recourse to skeletons. Death surrounds us with its ubiquitous presence. Consider this irony. We are currently gearing up, nationwide, to ward off the coronavirus; for the virus is an emissary of death. Yet, it was only a few days ago that human-inflicted death had a free run in the national capital. What if there was a margin for coronavirus in the format of that riot, or of strategies of aggression in the pursuit of power and pelf ? Imagine a lowly virus humbling the might of China!

It was native to the Indian spiritual vision that one should stand apart from one’s actions and become, as it were, a spectator to them. This was implied in the dispassionate pursuit of one’s duty. This distancing of self from what would outwardly seem to be its own actions is practical only through connecting one’s actions to something beyond the self of the doer. Actions are like hats. They need pegs to hang on. Such pegs are either the egos of individual doers, or the will of the eternal Brahmn. Being in tune with Brahmn – the supreme spiritual goal – is the medium through which the distancing of self from its doings is possible at all.

What helps in this process is a double vision comprising an awareness of the mortality of self and an intuition of the immortality of Atman, which needs to be at one with the Divine. The death of the physical, the shaking away of the mortal coil, is the necessary approach road to final oneness with the Divine. The spiritual truth is: ‘We are in death even while we are in the midst of life.’ Illness and death are intimations of human mortality. They are also necessary for our species to maintain objectivity in relation to mundane actions and advocacies. Awareness of death as inalienable to the human condition is as relevant to victims as it is to their victimisers. Everyone exists within the web of mortality. Seen objectively, there is something funny about mortals killing mortals; for we could not have killed anyone, if human beings weren’t mortal. And if we, as killers, are indeed human, how can we kill anyone, without killing our own humanity?

Greater sanity will prevail in public life if we have the sensitivity to bracket viruses and man-made violence together as symptoms of the imperfection of the scheme of things in which we have to undertake the adventure of earthly life. In its web, the agent of power, with assured impunity to consequences and his defenceless victim, share a common destiny.