The Missing Link between Philosophy, Religion and Culture

                                                                   Dr.Sri Jagannatha Swami Ph.D.

Flipping the pages of history one can discover the truth about the missing link between philosophy, religion and culture. Thousands of years ago there were Indus Valley civilization, Egyptian Civilization, Palestine, Mesopotamia and Chinese civilization. In those days, there was no discrimination like that of today among philosophy, religion and culture and they existed as one.  That was a time when man led a life of harmony with his society and nature. There was absolutely no distance between the individual man and his society. The nature was the first great divine order of worship.  Rest of the Gods and Goddesses were identified as the manifestations of Nature and Universe.

 Ancient Egyptians believed God’s existence as unchanged and permanent. They never thought death as the end of human life. They believed an after life and built Pyramids. Babylonian’s aspect of life was dialectical and they never believed after death life and they saw only the earthly life. Greeks records reveal magical religions with polytheism. Over evolution of time, they reconstructed its philosophical base from their own “ mythical tradition ”. In general in the age old civilization there was convergence of devotion and meaningful contemplation and they were merged. The abode of God and the earth in which human civilizations exist were not differentiated as two separate and different entities. Taoism, which captured an important place in Chinese culture, highlighted the ethics of human life. The Confucianism also urged for a highly esteemed life of morality.

   Dating back Indus Valley Civilization, religions played a major role in socio economical uplift. The Vedic culture of India was polytheistic. But Upanishads never appreciated rituals. The doctrines of Barman, Atman and Maya rose only at this time. The period of Idikasa is considered as the important one in the history of religions in India. The epics of Ramayana and Mahabaratha included the then prevailing traditions, philosophical thoughts, ideals and morals of life. The Bagavad Gita showed the paths of Bhakthi, Karma and Gnana.

   Deviating from the religious traditions Buddhism (B.C. 563-483) dawns leaving the ideology of God. More over it remained as a neutral path for realization. Mahavir (B.C 599-527) found Jainism. Both religions created a controversial ideology of reformation against the ritualistic Vedic tradition. Both Buddha and Mahavir were the heirs of kings and entered renunciation. They rejected the fire rituals and other customs. According to them ritual religion was

not the path for salvation. They organized their religious fundamentals in ‘ logical and experimental ’ methods. Jainism says that every soul possess its own individuality and confirms the existence of many souls. It compels for penance and strict fasting to get rid of the earthly sorrows. Buddhism narrates that every thing in this physical world is liable for change. This expression leads to nothingness. Buddha condemned unscrupulous religious practices and confirmed that right knowledge is the direct path to break the bonds of earthly sorrows. These two religions that denied the existence of God created remarkable waves in the Indian history. Excluding   these two religions all others are based on the Vedas and considered Veda as their fundamental base.

           Socrates and Plato hold major role in the religious history of Greek. According to Socrates man has intuition and inner meaning. He had seen the inner meaning with highly respected ethical values. Plato explained metaphysically a divinity beyond the material world. He condemned the philosophers of materialism who explained the world as a mechanical one. He upraised a great reason for the creation of the world, as supreme consciousness and incomparable wisdom. His thoughtful contributions were a pioneering effort to developed Western theology. The orthodox, magical and polytheistic Olympian religion was opposed and was intercepted by “philosophy”. This reformation of religion became a beacon light.

       Two notable later Cynics include the satirist Menippus and Crates. Crates  was a teacher of Zeno, who founded the Stoic school of philosophy. Stoicism incorporated many of the Cynic ethical ideals in a much more systematic and sophisticated philosophical framework, while toning down the Cynics' anti-conventionalism. It is via the Stoics that the Cynics had their greatest impact on the history of philosophy.

    Aristotelian philosophy viewed the God as a pure, rich source for reasoning knowledge and as the appealing ethical value.  Cynics played a major role in creating the concepts of renunciation. Stoics opposed Cynics for their extremist activities. The faith of Jew who practice a religion based on the Old Testament and the Talmud (the sacred writings of Orthodox Judaism) is called Judaism., is one of the first recorded monotheistic faiths in the history of 4000 years. This history and tenets of Judaism are the major part of the foundation of other religions, including Christianity and Islam. Judaism is not monolithic in practice and has no centralized authority or leading principles. Judaism in all variations has a number of religious principles like Conservative, Orthodox and Reform Judaism. The most important concept of which is the belief in a single, omniscient, omnipotent and transcendent God who created the Universe and continuous to be involved in its governance. But Judaism does not easily fit into any conventional categories. It is true that unknowingly these contradictions

paved the path for the rise and entry of the Christianity.

       Medieval history of philosophy and religion begins with the life and messages of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas. Augustine called the Idealistic World of Plato as the God’s Holy World. He named the day old Gods as Satanic. He opposed Astrology and insisted Free Will. He denied the culture of worshipping the religious heads. The importance of medieval religious history is that the religions dominated politics and state. The center of Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy is God and not man. He appraised God as above all. The Catholic Assembly had accepted his philosophy of Universe even now, as it states that search of prime factor is not possible without the thirst of Godliness. Differing from Christianity Islam rose as monotheistic religion.

  The advaitic philosophy of Sankara is the greatest gift of consciousness to the entire world. It deals with an intelligent approach in finding the in-depth philosophical truth. Advaita comes forward to improve humanity. An adavite is a person who understands through experience that the reality is one and we see it as many and follows in his day-to-day life. Hence he will not show any discrimination towards the world and treat all beings as his own life. Advaita philosophy is that man and all natural beings are one.  It leads to the oneness of the Universe. Advaita does not confront with other theories and practices that deny the core. Sankara argued that the common sense, empirical world as we know is an illusion, or maya. Plurality of objects and persons are ultimately false.

        It is true that the developments of Hindu philosophy related with medieval period had not been investigated properly. Hinduism simultaneously had developments in Vaishnavism, Saivism and Saktism. Ramanuja also improved the application of Vedantic doctrine like Sankara. His theory of total surrender is praised as prabathi, which was enlivened directly through Guru-sishya sampradaya. Visishtadwaita is the theological philosophy or Darsana contributed by Ramanuja. According to his doctrine God, soul and material are the end truths.

        The Bakti movement arose against the orthodox ritualistic Hindu religion. In bakti cult and literature the contributions of twelve Azhwars and sixty-three Nayanmars are very important.  Bakti path does not insist any rituals; but imparts the way of worship with concentration. The total surrender leads to emancipation. Every creation in this world takes birth only to give and take compassion, as it is the inborn law of nature.  Devotion or worship flows from heart. It is the expression of pure excited love and compassion beyond all intellectual reasoning and this idea is the base of bakti movement.

        Bagavad Gita showed the paths of Karma Yoga as a way of life and insisted the duty without expecting any results. The esoteric meaning of this

concept is that one should do his duty for selfish reasons but for the total well being of his society.  

        Madva’s philosophy is an anti thesis to Sankara. His doctrine of dualism is known as Dvaita and as per his derivation the soul is different from Braman and at the same time it never exist independently.

        Pathy, Pasu and Pasa are the technical terms of Saivism. Siva who dwells beyond the limitations of time, space and material is the pathy. There are three kinds of obstacles that hinder our way to God and they are Aahamkara, Karma and Maya.  Pasu represents the tied soul into the worldly affairs. All branches of Saivism are reposed on the basis of four Vedas and 24 Agamas.

        According to Kashmir Saivism, Soul is similar to God, which involves in creation, protection and destruction. The most of the research scholars opine that the Kashmir Saivism is the amalgamation of the Dravidian and Aryan culture. Saivism considers both the consistent and inconsistent existence of barman where as Kashmir Saivism considers the braman as inconsistent.  

    The progressive chronological classification of Indian philosophy and religion can be divided into two as pre-medieval and post-medieval period. In the pre medieval period, the Bakti movement as a turning point overrode the theory of renunciation propagated by Jainism and Buddhism. Later, the entry of Islam introduced the monotheist religious ideology to Indian thought. Sikhism reasserted the brotherhood through the concepts of Kalsa to Indian spirituality.  By all means we can trace out that slowly the religion came out of the clutches of orthodoxy, fear of God, mysticism, magic and was rescued to spirituality, humanism and socio – ethical codes. We can call this as the first phase of the renaissance.

    The Neo-European religions denied the possibilities of realizing the existence of God by reasoning. If there is a chance to say “God Exists” and the same chance prevails for saying, “ God does not exist”, opined Davit Hume.  Kant considered religion as expressions of inner experience. He declared that all virtuous people should lead a happy life and believed, moral living will establish a peaceful and happy life in the heaven.  Hegel accepted the being of a complete truth or soul.

    The so far studied facts of earlier, medieval and modern religious, philosophical and cultural developments clearly confirms an important point of reference as those three had been always combined and never deviated. In the Western culture philosophy and religion stand either dependant or criticized

each other. The words, religion, philosophy and culture have in depth meaning and self-standards independently but they always act together.  Every religion has undergone many changes during various periods. But recently this unity has been disturbed by selfish minds and rulers and politicians are using religion for their vote banks or selfish motivations. Fundamentalism is the challenge against the global unity and peace.  Today religions have become the major cause for communal disharmony and wars. Due to this cataclysm rationalists ignore religion and try find a place in the museum as a monument with a label stating “Religion dead-Not suitable for scientific age”. They suggest science and rationality as the methods to attain truth. Because of this Karl Marx viewed everything including the religion in the eyes of economy and Sigmund Freud with a view of sexuality alone.

    The present day science has touched the sky limit for its growth and leads the world from a mechanical life to structural life. The world has seen many religions from the time immemorial but never seen peace through them. The comparative study of religion and philosophy reveals that religion cannot stand without philosophy but philosophy can exist without religion.  At this juncture one may raise his or her eyebrows by asking a question towards religion - “ Is the deviation of religion from the philosophy, reason for today’s chaos?” Terror, Aids, Diabetes, Robbery, Hypocrisy, Quarrel? Yes. It is true and the responsibility is in the hands of philosophers to rescue religion from the ties of fundamentalists.  It is the paramount duty of philosophers to enlighten others and give crystal clear understanding on religion and spirituality. Moreover we should remove the misconception  that religion is a barrier to development. It is big fraud and folly to negate religion in the name of secularism and give undue edge to Western modern science for pretty comfort. There are many branches for the great river called religion.  As per their attitude, geographical conditions, climate and socio-economical situations people call a same God in different names.  Ekam sat Vipra bhahutha vadanti is a Vedic hymn, which confirms the omnipresence and oneness of God reveals the core concept of Hinduism.

    Every religion has a scripture written in a specific language. Translation to other languages is not able to transmit the original essence and true purport to other languages and other societies. Hence language remains as a barrier to fathom the original content as in the revealed form (Hinduism-Sanskrit, Christianity-Hebrew, Islam-Arabic, Judaism-Hebrew, Buddhism-Bali, Jainism-Prakrit, Zoroastrianism-Persian, Egyptian-Greek, Sikhism-Punjabi, Saivism-Tamil). But when we have faith and accept the existence and grace of God, all entities and movements will glitter divinely. Even the debate that denies the existence of the God in one way speaks about him in an abstract manner. God can be realized as a material form and as well as subtle form. Man sees God in various forms as he regards; but the Godliness cannot be varied from man to man.  

      As there are many religions there are many scriptures differing among them. Every religion claims for pertinence of its own philosophy and literature and demands for a right to claim that there is no substitute besides them as their philosophy is the end of all divine revelations. But a real religious philosophy is that one that gives equal and great respect to all religions. A holy scripture is that one which appraises the ideals of its own and understands the spiritual quest of other religious thinking to help all the global mass.

      Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa who initiated the reform of Hinduism said that religion is nothing but realizing God and experiencing God. He attained the same by following different kinds of religious methods and attained the bliss. He also said out of his own realization that there are as many ways as there are many religions.  This conclusion is the need of the time. Sri Ramakrishna viewed social service as a part of worship. He believed that ethical values are the base of a society.

      Vallalar’s knowledge of world religions made him to realize that only love and service will form a righteous path of Sanmarga. His religious philosophy gave a determined outlook for the universal brotherhood and equanimity.

      A culture of a nation is identified through various phenomena like customs, produces, habits, education, entertainments, food, dress, family, life style, intelligence, language, arts and literature. Religion as a part of culture takes a major responsibility of developing social and ethical values and there by enriches the culture. Religion played a vital role to shape culture and civilization even before modern science then was not a separate field of knowledge but was the part of religion.

        It is now being increasingly recognized that the ancient Indian tradition contains profound wisdom of physical and meta-physical knowledge. Even before the human society in the rest of the world did not begin chronicling its early intelligence, India had unfolded the secrets of wisdom and presented the superior contents of it to the mankind. Vedas are the rich source of knowledge, which flourished herewith all disciplines like social, ethical, psychological, scientific, aesthetical, philosophical and spiritual need of the world. Thousands of years ago, when the world civilizations were not in existence the Indians were aware of the ultimate Reality, known as Braman. The highest humanism was expressed as "vasudeva kutumba" means the whole world is one family. Righteousness is the bedrock of Indian culture which is called Dharma . It is taught by sruti which contains four branches viz, Veda,upaveda,vedanga and upanisad.

    In the ancient Indian tradition this highest knowledge was called as sastra. Science and sastra are not two different fields and they are synonymous in

nature. Sastra was divided into two parts as sasana sastra and samsana sastra. The first part, sasana sastra dealt with Vedas and mundane sciences, and the second, samsana sastra speaks about astronomy, astrology, mathematics, botany, medicine, geology, physics, chemistry and others.

    The need for a nation to contact the other culture arises in view of trade. As transportation and information technology started to develop increased interaction between various cultures these relationships improve due to the needs of commerce, procurement of raw materials and security. At this stage necessarily language and culture cross the boundaries and step into the different territory. Every religion stands of its own social and cultural barriers as an inbuilt programme.  Hence it happens to face many hurdles of contradiction when it stretches its legs into a different cultural realm.  

    Human values may differ from a society to another. A value of a culture may seem to be a de - value to the other one. Moreover in the same society the values of a community or class may differ from the other. Because of this Nitzhe was able to claim that God is dead and the values ought to be revalued for creating an independent super man. In the same way, attempts of Periyar E.V. Ramasamy in Tamil Nadu, in view of giving a full stop to religious dogmas created a tide in the Indian culture. He struggled to establish a casteless and classless society. He proved that culture could exist without religions by way of introducing inter caste and widow marriages denying all religious rituals. He declared that self-respect and equanimity are the only social justice. It was at the time when women were treated as secondary citizens, Periyar raised his voice proclaiming the women liberation and equal status. Due to the self-less service and hard work of Periyar a new updating for Tamil scripts had been accepted, later which was applicable to computers. But from the very beginning Periyar practiced a harsh method that wounded the innocent religious people.

    The in-depth philosophies of all religions confirm that the only aim of religion is nothing but co-operation for peace, love, living together and service to the society.      Let us discuss the common pros and cons of any religion:

1.        All religions speak about the creation and creator of the world.

2.        Religious heads try to establish the faith on God to a common man.

3.        All religions have holy scripts and they are written in a particular language.4.        All religions have rituals and methods of worship.

5.        All religions insist code of conducts and ethical values.

6.        All religions argue about heaven or hell, last judgment and rebirth.

7.        All religions attempt to safe guard the roots of origination.

8.        Every religion declares its concept as final and end of all knowledge.

9.        Every religion wishes to change the entire population of the world to follow only their religion.

World religions are confronting for the above said nine reasons.

       At this juncture let us finally note that the aim of religion is only two: one is to develop man from  the exoteric status to esoteric status and the second is to impart ethical values to change man’s nature and make him to live in togetherness. No one could deny this statement. Hinduism declares “Loka Samasta Sukino Bavantu” meaning let the whole world dwell in happiness and “Santi, Santi, Santi” meaning let the whole world live in peace. Christianity says that let us bring eternal peace to this world in the name of Jesus. Islam prays that let us obey Allah and attain peace. One might wonder that why there is a great threatening to this globe in the name of religion, in spite of all these declarations. The answer is hidden in the missing link between philosophy, culture and religion.