Are Hindus pessimistic?

 

 “As men learned more about the world they found themselves ever less capable of expressing to their educated fellowmen what it was that they had learned. The gap between life and knowledge grew wider and wider’ those who governed could not understand, those who thought and those who wanted to know could not understand them, those who knew” realized Will Durant in the preface of the Story of Philosophy.

The topic is borrowed from Max Muller who was the first to work on the concept of pessimism in Hindus. Max Muller in Six system of Indian philosophy found that, “All Indian philosophies have been charged with pessimism and in some case such a charge may seem well founded, but not all.” He again added further,

“Indian philosophers are by no means dwelling for ever on the miseries of life. They are not always whining and protesting that life is not worth living.”

Certainly, taking that world as unreal and only liberation is real, means that philosophy is indicating the path of perfect liberation from everything in this world because the world is full of sufferings and therefore Hindu philosophies searched the path of liberation from this life. Sometimes, it seems that Hindu philosophies is escaping the reality and have no courage to face the world. It is like, ignoring the realities of world just because there are pain, sorrow, hunger, illness, heartache and later death. The Buddha, after attaining the Nirvana stated the first sentence, “this world is full of suffering.’ Though, then he stated that there is a cause of suffering and then, there is a cessation of suffering. But the message that went out scored pessimism in the side of Hindus. And Hindus left living the life tensioning that the end is death and therefore when the end is confirmed than there is no use of temporary pleasure.

The Hindu philosophies sometimes looked that they are crying loudly about the suffering and escaping from these suffering and literally every school of Hindu thoughts prescribed that liberation is the final goal for human beings. Samkhya went more ahead and then announced, ‘Death is the ultimate liberation’.

 Muller again observed, “But this is not the disposition which we are accustomed to call pessimism. Indian philosophy contains no outcry against divine injustice, and in no way encourages suicidal expedients.”

When Hindu philosophy made it clear that this world is full of suffering and this suffering can only be removed by the right knowledge, they proceed ahead to live a perfect life in accordance to the knowledge. Because Hindu thinkers made it clear that no one can escape from this suffering, if they try to do, then they face it again in the next birth. As per Hindu philosophy, the sufferer is the self and not the body. The suffering which is talked at large is of soul and least of body, “The characteristic of Indian is that it has paid greater attention to the inner world of more than the outer world,” concludes Radhakrishan.

But when the soul is untouched by the world and dwells only as the observer and is not a part of body and only a pure consciousness then how the soul suffer and not body. The pure soul is not affected by the changes or modification of universe then how the material affects the non-material which is pure consciousness. Hindu philosophies replied, that because of the wrong knowledge, the soul, which is pure and consciousness and only an observer and because of the wrong or false knowledge, start taking itself as a part of body and therefore suffers. The body is not conscious; it is material and therefore the suffering, pain, expectation, jealousy, desires are all modification in the soul which attached with the body which is material.

Only the right knowledge liberates the soul from sufferings, when it comes to know that soul is not the part of this world. Certainly, philosophies is the need of every time because to introspect why suffering exist. Interestingly, when some of the philosophies maintained that the world in not real then why the suffering exists in this world which is not real. The problem is faced by almost every school of philosophy and later they clarified that either this is because the soul seems to come in contact to the material (Prakarti) of it is an illusion while taking the world of Maya as real. Some scholars tried to describe the other part of such problems as spirituality and this part has been taken as utter important issue by the schools, “It follow, therefore that ancient Indian materialism cannot looked at as a philosophical thought, enjoying as it were, an existence-in-itself in the ideological sphere, the question of our ancient materialism is in extra orderly mixed up with the history of our people.” Lokayata page 04.

But the charges that Hindu philosophies took the world as totally unreal are wrong because Upnisads worked hard on the reality of life but they emphasise that suffering surfaced because of wrong knowledge and wrong calculation. Even the Arthashastra of Kautalya showed that there were administration and social and religious principles to provide proper fabric of civilization. Even there are sciences and systems of astronomy in Rita of Rig Veda and also system of management the first system of natural management is described beautifully with symbolism of Devatas as gods.

There are hundreds and hundreds of examples that prove that Hindu thinkers worked hard to make lives beautiful and also manage the system of society which prevailed for hundreds of years. But why the Hindu philosophies were coined as pessimistic at large, “It results because we had neglected the materialistic aspect of Indian thought and therefore we took only the existing world as unreal” said in Lokyata.

Scholars of Materialism tried hard that Hindu lives in past were not totally spiritual but they took the world as real and theoretically they maintain spiritualism and practice materialism. Hindu philosophies had diversity of knowledge and concepts and also perceptivity living but now the Hindu race with the spiritual treasurer in hands is looking like begging for a system of living from others. It looks that Hindus knows the importance and worth of their wisdom but not caring to realize the actuality. And it seems that this race is overall satisfied or has adopted the way of satisfaction that they had done lot and everything and let made no further step ahead with reasoning and logic to philosophize life but to adopt the neo- Hinduism with faith in heart and mind and greed in eyes. Mills in Utilitarian said, “It is better to be dissatisfied man than a pig satisfied, better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied and if the fool and the pig is of a different opinion, it is because they have only their side of question. The other party to the comparison knows both the sides.”