The food we have, and the food we need

By M Maroof Shah

Published: Fri, 08 March 2013 11:08 PM

Sometimes questions are raised regarding our attitude to mutton consumption and there are advice's for revisiting it. I don’t doubt that on occasions and in certain elite families mutton consumption may be excessive but we need to note that we can’t be a vegetarian society. To properly understand modern Kashmir’s obsession for mutton – the need of mutton as a protein source in the normal diet of all Kashmiris we may have a brief look at the figures provided by science.

Not only do we consume far less than required when we speak in general terms for the whole population, but we are also deprived of quality meat due to absence of slaughter houses and non-availability of quality meat that goes for, export to big hotels. If it were not for Eids, prayer food culture and festivals Kashmir's would, generally speaking, qualify as very poor consumers.

Middle classes eat mutton mostly on different functions, festivals and marriages or when guests come visiting. The BPL people can enjoy it only very occasionally. Thus we can safely say that ours is not a meat sufficient state in terms of consumption. There is over -consumption on marriage and festival days and generally under-consumption on routine days. Guests are overfed and hosts underfed.  

We need to educate people regarding quality or balanced nutrition that include animal source protein, and in our conditions it is mutton. We need more reasons than we currently have for assembling together and sharing a meal based on meat dishes.

Although requirement of protein can be met from vegetarian or non-meat sources, but according to well-recognized recommendations the value of meat is still indisputable. However, we need not forget that there have been healthy vegetarian communities throughout history.

There should be an informed debate on the question of how far can and should poultry replace sheep? Should there be policies for regulating our long-term consumption? We need to discuss short and long term environmental and economic costs of sheep versus poultry rearing

Meat may not be declared an essential part of the diet but without animal products it is argued that it is “necessary to have some reasonable knowledge of nutrition in order to select an adequate diet. Even small quantities of animal products supplement and complement a diet based on plant foods so that it is nutritionally adequate, whether or not there is informed selection of foods.”

However, biological argument should not be used to decide the matter in our conditions. Here meat is an inseparable part of our culture. It is not dispensable.

As per standard scientific recommendations we require one gram of protein per kilogram of body weight daily of which half should ideally come from animal sources.
Human requirements for protein have been estimated by FAD/WHO to be 55 grams per day for adult man and 45 for a woman. The requirement is higher in various states of disease and conditions of stress. As milk and eggs are recommended to be part of our diet, and they supply at recommended rates less than half of daily requirement, the rest has to come from meat, both red and white, for non-vegetarians.

Keeping consideration of meat bone ratio in mutton available in the market we see that a meat piece is needed to be taken daily. Calculating our requirement for a population of one crore (assuming the rest to be pure vegetarian), we need 20 crore kgs. Thus we need more meat than is available and whatsoever is available is quite asymmetrically distributed as much of the available meat goes to the urban elite. In fact, in India the per capita availability of animal protein is 10 grams only against the need of around 25.

There should be an informed debate on the question of how far can and should poultry replace sheep? Should there be policies for regulating our long-term consumption? We need to discuss short and long term environmental and economic costs of sheep versus poultry rearing.

So far no serious studies from the environment point of view on our carrying capacity, on the scope of horizontal increase in sheep population, on relative costs of raising other food animals or vegetables, precise trade off between forest conservation efforts and sheep raising have been undertaken in our state. The pitched battles against sheep farming on supposedly environmental grounds between forest authorities, who go on fencing and walling off so much land without considering the possibility that controlled grazing augments need to be first scrutinize, and quality journals should publish the studies and then only could they be taken seriously.

Currently sheep farming is under stress from forest authorities in many places and if you deprive sheep of pastures or routes connecting to pastures you are asking people to disinvest. There needs to be better coordination between different departments on this issue and in fact a board which should oversee all decisions that deprive farmers of grazing land. A good number of jobs are at stake. There are standing Supreme Court orders whose spirit dictates that grazing rights shall not be infringed up on this or that ground.

Betraying our history of eco-care

 M Maroof Shah

Published: Fri, 08 February 2013 09:54 PM http://kashmirreader.com/02082013-ND-betraying-our-history-of-eco-care-11348.aspx

Once upon a time we were people, a community. Today we are individuals. Once we were not wasting a grain. Today not wasting food means that you are not a good consumer. Once we ate meat occasionally but were healthy as were our subalpine pastures. Today, we are great consumers of protein and calories but are not healthy. Once almost everything used in construction industry was obtained from local materials, waste products or byproducts. Today we are replacing almost every local material with imported one. Once we used to employ local committees to manage most of our local resources, and today we are competing with one another in destroying them.
Once it was unacceptable to more conscious Pir families to buy land. Today they have amassed huge land property. Once we didn’t keep repeating an posh’ teli yeli wan posh’ but preserved forests, and today we outcompete fast developing economies in deforestation drives. Once most medicines were locally available and local hakeems effectively catered to most requirements. Today we have the largest number of medical shops amongst all Indian states, thousands of local registered drug companies and health has become a casualty in the process.
Once we had great water bodies and our wetlands were known to birds from Siberia and today they are shrinking and shrinking fast. Once we grew food and today we grow money, and lose our soul in the process. Once environment counted as a sacred entity, and today it is only taught as a subject in academic institutions. The lessons on environmentalism were once in our hearts and today they are only remembered for the sake of passing in examinations. So, we have become a sad story of degeneration. Let us review our sins regarding environment.

The land of Nuruddin is so deeply respectful of every blade of grass, not to speak of forests that we could see Kashmir as a sanctuary.  The Reshi’s aversion to causing injury to all animate beings including plants, insects and animals, their concern for conserving forests, dissuading hunters from hunting hangul, personal care of tamed animals and birds is unfortunately well-forgotten now

Our sins begin with our embracing the model of development and rejecting the community approach that we had inherited from our forefathers. Sometimes we have not developed either and destroyed environment for peanuts. We have polluted water, dried up springs, affected the water table, encroached upon water bodies and irresponsibly played with ecology of fish and other creatures of water.
Springs in every village were divine gifts and if they dried up local saints were called to revive them. We have degraded our land at most places, thanks to our embracing modern concept of development and modernization of agriculture. Pastures are disappearing. Forests are being used for construction industry, for roads.
We need to remind ourselves that once upon a time we were concerned about the environment, at a time when people had not heard about environmental crisis. The warm earthly religion of mysticism has been always characteristically eco-coconscious. In fact, the Reshi movement in Kashmir has successfully implemented its ecological vision. There could be no such things as environmental crisis in the Kashmir of the Rishis.
The land of Nuruddin is so deeply respectful of every blade of grass, not to speak of forests that we could see Kashmir as a sanctuary.  The Reshi’s aversion to causing injury to all animate beings including plants, insects and animals, their concern for conserving forests, dissuading hunters from hunting hangul, personal care of pets, tamed animals and birds is well-known and unfortunately well-forgotten now.
As our patron saint of ecology, or St. Francis of Kashmir, Nuruddin’s Reshi-thought and practice involved such things as vegetarianism, asceticism, planting trees, creating springs, adoring nature, non-violence to all animate things, belief in the divinity of man and sacred character of life, glorification of faqr, economy of sharing, sulhi-kul, attainment of peace within and without, altruism and transcendence of ego principle.
Today we are suffering from environmental crisis caused due to the worldview characterized by violence, both metaphysical and political, and by spiritual aridity, ethical relativism, alienation and loss of centre. Eco-conscious, earthly, “matriarchal”, socially relevant and pragmatic philosophy of Reshiyyat could be advocated as a remedy of so many ills that affect not only Kashmir but also the whole world.
We have heard enough of abstract theoretical discourses, sentimental sermonizing, and lamentation sessions on the problem of eco-degradation. We have seen that these don’t make a significant difference. We need concrete proposals and legislations and measures to see implementation of these legislations. Action, concrete and revolutionary action is what is needed today.
Let us question our development planning from the perspective of the Sheikh. But can we afford it or do it? Or we will be content with some hollow seminars and broadcasts or telecasts about Sheikhul A’lam?

Sovereignty of Kashmir

Some Provocative Suggestions

Searching the missing links in the narrative of sovereignty of Kashmiris

WORD'S WISDOM

MUHAMMAD MAROOF SHAH

Kashmir: Tragedy and Triumph,  the book under review, is an informed and scholarly attempt to wrestle with the confusion we find today all around in every field from education to politics. The author comes up with some brilliant pieces of analyses and provocative suggestions. Aghast at the sight of a lost new generation hooked to virtual reality of cyberspace, his people’s “tel, bel, tchel and puz, apuz carriage and nalam, halam te kalam baggage” “missing Baba Demb, dying Dal and weedy Nigeen; hammered Kral Sanger; forlorn Brane; despondent Ishbur and downhearted Harwun” and similar tragedies the author does history with a hammer exposing “jobbing historians” and other “collaborators.” He argues some-provocative-suggestions-for historicizing them and attempts to search for missing links in the narrative of sovereignty of Kashmiris. 

The book opens with a poetically composed prayer that shows that the author belongs to the brand of what Sartre called committed writers. Dr Ahad persuades us to revisit received myths and stock judgments about Kashmir and seeks to give voice to the so far largely dumb common Kashmiri. He diagnoses the contemporary malaise putting finger at lack of quality leadership, collaborators and neocolonialism, invokes great leaders from history all the way from Nil Naga, the founder of Jhelum Valley civilization, pleads for vibrant civil society and organic intellectuals while largely accusing the current lot for failure and ends with a big question mark regarding the possibility of fighting the status quo. Dr Ahad argues for a host of theses that need to be debated as they would question the dominant discourse on empirical grounds.

• Instrument of Accession is fabricated. Indian and NC or PDP position on Kashmir that takes it as historical thus is based on a huge lie.

• The idea of Kashmiryat has been an ideological weapon and is not for Kashmiris.

• Nationalist jingoism sells such slogans as “Indianness” that have nothing to do with the destiny or aspirations of aam aadmi.

• Most of Kashmiri leaders are neem hakeems or politically naïve. This would call for need of educating them in history and political theory.

• Educational authorities by not teaching history in schools are guilty of perpetuating lies and mutilating the soul of new generation of Kashmiris.

• “Kashmir ‘leaders’ are thriving on the agonies bequeathed to the masses by the partition for which both Nehru and Jinnah were responsible.”

• There are a few if any intellectuals around who, unlike intelligentsia, think beyond “their self, family and relations.”

• “There is no famine of so called ‘professors’, ‘philosophers’ and ‘historians’ to come to the fore to counter the rising Kashmiri consciousness with their “novel” ideas and “intellectual prowess”. Owing to their “contributions” they have risen to the position of Councilors of Legislature, Parliamentarians of Indian Parliament.”

• “It is sheer oddity to divide Kashmir in Buddhist Kashmir, Hindu Kashmir and Muslim Kashmir. It is historically, conceptually and terminologically wrong to term any era of history of any country by the religious beliefs of its ruler.”

The author takes strong positions (inviting strong reactions or responses according to the measure one is hit) that “jobbing historians” are not used to take on a number of issues like long history of our resistance, Kashmiri character (it may be useful for anyone trying to understand Kashmir character as it has eluded leaders and intellectuals alike) medieval Kashmir economy (he notes, for instance, that “Due to historical limitations Kashmir could not provide the missionaries, from Central Asia, the amenities and benefits of city life. This could be done mainly by introducing  Karkahnas they were thoroughly acquainted with and in them they could have been easily employed as they were well trained in various arts and crafts”),  leadership that is more led than leads, sins of bureaucrats etc.  

There are many eloquent, forceful and provocative passages that would invite debate and serve to introduce the best of Dr Ahad. I reproduce only two:

Books on Kashmir, generally speaking, lack credibility and suffer from serious trust deficit owing to their being completely drenched in subjectivism and mendacity. Their treatment of the subject matter is so loopy, nasty and deceptive that it plagues the reader’s mind with prejudice and chauvinism; estranging him socially from communities not subscribing to his race, faith and ideology. These books are compiled and brought to light by authors with erratic, dubious, sycophantic, opportunistic bent of mind and religious, doctrinaire attitude.

About our leaders:

But they are proficient enough in hiding their ignorance behind the facade of “Azadi” which together with their “pro-Kashmir” stance and other related postulates and religious fanaticism have endeared them to the politically naive and religiously sentimental public and trapped Kashmir’s historical ethos in the darkness of intolerance and bigotry from where its resurrection and resurgence is unlikely. The paucity of imaginative leaders with historical perspective is, therefore, a crippling malady that has struck Kashmir perennially.

At times the passages are too long for lucidity and rhetorical imagination seems to intrude in otherwise disciplined, hard headed analysis by the author. The class question and delineating the precise role of neo-colonialism needs more attention in his future works. The author occasionally gets passionate about certain perspective and condemns rather too harshly. Although quite conscious of historian’s mandate as consisting essentially in describing or analyzing to help understanding rather than judging history the strong moralist in him leads him to take the role of a critic than an academic historian and accordingly compromise strict objectivity of approach. On the whole the book is a resounding success in its central objective of passionate search for our lost history and inculcating sense of history in us and our leaders by putting Kashmir’s tragedies in perspective for paving way for its triumphs for which he is hopeful. The book is a good contribution to the studies of folklore and some other aspects of our culture as well. Socio-anthropological insights abound in the book making its scope quite wider than simply a gripping history of tragedies.

The book is not only readable but very provocative – it rightly accuses all of us – and invites a response to the million dollar question with which he concludes the book and I conclude this brief impression of the book. “Would the political Nautankies, Seyasi Duchesses, Fasid Vejbiharis, Chogli-beigs, Self-rule Sodagars, Autonomy Kothdars, Pakistani Farhads and Hindustani Majnoons, who thrive on status quo, let the fragrance of change waft through the vales and dales of Kashmir to make sure the ensconcing of the masses as happy, self-confident, self-respecting Kashmiris?”  

Book Of Ethics

http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Jan/3/mir-s-shortest-book-on-ethics-72.asp

Mir’s Shortest Book on Ethics

Today I talk about a great book that has the distinction of being the smallest book available on web on the subject

WORD'S WISDOM

MUHAMMAD MAROOF SHAH

The Prophet of Islam (SAW) expressed the ethical prerogative of his mission in his famous utterance that “I have come to perfect ethics.” There is too much debate about religion or theology but little focus on what constitutes the basic prerequisite for a truly religious life: Ethics. Shari’ah is fundamentally ethics. Even rituals or pillar of Islam are ultimately directed for self transformation. We may never resolve theological quarrels but we can resolve to come forward on the common minimum programme of the Quran that emphasizes Iman in God and the Last Day or iman and aml-i-salih. The Last Day implies faith in the permanent significance of our actions or accountability. Sufism is, according to one definition, perfection of morals. In fact our earliest Sufis had little time for speculations on wujudi or shuhudi tawhid but simply emphasized sincerity of action or perfection of our ethical self. Ethics unites traditions and in fact the Quran has proposed this as the criterion for grading people when it singles out God-fearing (taqwa) for judging people. How is God fearing shown? By action and action only. Imagine if our debating factions debate how ethical they are in their individual or social lives, how many beggars are in the vicinity of areas dominated by them, how many marriages are funded by them, how many community guest houses or hospitals they have built. Islam has characteristically emphasized correct action (orthopraxy) rather than correct opinions. Today I talk about a great book that has the distinction of being the smallest book available on web only on the subject. And the book is by a Kashmiri scholar who is not well known in academic circles here but has the distinction of being one of the most gifted scientist-thinkers of the State. True to his lofty ethical philosophy he has not cared for fame and name although he deserves it by virtue of his acclaimed contribution in as diverse fields as veterinary pharmacology and mathematics. Given more conducive atmosphere he could have been a great mathematician and philosopher. As a self taught mathematician and philosopher he has, with his own limited resources, managed to admirably work on binomial theorem and other mathematical problems and evolved some very interesting philosophical theses. It is our misfortune that we have no institutional spaces for harnessing such a great talent which is available in plenty in Kashmir but fails to bloom for want of space or patronage. I present here, in his own words, the crux of world ethical systems including that of the Islamic tradition. We can only marvel at the comprehensiveness of its scope and the elegance and brevity of its formulations. They are not original as there can be no originality in metaphysics and ethics informed by it but nevertheless encapsulate in an original way the key ethical principles of not only religious traditions but great traditional philosophers and some modern thinkers. His choice of language may have slightly reduced its scope but not if appropriately transposed in transtheological language. This is the first “book” on ethics by any Kashmiri scholar.
Saint Augustine was asked to recite the whole scripture in one go standing on one foot only. He raised the foot and said that love and charity constitute the whole of scripture. Our author has similarly stated the ethics of world traditions and philosophies in 12 propositions. One can only think of a qualifying clause here or there or more nuanced use of terms with definitions of them and few clarifications. However, the shortest book could afford to dispense with them perhaps. We may derive a few principles from others and further shorten it but we can’t contradict anyone.
Stating his premise that “We must begin our actions in the name of Almighty Allah” he straightaway lists 12 moral codes.
 Adhere firmly to the principles of justice.
 Honesty is the best policy.
 Be truthful, avoiding injury and harm to innocent.
 Do not do to others what you do not wish others to do to you.
 Do not encourage wrong-doers in their actions. Do all you can to curtail their injurious actions.
 Do not transgress limits set by Allah.
 Be good to yourself. This implies nurturing and improving positive energies and impulses, and curbing and disciplining negative energies and impulses.
 Do not wish good for those whose existence is harmful and/or injurious to those of others.
 Do not disturb the balance and harmony in Nature nor contribute towards those disturbances.
 Do all that you can to contribute towards the preservation and improvement of harmony in Nature, and its embodiments.
 Observe your lawful obligations and duty with sincerity, zeal and devotion utilizing the best of your capacity.
 Do improve your knowledge, wisdom and skills to render the best of possible actions.
And finally “Always end your work while offering a lots of thanks to the Almighty for whatever trivial or great has he bestowed upon His creations and existences.”
Countless volumes have been written on ethics. All great philosophers, saints and sacred scriptures have expounded on ethics. But Mir’s shortest book has succeeded in summing them up. Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Buddha, Moses, Christ and Muslim thinkers are all here appropriated in these deceptively simple maxims that will take a life time to contemplate and practice. Wittgenstein has also stated his ethics in few propositions. Whenever in doubt we can hang by the golden rule of which others are explications. The whole of ethics consists in acting for self-transcendence, acting so that God acts through us. Let us examine these 12 principles and add anything if one can. I find them not only comprehensive but quite pragmatic in a world where ethics seems to be the last and least consideration.
I hope Prof. Shabir attempts a sort of Spinozoistic treatment of these maxims and engages with very complex questions (we don’t even bother to inquire into them) like ethicality of sending our children to private schools  and thus further weakling public sector institution of education or implicating class division or being part of the system that encourages privatization of healthcare by opting for treatment in private hospitals or being part of the State that is wedded to the interests of the Capital.
(The book by Prof Shabir Ahmed Mir is available at www.4shared.com)

Remember the 12 pointsØ Adhere firmly to the principles of justice.
Ø Honesty is the best policy.
Ø Be truthful, avoiding injury and harm to innocent.
Ø Do not do to others what you do not wish others to do to you.
Ø Do not encourage wrong-doers in their actions. Do all you can to curtail their injurious actions.
Ø Do not transgress limits set by Allah.
Ø Be good to yourself. This implies nurturing and improving positive energies and impulses, and curbing and disciplining negative energies and impulses.
Ø Do not wish good for those whose existence is harmful and/or injurious to those of others.
Ø Do not disturb the balance and harmony in Nature nor contribute towards those disturbances.
Ø Do all that you can to contribute towards the preservation and improvement of harmony in Nature, and its embodiments.
Ø Observe your lawful obligations and duty with sincerity, zeal and devotion utilizing the best of your capacity.
Ø Do improve your knowledge, wisdom and skills to render the best of possible actions.

Agha Shahid's Veiled Suite

Shahid's Veiled Suite

Agha Shahid Ali and our Literary Tradition

WORD'S WISDOM

M MAROOF SHAH

Agha Shahid Ali is one of the greatest and most famous names internationally in recent history of Kashmir.. Veiled Suite: The Collected Poems presents his poetry in one volume. Most Kashmiris, even those who have been students of English literature, find it very difficult to understand. Except a few poems and occasionally a few verses here and there Agha Shahid sounds Greek to people here. The difficulty of comprehending him extends to his sensibility. He belongs to a different epistemic and cognitive universe but he does share our pain and has been our ambassador in a way. It is through him that the pain of Kashmiris became better known to the world.  However it is sad to note that he is not so well known here. Very few Kashmiris have read him and fewer have understood him. Even his illustrious father acknowledges that he doesn’t understand his poetry. He was indeed a difficult poet, not unlike most modernist poets. There are reasons for this. I wish to talk today regarding these reasons and attempt to situate him in a proper historical and literary context. 

One is the extremely complex modern landcape where nothing is certain except the consciousness of pain and nothing clear except the lack of grand convictions and faith in Absolutes. He inherited grim and alienated modern sensibility and this became reflected in his art. He was a passionate lover of music and celebrated relationships but nothing could reconcile him to the tragic or farcical reality, both metaphysical and socio-political. He responded to mostly modern problems that modern secular worldview engendered. It may be difficult to communicate much of this problematique to Kashmiris although his poems on conflict are not difficult to decode for them. I wish to put record straight regarding the difference between American and Kashmiri sensibilities and literary traditions so that we don’t confound the two.

Kashmir didn’t become modern, not to speak of becoming postmodern although it has not escaped their influence. It continues to live in a different time and space. Its soul continues to be traditional. Its most valued writers have been/are mystically oriented.  

Our tradition is Sufi-mystical and our literary tradition and criterion can’t be anything opposed to it. It is from the Sufi metaphysical or more precisely perennialist metaphysical perspective that we need to approach literature produced by Kashmiris. We have criticism written in Marxian, modernist and even postmodernist vein but not in the perennialist vein. Although we have yet to engage with certain key issues in criticism, especially, the philosophical issues connected with it, we have been callously disregarding especially our own literary tradition which is metaphysico-mystical in orientation and inspiration. Our criticism is yet to appraise our own literary heritage in a comprehensive manner.  

Kashmir like other traditional cultures has been wedded to a metaphysico-mystical outlook that has informd its literature and criticism from ages. It is transcendence centric poetic vision. The aesthetic and the religious/mystical are united at root and converge to a large extent. Kashmir aesthetic tradition has particularly emphasized salvific function of art. Here Shiva is sundarum and contemplating beauty is a quintessential mode of prayer. The poet is a sort of sage. Poetry is a species of sacred activity akin to prayer. Poetry achieves something similar to what religion achieves. Our greatest poets have been mystics and even in the twentieth century the most beautiful poetry that has mass appeal is also mystical poetry sung by people at urs and regular functions associated with pirs. 

Agha Shahid was not a Sufi but couldn’t escape its influence. There is also the fact that all men are willy nilly travellers on the path and consciously or unconsciously seek only God. Shahid too loved certain images that reflect God. His celebration of love and devotion to music are expressions of this faith.

I now quote or comment on only his one important poem to illustrate some of the points I made above. 

“Thus I swear, here and now, not to forgive the universe/without you./She, she alone, was the universe/as she earned, like a galaxy, her right not to die, defying the Merciful of the Universe. (Linnoux Hill). “If only I could gather you in my arms, Mother,/I would save you now my daughter---from God” (Linnoux Hill). 

While this poem remains one of the best ever written by any modern poet and a tribute to Shahid’s greatness I think it allows us to better understand him and his problem of finding substitutes to faith. Compare it with Iqbal’s poem about her mother and we can note the difference in sensibility and orientation. Without God/transcendence life can’t be really meaningful and that partly account for Shahid’s tragic tone.

Why is mother so important for Shahid? Let me straightway claim that it is one of the channels into which one’s love for God, the Ground of being – our ultimate concern – is directed. The mother becomes more important than God or universe. She, in a way, becomes an image of God that all men are condemned – or rather privileged – to worship in the heart of hearts.  She becomes the universe of meanings that the poet may have earlier sought in the God of religion. He imagines her to be immortal. The poet’s rejection of the God of religion as hinted here is a product of certain imagined constructions that are really an invention of certain extotric theology or dualistic philosophy. He imagines God to be the God of death and suffering and further imagines him to be a being among other beings, a person who can be defied. This is typical modern prejudice and misreading of religion. God, in the Unitarian Sufi metaphysical framework, is the Mercy of the Universe, not a person who can be simplistically characterized as Merciful in the sense we ordinarily construe the term in human discourse. He is not an agent who capriciously wills this thing or that thing such as death. We can’t escape the Infinite as we are already in It. So how can one save anyone from God? God, as the Quran puts it, constitutes our Environment (al-Muheet) and is Irresistible. There is no way to escape him as Blake said. He is our deepest subjectivity and the red in the roses and smile of the flowers. Because the poet takes a dualistic theological instead of a Unitarian metaphysical view of God he finds the universe unforgivable and seeks to save someone from God or sees God helplessly watching someone’s suffering or death. His entries of griefs in the ledger of the universe shows his desolate heart that has not experienced the Universe as Ananda. This is a bitter fruit of modern education and modern world from which God has been exiled. Our talented poets are alienated from their tradition. Our academies have little understanding of the loss this entails. What can be done for better understanding of tradition is what we need to seriously explore.

Meister Eckhart: How Christian Mysticism Appropriates Absurdist Challenge

Rajbag Colony, Nagbal, Ganderbal, Kashmir,191201

marooof123@yahoo.com

9796179405

  Abstract

Modern nihilism, pessimism, absurdism and various responses to the problem of finding meaning and values after the death of God may be better understood and appreciated and critically negotiated by comparing them with the theses of perennial philosophy. Eckhart, a spokesperson of Sophia perennis, presents the version of religion that appropriates absurdists challenge in a novel manner. His metaphysical/mystical reading of Christianity is largely immune to existentialist-absurdist critiques as he doesn’t invoke problematic conceptions of divinity, hope, consolation and soul or self and he upholds the thesis of essential nondifference between man and God by virtue of uncreated Spirit.http://iranianstudies.org/category/research-and-publication/publications/

Marxism and Mysticism: A Plea for a Dialogue

Marxism and Mysticism: A Plea for a Dialogue

Muhammad Maroof Shah

It is asserted by some Marxist critics of religion that Marxism and Mysticism should not be compared. Mysticism is ahistorical and it is concerned only with the individual salvation and it ignores injustice and oppression in the world. All these assertions don’t bear close scrutiny. To have a historical sense implies to be concerned with the present reality, to be concerned with transforming it, to be aware of material or temporal factors affecting our present reality. Mysticism has deep historical sense in all these senses. Prophets have originated civilizations and mystics have embellished it, beautified it, developed it. All great thinkers, with few exceptions, in all traditional civilizations have been either mystics or influenced significantly by mysticism. Most of great revolutionaries in history have mystical training or orientation. Great traditional art and architecture has been moulded by mystical impulse. Great literature in traditional civilizations is essentially mystical. Hardly any great epic is not mystical. Great literature, even great tragedy, can’t be written except under the inspiration of mysticism. Nothing in traditional civilizations makes sense except in light of tradition to the making of which religion/mysticism fundamentally contribute. It is religion/mysticism which until the rise of Marxism made people aware of injustice and exploitation at the earthly plane. Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad were all critics of the establishment and spoke for the oppressed. Without resort to violence religious impulse has been able to feed countless people, to arrange their shelter and even work towards the freedom of the slaves. Islam has prohibited begging because its economy ensures that no one needs to beg. Even today most donors give in the name of God. It is another matter how the wealth to be donated has been acquired. 

Sources of Marxism are mystical and its ends ape the end of mysticism. Hegel is an idealist and mystical philosopher. The prophetic revolutionary spirit of Marxism is an appropriation of Judaic inheritance. It is parasitic on mysticism for its appeal to the oppressed and it has won converts in the name of mysticism.

If Marxism wishes to be a humanism it must appropriate mysticism positively. Humanism affirms the value of man, his dignity and freedom. It speaks in the name of the values that Plato identified with God– though impoverishing all of them by severing ties with transcendence. Mysticism gives Marxism warmth and human touch otherwise it has no room, in its materialism and economic determinism, for anything that can accommodate love, compassion, goodness, beauty, justice, truth and nobility. The Darwinian-Hobessian-Nietzschean-Freudian worldview that is compatible with Marxism but not mysticism and that has been so influential in the modern world has little room for anything that makes life truly human as all truly human values are realizable only by love which is transcendence of the individual, the ego on which the former worldview is erected.

Marxism is utopian in thinking that the evil in man can be finally overcome by ameliorating economic discrepancy. It is also wishful thinking on the part of Marxism that classless state will make all people happy and that man does not need anything else than satisfaction of his biological needs (though it recognizes psychological and spiritual needs and thinks thatr it amply provides for them). Man has psychological needs which can’t be fulfilled in any system that vetoes transcendence as the painful tone of modern literature shows. Nihilism is a huge problem for any worldview that seeks all answers on purely rational and human plane. Absurdism is unavoidable and one really defenceless against the argument of why not opt for suicide in all purely rational and human centred worldviews as Camus has argued (rather shown how arguments asserting the contrary are so unconvincing). Man has spiritual needs – the most important component of his needs – and for millennia these needs have been fulfilled by religions as channels of transcendence. Now either we have to deny that these needs are real or assert that we can provide substitutes for transcendence. Both the options have been tried and have failed. That man will be a casualty in any worldview that puts ends above the means, that believes its metaphysics to be not only true but exclusively so and bans other views, that asserts that mankind has been mostly, throughout history, cherishing illusions is not difficult to see. Marxism asserts that mankind’s great thinkers have been duped by ruling class, that prophets too have been naïve in important matters. It asserts that almost all the people all the time throughout history have been fools or badly mistaken regarding an important matter of life and that all the institutions that civilizations have maintained have been primarily forms of exploitation. It writes off history of civilization as an effect of brutal struggle for power. It is also disputable to it that art has anything to do with truth, truth of a higher kind. It says that art, religion, philosophy are wholly understandable with reference to material conditions of the time. It denies real creativity and freedom to think. Even self reflection is ultimately not possible as consciousness can’t really detach itself from its determining conditions. Mystics have not found anything worthwhile. Poets are basically dreamers. Scriptures are neither holy nor true nor beneficial. Perhaps they are better burnt to ashes. Countless monuments of art and architecture have been built not by visions but by alienated unhappy men. Now all these positions that follow from a materialist metaphysics and absolute determinism based on material forces of production (granting relative autonomy of superstructures doesn’t mean much as ultimate determining force of the base is not denied) are difficult to accept for anyone who wishes to account for countless facets of history of civilization and culture. Marxism provides invaluable insight into the structures of society. It makes us aware that we are being exploited and it rightly identifies the key culprit. But it unfortunately too is a product of history, conceived by fallible men. It is wedded to a metaphysics and set of ideas that have a stamp of human thinking and therefore questionable or fallible thinking. Marxism besides being a science in political economy is also a speculation which can go wild and an exercise of imagination that may know no bounds. On purely scientific terms it made many erroneous assertions as has been amply demonstrated. It attempted to conceive of science in strictly Marxist terms and made big mistakes. Its attempt at Marxization of whole knowledge is an enterprise that doesn’t fulfill, at many points, strictly scientific criteria. It puts ideology before truth as it declares all ideas as unscientific which don’t corroborate the doctrines of dialectical materialism. Some Marxist thinkers have already shown flexibility in modifying the received dogma, in reconstructing Marxism and opening it up to many contemporary thought currents. I think the time has come that Marxism revaluate its reading of religion and be prepared to have a dialogue with spiritual traditions of the world. Hitherto it has been throwing the baby of mysticism with the bathwater of what is ordinarily identified with religion. Marxism has had phenomenal success, at least at theoretical plane, because it presented itself as religion or alternative to religion. Religions degenerate and exclude necessarily. So does Marxism. (One important authority on religion has written a book on world religions discussing all of them under the same headings or concepts and includes Marxism also in his account.) Russell called Marxism the religion of the twentieth century. Marxism will never die because it has elements of permanent value. So will not religion. The rise of religion and proliferation of spiritual cults has proved all those critics wrong who were confidant that religion will die very soon. Marxists have misread religion on almost all important points. They have rightly noted that religion is vulnerable to be appropriated by the exploiter. Religion as understood by the greatest prophets and sages in all traditions is neither consolation, nor a system of ideas, nor an attempt at representation of our relationship to reality nor a talk about this world or the otherworld. It is not a picture of the world. It is not a metanarrative. It is not a perspective or a view that could possibly be refuted. It is too existential an affair to be discredited. Science can, in no way, show it exit. Religion is four noble truths (not ideas or views) that Buddha who had a better sense of empirical reality than even Hume or positivists. It is not an idea, a concept, a view. The four noble truths can be put in the following way

1                    There is suffering in the world. The suffering constituted by alienation, unfulfilled intention, bereavements, death, lack of knowledge, pain, misery etc. There is a malady of alienation, an alienation much deeper than that which separates a labourer from his work. The alienation of a labourer is an aspect of this alienation. Suffering is at the

2                    Desire is the root of it. Craving to see things from the viewpoint of a self or ego, to construct a world according to our heart’s liking, to wish for inexistent or impossible things, to wish objective reality bend in the one’s service, to dictate terms to reality, to laws of nature, to be spared encounter with the other that humbles oneself or demands sacrifice, to grab other’s wealth, a wish to be consoled or fulfilled or exalted or praised or  in other’s shoe, to possess this or that thing or object of love, to live long and to be spared encounter with death, with the other that seems to be hill, to wish to opt for suicide and so on.

3                    There is an end to suffering. If there is no end then all those ideologies which claim to redress the wrong and bring justice are false. Those who believe that philosophy must also change the world believe that the problem has a solution. There is an end to suffering.

4                    There is a way to end the suffering. Right view, right effort and right action are needed for that. All salvific schemes, this worldly and otherworldly prescribe paths to end the suffering. All religions prescribe essentially similar path. More precisely they don’t prescribe a path but describe a path which has resulted in ending suffering. One can try one’s own path but one may not reach the other end of the road. One is free to experiment at the cost of possibility of error.

For mysticism and many religions theology is dispensable. Metaphysics that reason constructs is dispensable. Theories about truth or reality are not necessarily relevant. Existential problems that knock too strongly to be ignored by anyone demand resolution or response and resolution. It is not the question of spiritual needs but pressing problems that we encounter all the time with which religion concerns itself. Religion is a human concern – nay the ultimate concern. Whatever constitutes our ultimate concern constitutes our religion. Sex, power, possessions, better foods are not our ultimate concerns. If they become they destroy us as they are self defeating.

Reductionism no longer works. Demythologization has exhausted itself and must squarely face the phenomenon called religion and the Mystery that eludes all conceptualization and rationalization. Science has learnt to be humbler and acknowledged that it misses much and can’t but miss it because of its methodology and limited concern. The question is don’t we need peace, contentment, equilibrium, harmony, beauty, knowledge. If Marxism can provide all these to everybody’s satisfaction and establish a State where individuals no longer have any appetite for intangible things, for transcendence all religions will find their fulfillment. If Marxism can’t provide, hasn’t provided and doesn’t promise to provide all these things to the superlative degree to which man demands and religions acknowledge it can’t substitute religion.

Religion is the most misunderstood thing in history. It is neither moralism nor a system of ideas or doctrines. It is neither otherworldly nor ascetic. It is neither ahistorical nor ignorant of social treality. It talks of man and not of the God of exoteric theology. It is no argument against religion that it has been misused and misappropriated. More people have been killed in the name of Marxism than in 50 years than in the history of religion in 1000years but that is no argument against Marx either.  Religion is not what religion does. Neither is Marxism what Marxism does or is done in its name. Religion has, in the deepest sense, nothing to do with doing. Lao Tzu puts it so well. Nonaction accomplishes all actions and is the hardest “action” as Taoism says. Modernity is all action and that is why much sound and fury. Religion in its esoteric view concerns with being rather than doing. Religion is quality and Marxism is all quantity. Marxism is collectivism and religion neither individualistic like Capitalism nor collectivist but supraindividual. History is ample witness that both individualism acollelectivism have been dangerous.

Religion answers a different problem than to which Marxism and collectivism could be extremely dangerous though Marxism thinks that it dissolves the problem which religion seeks to address. Man is a complex creature with a complex set of needs. Man doesn’t live by bread alone and surely not for bread. He earns bread for something else and it is to that something to which religion concerns itself. Marxism concerns with man’s social self while as the individual to the individual self. Marxism limits itself to the temporal and the contingent though it thinks that there is nothing that transcends them but religion has its eye on the eternal and even grants that people know better about the worldly matters and should resolve them by collective effort. The spirit in man transcends history but Marxism refuses to look beyond history and asserts that what is not manifested in history is for all purposes unreal.

We need not defend mysticism against Marxism or pit them against each other. They cater to different domains of life and if we subtract the purely speculative or doctrinal material from Marxism it nicely complements the mystical side of our life. Marx is a mystic, albeit a secular one and not fortunate enough to have been vouchsafed the vision that makes man love life and bless it and conquer all the hardships besides purely material ones. Without bitterness of heart or resentment. A mystic is pure compassion while as Marx stops at concern for the other only. Marx makes it possible to feed and clothe millions – if it were not for Marx capitalism would not have accepted such compromises as welfare state and state regulations to certain extent in certain matters. Marx compelled the world to increase wages and take other measures for the welfare of labourers. Most of us need to be thankful to Marx for challenging capitalism so forcefully that proletariat have won some part of the looted booty back. Marxism has made a great difference to the labourer even in noncommunist countries. History has few benefactors greater than Marx. But lest we forgot the contribution of mystics and prophets. Most sciences, arts, crafts and much poetry cultivated in traditional cultures owe their origin and even development to mystical impulse. Coomaraswamy’s account of history of art and Guenon’s account of history of sciences which attributes all that is great and noble and enduring to the discoveries of intellectual intuition can’t be dismissed even if one accepts much of Marxist explanation.

Why is religion perceived as enemy of a socialist or communist state? It is an opium. It lulls workers to sleep. It is thus antirevolutionary. It is complicit with capitalism. It too exploits in the name of God when it extracts wealth from gullible masses. It creates false substitutes like the goods of the otherworld so that people don’t take the problems of this world very seriously. It encourages detachment that conflicts with the spirit of active involvement needed for changing the order of the world. It reconciles people to present ills by attributing them to fate or karma. It says resist not evil and believes that change of heart in the capitalist will do the needful. It is false consciousness or inverted view of the world. It merely provides consolation and not real help. It is not against private property per se. Brief comments on all these points are in order.

First of all let it be made clear that we need to distinguish between religion and mysticism and it is the later which is here defended and it is also assumed (but not argued as that is a separate issue) that it represents the core of religion. We also need to distinguish between sentimental mysticism and intellectual mysticism. Guenon has remarked that there is no mysticism in the traditional East. Sentimentalism is modern phenomenon and associated with exoteric Christianity. Mysticism is based on Intellect as distinguished from reason and its discoveries are absolutely certain as there is no role of individual, his feelings and psychical processes in intellectual intuition. Ideally one shouldn’t talk of mysticism but of metaphysics – not the post-Aristotelian and Cartesian one but the one that concerns itself with the supraphenomenal but not the abstract by means of a supraindividual suprarational faculty called Nous or Intellect, is not speculation but experience and is as precise a science as mathematics with as concrete an applications as physics in all the domains of life from arts and crafts to sciences and cultural expressions. Schuon’s Survey of Esoterism and Metaphysics is a representative work and must be read before one comments on mysticism and metaphysics. The West has no metaphysics or incomplete metaphysics and modern thought has substituted pseudometaphysics for traditional metaphysics. It is rational metaphysics rather than intellectual counterpart that has been a subject of study and critique in western philosophy. In traditionalist perennialist revaluation of Western philosophy Kant hardly deserves the name of a philosopher and Descartes is an ignoramus arrogant man, Bergson a spokesperson of subrational rather than intellectual or suprarational intuition. Theology should be autology otherwise it is wide off the mark. Theism is far from the pure truth of metaphysics. The existence of personal God is hardly an issue. Buddha is the metaphysician. The Supreme Principle is not Being but something that transcends being or existence.

There are other differences between (exoteric) religion and mysticism Where religion posits a beyond or the otherworld mysticism focuses on the present moment. For it heaven and hell also are now or never. Where exoteric religion posits a God removed from life mysticism posits no God other than Life and ever changing and newer manifestations of Reality. Where religion divides mysticism unites, where religion kills people or kill in the name of it mysticism spreads smiles. Nietzsche fulminated against the instinct for the beyond even if he himself died a martyr seeking that beyond vainly. The beyond of which the religion talks mysticism brings here and now, in history. It is the whisperings of the Holy Ghost or Spirit that make all of us worshippers of beauty, truth, love and justice.

History refutes the assertion that religion lulls people to sleep. Perhaps all great revolutions in history could be traced to the influence of religion. Prophets have been, generally speaking, social rebels, politically dangerous and that is why mostly mocked if not executed. They have challenge the establishment and existing socio-political-economic set up while standing for the oppressed, the sinners, the masses. The same is the case with mystics. They have been persecuted by both the paid officials of exoteric religion and the State. They have denounced riches and in many cases taken arms against the State. They have preached if not fought against the haves, the ruling class.  Of course religion degenerates soon and as Stalin replaces Marx so a pope replaces Christ and Yazeed replaces Umer. Religion is hardly anywhere in sight today. In a generation only one or two live it in its true spirit as Simone Weil observed. In the degenerated populist form of Marxism Marx would not have counted as a Marxist as Christ is imprisoned rather than welcome when he arrives on earth in Dostoevsky’s novel. It is in the name of religion that people have dethroned many regimes. Jihad is an instrument to forcefully implement revolutionary spirit of religion. By definition it is directed against oppressors regardless of creed or colour or region. Any struggle carried for the sake of justice and freedom from oppression without any selfish motive can qualify as Jihad.

Religions have tolerated limited private property as Marxism has practically done though ideally both are against the possessive, hoarding, grabbing mentality. It is impossible to outlaw all personal possessions. Man has a distinct individuality or tastes and all men are not created with the same capacities and differ. Some must excel in one field and some in others. Psychologically people are not made to live in eternity but need to take serial time seriously. If genetics has a role and environment has a role in development of personality one can’t expect uniformitarianism. Given equal opportunities people will exert differently and differences will result. All labour is not equally productive or equally important for society. So wages will differ. Religion’s toleration of private property as that of Marxism is to be understood in light of these realities. Competition extracts the best from man. Industrial and scientific advancement of the erstwhile USSR are attributable to a great extent to its taking seriously the challenge from the capitalist world  and wishing to excel or compete against them. The world would be terribly dull and boring where man’s sense of individuality and nature’s love for diversity is loathed. There will be little progress if the instinct to excel is suppressed in the name of collectivism. Healthy progressive society is an organism rather than a collection of individuals mechanically and uniformly made one. The differences are important and without them no social life is possible. If thinkers like Marx and writers like Premchand and artists like Picasso were not provided freedom by society the world including the world of proletariat would be much poorer. Thinking too is a labour and mankind has made great progress because of thinking class. Workers would be condemned to more degrading drudgery and their work will look more suffocating if thinking class, artistic class and mystics were not there. Monks are not parasites but safeguard the health of society by demonstrating the treasures of solitude and other vitalizing powers of spirit. Those who reject the institution of monkery are advised to provide alternatives to it. What the life of contemplation means may be gleaned from reading Merton. Japan would look much poorer without its Zen monasteries. The highest joys are accessible in contemplative life. Marxists would resent closing of theatre and entertainment industry but they don’t recognize the intellectual pleasures which even Epicurus rated higher than merely somatic pleasures are available to humans in contemplative life institutionalized by religion in monasteries and that too without many side effects which other forms of entertainment and pleasure seeking may have. God is Anand and denying man this supreme pleasure is like castrating men and deny them the orgasmic joy. Those who have not tasted the pleasures of contemplation are impotent men according to mystics. But mystical ecstasies are hallucinations according to its critics. For mystics who have often been exceptionally smart intellectually the world of form and colour that ordinarily is taken to be real or the reality is made of the stuff of dreams. I think we shall agree that the blind are no judge of colours. Those who have not had mystical visions can’t condemn those who had them. Of course one can criticize the attitude that overemphasis on life of contemplation that may harm social life but that doesn’t mean one can outlaw mysticism. But Marxist states have been so hostile to all expressions of religion and mysticism. Those who have not seen God have not seen anything as one mystic has said. God is a percept rather than a concept. Those who have cleansed the doors of perception or who have escaped the conditioning of the ordinary modes of perception and opened wide the eye of the heart have seen or experienced God, tasted God. Mystics would pity their Marxist critics for their blindness. Marxists would pity them for their incurable defects of perception and imagination. Let us tolerate both and not outlaw mystical activities in the Marxist State.

Mysticism has actively struggled against the self that seeks private property. Mystics have been reported to sell everything for society even when society in turn made bno commitment to share its wealth with him. Jesus rejected private property as did his Russian disciple Tolstoy. Prophet’s companions shared everything with their brothers. Augustine identified charity as the essence of scripture. Buddhism prefers begging to hoarding.

Priestly class has often been complicit with exploiting ruling class. That is why prophets like Jesus denounced them. Both mystics and Marxists have common enemy to fight and Marxist mode of fighting is more effective.

Of course mystics have been pacifists and have not advocated violence in meeting enemies. Marxism is more effective in meeting an enemy which understands no language other than violence. But mysticism can act as a counterforce against indiscriminate use of violence. If Lenin and Stalin were mystics as well they would not have allowed so much violence to be unleashed. Mystics do well to make us remember that it is after all life which should count above everything. If politicians cared about purity of means as well the world would have been a different place. Violence achieves only short term results. The change of heart achieves great results. Ashoka’s change of heart meant much for many people. Marxism imagines only war but mysticism believes that peace too can be an option sometimes to achieve the result. Psychology tells us that violence breeds reaction and thus more violence. If the world can’t be converted in the name of love it can’t be ever peaceful. Peace can’t endure there. We must war against capitalism with full force but we must work for transformation of the culprit self that ultimately makes capitalist a capitalist. That people could be transformed on large scale and make the world a better place is evidenced in history. This is what the Prophet of Islam achieved though Marxist reading would see only immoral calculative business mentality everywhere even in the self denying martyrs and mystics and prophets.

Marxist critics have straight away dismissed what they call as Oriental indifference or detachment towards social concerns. But how can they explain that Krishna urges Arjuna to fight, Rama is a great warrior, karma yoga and hatha yoga have been Oriental inventions. The life of action is not incompatible with the life of detachment at spiritual plane. Witnessing consciousness or spirit is not involved in action but transcend action. But efficient self is the agent of action and efficient and appreciative selves, to use the terminology used by Iqbal, are one self really. The famous parable of two birds from the Upanisads and other traditions makes the point of two selves admirably well. Detachment in spirit is not incompatible with involvement of body and soul in the world of action. Salvation itself needs great effort or involvement. Nothing is unreal or unimportant for a struggling soul. Buddha is actively involved in making his vision realizable for others. His nirvana doesn’t make him uncritical regarding oppression of Brahmins etc. Some mystics have led active military life. Vivekananda, Aurobindo and many other great names in contemporary Indian mysticism were all action centric. Reform movements have been launched by mystics. Many active resistance movements in history have been spearheaded or masterminded by mystics.

The doctrine of fate has been gloriously misunderstood by Caudwell and other Marxist critics. Far from reconciling people to their present sorry state it presupposes freedom to transform one’s condition for the better. It is scientific statement of the law of action and reaction at moral plane. It is largely verifiable by recourse to insights of psychology. There is no permanent soul or personality named So and so that could reincarnate in Oriental religions. Lord is the only transmigrant as Shankara says according to orthodox belief. Animistic conception of rebirth is foreign to traditional religion. Nondualism clearly implies that there can be no real bondage to karma. It is all illusory when seen from the perspective of a liberated soul. Even if karma is understood in populist sense it can be read to goad one to action as it asserts importance of action, either good or bad.  Higher fatalism is there even in Nietzsche and Marxism in a way. The thing to affirm life despite perception of economic determinism and this is what Marxism preaches. Fate understood in metaphysical terms is the inward reach of a thing, a designation for latent or potential possibilities. It is realization of inner riches. It is unfolding of spirit in history in accordance with a law of its own development. Fatalism cannot be an excuse for sloth or indifference.  Consistent nondualism sees neither sin nor karma nor fate. It is extremely subtle position that mystical traditions maintain which even scholars trained in traditional thought may miss not to speak of Marxist critics who have prior assurance that  all doctrines are at the service of ruling class or capitalist or pious fraud or invented to console one’s felt impotence at the face of hostile reality. How casual one can be in understanding the other is illustrated in Marxist dismissal of religion. Marx was not so casual and so unsympathetic as his later followers.

Religion has no need to be apologetic about its key claims. It asserts them with absolute certitude and conviction. The Quran asserts that God is irresistible. None can resist him, not even an atheist Nietzsche or a Marx. God can’t possibly be doubted. God is manifest truth. The problem is that few people understand what stands for and why to be a skeptic is to be as fool. Either we have to state that the Bible and the Quran are stating a plain lie or attempt to understand what they mean by the term God. In simple terms God is the witnessing consciousness, the elusive thing inside us that asserts “I.” God is also synonymous with Reality/ Truth. The problem is that, as Coomaraswamy states:

Religion has been offered to modern men in nauseatingly sentimental terms (“Be good, sweet child,” etc.), and no longer as an intellectual challenge that so many have been revolted, thinking that that “is all there is to” religion. Such an emphasis on ethics (and, incidentally, forgetfulness that Christian doctrine has as much to do with art, i.e. manufacture, making, what and how, as it has to do with behavior) plays into the skeptic’s hands; for the desirability and convenience of the social virtues is such and so evident that it is felt that if that is all that religion means, why bring in a God to sanction forms of conduct of which no one denies the propriety? Why indeed? At the same time this excessive emphasis upon the moral, and neglect of the intellectual virtues (which last alone, in orthodox Christian teaching, are held to survive our dissolution) invite the retorts of the rationalists who maintain that religion has never been anything but a means of drugging the lower classes and keeping them quiet.

The cost of rejecting religion is too high to invite second thought from all those who care about mankind. Man is a religious animal. Modern anthropology is convinced of this though modernity has attempted various reductive interpretative maneuvers to explain away the undeniable. Man needs God more than he needs food. He can live for days without food but he can’t live a moment without having faith in life, in some meaning of it, in love. The moment one feels life is worse than death one despairs and that despair is hell. Consenting to live life and live it meaningfully, vibrantly, creatively is what faith signifies. Faith is not that you can dream of rejecting. Rejecting faith is rejecting life. There are degrees of this faith and an atheist and mystic differ only in degree. To man is not an option given to hide fully from God; he can imagine sometimes that he has hidden himself from the gaze of Reality but willy nilly he is summoned to face It.