Humanisation of Man and Beyond

With the exception of a microscopic minority, majority of men lead an animalistic life. We eat, sleep and procreate with the same gusto as animals do. It is as though we live only for enjoying the sensory pleasures of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. If we think about it, animals do it to the hilt. One can see in any lush and beautiful wild life sanctuary, the way the animals delight themselves in eye-catching surroundings. As for the pleasures of hearing, we know the cows were more instantly captivated by the music of Lord Krishna's flute than even the Gopis. For that matter, the snake charmer's music is irresistible to the snakes. The sense of smell of a dog is so excellent that man has started utilizing it even for crime detection. Going all out to satisfy its taste and indulgently licking the food is typical of an animal. We also have the old saw: "Even when famished by hunger, a tiger will not eat grass." Talking of the sense of touch and bodily pleasures, animals seem to exist solely for the purpose of carnal indulgence.

In what way are we men different? Superior mental equipment, resulting in acquiring the three R's-Reading, Writing and Arithmetic-are claimed as the distinguishing features of a man. But we can see that men of letters (as they are referred to with adulation) are also sensory pleasure oriented and notwithstanding their intellectual involvement, their animalistic passions and aggressive approach to life never get sublimated. In fact we know that some of the greatest men of intellect were extreme perverts.

This leads to the question of what it is that can make a man evolve from sub-humanistic animalistic levels to the level of human being? In such a man, the human qualities and human compassion have to become predominant over the baser instincts. For this purpose, the thinking faculty of a man has to get directed towards ennobling higher values in life. It is stated in the Gita that after many lives, a being acquires a human form. One must realise this blessing and not underutilise/misutilise the capacity of a human being.

Even if one acquires the aspiration to de-animalise oneself, he does not know how to go about it. It is like diagnosing a disease, but unable to proceed towards treatment of the disease. In such circumstances, the majority of people resort to reading of religious literature and listening to religious discourses. This is certainly helpful but has only temporary effect and only the symptoms of the disease rather than the disease get treated-for instance, it is like taking headache pills as a palliative for brain tumor.

The animalistic tendencies are an inheritance of his own past and thus are the cause of a certain pre-programming in his inner system. Unless a technique is used to erase this programme (which gives predetermined tendencies and idiosyncrasies to individuals), the animalistic man cannot get over his wild predilections. So an internal surgical technique, adopted by specially endowed saints, is required for the removal of these deep-rooted growths. It is for this reason that people flock to great saints. They experience that exposure to such saints of caliber takes chests in an unknown fashion. Such cleaning of the chest (heart) seems to lead systematically to an awareness of fine and subtler feelings worthy of human chest.

Therefore, humanisation of a man would necessitate his locating a surgeon Divine (Guru of caliber) who can operate (through thought power) and remove the unwanted, dragging accretions (called samskaras) from his inner core. In India, there are as many Gurus as there are leaves in a tree. So distinguishing the fake Gurus from the right one and willingly accept the services of such a right Guru for one's inner change, form the solution for getting out of the pull of one's beastly characteristics. Normally the ego of a person acts as a block and prevents him from accepting a Guru. But a craving to change for the better will impel one to submit one to a capable Guru. When this is done, one proceeds on the High Road to humanisation, saintliness, and ultimately Divinisation.

If each individual gets humanised, the society itself becomes truly human and the effect spreads and snowballs to achievement of the Utopian Universal love and brotherhood.