Compassion As Spiritual Experience (1)

An old photo of Sathiya Dharuma Saalai (The Home of True Charity) in Vadalur, Tamilnadu, South India – It was opened by Ramalingam on May 23, 1867, and has fed the poor and hungry to this day.

It is a distinctive feature of Ramalingam’s approach to compassion that he views it not merely in terms of essential ethical practice, but as a spiritual discipline and experience. Indeed, he identifies the full experience and development of compassion as a form of enlightenment or liberation itself.

First, it is important to understand his basic concept of compassion.

As he observes in his incomplete essay on “The Practice of Compassion” (Tamil: ஜீவகாருண்ய ஒழுக்கம் – Jeevakarunya Ozhukkam):

“சீவகாருணிய மென்பது சீவர்கள் ஆன்ம இயற்கை விளக்கம்”.

Translation: Compassion is an expression of the inherent nature of the soul.

“சீவர்கள் விஷயமாக உண்டாகின்ற ஆன்ம உருக்கம்”.

Translation: Compassion is the “melting” of the soul, its empathetic state of being deeply moved.

What naturally produces this “melting” of the soul, its state of being deeply moved?

“சீவர்கள் விஷயமாக ஆன்ம உருக்கம் எப்போது உண்டாகுமெனில்:- சீவர்கள் பசி, தாகம், பிணி, இச்சை, எளிமை, பயம், கொலை இவைகளால் துக்கத்தை அனுபவிக்கக் கண்டபோதாயினும் கேட்ட போதாயினும் இவ்வாறு உண்டாகுமென்று அறிந்த போதாயினும் ஆன்ம உருக்கம் உண்டாகுமென்று அறிய வேண்டும்.”

Translation: The “melting” of the soul naturally occurs when it is perceived that living beings are suffering from hunger, thirst, disease, craving, poverty, fear, and murder, or when it is known that they will undergo these sufferings.

In Ramalingam’s view, this is the essence of compassion, the state of “melting” or being deeply moved by perceiving the sufferings or living beings, or knowing that they will undergo sufferings. It is not reducible to, and must not be identified with, any behavioral manifestations of benevolence.

Compassion is also based on the subtle perception or knowledge of primordial spiritual kinship among all living beings due to their common origin. As Ramalingam puts it:

“சீவகாருணியம் உண்டாவதற்கு உரிமை எது என்னில்:- சீவர்களெல்லாம் ஒரு தன்மையாகிய இயற்கையுண்மை ஏகதேசங்களாய்ச் சர்வசக்தியுடைய கடவுளால் சிருஷ்டிக்கப்பட்டபடியால், ஓருரிமையுள்ள சகோதரர்களேயாவர் சகோதரர்களுள் ஒருவர் ஒரு ஆபத்தால் துக்கப்படுகின்றபோதும், துக்கப்படுவாரென்று அறிந்தபோதும் அவரைத் தமது சகோதரரென்று கண்ட மற்றொரு சகோதரருக்கு உருக்கமுண்டாவது சகோதர உரிமையாகலின், ஒரு சீவன் துக்கத்தை அனுபவிக்கக் கண்டபோதும், துக்கப்படுமென் றறிந்த போதும் மற்றொரு சீவனுக்கு உருக்கமுண்டாவது பழைய ஆன்ம உரிமை யென்று அறிய வேண்டும்.”

Translation: This is the basis of compassion: All living beings are finite and partial manifestations of the One True Reality of God. Therefore, they have the same basic and intrinsic rights. In just the way it is natural to the biological kinship relation to have empathy and compassion for a sibling undergoing suffering, it is also natural to the spiritual kinship relation of souls to have empathy and compassion for a living being when we perceive that it is suffering, or know that it will undergo suffering.

Therefore, compassion is unlike the transient and superficial feeling of pity. Rather, it is a deep state of empathy, emotion, and spiritual knowledge.

In Ramalingam’s view, praxis or practice is the very nature of compassion, i.e., the compassionate person acts to prevent or alleviate the suffering of a living being he or she perceives, or knows about, and to the extent of his or her knowledge and capacity.

And this intrinsic praxis or practice of compassion is not a desiccated or dry ethical action, but blissful to its core. At its height, this bliss of the practice of compassion is divine bliss or the bliss of the OmniLight, or God. In Ramalingam’s words:

“சீவகாருணிய ஒழுக்கத்தினால் வரும் இன்பமே கடவுள் இன்பம்”.

Translation: The bliss which comes from the practice of compassion is the bliss of God.

This is because the practice of compassion is the expression, realization, actualization, and fulfillment of the intrinsic nature of the soul and the divine presence in it.

The Last Talk of Ramalingam (4): The Ladder Of Compassion

An old photo of Siddhi Valaagam (சித்தி வளாகம்) or “Abode of Adepthood”, Mettukuppam, Vadalur, Tamilnadu, India. It was Ramalingam’s final residence and venue of his last talk in October 1873.

“சைவம் வைணவம் முதலிய சமயங்களிலும், வேதாந்தம் சித்தாந்தம் முதலிய மதங்களிலும் லக்ஷியம் வைக்க வேண்டாம். அவற்றில் தெய்வத்தைப் பற்றிக் குழூஉக் குறியாகக் குறித்திருக்கிறதேயன்றிப் புறங்கவியச் சொல்லவில்லை. அவ்வாறு பயிலுவோமேயானால் நமக்குக் காலமில்லை. ஆதலால் அவற்றில் லக்ஷியம் வைக்க வேண்டாம். ஏனெனில், அவைகளிலும் அவ்வச்சமய மதங்களிலும் – அற்பப் பிரயோஜனம் பெற்றுக் கொள்ளக்கூடுமேயல்லது, ஒப்பற்ற பெரிய வாழ்வாகிய இயற்கையுண்மை என்னும் ஆன்மானுபவத்தைப் பெற்றுக் கொள்கின்றதற்கு முடியாது. ஏனெனில் நமக்குக் காலமில்லை. மேலும், இவைகளுக்கெல்லாம் சாக்ஷி நானே யிருக்கின்றேன்.” (பேருபதேசம்)

Translation: “Don’t adhere to the religious schools of Saivam (the cult of Siva) or Vaishnavam (the cult of Vishnu) or the theological schools of Vedanta (absolute monism) or (Saiva) Siddhanta (theistic dualism). They are full of obscurantist esoteric jargon in their description of God or ultimate reality and, therefore, fail to provide a clear and integral account of it. We do not have time to pursue their diverse and conflicting precepts and practices.

Further, they only lead to paltry or limited benefits and do not enable us to attain the incomparable great life based on soul-realization (ஆன்மானுபவம்) of inherent and ultimate reality (இயற்கையுண்மை or அருட்பெருஞ்ஜோதி ). I am myself a witness to all this.”

Why did he say that “இவைகளுக்கெல்லாம் சாக்ஷி நானே யிருக்கின்றேன்” or make the claim that his own case offered testimony to the soundness of his prescription?

 

 

 

 

Soul-Unity (ஆன்மநேய ஒருமை): A Great Ideal of Suddha Sanmargam (4)

French troops slaughtering Spanish civilians in Goya’s painting “The Third of May 1808”.

Why are some beings indifferent to the sufferings of other beings if there is soul-kinship among all beings?

Ramalingam raises this important question in his great unfinished essay on ஜீவகாருண்ய ஒழுக்கம் or “The Ethic of Compassion for Sentient Beings“.

He answers by pointing out that although soul-kinship is a reality, the central faculty of discernment (Tamil: ஆன்ம அறிவு) of this truth of soul-kinship is obscured or eclipsed by ignorance in some beings.

This cardinal ignorance also renders the soul’s cognitive instruments of mind, intellect, etc., opaque and unable to reflect the light of the truth of soul-kinship.

Hence, these beings do not recognize soul-kinship, and, consequently, lack compassion for other sentient beings who undergo suffering. From this it follows that those who have compassion possess the faculty of discernment of soul-kinship.

As Ramalingam writes in Tamil in the first part of his essay on compassion for sentient beings:

“சீவர்கள் துக்கப் படுகின்றதைக் கண்டபோதும், சிலர் சீவகாருணியமில்லாமல் கடினசித்தர்களாயிருக்கின்றார்கள்;

“Some persons lack compassion and remain unmoved even at the sight of the suffering of other sentient beings.”

இவர்களுக்குச் சகோதர உரிமை இல்லாமற்போவது ஏனெனில்:–

“Why do these persons lack a sense of brotherhood or kinship (with those sentient beings)?”

துக்கப்படுகின்றவரைத் தமது சகோதரரென்றும் துக்கப்படுகின்றாரென்றும் துக்கப்படுவாரென்றும் அறியத்தக்க ஆன்ம அறிவு என்கிற கண்ணானது அஞ்ஞானகாசத்தால் மிகவும் ஒளி மழுங்கினபடியாலும், அவைகளுக்கு உபகாரமாகக் கொண்ட மனம் முதலான உபநயனங்களாகிய கண்ணாடிகளும் பிரகாச பிரதிபலிதமில்லாமல் தடிப்புள்ளவைகளாக இருந்த படியாலும் கண்டறியக் கூடாமையாயிற்று.

“It is because their faculty of soul-knowing (ஆன்ம அறிவு ), the soul’s eye, which can see that another sentient being which is suffering is a brother, or kin, and that it is suffering, or is capable of suffering, is afflicted by the cataract of ignorance, and, consequently, even the spectacles or instruments which facilitate the vision of the soul, e.g., mind, intellect, etc., are rendered opaque and bereft of the capacity to reflect the light of knowledge (of soul-kinship).”

அதனால், சகோதர உரிமையிருந்தும் சீவகாருணியம் உண்டாகாம லிருந்ததென் றறிய வேண்டும்.

“Hence, they lack compassion despite the fact of their brotherhood or kinship with those sentient beings.”

இதனால் சீவகாருணியமுள்ளவர் ஆன்ம திருஷ்டி விளக்கமுள்ளவரென்றறியப்படும்.” (ஜீவகாருண்ய ஒழுக்கம், முதற் பிரிவு)

“From this, it should be known that those who have compassion possess the clarity of vision of the soul’s eye of discernment, or soul-knowing.”

Thus, in Ramalingam’s analysis, there is fundamentally an epistemic or cognitive deficiency, the eclipse of the soul’s central faculty of discernment (ஆன்ம அறிவு), which is responsible for the absence of compassion in the face of suffering experienced by other sentient beings.

In a Socratic vein, Ramalingam holds that the cardinal vice of absence of compassion is due to lack of knowledge of the truth of soul-kinship.

But if each soul has this faculty of discernment which enables it to recognize soul-kinship with another sentient being, why does this faculty get obscured, eclipsed, or atrophied, due to ignorance, in some souls or beings? In other words, why  are some beings afflicted by this ignorance of their soul-kinship with other sentient beings?

To answer this question, we must turn to the concept of āṇavam (Tamil: ஆணவம்), or egoism in the Tamil Saiva Siddhanta tradition.

Although he had a deep knowledge of it, Ramalingam was not an adherent or practitioner of the Tamil Saiva Siddhanta philosophical tradition. But he does affirm some of its metaphysical claims.

A central metaphysical claim of this tradition is that all unenlightened souls or pašu (Tamil: பசு) are fettered by the three cords of bondage or pācam (Tamil: பாசம்): ஆணவம் or āṇavam (egoism), கன்மம் or kaṉmam (karma, causality), and மாயை or māyai (matter, the “stuff” of our bodies and cosmos).

Ramalingam affirms this claim in his definition of the unenlightened soul or pašu (பசு) in his “Ethic of Compassion for Sentient Beings”.

Aṇavam is the primordial impurity (Tamil:ஆணவமலம்) which taints every individual soul in the form of a potentiality. It is manifested in terms of a tendency toward a separate, selfish, and exclusive existence. It leads to an eclipse of a soul’s ability to recognize soul-kinship.

As a consequence, there is an exacerbation of the division between self and the other. This division further paves the way to opposition, conflict, enmity, domination, and oppression in its relations with other beings and the inevitable chain reactions of Karma which assail the soul.

Thus, we can only explain the absence of compassion in some beings in terms of their ignorance of soul-kinship. Their ignorance of soul-kinship, in its turn, is explained by their longstanding choice of cultivation of the separative and exclusive tendencies of āṇavam or egoism and their subjection to the inevitable karma or consequences of these egoistic tendencies.

Hence, to recover and develop this knowledge of soul-unity or soul-kinship we must reverse the process of ignorance in question by weakening the tendencies of āṇavam or egoism and cultivating empathy and compassion.

It is interesting to note that Wang Yang-Ming also holds the view that the innate sense of unity with all things, the innate knowledge that the myriad things form “one body”, can be 0bscured by selfish desires, a manifestation of āṇavam, and that this obscuration can lead to cruelty against others:

“This means that even the mind of the small man necessarily has the humanity that forms one body with all. Such a mind is rooted in his Heaven-endowed nature, and is naturally intelligent, clear, and not beclouded. For this reason it is called the “clear character.”

Although the mind of the small man is divided and narrow, yet his humanity that forms one body can remain free from darkness to this degree. This is due to the fact that his mind has not yet been aroused by desires and obscured by selfishness.

When it is aroused by desires and obscured by selfishness, compelled by greed for gain and fear of harm, and stirred by anger, he will destroy things, kill members of his own species, and will do everything.

In extreme cases he will even slaughter his own brothers, and the humanity that forms one body will disappear completely.

Hence, if it is not obscured by selfish desires, even the mind of the small man has the humanity that forms one body with all as does the mind of the great man. As soon as it is obscured by selfish desires, even the mind of the great man will be divided and narrow like that of the small man.

The learning of the great man consists entirely in getting rid of the obscuration of selfish desires in order by his own efforts to make manifest his clear character, so as to restore the condition of forming one body with Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things, a condition that is originally so, that is all.” ( “An Inquiry on the Great Learning,” in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, translated and compiled by Wing-Tsit Chan [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963], pp. 659-660.)

There is an interesting objection to Ramalingam’s argument that discernment of soul-kinship is the basis of compassion and that, therefore, lack of compassion is due to the lack of discernment of soul-kinship.

This objection points to those who do not subscribe to the notion that there is a soul, not to mention soul-kinship, but who are, nevertheless, compassionate.

Does the existence of these sorts of compassionate persons refute Ramalingam’s argument linking compassion and discernment of soul-kinship?

The answer to this objection must first clarify what Ramalingam means by “discernment of soul-kinship”. This discernment is a function of a cognitive faculty (Tamil: ஆன்ம அறிவு) possessed by a soul. The Tamil term used by Ramalingam to refer to this faculty means “soul-knowing” or “soul-discernment”.

What sort of knowledge is discernment of soul-kinship?

It is the knowledge that other sentient beings, regardless of their physical forms or bodies, are, nevertheless, beings similar to me in that they can suffer and be subjected to various types of harm, or flourish, in the way I can.

It is the knowledge that other sentient beings are selves, or subjects of experiences, and agents with varying capacities for action, in the way I am.

It is also the knowledge that by virtue of these similarities, a bond, or relation, or kinship, exists among us and that, as a consequence, I have an obligation to provide assistance or relief to these sentient beings if I know that they are undergoing suffering or harm and possess the capacity to alleviate their suffering or harm.

(I would add, in this context, that all scientific knowledge of the similarities and common origin of sentient beings can facilitate the discernment of soul-kinship with all those beings.)

Now, it cannot be denied that compassion is constituted by an empathetic understanding of the nature and predicament of another sentient being, an understanding which has all the elements of Ramalingam’s concept of discernment of soul-kinship.

Therefore, those who are compassionate possess this type of empathetic understanding of other sentient beings, or discernment of soul-kinship, and it does not matter whether they actually use the concept of soul-kinship and its discernment in describing their understanding.

Regardless of the vocabulary employed by these compassionate persons to describe the elements of their empathetic understanding, it is tantamount to a discernment of soul-kinship.

 

 

Soul-Unity (ஆன்மநேய ஒருமை): A Great Ideal of Suddha Sanmargam (3)

Chidambaram Ramalingam
“May All Beings Attain Bliss and Flourish!

Another figure in the history of ethics whose evocative reflections on compassion and its metaphysical basis merit comparison with Ramalingam’s views on the subject is Wang Yang-Ming 王阳明 (1472 – 1529 C.E.) a great Chinese thinker and sage.

Wang Yang-Ming 王阳明 (1472 – 1529 C.E.)

Wang Yang-Ming’s central claim is that a sense of unity with all things, based on the understanding that all things constitute “one body” or a unified whole, is innate in our consciousness.

The “great man”, or a wise person who has curbed selfish desires, spontaneously regards “Heaven and Earth and the myriad things as one body“, but even the mind of the “small man”, or a person lacking in wisdom due to indulgence in selfish desires, is no different in this respect because it retains the same innate sense of the unity of all things, or the understanding that all things form “one body”.

Wang Yang-Ming finds evidence of this innate sense of unity with all things, springing from the understanding that the myriad things form “one body” or a unified whole, in the spontaneous manifestations of compassion even in the minds of “small men”.

Thus, even the mind of the “small man” is spontaneously overcome by concern and compassion when he sees a child about to fall into a well.

Is this compassion simply due to the fact that he realizes that the child is also a human being like him?

Wang Yang-Ming denies that this spontaneous compassion has anything to do with the fact that both of them belong to the same human species. He points out that even the mind of the “small man” is spontaneously overcome by concern and compassion when he observes the “pitiful cries and frightened appearance of birds and animals about to be slaughtered”, despite the fact that these belong to a different species.

In this context, I should point out a striking difference between Wang Yang-Ming and Ramalingam.

Wang Yang-Ming, despite his acknowledgement of the suffering of animals in the slaughterhouse and his emphasis on kindness toward them, thought that it was still morally permissible to kill them for food and for sacrificial purposes. As he put it, in the context of a discussion of priority of actions:

“Animals and men alike should be loved, yet it is proper under certain circumstances to kill animals, especially for parents, guests, and as sacrificial offerings.”

Ramalingam, in contrast, holds uncompromisingly that it is morally wrong to kill animals for food and strongly condemns the sacrifice of animals for religious and ritualistic purposes.

Is this compassion simply due to the fact that he realizes that these birds and animals are also sentient beings similar in some ways to him?

Wang Yang-Ming denies that this spontaneous compassion has anything to do with the fact that the birds and animals are also sentient beings similar in some ways to the “small man”. He points out that even the mind of the “small man” is spontaneously overcome by concern and compassion when he sees “plants broken and destroyed”, despite the fact that these are not sentient beings similar to him.

Is this compassion simply due to the fact that plants also have life in just the way he does?

Wang Yang-Ming now takes the radical step of denying that this spontaneous compassion has anything to do with the fact that the “small man” shares the property of life with the plants. He points out that even the mind of the “small man” is spontaneously overcome by regret when he sees “tiles and stones shattered and crushed”, despite the fact that these are inanimate things.

What, then, is the origin of the spontaneous concern and compassion which arise even in the mind of the “small man” at the sight of a child about to fall into a well, the pitiful cries and frightened appearance of birds and animals about to be slaughtered, plants broken and destroyed, and tiles and stones shattered and crushed?

Wang Yang-Ming answers that the origin of the spontaneous concern and compassion even in the mind of a “small man” lies in the fact that his humanity forms “one body” with the child, birds and animals, plants, and tiles and stones. Indeed, it lies in the fact that his humanity forms “one body” with all things.

Here is the relevant and stirring passage from the Inquiry On The Great Learning:

“Master Wang said: The great man regards Heaven and Earth and the myriad things as one body. He regards the world as one family and the country as one person. As to those who make a cleavage between objects and distinguish between the self and others, they are small men.

That the great man can regard Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things as one body is not because he deliberately wants to do so, but because it is natural to the humane nature of his mind that he do so.

Forming one body with Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things is not only true of the great man. Even the mind of the small man is no different. Only he himself makes it small.

Therefore when he sees a child about to fall into a well, he cannot help a feeling of alarm and commiseration. This shows that his humanity forms one body with the child. It may be objected that the child belongs to the same species. Again, when he observes the pitiful cries and frightened appearance of birds and animals about to be slaughtered, he cannot help feeling an “inability to bear” their suffering. This shows that his humanity forms one body with birds and animals. It may be objected that birds and animals are sentient beings as he is. But when he sees plants broken and destroyed, he cannot help a feeling of pity. This shows that his humanity forms one body with plants. It may be said that plants are living things as he is. Yet even when he sees tiles and stones shattered and crushed, he cannot help a feeling of regret.

This means that even the mind of the small man necessarily has the humanity that forms one body with all.” (A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, trans. Wing-Tsit Chan, Princeton University Press, 1963, pp. 659-660)

The key concept here is that of a person’s “humanity” forming “one body” with all things. What could this possibly mean? What could it mean in the context of the quoted passage?

Is it a precursor of  Schopenhauer’s reference to “that respect in which we are all one and the same entity“? It seems to be, particularly given Wang Yang-Ming’s disparagement of those who “make a cleavage between objects and distinguish between self and others” in the passage quoted earlier.

This would mean that Wang Yang-Ming is essentially affirming metaphysical monism in making his claim that the myriad things constitute “one body”. But there is also a suggestion that the “great man” recognizes the kinship underlying diversity in that he “regards the world as one family“.

If we substitute Ramalingam’s concept of soul-kinship for Wang Yang-Ming’s obscure concept of a person’s “humanity” forming “one body with all things”, we can make sense of the fact that even a “small man” spontaneously feels concern and compassion for a child about to fall into a well, birds and animals about to be slaughtered, broken plants, etc.

Even the “small man”, one who is immersed in selfish desires, has an innate sense of soul-kinship with other sentient beings and this sense spontaneously expresses itself in terms of concern and compassion at the sight of another sentient being undergoing, or about to undergo, suffering, harm, or destruction.

But soul-kinship presupposes the existence of souls, the bearers of sentience and consciousness, and implies a relation among them.

How, then, can we make sense of Wang Yang-Ming’s  inclusion of inanimate objects in the range of a person’s “humanity” or scope of concern and compassion? What sort of kinship can there be between a sentient and conscious being and an inanimate object?

Wang Yang-Ming actually mentions “regret” and not “compassion” in writing about the response of the “small man” at the sight of shattered and crushed tiles and stones. But, contrary to Wang Yang-Ming, it is not clear that such regret pertains to the fate of the tiles and stones per se.

We may regret the destruction of a rock because we think this has adverse consequences for the environment or for the creatures who use the rock, or the protected surface beneath it, as a habitation. We may also regret the destruction of a rock for aesthetic reasons. It may diminish the aesthetic quality of the landscape.

Rocks in Ryōan-ji (late 15th century) in Kyoto, Japan, a famous example of a Zen garden

But do we, or can we, really regret the destruction of a rock simply for the sake of the rock? I don’t think so.

Rocks do not have any interests. Therefore, they cannot be harmed. They are not sentient. Hence, they cannot suffer. Therefore, there is no question of feeling any compassion for a rock.

But, certainly, as acknowledged earlier, we can be concerned about the impact of the destruction of a rock on sentient beings in a given environment.

Israeli Demolition of 2 apartment home of the Palestinian 8-member Idris family, their relative, her husband and their two children (Beit Hanina, 2014)

When we see houses or other structures made of tiles and stones, or other materials, destroyed in a war, or in an Israeli-style criminal campaign of demolitions (of Palestinian homes), we can feel regret for various sensible reasons: reasons pertaining to the waste of valuable labor expended in constructing the houses, reasons pertaining to the risk of death or grievous bodily injury faced by people who were living in those houses at the time of their destruction, reasons pertaining to the homelessness of the former inhabitants of the houses, reasons pertaining to the historical, sociocultural, and/or aesthetic value of those houses or structures, and so forth. But this list does not include any intrinsic concern for those houses or structures, or concern purely for the sake of the houses or structures.

Hence, I think that the limits of sentience constitute the limits of compassion and its basis of soul-kinship. There is no question of the inclusion of inanimate objects in the range of soul-kinship or compassion.

Therefore, contrary to Wang Yang-Ming’s approach, Ramalingam does not include insentient objects in the scope of soul-kinship and compassion.

In his ethic of compassion, the proper use of insentient objects such as rocks is largely a function of their role in preventing or alleviating the suffering of sentient beings.

Thus, destruction of insentient objects is permissible as a means to prevent or alleviate the suffering of sentient beings, e.g., it is permissible and praiseworthy to destroy a rock to prevent it from crushing a tree, or another sentient being.

 

 

 

 

Soul-Unity (ஆன்மநேய ஒருமை): A Great Ideal of Suddha Sanmargam (2)

Chidambaram Ramalingam
“May All Beings Attain Bliss and Flourish!“

In the previous post, I pointed out the crucial distinction between the claim of soul-unity based on soul-kinship and the claim of soul-identity or oneness of souls. I argued that, unlike Ramalingam’s claim of soul-unity based on soul-kinship, the claim of identity or oneness of a plurality of souls or individuals is incoherent since it implies both a denial of plurality of souls and an acknowledgment that a plurality of souls perceive the appearance of plurality and/or discern the underlying reality of oneness.

In his great unfinished essay on “The Ethic of Compassion for Sentient Beings“, written in eloquent and moving Tamil prose in the mid-1860’s and first published in 1879, five years after his disappearance, Ramalingam argues that soul-kinship is the basis of compassion. The intuitive discernment of the fact that another sentient being subject to suffering is one’s soul-kin and soul-kind underlies all compassion.

Soul-kinship makes it possible for an agent not only to empathize with a being who is suffering, but also to make the alleviation of the suffering of that being the main motive of the agent’s action. Otherwise, it remains a mystery why anyone would be moved by a total stranger’s suffering, or the suffering of distant peoples, or even an animal’s suffering, and make it their main motive or purpose to alleviate that suffering.

Ramalingam, therefore, holds that any manifestation of compassion is not only evidence that an underlying soul-kinship exists, but also that the person who feels compassion possesses moral and spiritual discernment of the underlying reality of soul-kinship.

In just the way knowledge of bodily or biological kinship is the basis of  concern for and empathy with the suffering of a brother or sister, a soul’s intuitive knowledge of soul-kinship with another sentient being, regardless of whether this being is a stranger, or even a member of another species, is the basis of compassion for that being.

In the Western tradition of philosophy, the great German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860) whose seminal work in ethics, titled “On The Basis of Morality”, first published in 1840 when Ramalingam was only seventeen years old, offered important and radical reflections on compassion.

Indeed, Schopenhauer tried to show that compassion is the basis of morality.  Ramalingam, living in the city of Madras (now Chennai) in India in 1840, could not have known about Schopenhauer’s work, but he would later affirm the same truth that ethical conduct has its foundation in compassion in his essay on the ethic of compassion.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860) Portrait by Jules Lunteschütz

Schopenhauer points out that compassion is a puzzling psychological fact. Compassion has for its sole object the alleviation of the suffering of another. It involves empathy or the ability to feel the bite or weight of another being’s suffering. Schopenhauer is puzzled by this and asks:

“But now how is it possible for a suffering which is not mine and does not touch me to become just as directly a motive as only my own normally does, and to move me to action?” (On The Basis of Morality, trans. E. F. J. Payne, Berghahn Books, p. 165)

Schopenhauer goes on to observe that in a state of compassion for another who is suffering,

“…I share the suffering in him, in spite of the fact that his skin does not enclose my nerves. Only in this way can his woe, his distress, become a motive for me…I repeat that this occurrence is mysterious, for it is something our faculty of reason can give no direct account of, and its grounds cannot be discovered on the path of experience.” (On The Basis of Morality, trans. E. F. J. Payne, Berghahn Books, p. 165)

If Schopenhauer is correct in his claim that the “grounds” or basis of compassion “cannot be discovered on the path of experience”, or, in other words, cannot be explained in terms of empirical factors, then this implies that the moral and psychological phenomenon of compassion poses a serious problem for Darwinian or evolutionary approaches to ethics and human psychology.

Schopenhauer argues that compassion presupposes an identification with the person who is suffering and that this implies a temporary abolition or suspension of the “barrier between the ego and non-ego”. (ibid., p. 165)

In holding this view, he seems to be affirming that compassion presupposes a metaphysical identity or oneness of the agent who feels compassion and the person or being the agent feels compassion for.

Indeed, in the section “On The Metaphysical Explanation“, he explicitly upholds that

“…plurality and diversity of individuals are mere phenomenon, that is, exist only in my representation.  My true inner being exists in every living thing…we are all one and the same entity.” (ibid., pp. 210-211)

The problem here is not only the incoherence of the concept of metaphysical identity or oneness of the observer who feels compassion and the victim who is suffering, but also the issue of how we can distinguish between compassion and self-pity on the basis of this alleged foundation of metaphysical oneness or identity of observer and victim.

If I am actually one with the other, then his or her suffering is actually my own suffering. This also implies that in feeling compassion for the other, I am actually feeling compassion for myself. This turns compassion into an exercise in self-pity.

Schopenhauer praises compassion as the very paradigm of the ethical particularly for the reason that it is directed toward the recognition of another being’s woe and the alleviation of that woe, but his affirmation of metaphysical identity or oneness undermines this moral status of compassion and reduces it to an egoistic exercise in  self-pity on a grand metaphysical scale!

Far from explaining compassion, his monistic metaphysical theory explains it away by reducing it to self-pity.

Further, Schopenhauer’s correct view of compassion, i.e., that it is solely directed toward the recognition and alleviation of another being’s woe, obviously implies that his metaphysical theory of identity or oneness of all individuals must be false! Compassion requires not only the recognition of the reality of the other, and, by implication, the reality of the distinction between the self and the other, but also the reality of the suffering experienced by the other.

Schopenhauer’s confusion is evident from the fact that in another passage in the same work he disavows this metaphysical identity or oneness and argues that the observer who feels compassion is still conscious of the difference between the self and the other who is suffering.

The Italian moral philosopher Ubaldo Cassina (1736 – 1824) had argued in his Saggio analitico sulla compassione (Analytical Essay on Compassion) published in 1788 that compassion is a function of a deception or delusion of the imagination in that the observer feels that he is actually undergoing in his own person the suffering of the victim. Since this cannot be real, compassion is based on a delusive state of empathetic identification with the victim.

Schopenhauer rejects Cassina’s analysis of compassion on the grounds that compassion does not abrogate the distinction between the observer’s awareness of his own condition and the victim’s state of suffering. He points out that contrary to Cassina’s claim,

“…at every moment we remain clearly conscious that he is the sufferer, not we; and it is precisely in his person, not in ours, that we feel the suffering, to our grief and sorrow. We suffer with him and hence in him; we feel his pain as his, and do not imagine that it is ours.” (On The Basis Of Morality, trans. E.F. J. Payne, Berghahn Books, p. 147)

I think that the metaphysical linchpin of compassion Schopenhauer is searching for is provided by Ramalingam’s concept of soul-kinship.

As I pointed earlier, Ramalingam’s concept of soul-kinship avoids the incoherence of metaphysical identity or oneness of individuals and provides a basis for empathy and compassion.

Kinship presupposes a distinction between the self and the other, but it also implies a close bond or relation between the self and other which explains empathy, compassion, and a sense of unity with someone who is kin.

Hence, Ramalingam’s concept of soul-kinship is the key to the resolution of Schopenhauer’s confusion on the metaphysical basis of compassion.

 

 

 

Soul-Unity (ஆன்மநேய ஒருமை): A Great Ideal of Suddha Sanmargam (1)

17th-century depiction of the Tree of Life in the Palace of Shaki Khans, Azerbaijan

Ramalingam has said that the realization and practice of soul-unity (ஆன்மநேய  ஒருமை) or the kinship and unity of all sentient beings based on our essential and fundamental status as embodied souls and living beings, regardless of the form of embodiment or form of body, is the central and foundational value and ideal of Suddha Sanmargam.

Each individual sentient being is a soul. Evidently, soul-unity and kinship presuppose the existence of a plurality of souls.

What, then, is a soul?

According to Ramalingam, souls are subjects, i.e., bearers of experiences and qualities, and agents, i.e., intentional doers, essentially characterized by consciousness and its attributes, e.g., self-consciousness, volition, intelligence, cognition, affect, and action.

A soul is the locus and bearer of all the attributes of consciousness and of the “personality” of an individual. It is also the “renter” of the body in which it dwells, a body formed by Arutperumjothi to enable that soul to lead a sentient life and manifest and develop its potentialities.

Souls are innumerable. They become embodied, and, consequently, identify and interact with various types of bodies made of material constituents, but they are always distinct and different from those material bodies.

In Ramalingam’s view, material bodies are created and perishable, but souls are uncreated, and, hence, eternal.  It follows that the destruction of the body does not involve the destruction of the indwelling soul.

Material bodies inherently lack consciousness, intelligence, volition, affect, and intentional action, but souls essentially possess these properties.

Material bodies are complex and divisible. Souls are simple and indivisible.

Ramalingam holds that all souls are potentially the finite loci of the manifestation or expression of the boundless compassion of Arutperumjothi, the ultimate being.

All compassion expressed by individuals is a finite and partial manifestation, instantiation, or reflection of the boundless compassion of Arutperumjothi. Hence, the manifestation or expression of the latter is in proportion to the development of compassion in the individual soul.

As an individual soul grows in its capacity for compassion and knowledge of soul-kinship, it also grows to participate in the boundless compassion of Arutperumjothi.

As Ramalingam sings in his magnum opus Arutperumjothi Agaval:

எங்கே கருணை யியற்கையி னுள்ளன
அங்கே விளங்கிய வருட்பெருஞ் சிவமே!

(Agaval 961-962)

“Where there is compassion in nature,

there is the lustre

of the boundless light

of pure intelligence and goodness!” (Trans. Thill Raghu)

However, due to the influence of Anavam (Tamil: ஆணவம்) or egoism, a potentiality of individual consciousness which constitutes the disposition to self-assertion and a separate and exclusive existence, souls become immersed in a dark and endless abyss of ignorance of the existence of Arutperumjothi and of their own original nature.

As a consequence, they are also subject to an occlusion, obscuration, or veiling of their essential properties of consciousness, intelligence, volition, cognition, affect, and action.

These shared essential attributes, or shared original nature, and the shared predicament of all souls constitute their kinship in just the way shared genes, features, predicament, and common origin constitute the kinship of all sentient bodies.

The kinship of all living bodies at the fundamental biological level is but a reflection of the kinship of souls which are embodied in them.

Arutperumjothi’s boundless compassion makes possible the gradual and law-governed emancipation of souls from this abyss of ignorance by means of successive forms of embodiment, i.e., a process of rebirth or reincarnation, which enable the development and expression of the latent properties and capacities of souls, e.g., intelligence, cognition, affect, volition, action, etc.

This process of emancipation is law-governed in the sense that it is shaped by causality, the essential nature of things, and the actions (karma) of the souls. It inevitably involves subjection to the law-governed processes of birth, death, and rebirth and their attendant sufferings.

But it is ultimately and irrevocably directed toward and culminates in the emergence of conditions, e.g., embodiment in human form, which make possible a unitive experience and knowledge of Arutperumjothi and the attainment of Siddhi or Adepthood, a form of individual existence free from ignorance, death, suffering, and other limitations.

Therefore, enlightenment or liberation from ignorance by means of attainment of unitive experience and knowledge of Arutperumjothi is the ultimate purpose of sentient and conscious existence, in whatever form, and the “meaning” of the cosmos from whose womb it is born.

This does not imply that any sentient body affords an equal opportunity for the indwelling soul to attain enlightenment.

Ramalingam affirms a gradation of sentient bodies and accords a special status to the human body because this type of body with its advanced capabilities of  manifesting and developing a soul’s potentialites affords a rare opportunity to attain enlightenment.

All the same, embodiment in each type of sentient body makes its own contribution to the development and expression of the potentialities of consciousness, cognition, volition, affect, and action in the indwelling soul.

Soul-unity based on kinship of souls must be carefully distinguished from incoherent monistic metaphysical claims of identity or oneness. Ramalingam accepts the reality of plurality and diversity of souls, a diversity based on their different patterns of karma.

The monistic metaphysical claim of identity or oneness of souls is incoherent because it violates the law of identity which implies that each individual being or soul is what it is and not identical to another.

The claim that “All souls are one” is incoherent in just the way “All individuals are one” is incoherent. These claims identify or pick out a plurality of individuals and at the same time deny that plurality.

Should we rather construe these claims as asserting that plurality is an appearance and oneness or identity is the reality underlying that appearance?

If so, two questions arise: “To whom is it apparent that there is a plurality of individuals?” and “Who discerns the reality of oneness underlying the appearance of plurality?”.

Inevitably, the answers to these questions must refer to, or imply, a plurality of individuals who perceive the appearance of plurality and are subject to the ignorance of the underlying oneness, or a plurality of  individuals who discern the underlying reality of oneness, and, consequently, render the denial of plurality and assertion of oneness or identity incoherent.

I will continue to explore Ramalingam’s views on soul-unity and its realization and practice in my next post.