Kunj Behari Raina
Dr. S Radhakrishnan was born on 5th September, 1888 at a small place, Tirutani, forty miles to the north-west of Madras,( Chennai) in south India, the second child of Hindu parents, who were conventional in their outlook. He had not any advantages of birth or wealth. The early years of his life were spent in Tirutani and Tirupati, both famous as pilgrimage centres.
Dr. Radhakrishnan had a meditative frame of mind and that was perhaps responsible for his love of loneliness. Side by side with his outward activities there was in him an inner life of increasing solitude in which he loved to linger. Books, the vistas they unveil, the dreams they awaken, had been from the beginning his constant and unfailing companions. He had an uncanny knack of putting himself an rapport with any individual, high or low, old or young, if the need arose. While he was essentially shy and lonely, he passed for a social and sociable man. His withdrawn nature and social timidity had given him a reputation that he was difficult to know. Again he was said to be cold and strong willed while he knew that he was the opposite of it. He was capable of strong and profound emotions, which he generally tended to conceal. He was nervously organised, sensitive and high-strung.
5th of Sept. is also celebrated as Teachers’ Day as he had himself asked the teaching community to celebrate it like that. Talking about teachers he said that teachers can be compared to the tanks of water and process of education through which we impart education to the students is the pipe and the students the taps. If the water in the tanks is dirty, filthy and impure, how can the water in the taps be pure. What a wonderful thinking and idea! He further said that physical efficiency and intellectual alertness are dangerous if spiritual illiteracy prevails and this is what is happening these days.
Dr. S Radhakrishnan further said that the trouble with our civilisaion is that in our anxiety to pursue the things of time, we are neglecting the things that are not of time, the enduring and the eternal. He further advised that the only effective way of altering society is the hard and slow one of changing individuals. If we put first things first through patient effort and struggle, we will win power over circumstances and mould them. Only a humanity that strives after ethical and spiritual ideals can use the great triumphs of scientific knowledge for the true ends of civilisation.
At times his interest in other people had been so strong and spontaneous that it was misunderstood. There have been cases where the results he expected never arose in spite of his best endeavours.
Talking about philosophy Dr. S Radhakrishnan said that philosophy has for its function the ordering of life and the guidance of action. It sits at the helm and directs our course through the changes and chances of the world. When philosophy is alive, it cannot be remote from the life of the people. The silences and the eternities cannot be questioned without peril by the weak of heart. The dizziness of inquiry into the infinite is a vertigo which even mighty minds try to avoid if they can. The strongest of human forces are subject to intervals of lethargy and the philosophic impulse has had in these three or four centuries an attack of lethargy.
Dr. S Radhakrishnan further said that we listen gladly to the opinions of others and do not turn sour faces on those who disagree with us. How beautiful! Our fear of outside influence is proportioned to our own weakness and want of faith in ourselves.
Dr. Radhakrishnan further said that it is forgotten that religion, as it is today, is itself the product of ages of change and there is no reason why its forms should not undergo fresh changes so long as the spirit demands it. It is possible to remain faithful to the letter and yet pervert the whole spirit. Ideas are forces and they must be broadcast if the present ageing to death is to be averted. Values as truth and beauty are mere by- products of a universe whose reality is physical. The cosmic fate of all values is to perish without trace. The end of all is darkness and death. We cannot believe simply because we wish to. We cannot worship what we know to be a mental fiction. No amount of earnest ethical exhortation can take the place of religion. Our knowledge of God is controlled by the laws of apperception. Highest love does not expect any return, reward or recompense. Its satisfaction lies within itself. Those who are anxious for religious life must be prepared to face the tremendous cost of it. Such people will always be a few but they are the salt of the earth, the savoury remnant.
Dr. Radhakrishnan said the term “prostitution” need not be confined to the grim traffic that is carried on under that name but may be extended to cover all cases of exploitation of one individual by another, against the former’s will ( real) and in the latter’s self interest. A civilisation based on injustice cannot last long.
Dr. S Radhakrishnan further said that religion does not consist in going to the temples, mosques or Gurudwaras, it consists in offering of pure and contrite heart to the Almighty. And if a tradition does not grow, it means its followers have become dead spiritually. He also said that science is more important and significant regarding the depths of divine.
He further said that there is a tendency to overlook the spiritual and exalt the intellectual. It is our duty to become aware of ourselves as spiritual beings instead of falsely identifying ourselves with the body, life or mind. Though the triumphs of intellect are great, some of the finest things of life have escaped its meshes which the uncouth and unlettered peasants who lived more naturally and professed animistic conceptions of life had possessed. Nowadays politicians are mixing religion with politics. And by getting mixed up with politics, religion becomes degraded into a species of materialism. He further said that wars scarcely ever achieve the ends for which they are undertaken and even if they do, the other results they produce are so mischievous that even the victors gain little from their achievements. If we can only visualise the misery and devastation, the pain and the horror which the armaments we are piling up will cause to common people when they go off!’
From the above it transpires that we all have to take a cue from the teachings of Dr. Radhakrishnan whose birthday we are celebrating today. Then and then alone there will be peace and tranquility in the world.
