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Fulfillment of Destiny - Dr. S Radhakrishnan

A friend of mine, who has known me well for over 20 years, made a comment rather sarcastically that I am incapable of indignation, that I am foolproof, that I suffer gladly not only fools but the "sinful". I am afraid that this observation is not untrue. It is not easy to know the difference between good men and bad. Ideas may be theoretically divided into good and bad, not men and women, for each of us contains, in himself or herself, in varying degrees, the good and the bad, the high and the low, the true and the false. Besides, society has queer notions about right and wrong. Unorthodox personal relationships are wrong, while acts involving whole nations in war are right. Cruelty, treachery, and exploitation are condoned, while loving the wrong person not wisely but too well is condemned, though the latter is only a misfortune, not a crime. It is easier to make saints out of libertines than out of prudes and Pharisees. The infinite pathos of life calls for infinite understanding. What the "sinful" need is not abuse and criticism. They yearn to be understood; they long for a little comfort, for respect and rest. When they stand bewildered, when their nerves are stretched to a breaking-point by the strain of their own misdeeds and the contempt of the world, what they need is someone in whom they could trust wholeheartedly. Human affection is indispensable to them. Not compassion, which is a form of contempt, but tender regard which can overlook the past and help the future. There is no need to tread the road to ruin to the end. By a change in mental and spiritual disposition, we can check the rapid decline and prepare for ourselves a new destiny. It depends on us whether we take the rake’s line downhill to destruction or the pilgrim’s progress upward. I have every confidence in the power of love to evoke the right change. The friend takes the place of an analyst, who succeeds in removing the blind urges and fixations by exposing them to view. Some are silent, because they have nothing to say; others are silent because they have no one to say it to. To a true friend, even the most perverse will pour out his heart and thus get relieved. He is not afraid to face the dismal reality and see it as it really is. For the soul of man is essentially a lovable thing. No human being is innately wicked or incapable of improvement. No one can succeed in stifling the soul or drugging or deceiving it for all time. The best side of a human being is his real side, his true self. Such an attitude to life makes one turn a blind eye to human inertia and weakness. "Love," says St. Paul, "is never glad when others go wrong; love is gladdened by goodness, always slow to expose, always eager to believe the best, always hopeful, always patient."

It is one of the hardest things to criticize the actions of those of whom we are fond, but it is what one expects and longs for from true friendship. Every time the courage is found, the bond becomes stronger. A true friend not only seeks and inquires, but probes and pierces, digs his fists into the heart, though this process of ruthless unveiling or pitiless exposure is most painful and costing. But then the only way to attain peace of mind and inward harmony is by means of knowledge and adjustment. We must be completely sincere with ourselves and then adjust ourselves to circumstances. We must never lie to ourselves. If it is true that we do not know perfectly until we love perfectly, it is also true that we do not love perfectly until we know perfectly. A sense of shame holds us back. We feel that we would be giving ourselves away, would be disclosing our own disastrous inadequacy, would be betraying ourselves: But such feelings are out of place in true love, which to the conventional will appear strange, peculiar, exacting, hard at times to recognize as love. It is no use to feel awkward or constrained. So long as that feeling is there, one is not quite oneself. A friend’s view is not a critical or a hostile judgement. The things we suffer from lose their power when once they are given utterance. So long as we do not get at the truth, we will lose ourselves in the outer and lie empty within. To surrender our vanity and love of ourselves and expose the naked ribs of reality may mean anguish and sacrifice but it is worth it. Truth, according to the Mahabharata is penance and sacrifice of a high order. It says "Truth is always natural with the good. Truth is eternal duty. One should reverentially bow unto truth. Truth is the highest refuge. Truth is duty, truth is penance, truth is yoga. Truth is the eternal Brahman. Truth is said to be — sacrifice of a high order. Everything rests on Truth." Truth and reality, not falsehood and semblance, are the foundations of lasting friendship, of spiritual life. These friendly revelations have little in common with the exhibitions of spiritual nudism where the sinner speaks exultingly of the depths of sin from which he has emerged to emphasize the heights to which he has attained.

It is the good fortune of some to get the confidence of a few of the unhappy men, the lonely ones, the misfits, who are found in abundance in this world. Those persecuted by society, those reeds shaken by the wind are more appealing than the successful, for we see in them the mystery, the beauty, and the sadness of life. Though there is no special virtue in the hopeless and the outcast; we see in them the struggle of the unconquerable spirit of man with fate or circumstance. The spirit is never broken, however, much it may be bent or beaten. We do not know what confidence is, where it comes from, the head or the heart, through what channels it communicates with others. We do not know whether it is visible in the eye or audible in the spoken word. It cannot be acquired through much study and thought. It is a magic gift granted to one and denied to another. I soon discovered that a small particle of this invaluable gift had been granted to me through no merit of mine. There is a queer impression that Hindus, especially those who talk about philosophy, are more domesticated in the world of spirit. Thanks to it, my correspondence includes letters asking advice and help in every conceivable perplexity. Some of these letters are absurd, some pathetic, and some both. Cranks and faddists fond of their own remedies for the ills of this world are a good many of these correspondents. But now and again one chances on long letters from some old friends, others who through communications have come near, still others who are complete strangers, about their own travails or those of their friends. My relations have little to do with distinctions of age, class or calling, rank or education. It pleases me to know that to some lonely or enslaved souls, I was perhaps the only or the first person to show any sympathy or understanding. At times my interest in other people has been so strong and spontaneous that it was misunderstood. There have been cases where the result I expected never arose in spite of my best endeavors. They only indicate that I have not been able to handle these problems with either wisdom or adequacy.

Yet withal, I am happy that I have been brought into human contact with quite a number of my fellow men. I do not believe that there is any such thing as chance or mere coincidence. Desires work unseen through forces of nature. Apparently unimportant happenings sometimes play an unexpected part in our lives. There is such a thing as spiritual gravitation. We can never wholly tell as to why certain people attract us. We cannot help responding to them and finding them interesting. Beauty can never understand itself, says Goethe. Attraction also is only partly explained. Certain persons attach with devotion and why they do so cannot be accounted for. The real causes of our likes and dislikes are usually hidden deep down in the obscure recesses of our nature. They have little to do with reason or logic and we cannot account for them. Wonderful have been the experiences vouchsafed to me in this life. Through them the depths of my own nature have been opened to me in a surprising manner. Through them my life has become more intimately connected with the surrounding social order, more complicated, more difficult and yet far richer and fuller. They have forged links of human affection and regard, given me high joys as well as deep sorrows, and have become inextricably interwoven with the fabric of my life. They in a sense made for genuine fulfilment of destiny.

I have had my own share of anxiety, trouble, and sorrow, but I have had blessings, too, more than I deserved, the chief being the affection and kindness which I received in abundance from other people. For all these a thank-offering is due. Truly religious souls from Buddha and Christ down to lesser mortals, in spite of gross defects of nature, of mind and heart, have striven to lighten the load of humanity, to strengthen the hopes without which it would have fainted and fallen in its difficult journey.

If we are to imitate in some small measure their example, we must help the weak and comfort the unhappy. The perception that casts a shadow over one’s existence is that one is not able to take a larger share of the burden of pain that lies upon the world, with its poor and lowly, with its meek and suffering. It does not matter if one has to live one’s days in silence, if only it is given to them to smile at a child sometimes, to comfort another human soul in a way that will cheer him and put new hope into his heart."

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