Live Freely With Readiness to Die For Others

Light of Truth

Kuruvilla Pandikattu

Humans are fate-creating agents; why do you think some create a fate of self-sacrifice and some other create fate of sacrificing others? How important is life of Jesus and His crucifixion in this respect?
The famous French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne celebrated as the father of modern scepticism, is convinced that “That to Philosophize Is to Learn How to Die.” That is to say, to philosophize is to perceive death ineluctably, to experience our own finitude and greatness. Therein lies also the greatness and enigma of human life.

To a large extent, we can shape our own destiny. That is the most significant thing about human life, unlike any other creature we know of. Therefore, we create our history, our destiny and our meaning through our own mental capabilities. Here, Albert Einstein is right: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” He adds: “For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Using the power of imagination both individually and collectively, we make our lives meaningful, shape our destiny and hand it over to the next generation.

In this sense we create our own collective future. First through our imagination, then through our intellectual acumen and then through hard work. This is possible by the collective story or world-view that we weave for ourselves. In this collective story, there is a crucial role for pain, sacrifice and suffering, since they are integral part of being human. Unfortunately, some of us consciously or unconsciously perpetuate the very pain we want to eliminate. This is very well brought out in the two powerful and insightful books of the existential psychologist Ernst Becker, “Denial of Death” and “Escape from Evil.” In these two books he shows that by denying our own individual death and trying to escape evil, we impose worse death and evil to others.

The only healthy way dealing with death and evil, I believe, is to face them squarely, try to eliminate them when it is possible. Then we need to learn to accept them painfully, without ever making the others suffer. This is genuine self-sacrifice.

That is precisely what Jesus has done. Without inflicting any pain on others, He tried to remove the suffering of others. In this very process evil and pain came to Him. He did not want it. He fought against it. But when it had to be, He accepted it. He went through the deepest dimensions of suffering.

The chains that bind men are self-imposed. Why are men so eager to be mystified, so willing to be bound in chains? How do you consider religious people’s self impositions of asceticism and mortifications?
As we live, we experience limited freedom and opportunities to grow. At the same time, we encounter diverse ways of binding or enslaving ourselves. The society has various ways of socialising us, most of which lead to different ways of enslavement. Normally every society expects passive obedience. In this process, we internalise the very values, which are basically dehumanising and carry it on.

Jiddu Krishnamurthi made very insightful comments on this self-imposed chains that we tie on ourselves. According to him, we do not want to enter on the pathless journey of freedom. On the other hand, we want to be told, to be taught and to be chained. We think that by acquiescing our conscience, we get freedom. We think that by getting the approval of others, we are saved.

Only those who dare to travel alone can experience the joy of the way and share it with others. Only one, who is at home with oneself, can make others comfortable with themselves. Genuine asceticism and mortification is a way of being at home with oneself (not with material possession and outward pleasures). Genuine mortification is getting out of the world of samsara and maya and reaching to the depth of our own being. It is precisely there we find our own weakness and strength. Our misery and greatness. Once we are in touch with our own inner misery and ecstasy, we can liberate ourselves and others. Only those who have tasted and relished the inner freedom can enable others to be free.

Is life a hunger for immortality? How is the power of immortality playing its role in religious men and women in this world?
Biologically or naturally, we want to perpetuate ourselves. That is why sex drive is essential to all forms of life. At the same time, Sigmund Freud has shown that death-drive (Thanatos) is also essential to life. Without dying, better generations cannot evolve. This is true of all human beings. We do not like to die. But we know we will die.

But recently modern technology has given us the possibility of attaining physical immortality, or overcoming physical death. Thinkers like Nick Bostrom and Ray Kurzweil speak of transforming ourselves and creating a new human beings (Trans-humans) who will be able to overcome death.

Their motto is: “Death is a sickness, cure it!” Though there are many techniques which are being tried in the laboratory to extend our life-span and also to eliminate death, I believe, it is impossible. However, many people, especially the elite, have come to think of a possible overcoming of physical death.

It is precisely there, that the danger lies. Just by our wishful think that our own death may be overcome, we can create a world-view or story, that makes us like gods. That is real hubris, which is the beginning of any enterprise.

Earlier religions gave us a way to deal with death, without denying it. They might have given us “a pie when we die.” But at least they did not deny our human temporality and finitude. The Dance of Death (or Danse Macabre) of the medieval times might have been exaggerated. But they did contain traces of existential truth.

Today science is offering us the possibility of eliminating death and thus making ourselves gods. That is a tall claim, which will not be achieved. But such thinking can already cause havoc on our social fabric. Such thinking can make human more greedy, selfish and unfulfilled.

Man is a death dealer and death defier. How Christ defied death?
“We live as if we will never die; die as if we have never lived.” This is the comic tragedy of our lives. For most of us, we neither live nor die. We are immune to death and life. We live perpetually in the dream state, like the men in the cave allegory of Plato.

In our blind state, we realise the power of death. We want either to deal with it or to defy it. Unfortunately, one of the best ways of dealing with death is by murdering others. That is the way of Hitler. When we feel the helplessness of our own death, we try to control it by murdering others. Thus power over others becomes the means to compensate our own powerlessness. Control and manipulation become our technique to compensate our lack of self-control. In this way they try to defy death. But in practice they are only defying their own precious and vulnerable life! They are only inflicting death on the larger community of life!

So we can understand the insight of Mitch Albom in his best-selling novel “Tuesdays with Morrie” shares this insight: “Only those who can face death squarely, can relish life.” Once we encounter death, face its savaging pain, we enjoy the depth and greatness of life.

On the other hand, Jesus came to wake us up from our spiritual slumber. He wants us to live intensely and relish it immensely. It is by accepting the intense pain and tragedy of death, Christ has conquered it. Not by running away. Not by denying. Not by delaying it. “Unless the seed dies, …” This is the existential message of Christ’s resurrection.

So Jesus’ invitation to us today is: “Be awake to the tragedy of death; then we can be awake to the ecstasy of life.” This will help us to trace life and death in the ordinary and mundane things of life. Thus the genuine way of defying death is facing it squarely, resisting it non-violently and thus relishing the greatness of life. Defying death is savouring the sweetness of life! Most of us, I am afraid, are unable to really relish life in its vulnerability and brittleness, in its minutes and mundaneness.

In this sense, Jesus’ authentic way of defying death is loving life so intensely that we can embrace death as well as evil in this unconditional embrace of love.

So the insight of the Father of the nation is valid even today: “Man lives freely only by his readiness to die.” He has another interesting quote: “The wise are unaffected either by death or life. These are but faces of the same coin.” While agreeing to the latter part, I may be allowed to rephrase the first part of it. “The wise are deeply affected both by death and life.”

Dr Kuruvilla Pandikattu (born 1957-) is a professor of Physics, Philosophy and Religion at Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth, Pune, India. Currently, he is the Dean, Faculty of Philosophy Author of more than 36 books and 160 articles, Pandikattu is a Jesuit priest belonging to Dumka-Raiganj Province, India.

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