On October 18, in response to my statement that "I did not want to be born, and I have never considered life as an imperative," Dr. Taralika Trivedi raised the query, "Can you name a person, at least one person who wanted to be born...Sir, you are YOU only after your birth, not before. Now you can wish there may not be next birth, if you believe in reincarnation."
My reply:
To begin with, to have volition of or for or against anything at all, you have to have life. This statement is immutable. It is an absolute and a constant. For life, without going into the almost infinite impossibility of its accidental, contingent nature, chromosomes loaded with any one of the myriads of DNA material have to come together for conception to take place. This unity of conception precedes conscious life, which awaits very complex processes of fertlisation, germination, survival against countless odds, etc., before it acquires shape and identity, to breathe and exude what we call life beyond its birth.
It has been our privilege or curse to be aware of only two forms of life, with one deviant: plant and animal, and the deviant being the animal with the difference: homo sapiens, humans. Since this last of the species is the only one out of the three forms of life which is not only conscious of itself in the sense that it knows that it is born, it exists, and that it would die, the question of this life-form protesting the issue of its birth prior to gaining this consciousness (or immediately thereafter, until the consciousness grows into the capacity for conceptual thought, including the capacity to understand the meaning of life itself, to protest, accept or abhor it) absolutely cannot and does not arise.
Mostly, however, almost in their entirety, human beings assume life to be a given without any choice. Given by whom, is a question that few have asked, in all our previous and current times, and it would continue rarely to be asked until we are wiped out or we mutate into some other conscious species, most probably in some other place, which we may discover and into which we may cohabit and create new civilizations. Superstition, religion in their myriad forms, have provided succor and helped to conceal the urgency or need for an answer to this question.
The rationale behind not wanting, approving, being born, being alive, being part of this turbulent process, can occur only after birth, which is both an irony and a sad paradox. At such a time, one has the option of terminating life by conscious or unconscious self-destruct devices which are endlessly available.
I can therefore be asked, Why, if I did not want to be born, am I continuing to live. I would consider that a fair question, to which my most honest answer is: I exist by virtue of self-deception, cowardice; in this case, it being part of the makeup of my mind, which has been so rigidly constructed that it is not given to me to take my life.
This is a conditioning of mind by our societal environment. I have no alibis, and I offer no justification. I do not accept praise for not committing suicide, or terminating my existence artificially and unnaturally by some other clever or devious means. The immeasurable strength of the DNA material contained in my system, which is encrypted with the message to survive, also includes another message: to reproduce. I have not been able to overpower the former, but I have refrained from succumbing to the latter: I have not reproduced.
If, dear Dr. Taralika, all the above is abhorrent and arguable, please do not spare me from your wisdom.
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Pravin Gandhi wrote:
Got it.
Just one technicality: we do know a third form of life - the cellular or uni-cellular life which we do not see/experience, and also a fourth - the bacterial/viral : good ones which are good for health and bad ones which cause diseases.
Also why crib only about not having the choice of being born, it is only one - albeit 1st - of many: you don't have the choice of parents or relatives; one is born a naturalised citizen of a country or of a particular faith by default which in varying degrees is blasphemous to change; one does not have the choice to be born without deformity/incapability; the choice of running away from responsibility (e.g. by suicide, abandonment of dependent spouse/ward etc.), is considered despicable unless one turns out to be a Buddha as a result.
What about having the choice of the mode of death, like Bhishma? I would love that. I think most people are afraid of the mode of death rather than death itself.
Pravin
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my response:
Pravin,
you did not Get it fully: the one technicality that you are alluding to
specifically referred by you as “the cellular or uni-cellular as well as
the bacterial/viral life” are covered in my comprehensive dissertation. My
definition of life is total inasmuch as it considers everything including
viruses, bacteria and other known, unknown, or even invisible forms of any sort
which have a determinant self-defining DNA. For example, tuberculosis, typhoid, et al., are all forms of life. I hope this would clarify to you
the broader and total meaning of life that I have surveyed.
Similarly,
within what I have asserted, is included everything and beyond what you have
mentioned in your second paragraph about deformity, choice of running away,
suicide, parents, nationality, etc.
What you are, what you become, what careers you choose, or how you or for that matter any life, again, the emphasis being on any DNA-endowed matter, is circumstantial, accidental, coincidental and contingent, which itself is again contingent upon other contingencies, by definition, ad infinitum.
I hope you
will be able to re-read my post, if necessary, to find that within words and
sentences all of these details have been factored, either overtly or by
implication.
Please do
not take this clarification amiss.
Bhai
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Anonymous wrote:
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Anonymous wrote:
It brings such relief and often the only peace i know other
than [watching the] Ashoka [tree], to read your essays, both for their content and their manner of
presentation. If ever one comes across matters beyond the quotidian it is in
the framework of religious ideology, morality, and other dialectics. To read
and absorb such elucidation as you present of complex issues fundamental to our
very existence is so reassuring. To know that thought and its expression can
inform, educate and lead to new thought outside the harsh unaccommodating
bounds of isms is so liberating. Thank you.
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