Secular governance and a spiritual culture

Aug 12, 2009, 12.00am IST
S RADHAKRISHNAN.


S Abid Husain in his 'Indian Nationhood and National Culture' indicates the central characteristic of Indian culture as it has grown from its beginning to its present position...

He argues that there has been a common spiritual outlook on life, to which various races and religions have made contributions. "India's cultural history of several thousand years shows that the subtle but strong thread of unity which runs through the infinite multiplicity of her life, was not woven by stress or pressure of power groups but the vision of seers, the vigil of saints, the speculation of philosophers, and the imagination of the poets and artists and that these are the only means which can be used to make this national unity wider, stronger and more lasting."

It may appear somewhat strange that our government should be a secular one while our culture is rooted in spiritual values. Secularism here does not mean irreligion or atheism or even stress on material comforts. It proclaims that it lays stress on the university of spiritual values that may be attained by a variety of ways.
Religion is a transforming experience. It is not a theory of God. It is spiritual consciousness. Belief and conduct, rites and ceremonies, dogmas and authorities are subordinate to the art of self-discovery and contact with the Divine. When the individual withdraws his soul from all outward events, gathers himself together inwardly, strives with concentration, there breaks upon him an experience, sacred, strange, wondrous, which quickens within him, lays hold on him, becomes his very being.
Even those who are the children of science and reason must submit to the fact of spiritual experience that is primary and positive. We may dispute theologies but we cannot deny facts. The fire of life in its visible burning compels assent, though not the fumbling speculation of smokers sitting around the fire. While realisation is a fact, the theory of reality is an inference. There is difference between contact with reality and opinion about it, between the mystery of godliness and belief in God. This is the meaning of a secular conception of the State though it is not generally understood.


This view is in consonance with the Indian tradition. The seer of the Rig Veda affirms that the Real is one while the learned speak of it variously. Asoka in his Rock Edict XII proclaims: "One who reverences one's own religion and disparages that of another from devotion to one's own religion and to glorify it over all other religions does injure one's own religion most certainly. It is verily concord of religions that is meritorious."
Centuries later Akbar affirms: "The various religious communities are divine treasuries entrusted to us by God. We must love them as such. It should be our firm faith that He blesses every religion. The Eternal King showers His favours on all men without distinction." This very principle is incorporated in our Constitution that gives full freedom to all to profess and practise their religious beliefs and rites so long as they are not repugnant to our ethical sense. We recognise the common ground on which different religious traditions rest. This common ground belongs of right to all of us as it has its source in the Eternal.
The philosopher-writer was president of India. Excerpted from his book, Faith Renewed.