Responding to our collective yearning

Ira Progoff, the world-reno­wned founder of Intensive Journal Workshops, narrat­es an insightful experience. Retu­rning to civilian life after World War II, and reliving the hard time in the military, Progoff lost himself in unhappy contemplation of the destructive events related to the war. In the decade from 1935 to 1945 civilisation had come precariously close to destroying itself. He began to reflect on the massive burning of books that had taken place during the Hit­ler era. Again and again he asked himself what would have happened to us if the ritual Nazi burning of the books had been continued until all the recorded wisdom of humanity had been destroyed.
His answer was twofold. The sciences, he surmised, would be retained in the technology of the engineers. Hitler would have surely preserved the sciences, though in a stunted form, at least for the sake of making the weapons of mass destruction and for producing commodities for profit. As for the sacred scriptures of any religion, Hitler would have gladly disposed of all of them, since he had no real regard for any religion. Suppose all the scriptures of all the religions were burnt, Progoff asked himself, what would befall our civilisation?
As he lay awake, the thought struck him that humanity would draw new spiritual scriptures from the same great source out of which the older ones came. Then he became aware of how vast and self-replenishing the recourses of the human spirit are. The fires of Hitler could burn the sacred books, but not the abiding depths out whi­ch those scriptures had emerged.
Then he questioned further: If humanity had the power to draw additional spiritual resources out of the depth of itself, why do we have to wait for a tyrant to burn our scriptures before we let ourselves create further expressions of the spirit? If it is indeed true that each human soul contains the scripture in himself, each person could contain the possibility of a new spiritual event and awareness? Perhaps, th­ere are new spiritual insights and resources to be created by each of us as the sign of the spiritual unfoldment of contemporary society.
Contemporary world is qui­te different from the vedic tim­es. The agrarian society has gi­ven way to a technological one. The future shock has transformed our culture beyond im­agination. That makes it impera­tive that we draw anew from our deep resources. Without in any way belittling the time-tested wisdom of ancient seers, we need to refresh ourselves from the depth of our own resources, which are in resonance with contemporary sensibilities.
For example contemporary sensibility demands that our religion enters into a more deeper dialogue with our own bodiliness and its related derivatives like sexuality, environment, health and poverty. We need a religion that responds to the contemporary challenges and opportunities. So religion should not tell us to go backward and to live like the ancients. It should urge us to go forward, offering us insights and wisdom that make our lives viable.
Second, each one of us should be able to draw from our own wells, from our rich sources. Without being naively individualistic, we can individually acquire wisdom from our own self-replenishing sources that complement our collective search and respond to our current growth in technological and spiritual dimension.
Such an individual and collective drawing from our own resources will also enlarge our consciousness. Responding more to our collective yearning, we can be more authentic to ourselves.

The writer is professor of science and religion and director of Jnanam, Pune