Experience- beginning of philosophy

The ancient philosophers asked the question - what is that from which everything comes to existence. They saw the movement around them. Some observed the natural phenomena so overwhelming and realised the internal power in everything.

Martin Buber Experienced the Pain of separation when he experienced the divorce of his parents and termed that experience as "Miscounter". He has a philosophy of Encounter - a meaningful way of existence - the genuine relationship between the I-Thou.

Sartre' Experience- the key hole experience made him to conclude that 'the other' is a threat/ the other is hell.

Viktor Frankl experienced the nastiness of the Holocaust and the concentration camps and concluded that no one can take away my freedom of decision to find meaning.

Hannah Arendt, a Political philosopher encountered the Eichmann trial, The holocaust, the world wars and framed her Philosophy of thinking. Political action consisting of two sides of life - vita activa (life of action) and vita contemplative (life of contemplation). she was very much struck by the "thoughtlessness" of the action of the nazi official, whom she considers as the normal person. she concludes with the lines of Cicero - "Never is a man more active than when he does nothing, never is he less alone than when he is by himself"

John Paul II too had his own experiences and constructed the philosophy of the "acting person" and upholds responsibility.

Then i too can construct a philosophy of my own based on my own experiences - an Existential Experiential Philosophy.

A seeming move to meaning

In the seminar on the philosophy of religion, i discovered that there is an apparent move to a search for meaning. For example, The pragmatic school of philosophy asked the question - what is the use of abstract thinking if it has no use in "praxis" (action). In a way they too were concerned with the duality of Thought and Action. The existential school of Philosophy is concerned with finding meaning in the living condition of the present existence. With Sartre Whose slogan ring in my ears - "existence precedes essence", i began to question the lived human experience. To be is to exist, i.e. God Became a Man one like us. He-being-with us. So The existentialist seek meaning.

The Personalists on the other hand centre reality around the person. what it means to be a person, what makes a real person with the other components of this making being - others around you, your ways of perceiving reality, etc.

The break away with the metaphysics, the new era of science and technology, etc. seem to move desperately towards meaning.

Viktor Frankl , known as the prophet of meaning, has this to say from Nietzsche - if you have a why to live for, you have meaning. We all seek for meaning - through our language which consists of symbols and metaphors and construct our own convictions. For example, if i say "father" i associate this word with the picture in my mind of my father. So seeing is believing as Jesus said. We come to be as we see. So finding meaning is nothing but our inexhaustible search for the 'divine'.

To be or not to be- that is the question

Man’s concern for his existence is a struggle for identity and perfection. In his existential struggles what he records are his encountered experiences. When a child experiences the divorce of his parents, what can he think of that particular time of his history? - an encounter with reality (to see his parents separating) or a ‘miscounter.’ On 24^th of October 2006 I happened to be in Darjeeling town. I saw a boy begging to two shopkeepers who were selling apples. Perhaps the boy was very much hungry. He stood there pleading. There was no response from the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper whom the boy approached was so much indifferent and scolded the boy for disturbing him. Instantly the boy moved away from there out of fear. A distance away from there, the boy kept his eyes on a fallen apple in the ditch. He slyly bent down and procured the apple. But the hawker, seeing the apple in the hand of the boy unsympathetically asked him to put it back on the platform. The boy had no other option but to do as he is told. What must be the world around him? – Cruelty, indifference, hunger, rejection, meaninglessness? When Gujarat riot took place what must have gone through the minds of those who survived – they perhaps must have seen their own dear ones brutally being killed by the uncouth and merciless fundamentalists. Do they exist only to see the misery and blindly succumb to the law of fate? Do they feel that they are thrown into the world only to experience sadness and pain? They must have felt that it is better to have a horrific end than to have an endless horror. All the harrowing experiences haunt the mind and constantly ask the question ‘why?’ why a man kills his fellow man? A child, who has been subjected to emotional, sexual and physical abuse from his childhood, is definitely confused and accuses himself. He questions: Who am I? Why I am? – An existential struggle and a search for identity.

How can I become what I am meant to become?

Is there a way out? In man’s search for meaning, what can he cling on to? – To a God who is not visibly present to his immediate needs and sufferings? Or to an invisible God who hides himself in the midst of human sufferings so as to assure that he is an inviolable mystery and can be found only through hallowed acts? In the midst of amiss, how can one account for the human insensitivity, indifference, coldness and betrayal of trust? One reason for the human insensitivity and indifference could be thoughtlessness that would deny the golden commandment of Jesus: ‘to love your neighbour as yourself’. In this great commandment two things are involved: ‘yourself’ and ‘your neighbour’, in other words ‘the self and the other’. If one realizes that the love of self necessarily involves the love of neighbour, the ethical problem of relationship can be cured and better remedied for a world of the interhuman – between man and man. A human being is opened to two directions, vertically and horizontally. Vertically one is opened to God and horizontally one is opened to the other fellow human beings. And what makes life meaningful is this two dimensional relation to God and neighbour. Once we are aware that we belong to one family of humanity and under divine fatherhood, our identity as individual selves is carved and at the same time the others become traces to experience the ‘Infinite’ – the Ultimate Source of our existence. Hence, human connections are of utmost importance to make the truth universal that we are here only once to make the life better or worse. We must, therefore, treasure the present and live as if we are tied to a True Presence that cannot become past or future. Hence the question is not - to be or not to be, but being and becoming. Becoming is a process essential to the evolution of wo/manhood.

God’s Answer to the Questions of Humanity and our Response - A Christmas Reflection

While I was preparing this talk I was very much powered by two things:

First, my memory went back to one of the holidays I spent in Kerala during Christmas. It was a memorable holiday because a one year old child helped me to imprint an image of the reality of being born in this world. The specialty of the child was – she did not know how to speak in a language which I could understand, she could speak few limited vocabularies a child could at that age. She silently spoke to me through the words that were printed on her dress. The words were stunningly striking with an existential flavor, it read Why ME? I was just thinking to myself that early in life we are faced with questions, we move on to seek answers, sometimes we are delighted on the way and other times we just can’t go on without facing some existential questions to make us strong in our belief in the unseen digitus dei the finger of God.

Secondly, I was asked by one of my students, brother, why certain things happen to us the way we do not expect it to happen? What spontaneously came to my mind was the phrase of Fulton J. Sheen, divinity is found where we least expect to find it. God is often found in the mess of our lives, where we least expect Him to be there. This is exactly why the Lord says, “those who are well there is no need of a physician.”

Why to take these two singled out questions when we have lot of unanswered questions. Questioning is the characteristic of humans especially when we are young. Our venerable Pope John Paul II singles out this special characteristic of questioning in his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope. He says, “Youth is a time given by providence to every person and given to him as a responsibility. During that time he searches, like the young man in the gospel, for answers to basic questions; he searches not only for the meaning of life but also for a concrete way to go about living his life.” Let me also make some reflections from the Bible. It is very interesting to note the presence of kings at the birth of Jesus and at the execution of Jesus. Both of them reacted since they were questioned by His way of being with Humanity.

The birth of Jesus questioned the authority of Herod the King - He had an internal question – why should there be another King apart from me. He was insecure and frightened. So the answer of Herod to the birth of Jesus was rather drastic and ended up in being bluffed by the three kings and consequently led to the slaughter of the innocent children. On the other side we find the Pilate questioning Jesus – Are you the king of the Jews? What is TRUTH? etc. He too was insecure and frightened and hence he handed over the TRUTH to the people who crucified him. It is good to question, no matter whether we find a true and perfect answer because Jesus Himself says, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens my voice”. But it is not good to react violently like Herod or indifferently like the Pilate to the questions that we often face, no matter however turbulent they seem to be. Are we really comfortable with the grace of God being born in us to lead us somewhat close to the answer that we are seeking? Jesus (the second person in the trinity) is really an answer to the questions of humans by being God and becoming a Human being like us.

God has another answer by ‘being-with-us’ (Emmanuel – God with us). Since God is so much with us, we fail to grasp the mystery of He-being-with-us. It is like we carrying the weight of our bodies and often do not realize that one is 59 kg/ 70 kg, etc. We read in the gospel of John: 14:9 – ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip and you still do not know me?’ He questions our way of being-with-Him. He completely leaves the responsibility to us of our being-with-him. Consider Judas the traitor and the other faithful apostles!

As a human being he himself had questions. For example, on Calvary where he cried out - Eloi! Eloi! Lema Sabachthani – My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me? (Mk 15: 34)

When I was born, I saw the world with a cry and I did not know that this would also involve an anticipated cry of existential pain and isolation when lived alone. I do not know whether Jesus cried at birth since no one testified it. But Jesus did cry when he was dying on the cross – A cry of isolation and pain as a fully human being, a cry of faith knowing fully well that he has to go through it.

The Birth of God is a mystery. The very concept of ‘God’ moved the philosophers who failed to prove the existence of God sufficiently. Our birth itself and the questions connected with our lived experiences are mysterious paradoxes. Humans are not capable of withstanding an excess of the mystery. Incarnation is too much a mystery in which God could not go further and beyond.

But, if we were to stay focused on the current situation we find ourselves in, what it is that God wants us to do right now in our lives at this moment, and know that God reveals himself to a soul just as much as is most benefiting for that soul. And we can say to ourselves, ¨ok, right now my strength is being tested, but there will be a time when God will personally speak to me...and I have to be strong until that time comes so that when it does come, I will not regret not having served him in hard times.¨ And to be sure that in every situation God gives enough graces to keep us going. Like Mother Teresa who was also in despair because God apparently hid himself from her. But at the same time it brought her relief to hear from her confessor that it must be very hard for God to keep Himself hidden. But it was the best for her not to know everything. If we were sure of everything all the time, and perfectly confident and unwavering in every situation, would we be of any use to Jesus? Maybe, but many of the saints whom we read about were very wavering people.

Thus, God is Reaffirming his ‘invisible manifest Presence’ among us at this anniversary of his birthday. He invites us to “seek and find” and personally answer the questions that Jesus Himself asks:

Who do you say that I am? Why do you doubt? How long have I been with you?

Do you love me?

Wish you a very happy Christmas!!