Corona And The Human Spirit
As we near, a most unfortunate ‘COVID’ count of 3.0 Million infected, and total deaths reaching two hundred thousand across the globe, with every country being in complete lockdown, with no business activity of any kind in sight or in the conceivable future, we start wondering when the misery will leave us to lead a normal life. Every sector has been affected. Every job has been disrupted. In our lifetime, we have not seen a pandemic this big or this cruel. Will we see a different world, post-Corona? The social distancing will continue, for the next six months. The economy will take a severe beating with job losses and many small businesses going bankrupt. A large battered informal sector may take a couple of years to come back on rails. The poor, the hardest hit yet, will need to stretch themselves to make ends meet. Some, austerity measures by the government and some very prudent economic measures along with an aggressive revival of manufacturing activities will see a revival in fortunes sooner than later. Are there lessons for us here? Technology is the only tool, that will be left to bind us. Digital commerce, digital health care, digital shopping, digital learning, digital manufacturing, even digital relationships via social media, will be the order of the day, in a future digital society. If Corona were to remove the personal touch, that binds human beings, what would be left? Everything will just be impersonal. How does one seek self-attainment in a world that loses its emotional connect?
Nature has a great rhythm about it. Our bodies too have circadian rhythms. They affect every aspect of our life, for example, they govern when to wake up, to sleep, to be active and they determine how much energy we have. Throwing off natural circadian rhythms over the long term can seriously disturb the body and brain, causing weight gain and impulsive behaviour. We share the planet with as many as 8.7 million different forms of life. Of all these forms, only humans kill for profit. Who has given us this freedom?
We as human beings have several lessons from the crisis to learn. For first, it is teaching us how weak we are as human beings. This virus doesn’t respect ethnic boundaries or national borders. It has no respect for our religion and our gods. Despite all the conspiracy theories is it a Chinese virus? Does it really make a difference? Today, it is our virus. It’s in our country, in our neighbouring countries, it is in Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, France, America, actually in more than 200 countries, still expanding and still counting.
We all love to be in control. We fancy ourselves, rulers of our destiny, masters of our fate. The reality is that today, more than ever before, we have realised that we control nothing. Yes, we can move money around the world with a click of an app if that is of any solace, provided we have the money. How long will we have it, will haunt us, given the free fall of economies.
This virus has left us with no choices. Be a reclusive and self-isolate or die of infection. Reclusive for how long? If we were to make sacrifices, rewards must be guaranteed or else we tend to lose faith and return to making no sacrifice. Does self-isolation guarantee better times? Does our DNA teach us segregation and separation? Are we not social animals? The problem is that when we are faced with choices between pleasure now and reward in the future, we often choose the former, because making hard choices is expensive, in terms of our cognitive resources. The harder we try to resist temptation, it comes back at us with even more vigour. And the more uncertain we are that our current efforts will pay off, the less likely we will make wiser decisions.
Today we share the pain in being excluded: We do not want, even the closest family and friends to come home, lest we suffer. The fear is even greater that they too can suffer. It is a fear of the unknown. It’s easy to see the virus everywhere we look, on the keyboard on the computer, in the air we breathe, in every physical contact and around every corner, waiting to infect us. Are we panicking? Remember, just the other day we were celebrating our Missiles, our missions to Moon, to Mars and our space exploits. Was our supremacy at the expense of the poor and all other living beings?
It’s so easy to lose perspective amid the madness of our lives. Our days were so filled with people and projects, works and wish lists, homes and holidays, that we struggled to distinguish the important from the urgent. We have lost ourselves in the midst of our lives. Perhaps this crisis is showing us what to concern our lives with. Perhaps it’s teaching us what’s really important in our lives and what is vanity. Perhaps it’s helping us to distinguish between what’s meaningful and meaningless. Perhaps Facebook or a twitter post or a cricket match or a new kitchen, aren’t essential to our survival. Perhaps this virus is teaching us what really matters.
Amid this global crisis, how can we, as individuals make a difference? Often, we feel so small and insignificant. But there is something we can do. We can spread hope. We can spread love. We can share whatever we have with the less fortunate. We can pray for the authorities running our countries and cities, pray for the medical teams treating the sick, pray for the men, women, and children who have been infected, pray for the people afraid to leave their homes, pray for those living in infected zones, pray for those at high risk with other illnesses, and pray for the elderly. We can also call out to our ancestors to take us to a new world, a place with no tears, no death, no mourning.
There is a realisation in this despair too. The realisation that we are just nihil and diddly and a realisation that we are all equal even in this bagatelle of a game. ‘We need to close some doors today, not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead us nowhere’, as Paulo Coelho said. We must return as individuals with compassion for all. We must accept that nature has its own ways of maintaining its dynamic equilibrium, when we turn irrational and when we create inequities, when we create artificial boundaries when we go against nature and its writ and laws. Our ‘Antahkarana’ or inner being or our soul has four forms. ‘Ahamkara’, ‘Buddhi’, ‘Chitta’ and ‘Manas’. The Corona has shown us that our ‘Ahamkara’ has a null value. It has shown us that we must eschew our ‘Ahamkara’, for the other three ‘Buddhi’, ‘Chitta’ and ‘Manas’ to enlighten us. This is the only way to self-realisation and be at peace with nature or GOD who is omnipresent, not just in temples or mosques or churches. Aham Brahmasmi is 'I am Brahman'. That realization alone can make us one with nature and teach us to love each other and love all beings, and be one with Nature or the Brahman. The belief that union with or absorption into the self-realisation, attained only through contemplation and self-surrender, is the only truth.
Gratitude, Compassion and Pride are the only emotions that must guide us as David DeStano, a professor of Psychology at North-Eastern University says, because they bring out our better natures and encourage a long-term view of our present-day actions. They help us be pro-social. These emotions have three advantages over reason, habits, and willpower. Their strength doesn’t wane after repeated use, they can’t be hijacked to favour immediate rewards, and they improve our decisions in different areas of life at the same time.
The human spirit will eventually win and will not let the corona get the better of us, for we know that more than half a million have recovered and more will. Have we ever, with all the technological prowess that we possess, created any material more resilient than the human spirit? The answer is no. We all find a reason to move on even in the direst of circumstances. Even in this chaos and madness, we must see the beauty that comes from the vibrancy of our spirit. This Corona must know that the human species are different. It is time our spirit triumphs our fears, our trepidations and our consternation.
