Happiness is elusive to many people as they are easily deluded into believing that name, fame, money and uncontrolled sense gratification will make them happy forever. The American film 'Shortcut to Happiness' is an apt example showing that it is merely an illusion. It is about the ambition of a writer to become famous and wealthy and yet is rejected by every publisher. Frustrated and dejected, he easily succumbs to the temptation of the devil in the form of a young woman who promises to help him provided he sells his soul. A contract was made to this effect. On achieving whatever he dreamt of , the poor man finds himself hemmed in by superficial people all the time depriving him of his free will to enjoy life as he pleases. He finds that he has no time for his old friends who were with him through thick and thin and was able to offer them only money which they reject. He wanted to go back to his former self for which the contract he entered into with the devil stands as an obstacle. At the end he approaches the judiciary to annul the contract and barely managed to do it with help from eminent advocates. On regaining his soul he becomes genuinely happy again. What is portrayed in the film is that we should not run after illusory things for the sake of seeming happiness at the cost of even one's own soul. Our soul is all that we have and it is the source of our real happiness. As Jesus said, "what shall we give in return for our soul?" ( Matthew, 16:26). We shall not, therefore, trade our will-power and intellect , being the essence of our soul, for anything else whatsoever.
In order to do justice to the main theme of our Study, we have to still explain how the interaction of the secular and the sacred applies as we go about with the daily routine of our life. In other words, our activities in the world to build it up should not be restrained by the demands of the Kingdom of God and vice versa. An example of such activities is our effort to create wealth. We find in the history of mankind different models of creation of wealth. In the primitive ages, it was a fight for survival when the humans were satisfied with bare minimum necessities of life like food, water and shelter. In more advanced societies with the beginning of farming and settling in fixed places, called settlements, human affairs became more complicated. When the culture of group enterprises, like farming and exchange of goods, was gradually replaced by ownership of private property, frequent conflicts arose. Further, when the barter system of goods was replaced with the advent of money, even in its crudest form, an element of impersonality was added to the system of exchange of goods. Here we may remember the warning in the Bible that money is the root of all evil.
In the different modalities of human interaction with regard to creation of wealth experienced in history, we are able to see the underlying concept of humanity involved. In our Study, we are more interested in paying attention to such basic concepts of humanity rather than the theories and ideologies supporting endeavors of creation of wealth. For example, the employment of slaves as labor force from earliest times points to the division of humanity into masters and slaves. It is inhuman from our point of view today, whereas in ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Rome, India etc., it was considered a viable means of survival. The socio-economic ideologies of capitalism and communism, as well as self-serving theories of feudalism and totalitarianism manifest totally different world-views with regard to their underlying concept of humanity. What we want to stress here is that an adequate and just standard of the concept of humanity is absolutely necessary to uphold the interaction of the secular and the sacred without the one cancelling out the other . In this connection, we propose that the manifestation of humanity in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, is the anchor and standard of real humanism we should practice.
Jesus seems to have denounced the rich and the powerful in order to uphold the blessings the poor are naturally heirs to. The first blessing in the beatitudes is: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew, 5:3). The New English Bible of 1961 First Edition translates the poor in spirit as those who know the need of God. In Luke 6:20 the same text is about the poor without any qualification. The Bible scholars agree that here Luke has in mind the "anawim" of the Old Testament who are totally dependent on God. Thus total dependence on God without any dependence on the material resources one may have is qualified as poverty in spirit. In other words, people who are poor in spirit, even though they are rich in material resources, will never use their resources without fear of God. As we have seen above, fear of God does not allow them to swerve to the right or to the left from the path determined by God's ways. One who does not follow this principle is among those rich people for whom it is not easy to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus qualified the situation as easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. Therefore he advised the disciples to be rich before God and amass wealth in the kingdom of heaven from where it cannot be robbed nor can moth eat it. One has to choose between God and Mammon, i.e., money, as both cannot be served at the same time. Both of them are capable of attracting our total allegiance and they cannot co-exist in a person as one of them is sure to ease the other out of our heart in due course.
Does it mean that loving God with our whole heart, whole mind and whole strength leaves no room for our undivided attention to worldly affairs? How can we, then, achieve excellence in our mundane duties where we have to compete with all kinds of people? Undivided attention is demanded both by God and Mammon and the defining moment in our life is determined by the choice we make between them. The choice is to decide to be a slave either to God or to Mammon. The Bible teaches us that a slave of God is a truly liberated person, while a slave of Mammon, i.e., money, wealth and power is enslaved forever in its vicious grip. To achieve excellence or to compete with others in the world according to the standards of competition, a liberated person is all the more suited than a slave with inhibitions and anxieties of all sorts. Loving God with one's whole heart, whole mind and whole strength liberates a person to release power to achieve excellence on whatever one does. The reason for this is that submission of our plans to a higher power liberates us from all sorts of anxiety enabling us to be focused on our task totally. Besides, since we are expected to offer the fruits of our endeavors to God we become immune to the pressure created by the type of results we may achieve. Such persons are best suited to assemble all their energies in order to take on the tasks achieving thereby excellence in whatever they do. Besides, let us remember what we have said earlier about the love of God being on a metaphysical plane, whereas all our other kinds of love are on physical, psychological,emotional etc. planes where no clash of interests can take place! (To be Contd).
In order to do justice to the main theme of our Study, we have to still explain how the interaction of the secular and the sacred applies as we go about with the daily routine of our life. In other words, our activities in the world to build it up should not be restrained by the demands of the Kingdom of God and vice versa. An example of such activities is our effort to create wealth. We find in the history of mankind different models of creation of wealth. In the primitive ages, it was a fight for survival when the humans were satisfied with bare minimum necessities of life like food, water and shelter. In more advanced societies with the beginning of farming and settling in fixed places, called settlements, human affairs became more complicated. When the culture of group enterprises, like farming and exchange of goods, was gradually replaced by ownership of private property, frequent conflicts arose. Further, when the barter system of goods was replaced with the advent of money, even in its crudest form, an element of impersonality was added to the system of exchange of goods. Here we may remember the warning in the Bible that money is the root of all evil.
In the different modalities of human interaction with regard to creation of wealth experienced in history, we are able to see the underlying concept of humanity involved. In our Study, we are more interested in paying attention to such basic concepts of humanity rather than the theories and ideologies supporting endeavors of creation of wealth. For example, the employment of slaves as labor force from earliest times points to the division of humanity into masters and slaves. It is inhuman from our point of view today, whereas in ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Rome, India etc., it was considered a viable means of survival. The socio-economic ideologies of capitalism and communism, as well as self-serving theories of feudalism and totalitarianism manifest totally different world-views with regard to their underlying concept of humanity. What we want to stress here is that an adequate and just standard of the concept of humanity is absolutely necessary to uphold the interaction of the secular and the sacred without the one cancelling out the other . In this connection, we propose that the manifestation of humanity in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, is the anchor and standard of real humanism we should practice.
Jesus seems to have denounced the rich and the powerful in order to uphold the blessings the poor are naturally heirs to. The first blessing in the beatitudes is: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew, 5:3). The New English Bible of 1961 First Edition translates the poor in spirit as those who know the need of God. In Luke 6:20 the same text is about the poor without any qualification. The Bible scholars agree that here Luke has in mind the "anawim" of the Old Testament who are totally dependent on God. Thus total dependence on God without any dependence on the material resources one may have is qualified as poverty in spirit. In other words, people who are poor in spirit, even though they are rich in material resources, will never use their resources without fear of God. As we have seen above, fear of God does not allow them to swerve to the right or to the left from the path determined by God's ways. One who does not follow this principle is among those rich people for whom it is not easy to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus qualified the situation as easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. Therefore he advised the disciples to be rich before God and amass wealth in the kingdom of heaven from where it cannot be robbed nor can moth eat it. One has to choose between God and Mammon, i.e., money, as both cannot be served at the same time. Both of them are capable of attracting our total allegiance and they cannot co-exist in a person as one of them is sure to ease the other out of our heart in due course.
Does it mean that loving God with our whole heart, whole mind and whole strength leaves no room for our undivided attention to worldly affairs? How can we, then, achieve excellence in our mundane duties where we have to compete with all kinds of people? Undivided attention is demanded both by God and Mammon and the defining moment in our life is determined by the choice we make between them. The choice is to decide to be a slave either to God or to Mammon. The Bible teaches us that a slave of God is a truly liberated person, while a slave of Mammon, i.e., money, wealth and power is enslaved forever in its vicious grip. To achieve excellence or to compete with others in the world according to the standards of competition, a liberated person is all the more suited than a slave with inhibitions and anxieties of all sorts. Loving God with one's whole heart, whole mind and whole strength liberates a person to release power to achieve excellence on whatever one does. The reason for this is that submission of our plans to a higher power liberates us from all sorts of anxiety enabling us to be focused on our task totally. Besides, since we are expected to offer the fruits of our endeavors to God we become immune to the pressure created by the type of results we may achieve. Such persons are best suited to assemble all their energies in order to take on the tasks achieving thereby excellence in whatever they do. Besides, let us remember what we have said earlier about the love of God being on a metaphysical plane, whereas all our other kinds of love are on physical, psychological,emotional etc. planes where no clash of interests can take place! (To be Contd).
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