If everything is pointless, why can't just we kill ourselves? Albert Camus Absurdism VS Geeta Karma-Yoga.

I was thinking since last one month to write a blog specially throwing some light on western philosophers and their ideas. No doubt Vedanta is the mother of all philosophies and India is the ancient land of greatest of philosopher sages, who had solved the mysteries of life and death 5000 years ago. But still, let us once peep into our neighbors, the West. What we see their in a nutshell are just countless poor attempts to arrive at the conclusions which the East and particularly India, has already arrived long ago.

Well, so today's blog is on a western philosophy called Absurdism which was famously propounded by Albert Camus. Before jumping into Camus' philosophy directly, let us know that old boy's lifestory.

Albert Camus grew up surrounded by violence. His homeland of Algeria was mired in conflict. He lost his father in World War I. Seeing World War II's devastation, Camus grew despondent. What was the meaning behind all this endless bloodshed and suffering? And if the world was meaningless, could our individual lives still hold value? Many of Camus' comtemporary philosophers were analysing this deep question in the name of Existentialism. Well, if you're a true memer, you must have come across some memes about existential crisis. It is very funny how loosely we use this term. However, for Camus this question - What is the point of all this nonsense called life? - became his only lifebreath.

Exploring how to live this dreadful life without any meaning became the guiding question behind Camus' early work, which he called The Cycle of Absurd. Let me explain his thought process through a light joke. Someone once asked Camus why he was living. Camus answered, "One. Because I was born. And two. Because I haven't died yet!"

Albert Camus had said that human life is totally absurd and has no meaning. In philosophy, "the Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life, and the human inability to find these with any certainty. Camus explained his Absurdism philosophy via a Novel called The Stranger. The finctional, protagonist of this book is a man named Maersault, who does crimes and stuff, feels no remorse or guilt as he thinks that life is pointless and is so absurd that even moral judgement has no place in it. This creates hostility of Maersault towards the orderly society in which he lives. If life is absurd and pointless why to live? Isn't suicide best? Camus, through this novel, says NO. There may not be any explanation to our unjust world, but choosing to live and to continue to live regardless is the deepest expression of our genuine freedom. This is all of Camus in short.

The flaw I find in Camus' philosophy is its sheer hypocrisy. Why Maersault does crime in the first place if life is pointless? What is even the point to breathe, eat, merry if we think life is absurd? You see, all this arises from desires. Doing all sorts of nonsense in the banner of life being absurd is the biggest absurdity in the first place. Life is undoubtedly absurd but it is the fire of desires that is the fuel to our life. Nevertheless everyone's passing their lives only to end up in graves. But still they opt to live. Even Camus said that suicide is not the way. Why? Desires are the juice of life, fuel of life. But wait, why I am praising desires here? Almost every religion terms desires as the root cause of all sufferings. This is the fun part you see.

To compare Camus' philosophy with eastern vedantic philosophy, we find that the point missing in camus' work is the word non-attachment. Well, life has no meaning, we conclude. Still living life is the deepest expression of our genuine freedom, very good. But living the life on the bases of desires still entangle us with life, making it a painful rollercoaster. Thus comes Krishna's doctrine of selflessness and non-attachment. Thus comes our brave Vivekananda and his refined outlook on upanishads and the geeta.

Swami Vivekananda gives a pin-point correction to Camus' philosophy of Absurdism and even quotes Geeta's take on this. Actually I found that co-incidentally in Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda V8, from a letter of him to one of his disciples. He says there,

"The more the shades around deepen, the more the ends approach and the more one understands the true meaning of life, that it is a dream; and we begin to understand the failure of everyone to grasp it, for they only attempted to get meaning out of the meaningless. To get reality out of a dream is boyish enthusiasm."

Tell me the difference between this one paragraph and the entire philosophy of Albert Camus which we just discussed above. By the way, Camus was a philosopher of 1940s. Vivekananda, you know the man. Our dear Vivekananda further provides a hope amidst this Absurdism too. 

 "Everything is evanescent, everything is changeful" — knowing this, the sage gives up both pleasure and pain and becomes a witness of this panorama (the universe) without attaching himself to anything.

"They indeed have conquered Heaven even in this life whose mind has become fixed in sameness. God is pure and same to all, therefore they are said to be in God" (Gita, V.19).

Desire, ignorance, and inequality — this is the trinity of bondage.

Denial of the will to live, knowledge, and same-sightedness is the trinity of liberation.

Freedom is the goal of the universe.

"Nor love nor hate nor pleasure nor pain nor death nor life nor religion nor irreligion: not this, not this, not this."

Interestingly, this same philosophy we find in one of the poem's of Vivekananda himself. The name of the poem is No one but me to blame. Let me extract the 2 particular stanzas which talks about our topic of today's blog.

"Good, bad, love, hate, and pleasure, pain

        Forever linked go,

I dream of pleasure without pain,

        It never, never came;

                No one but me to blame.

I give up hate, I give up love,

        My thirst for life is gone;

Eternal death is what I want,

        Nirvanam goes life's flame;

                No one is left to blame."

Now you understand what is non-attachment? It is simply the rejection of taking interest in all the dubious ways of life. Brewing desire or expecting something, we become slaves of our goals. At the end that is bound to bring misery. Now you understand what is true Mukti? Independence is not depending on anything! The word Moksha itself is derived from two words 'Moha-Kshaya' or complete cessation of desires.

Thus, O dear readers, know for certain that the highest manifestation of spirituality is non-attachment. The biggest sign of religiousness is complete independence from the external world, that is, again, non-attachment.

This world is a horse and we are its riders.The journey is pleasant only as long as I am controlling the horse. But in our case, in life, it is always the horse that is controlling me. In vain hope to enjoy the horse, the rascal horse enjoys whacking us up. In a false conviction of the bees going to sip the honey and enjoy it, the poor bee gets stuck into the honey!

 Thus, the highest realisation is to know that all this is a humbug. Caring not even a dime for this world or that world, this heaven or that hell, this life or that death, a person thus attains stabilised wisdom, and in this very life, becomes Jivanmukta!

"I dream of pleasure without pain,

        It never, never came;

                No one but me to blame"

Daksh Parekh.