By Ac. Jagadiishvarananda Avt.
(1987) – The innate instincts or crude psychic propensities of human beings instigate them to accumulate and enjoy material objects in an unlimited manner. These psychic urges towards the acquisition of physical wealth are common to all living beings, but in human beings they are infinitely insatiable. Psychic pabula are nothing but these different psychic urges objectively projected. Both capitalism and communism are socio-economic systems in which the psychic urges of human beings are objectively expressed. Both systems are based upon and encourage the extroversal projection of the human mind. Using P.R. Sarkar’s analyses of psychic pabula, this article outlines the defects of capitalism and communism and argues that the conversion of psychic pabula into spiritual pabulum is the underlying solution to the problems confronting humanity.
Psychic pabula and capitalism
The impetus from crude psychic urges gave birth to capitalism. In capitalism, the psychology of the acquisition of material wealth, be it land, money, metal or other property, strongly predominates. Such crude psychic urges and psychic pabula remain unchecked and unbridled in capitalism and turn into a hungry profit-motive in the market system. As a result, traders, industrialists and business people suffer from the psychic disease of accumulating more and more wealth by any means, even to the point of depriving other human beings of their basic requirements.
“Mental objects are mental foods
and they are called psychic pabula.”
Those dominated by these hungry psychic urges or psychic pabula run after material gains and do not hesitate to mercilessly exploit others. Exploitation starts at the point where one violates the principle of non-indulgence in those amenities and comforts which are superfluous for physical existence and accumulates more physical wealth than one actually needs for survival and progress in the world. The exploiters forget the basic truth that this material world is very limited whereas psychic pabula is propelled by an unlimited urge. When unlimited pabula are let loose in the limited material world exploitation starts. A few become rich and others become poor. In such a condition millions die from starvation, live without shelter, have no education and suffer for want of medicine and clothing. The society then splits into two distinct groups – haves and have-nots. The former is the class of exploiters – the capitalists – and the latter is the class of the exploited – the disgruntled workers or Viksubdha Shudras.
Capitalist exploitation causes the mass-level deprivation of millions of people. The curse of capitalism engulfs the whole of society causing deprivation and mass poverty. The root of all capitalist evils lies in the unchecked urge for material acquisition. These uncontrolled tendencies neglect all basic human values and manifest in many destructive ways. For example, capitalism is anti-human because it causes mass unemployment, moral degeneration, cultural perversion, social divisions, economic instability, political unrest, religious dogmas and the devaluation of humanity. To rid society of all these curses capitalism must be eradicated. To do this unchecked psychic urges and psychic pabula will have to be controlled through psycho-spiritual processes.
Psychic Pabula and Communism
Communism is also a socio-economic-political theory based on materialism. In communist society peoples’ psychic urges and psychic pabula instinctively run after material acquisition and crude enjoyment. When psychic pabula are guided by a materialist outlook human beings develop negative behaviour patterns. For example, they become extrovert in nature, develop strong attachment to material wealth and worldly pleasure, become aggressively intolerant of the views and thoughts of others, resort to brute force to suppress opponents, deny the existence of spirituality and suppress the psychic urges or pabula of the people. Communist society suffers from all these evils.
The psychic urges and psychic pabula in communist society are bound to develop a tendency towards materialism and accumulation because the mind does not get any scope to divert the flow of its propensities towards spirituality. Money, matter, power and enjoyment become the corner stones of human life. As a result, psychic pabula indulge in material pursuits. The totalitarian rule of the communist world then desperately tries to suppress the tendency towards material enjoyment by brute force in the name of equal distribution. As this stage communist society is tragically caught in a triple bind. First, it is based on the ill-founded ideological proposition of equal distribution. Secondly, the irresistible materialistic tendencies of communist society emanate from unchecked psychic pabula, fed by the poison of materialism. Thirdly, there is a vain effort by the totalitarian communist state to suppress people’s psychic urges and psychic pabula. These urges and pabula cannot be suppressed by brute force for a long time, not even in communist states.
The human mind with all its propensities emanates a strong psychic force which must get space for free expression and higher elevation. This psychic force is now being unscientifically and unpsychologically supressed by communist rulers. They have adopted coercive methods, confinement in concentration camps, social boycotts, deportation, indefinite periods of imprisonment, social repression and the deprivation of social, economic and political rights and benefits in an attempt to control people.
In such a defective society life looses its dynamism, the power of imagination gets shadowed and the urge for initiative is weakened. Thus communist society sinks into a state of doldrums. This degradation quickens the downfall of communism. The state of doldrums then further degenerates into a state if Babel’s pandemonium through a process of capillary contractions. Today, communist society is heading towards this inevitable end.
Both capitalism and Communism are defective
Both capitalism and Communism are anti-human. Under both these systems psychic urges and pabula, instead of being properly channelized, are involved in detrimental physical, psycho-physical and psychic interactions causing the regression or devolution of the human mind.
In capitalism the rich, in their affluence, misuse their psychic urge and direct their psychic pabula to the pursuit of material gains, and the poor, in their extreme poverty, misguide their psychic urge and concentrate their psychic pabula on anti-social activities in the struggle for existence.
In communism, the elite, the party leaders – the new class – misuse their psychic urges and direct their psychic pabula towards political manipulation and totalitarian oppression. Under the oppression of communist rule the psychic pabula of the general people are suppressed into a state of doldrums.
In both cases psychic urges are misutilised for sub-human activities in the physical, psycho-physical or psychic spheres. This must be stopped. But how can this decay be arrested?
Psycho-spiritual channelization – the only panacea
What are psychic pabula? The word “psychic” denotes mental and “pabula” implies “mental objects” or “mental foods”. Communism and capitalism are essentially materialist philosophies. Both encourage a psychology of material attachment resulting in the mad pursuit of money, name, fame, power, position, wealth, property or domination. People living in these two systems develop the psychic pabula that run after crude objective physicalities. All these objective tendencies are the inevitable outcome of the continuous extroversal movement of psychic urges, insatiably driving themselves from one object to the other. While running after such material achievements the mind constantly creates objects in its objective chambers (citta bhumi). All these mental objects are mental foods and they are called psychic pabula.
The mind, while engaged in physical, psycho-physical or psychic interactions, thrives on all these pabula. When it changes its course, outlook and goal its objects or pabula also change. So the human mind is continuously dragged in thousands of directions, creating innumerable objects within itself. These objects are nothing but psychic pabula – always plural in number, always alluring and always detracting. All these pabula re the composite psychic projections of psychic urges, psycho-physical demands, the reactive momenta of the mind and the objectified environmental conditions.
A mind, driven by many psychic pabula, is the prisoner of innumerable predicaments. In such a condition the human mind becomes extroversal, materialistic, weak and multi-directional; it becomes restless, unstable and sensuous; it follows the principle of selfish pleasure; it maintains constant contact with the mundane, physical and supra.mundane world, leading it down the path of counter-evolution; and it always adopts an analytical approach to life, never a synthetic one. The mind strives to satisfy different psychic pabula in the finite world because of its infinite psychic urges, but iot fails and creates large or small conflicts of mutual interest in inter-personal as well as inter-group relationships. The collection psychology arising from many objectified human minds gives rise to social inequality, economic exploitation, political suppression, religious bigotry, cultural perversion and the all-round degradation of the individual and the society. Crude psychic pabula cause the devolution of the individual mind and at the same time the degradation of the collective mind causing the downfall of the society.
So psychic urges must not be objectified nor should they be suppressed; rather they must be channelized towards the Supreme Desideratum through the proper psycho-spiritual approach. The Supreme Entity is always one – there is no room for duality in infinity. In the psycho-spiritual approach the goal of psychic urges is always singular. With constant spiritual practice the mind, with its 1000 propensities, becomes one-pointed and is goaded towards the Supreme Singular Entity. At this stage of advanced psycho-spiritual attainment all psychic urges with so many psychic pabula are channelized and converted into one psychic pabulum – Cosmic Consciousness.
This inner channelization and one-pointed conversion into psychic pabulum brings about radical changes in the life of an individual as well as in the structure of society. The psycho-spiritual approach makes a person deeply introversal, spiritualistic, self-absorbed, strong, and unidirectional; capable of following the principle of subjective approach through objective adjustment, calm, controlled, non-attached to worldly gains, and a strong moralist; revolutionary but devoted dynamic but self-restrained, traditional but progressive and ardently sincere in following the principle of social equality; able to apply cosmic ideation in all kinds of physical, psycho-physical and psychic interactions; deeply penetrating and capable of developing intellect and intuition through analytico-synthetic approach; satisfied with their psychic urge yet capable of maintaining an adjustment between the finite world and the infinite world; more social, friendly, helpful, magnanimous and devotional; winning over petty quarrels and inter-personal and inter-group conflicts; dedicated to building a new society based on social equality, economic security, political stability, spiritual enlightenment, cultural renaissance and all-round elevation of humanity; free from the slavery of capitalism, the suppression of communism, and established in the glory of Neohumanism.
With the smooth, natural and progressive channelization of the psychic urges of the individual and collective mind into the Supreme Entity, psychic pabula will be converted into psycho-spiritual pabulum. Then each person will be a Sadvipra or spiritual revolutionary.
Originally published in New Aspects of PROUT (1987). Copyright The author 2013