Poornawad: An Integral Approach to Divine Life

Dr. V. R. Parnerkar

Life is struggle for existence - existence in a manner of one's own choice. Hence the basic requirements of Life are not merely food, clothing and shelter, as it is often stated but also the consumer's own ideas about these basic needs. These ideas in turn depend on the general environment of a person, the world he sees around him and also, on something within him which he does not know - education, family background and many other factors. Therefore in order to provide a human being, with his most basic needs, a complete knowledge of many sided, yet of a single individual of present day, is very essential. The consciousness of this essential fact is the starting point of the Poornawad Philosophy of Dr. Ramchandra Pralhad Parnerkar a thinker and a saint of present day

He not only enlightened his large number of followers by the practical application of his Poornawad Philosophy to day-to day life; but also submitted a thesis on the same subject to Sanskrit University of Banaras (founded by Bhagawandas) and got his Doctorate in 1949; a rare phenomena in case of religious and philosophical teachers of present day.

Philosophy - An Outcome of a Necessity

Human Life can be defined as the successful effort on the part of the man to exist or to live from moment to moment. The moment this effort to live fails, death steps in. This existence is generally threefold. The existence of 'external body, the existence of desires and philosophical thoughts and existence of something within' which not only experiences all these things, but wants to have them as per its choice. This latter part is very important from the point of view of Poornawad. Whenever the 'internal something finds difficulty ingetting things as per its choice, it shapes its thoughts and thought -structure anew. This when carried on to a very large scale, new philosophy rise to a

Hence the first hypothesis of Poornawad states that
"Philosophy has started not in wonder or curiosity or extra sensory perceptions but out of sheer necessity of human life."

Thus the necessity of communications in an hour of danger, among early human beings, led to the formation of different words and languages; which in turn gave rise to thoughts. With the advent of these thoughts, man discovered that he has a very important faculty within him, namely Reason or Intellect. No man, however intelligent he may be, can think without sufficient number of words.

Hence the second hypothesis of Poomawad says that "Man has discovered and developed his basic intelligence by means of 'words' and thoughts' formed out of the innumerable words, which he learned with the passage of time."

The intelligence, the highest principle of the inner being of the ancient man, soon gave him to understand that the most effective way of dealing with the horrors of surrounding nature, is the unity of all human beings. Further this intelligence or reason, having an innate power of standing apart and separating itself from all movements of nature, including other animals, gave him the power of studying the workings of the general nature around him and use it to his advantages.
Thus the two basic principles namely unity of human race and study of surrounding nature soon enabled him to overcome all resistance to his very existence on earth and made his life progressively easy and comfortable. Thus starting from his primitive stage man could reach the present stage of civilization and culture.
During this progressive march, he had to evolve different philosophies or thought structures to suit the respective stages of his progress. By adopting these philosophies, he could banish the ignorance, egoism or defects in his own nature and thus establish a perfect balance between his inner demands - his choice and his outer material surroundings. This balance not only made him happy and contented but also prepared him for the future progress.
The other important function which these philosophies had to perform was the ascent or upward movement of man's consciousness into higher planes of self or spirit and then the descent or downward course of these higher principles like Truth, Ahimsa, Love, Bliss etc. into the evolved levels of mind and intellect which in turn could transform the prevailing conditions of human being, both internally and externally. Thus Poorvad holds that the philosophies of Sankhya (nie), Vedant (acia), Yoga, Tantra, Buddhism, Islam, Shankaracharya and many other Indian and foreign thinkers, were all evolved for this very purpose and has helped humanity a lot, in its continuous progress upto the present stage of civilisation and culture

The Urgency of Poornawad:

Man entangled into the meshes Of Civilization and Culture
The vast human progress in Science and Technology along with its civilization and culture has failed miserably to achieve the goal for which it was working all the time. This is just like the doctor's dilemma that operation is successful but the patient has died. The goal was that every man should be free to live in a way he liked and whatever way he chose, he should get the full satisfaction of happy and contented life. To live to one's own choice seemed to be the basic instinct of man and it could not be modified or belittled by any amount of Religious Literature.
Hence the third hypothesis of Poornawad states that to live and to live one's own choice are two basic instincts of man and they cannot be modified under any circumstances.

By civilization we mean, the vast technological progress, the innumerable commodities of human comfort brought into market, the different forms of democratic and socialistic Governments which shape the finance, law, education and defence in their respective states to the advantage of their common citizens and general law and order situations established throughout the world. But by culture, we not only mean the history, the languages, the historical places, places of pilgrimages, temples, ancient arts like music, dancing, painting; religious faiths but the adjustment of this normal natural life to modem techniques of civilization. It is the way of life adopted to bring our old natural life, in line with the new modern developments. It is a change in our lower-self, in our very nature, performed consciously, to use the modem amenities to our fullest advantage and prosperity

Now for the progress of civilization, it is very necessary, that every man should be dissatisfied with his present stage of affairs and must work hard to attain a higher status in life both socially and economically. At the same time, in order to protect his own culture both internally and externally i. e. to maintain an internal tranquility and to satisfy the demands of higher planes of his own existence, he must refrain from all sorts of undesirable deeds to achieve this goal.

Thus it is true that God has not given a particular piece of land to a particular man, or the rights of using a well or river to a particular group of people; but for administrative convenience, any type of Government cannot do anything, but to take such decisions. The talk of free society is alright in theory, but with advanced civilization, more and more restrictions become inevitable. For progress of civilization man requires complete freedom but for maintaining his culture, he has to resort to emergency. People having a lot are unhappy because they cannot live in a way that they want to live, while others who have nothing to live by, either face the problem of their very existence or they have to live upto the whims of others. Thus man has been entangled into a mesh, created by himself in the form of Industrial civilization on one hand and the culture he wants to adopt for satisfaction of his higher soul, on the other. This is exactly the background of Poornawad Philosophy and therefore Poomawad is the necessity of present day.

Poornawad in Nutshell

Thus being entangled into the meshes of civilization and culture, the man has lost the basic regularity in his life. For instance, the brilliant hard working students of to-day are not sure of their success in examinations, those who are quite successful, are not sure of getting admission to colleges, those who have completed college education with merit even, are not sure of being selected for suitable posts.
The 'Luck' and 'Chance' seem to rule everywhere and hard work and honest conscious efforts to raise oneself to higher planes of our existence seem to have no meaning whatsoever. But since there is a perfect regularity in nature, this human irregularity coming across the regularity of nature breeds sorrow, misery and suffering of present day. Moreover like ancient times, the present sufferers have no place to complain or express their sorrows, like King (Administrative Head as all Governments are elected ones), Guru (Religious Head). God (Supreme Head) or even parents. This is because by throwing away all these institutions man has achieved the freedom necessary for present progress of civilization and culture. This brings extra tension on his nerves leading to nervous breakdowns, mental disorders, whimsical attitudes and erratic behaviours. Hence the only way left out is to analyse the nature before him in which perfect regularity is observed.

Such an analysis was also attempted in the past and it brought forth two basic principles namely Jad' and Chetan'.
Jad' means matter devoid of any consciousness, while Chetan means consciousness of matter, mind and higher planes of mind. Now all eastern and western philosophies accept any one principle of the two, as real, eternal, everlasting and look upon the other as derived from, seen on, or temporarily existing on the one, which they have selected as eternal.

Thus Shankaracharya says that Chetan' is real and ever existing and the world full of matter is only an hallucination, false impression, on the orignal sea of Satchidanand'. The materialists take the reverse view and say that the matter is the eternal substance and Chetan' or Mind' is a temporary one.
Thus 'Brahma Satyam, Jagat Mithya' ( H, ) is slogan of eastern philosophers while Dust thou art and to Dust thou returnest' is the outcry of western philosophers.

Poornawad does not uphold or criticise any of this view. It simply states that whatever is seen existing is Poorna or complete entity. If it is matter, it is that kind of matter from which Chetan' or 'Mind' can evolve and call matter as inert; and if it is Chetan, it is that type of 'Chetan' from which inert matter results so that the Chetan' can distinguish itself as 'Chetan', something that can see the inertness of matter.

Thus the forth hypothesis of Poornawad states that "Chetan (Mind) must be in existence to recognise, and to have a feeling of the matter (Jad) as inert matter devoid of any consciousness" and the fifth one states that "Ordinarily Chetan (Mind) cannot be experienced without the aid of some type of matter, may be the invisible particles of cosmic material." It is a man having a body, who can say that earth is full of matter and can also proclaim that I have become Brahma or Brahmaswaroop. If we say that matter can also exist without Mind' or 'Chetan' again it is only the mind which can make such a statement.

So the sixth and crowning hypothesis of Poornawad states that "Whatever exists or we feel as existing is poorna or complete entity." Thus Poornawad neither synthesises the two views, nor criticises any of these views but says "Whatever exists is complete and being complete, it has power to create both mind and matter and anything else which is seen or experienced." Hence basically mind and matter are one and a complete entity.
So Poornawad proclaims that for Jad' we must lead material life and keep pace with civilization and for Chetan' we must be able to detach ourselves completely from material world (mentally) and raise our consciousness to the highest plane of joy and bliss. Human life is nothing but the feeling or experience of 'Jad which can create or ultimately merge in to 'Chetan', by 'Chetan',
existing with the help of Jad'. Hence such an experience is an art of highest order. Therefore 'Life is an art is the seventh hypothesis of Poornawad.

The aim of Life

Since whatever exists is a complete thing, the object of Poomawad is not merely the development of the inner being but also the development of the outer nature and life. To attain this object, man must become conscious of himself, of the different parts of his being and their respective functions and faculties.

Since man in his essential being is nothing but consciousness only, its analysis reveals that self consciousness or I, has three parts, distinct from each other. The consciousness of material body - the Material I, the consciousness of mind - the Mental I,and the vague consciousness of something beyond mind - the Divine I.

All these three aspects of human personality get a particular joy by their mutual actions and reactions and this joy is named as Jivananand' (THH) the natural joy of life by Dr. Parnerkar.
He claims that this joy is no less than one that man gets when he becomes one with Atman or Brahman. Because in this latter case his consciousness dwells permanently in the
'Divine l' rejecting all other experience as Maya. The ordinary man on the other hand has no experience of the 'Divine l' or even 'Pure mental I' and therefore his consciousness dwells only in 'Material l thus enjoying thirty three percent of his 'natural joy of life.

Therefore the aim of Poornawad is to develop all these three aspects of human being simultaneously, thus leading to a complete developed being, the Uttam Purush' or Poorna Purush' as described in the fifteenth chapter of the Gita. Thus Poornawad does not aim at 'Liberation' or 'Moksha' but believes in leading a complete divine life on this earth only. Since the Divine l' is also developed side by side, at the time of death, those who are interested, can liberate themselves by keeping their consciousness permanently fixed in 'Divine l' only. But it is difficult to conceive that the object of this whole universe is just "Liberation and merging into the static immutable Divine Truth

- Brahma.

The Integral Approach to Divine Life

Poornawad not only believes in God or Divine but states that we all are here just to experience his grace and lead a complete divine life. Divine is all light, bliss, knowledge and power and nothing is impossible for His Grace. The whole world along with its natural laws is his outer material body. Vishwaroop (ववप), while the personal gods of popular religion or the great seers of truth, living on the plane of spiritual universal mind, form his mental aspect. The Nirguna (नगणु ) static immutable Brahma is the inner core of the Vishwaroop. This supreme God was originally alone in his state of inner core i.e. state of divine existence, divine knowledge and divine joy (सिचदानदं म ). But in order to experience these things more explicitly he has become many (एकोsहं बहुयाम जायेय).

Therefore Dr. Pamerkar holds that God's grace must result in a favourable change in the material aspect of an individual with a corresponding inner mental satisfaction. A sudden favourable change in the material surroundings of a person being a direct proof beyond all doubts, confirms that the Divine Grace is at work. But before the Grace intervenes, a good unobserved preparation is necessary and once it has intervened, one has still to put a good deal of work to keep and develop what one has got. Thus we see that for complete development of ourselves, personal efforts, in addition to Divine Grace, are also important.

Hence a common man, entangled in the meshes of civilization and culture should make humble begining in this direction by acquainted himself with this Poomawad Philosophy. In personal life he should pay proper attention to the words he uses and the language he speaks. This will help him to develop his intellect. Then keeping the principle of human unity in view, he should exercise proper care in keeping good relations with people around him. The knowledge that they are all parts of Vishwaroop will help him to keep his internal balance and tranquility. At times, he should completely detach himself mentally from all his surrounding and study the whole thing in scintific manner just to understand his own problems specifically. He should develop his fine arts in a spirit that whatever he will give to the world will be received by God in his Vishwaroop form.

He should also have a place when he can freely complain about his suffering and seek guidance in moments of difficulties.

Remembering the Poornawad Thesis that "Whatever exists' is complete, he should try to assess carefully the things he has got and learn to derive maximum pleasure and satisfaction from them. Without sacrificing the demands of his higher planes of existence, he should always try to acquire higher status in life both socially and economically. Thus having made a good preparation he should pray to the Divine Grace for fulfillment of his wishes.

Here the Sadhana (साधना) or Upasana (उपासना) as well as his approach to Divine is very important. A proper joy and satisfaction for the good things we already possess and an internal conviction that whatever we are demanding will make us happy generally does the job. Thus once we get a proper material change in our surroundings, we should try to consolidate the internal satisfaction and peace achieved, and be always on look out for the ascent to higher planes beyond mind.

This is an integral approach to Divine Life as detailed out by Dr.Parnerkar
He was the first man who never spoke about his thesis till he taught its practical applications first in the spirit of scientific experimental outlook, and then brought out the confirmed theory in just five or six books in Marathi) for the benefit of general public. So Dr. Parnerkar's Poomawad leads to the Pooma or complete entities described in the following Sanskrit verse: