No sir! The Hindu Ethos is not pessimistic.

No sir! The Hindu Ethos is not pessimistic.

It’s a wide-spread belief among the westerners that the Hindu way of thought, and life, is pretty pessimistic and abhors worldly life. No sir! It is not. On the contrary, it is quite optimistic. It aspires to cling tenaciously to life, enjoy worldly happiness and, therefore, aspires for perpetual existence of one’s self.

Take for example the Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra of Rig Veda (7.59.12) which is one of the most popular and most-sought-after mantra among the Hindus. It prays for the immortality and perpetuity of one one’s self.

Noted Indologist Ralph T.H Griffith (1896) translated the mantra in the following words :

Tryambaka we worship, sweet augmenter of prosperity.
As from its stem the cucumber, so may I be released from death, not reft of immortality.

I will try to simplify it a bit more:
Oh Lord Shiva!, sweet augmenter of prosperity. As a cucumber is attached to its stem, so am I attached, to death!. I pray thee to release me from death and lead me to immortality.

Since all living organisms are immutably attached to death, the metaphor of cucumber and stem naturally denotes the umbilical cord with which a child is attached to the mother.  

Similarly a slok in Brhadaranyaka Upanishad (1.3.28), the most ancient and the most revered Upanishad prays :
Lead me from the unreal to the real, lead me from darkness to light, lead me from death to immortality. The verse (shlok) is a part of morning prayers and nursery rhyme in many schools in northern part of India.

Yearning for immortality is the mainstay of the most ancient Veda -- the Rig Veda. It enumerates and elucidates verse after verse rituals and their modus operandi that seek to perpetuate one’s life, authority and to brighten the prospects of second life/after-life. The Rig Veda is so replete with the yearnings for immortality and authority that the Bhagavatagita, the most revered book of the Hindus, (in verses 42-44 of chapter 2) seeks to abhor the vedic rituals meant to pray for perpetuity of life, better after-life and worldly authority/ hegemony.

If one goes through the works of sage Vyasa and his key writings the Bhagavatgita, and Brahmasutra one is bound to conclude that he made an impassioned plea to shun worldliness and to adore the Brahama, the impersonal, neutral, absolute, all-pervasive, timeless divinity -- something akin to ‘The One’ of the Greek philosopher Plotinus.

In Taittiriya Upanishad Chapter 2 (BrahmanandaValli), section (Anuwak) 6 there is a shlok which to most westerners will seem rather jarring. And that’s because this particular shlok expressly connects the impersonal, neutral, absolute, all-pervasive, timeless divinity -- the Brahama -- with the material world/universe, that is, the noumenon with the phenomenon.

I will try to transliterate the shlok as close to the original Sanskrit syntax as possible:
He (the Brahma) desired himself (or itself) to be expressed in multiple forms and names. He performed rituals and having done so it manifested itself into various forms and names that we see around us.

Having manifested all that we see around us, He entered into it.
Having entered into it, He became the manifested (existent) and the unmanifested (non-existent) the defined and the undefined; the protector and the unprotected; the conscious and the non-living.

He became the truth and the untruth. And thus the Truth encompassed all, whatever there is. Therefore, the wise call it the absolute Truth.

Similarly a shlok in the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Chapter 5 Section 1 --- a lyrical tongue-twister --- that I am so tempted to quote here to round off my point --- will bolster my argument about a link between the noumenon and the phenomenon, the Brahma and the manifest world. They seem to be the mirror image of each other, so to say.

The shlok in the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Chapter 5, Section 1 harps on the word Purnam the literal meaning of which is ‘complete,’ but it has often been used to mean ‘infinite’, ‘whole’ or ‘indivisible’.
It says:
(In vedic Sanskrit, the pronoun ‘that’ is very often used to mean the impersonal, neutral, absolute, all-pervasive, timeless divinity or Brahama.)

That (the Brahama) verily is complete/infinite.

This (the universe) verily is also complete/infinite. Thus complete/infinite is borne out of the complete/infinite.

Despite having given birth to this (the universe) that (the Brahama) still remains complete/infinite.

The crux of the argument here is that the essential thought process of the Hindus --- the Hindu Ethos --- is a firm belief in the impersonal, neutral, absolute, all-pervasive, timeless divinity or Brahama as well as the material wellbeing of the inhabitants of the world/universe because the noumenon and the phenomenon, the Brahma and the manifest world/universe are mere mirror images of the same Self --- the Aduvait Brahma. The westerners may interpret it as “monotheism”.

Now the question is how to go about things in this world? Well the Upanishads have an answer for this as well.

Non-attachment is the essence of the Hindu ethos.

Ishavasya Upanishad or just Isha Upanishad, provides the key to the Hindu ethos: the way a Hindu ought to live and lead his life.

The very first shlok or verse of the Ishavasya Upanishad, an important Upanishad amongst the 108 odd Upanishads says:
Isha, (the Lord) lives everywhere and in everything in this dynamic world -- that we see round us;
Use (or consume/enjoy) the worldly things with dispassionate abstinence, without attachment; for nothing is yours forever.

If we see the scheme of the thought laid down in the Upanishads we can distinctly see that the Hindu scriptures emphatically says that the Brahama and this empirical world, both are real and infinite --- mirror images --- so to say. What is limited is our life-span and that you cannot enjoy the worldly things forever. Then why the heck are you getting attached with them?

Those who want to see the line of argument on this, better read the Bhagawatgita.