Marxism and Advaitha Vedanta Have A Lot in Common!
Marx’s call for a social revolution, in a world where workers were forced to survive, and alienate themselves from their own selves. Is very similar to Advaitha Vedantha’s ideas of Avidhya (Ignorance) and Moksha (Liberation).
The alienation of a man from his self, forced into working a job he hates, just for mere survival. Not living to his full creative potential. And ultimately in the process of living and working a job he hates, alienates himself.
Halting his self-discovery. In the chained system of industrialization or consumerism now, a man would lose himself.
As Karl Marx puts it simply himself:
“This alienation, makes man’s life activity, his essential being, a mere means to his existence!”
Marxism asserts a social revolution, from both a materialistic and spiritual standpoint that destroys a man’s need to scamper for survival and instead discover himself and create.
As Marx says “Thus all the physical and intellectual senses have been replaced by the simple alienation of all these senses; the sense of having. The human being had to be reduced to this absolute poverty in order to be able to give birth to all his inner wealth.”
The end goal of a social revolution is the self-realization of a man and the creation of inner wealth.
Advaitha Vedantha too runs on a very similar framework. The concept of Avidya (ignorance) is explained simply as follows by Bansi Pandit, in P.61 ( in the bookThe Hindu Mind: Fundamentals of Hindu Religion and Philosophy for All Ages):
“In other philosophical systems including Advaita Vedanta, maya is thought of as cosmic illusion or ignorance ( avidya ) that deludes the atman into forgetting its own divine nature. This forgetfulness of its true nature further causes the atman to mistakenly identify itself with the body and mind , assume individuality, and thus subject itself to the physical limitations in the phenomenal world ( samsara ).”
The concept of Avidya, is strikingly similar to the concept of alienation of labor/man expounded by Karl Marx. Albeit they differ in many ways, the assertion of Marx being more materialistic, and the assertion of Advaitha being more of a spiritual nature.
Advaitha Vedantha offers the solution for this problem, in the form of Moksha.
As Adi Shankaracharya says:
I am other than name, form, and action.
My nature is ever free!
I am Self, the supreme unconditioned Brahman.
I am pure Awareness, always non-dual.
Shankaracharya puts it quite simply, and briefly.
If we compare this to Marx’s statements like: “man is independent only …if he affirms his individuality as a total man in each of his relations to the world, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, willing, loving — in short, if he affirms and expresses all organs of his individuality,” if he is not only free from but also free to.”
Or more materialistic statements like:
“The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre or to balls, or to the public house [ Br., pub], and the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you will be able to save and the greater will become your treasure which neither moth nor rust will corrupt — your capital. The less you are, the less you express your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life and the greater is the saving of your alienated being. Everything which the economist takes from you in the way of life and humanity, he restores to you in the form of money and wealth. And everything which you are unable to do, your money can do for you; it can eat, drink, go to the ball and to the theatre. It can acquire art, learning, historical treasures, political power; and it can travel. It can appropriate all these things for you, can purchase everything; it is the true opulence. But although it can do all this, it only desires to create itself, and to buy itself, for everything else is subservient to it. When one owns the master, one also owns the servant, and one has no need of the master’s servant. Thus all passions and activities must be submerged in avarice. The worker must have just what is necessary for him to want to live, and he must want to live only in order to have this.”
Marx’s words although written during the Industrial age, ring true in the present Consumeristic, crony capitalistic world. People work jobs they hate, and buy shit they don’t need, and to forget the misery they’re suffering. They keep buying things. It’s a vicious cycle, where a majority are forced to survive and find completeness in the vicious cycle of consumerism.
Man can only find completeness when he drops his consumeristic fervor, or finding completeness in objects, and halt working jobs he hates for mere survival. And finds himself, or as Marx put it “when he becomes his own master and his servant!”
Advaitha Vedantha takes a much more spiritual approach, dropping all the practical conditions, and simply says one must realize “ I am Self. The Supreme Unconditional Brahman!”
The solution offered to this problem by both Marxism and Advaitha Vedantha are the same but differ in their approach and application.
The central theme of self-alienation, in a world driven by chains of material addiction, enslave a man’s soul. And makes him fall into a vicious cycle of addiction, and sustenance for addiction is the same in Advaitha and Marxism.
And that theme is even more relevant in the present-day consumeristic fervor. And deserves introspection by both policymakers and citizens.
REFERENCES:
-https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch04.htm
