Half-God and Half-Animal: The dichotomy of being human
What inspired me to write this article?
I was listening to a song Kadavul Paathi, Mirugham Paathi, from a Tamizh feature film ‘Aalavandaan’ (2001). The first few lines of the song Tamizh and the English translation are below.
கடவுள் பாதி மிருகம் பாதி கலந்து செய்த கலவை நான்
வெளியே கடவுள் உள்ளே மிருகம் விளங்க முடியா கவிதை நான்
மிருகம் கொன்று மிருகம் கொன்று கடவுள் வளர்க்கப் பார்க்கின்றேன்
ஆனால் கடவுள் கொன்று உணவாய் தின்று மிருகம் மட்டும் வளர்கிறதே.
I am half god and half animal. I am a mixture of both.
Outside is God. Inside is animal. I am a poetry that cannot be understood.
By killing the animal I am trying to grow the God in me.
However, the God is being killed and consumed as food; Hence only the animal is growing.
The lyrics of the song triggered a train of thought about Absencing and Presencing from Theory U. The scribing by Kelvy Bird captures the Journey of Absencing (Inverted U on top) and Presencing (Regular U at the bottom). In this article, I am looking at my own experiences to make sense of what these mean in our daily lives.
What is Absencing?
Theory U talks about three inner Voices we all have: Voices of Judgement, Cynicism and Fear. When we are stuck with these voices, we go through Absencing which leads to destruction.
I want to share an incident from my life wherein I went through the cycle of Absencing in the matter of a few minutes.
A few months ago, while at work, I was informed by people at home that there was no water.
- Immediately, my Voices of Judgement took over: “The developers and their employees are all cheats. They don’t really care for customers. All loafing around, lazy people, don’t do any work. In India, no one respects the customer — only fleecing happens.”
- My Voices of cynicism in that moment were: “These fellows will never change; they don’t care for anybody. This is how they will dig their own graves.”
- My core Voices of Fear kicked in as: “I will be continually cheated if I don’t deal with it. If I allow this, all the amenities and services will be messed up. Once people think that I am gullible, more people are going to cheat me.”
Being stuck in these voices I went through the cycle of Absencing as below (refer to the picture):
- Blinding: I was not willing to listen to them or their explanations.
- De-sensing: I was treating them as cheats from my past baggage and not looking at them as fair people who will do their duties.
- Absencing: I was gripped by my fears that became intense anger.
- Blaming: I blamed people around me to believe that they were in absolute wrong.
- Enacting Violence: I not only shouted at them, but also used abusive words. I threatened them of dire consequences. I walked away in a fit of rage.
- Destroying: I had destroyed the peace of people at home and the people involved, including myself.
What comes to me as examples for Absencing in the larger world?
“In 2003, a coalition led by the United States invaded Iraq to depose Saddam. U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair erroneously accused Iraq of possessing weapons of mass destruction and having ties to Al-Qaeda.” (Wikipedia)
Old beliefs were downloaded, and no other new idea was entertained. Slowly, de-sensing occurred, and the Iraqi regime took on hues of evil from the perspective of the US government. It became an evil to be destroyed — dehumanizing thousands of people who lived in the country. Then the world was told how it is necessary to attack and destroy the regime and its head. The result was the death of thousands of soldiers, destruction of society and economy of a country, leading to an overall atmosphere of polarization, everyone with extreme views.
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict that began in 2014. It is the largest assault on a European state since World War II. The invasion has caused the largest refugee crisis in Europe since that war, with over 3.4 million Ukrainians fleeing their country in less than one month. (Wikipedia)
Please read the recent blog by Otto: Putin and the Power of Collective Action from shared awareness Part I: The Social Grammar of Destruction.
Absencing leads to annihilation and destruction of the self and others. But as humans we seem to go through that journey regularly.
What is Presencing?
Presencing is about suspending the inner voices leading to Creation or Problem solving.
Here is another story — a few weeks back, while at work, I was informed by people at home that there is a problem with the water pressure. The situation was very similar to the first one narrated, the people involved were the same, and the place was the same. But let us see what was different.
- The Voices of Judgement came, about the facilities people, regarding laziness and cheating. Instead of giving in to the voices, I suspended them. I asked the plumber to go and check on the issue and the solution. He came back with a proposed solution and a quote.
- My Voices of Cynicism raised doubts about being cheated and over-charged. I redirected these to hope and compassion and told him to get bills for all the expenses.
- My Voice of Fear at that time was that I would be overcharged for the purchases, and the extra would be taken by the plumber as commission from the hardware store. I told him not to charge commission for the purchases and hoped that me knowing about the practice might deter him from overcharging.
The work was done in a day, but the cleaning was not. There were Voices of Cynicism about incomplete work, and how the facilities people did shoddy work. Again, I redirected to hope and compassion, and asked the plumber when he would clean up the rest. He committed to cleaning up and kept his word. On the day of the cleaning, he fixed another small issue that was not discussed with him earlier. He went away happy; I was peaceful.
In this situation, if I had not been able to suspend my voices (being stuck in my voices) I am sure it would have turned out to be almost like the first one.
What comes to me as examples for Presencing in the larger world?
I was struck by how Nelson Mandela got the people of South Africa to unite in support of their football team for the world cup in the movie ‘Invictus’(2009). The country was in tumult socially and politically, with a Black president, and the Whites in the country feeling threatened, aggressive, and unsure of how to deal with the movement towards an open society. The country did unite, and South Africa took home the cup. The predominantly white South African team pulled together as they saw all the people of the country supporting them in their endeavor. This brings the country together by touching their truth that they are all South Africans. This is an excellent example of collective Presencing, and how a visionary leader could make it happen.
On one side, we see the US-Iraq conflict, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and on the other, we see the change that happened in South Africa. The main point I see here is that we have a choice — we can choose the path of Absencing or Presencing, as individuals, and as a collective.
So, can we conclude that suspending the inner demons of the three voices seem to help us to bring our ‘Godly Self’ and being stuck with and possessed by the three voices we bring the ‘Animal in self’ to a situation?
Godly Self and the animal self: A few perspectives from the Indian Epics
I was also reflecting on the two Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata about the interplay of the two sides of a human being.
I remembered the book: Asura: The Tale of the Vanquished. The Story of Ravana and His People’, Anand Neelakantan has explored the story through Ravana’s eyes. This is from the chapter named ‘Dasamukha’, meaning Ten-headed.
Ravana and his brothers are picked by Mahabali, the King to train under leading teachers and himself. King Mahabali explains to young Ravana that he has ten faces: Anger, Pride, Jealousy, Happiness, Sadness, Fear, Selfishness, Love and Attachment, Ambition and Thinking (mind). He advises Ravana that he shed the first nine faces and keep only the tenth one which is Thinking/Mind/Wisdom/Knowledge. You can see below the words spoken by the King Mahabali & Ravana.
King Mahabali says, “The only thing worth preserving is your mind. Your mind absorbs the knowledge you gain from your Gurus, your books and your life, and refines it to great wisdom. It is what you have to develop. Every living minute you have to strive to feed your mind with fresh and positive inputs. This will give clarity to your vision and immense power to your action. You will make fewer mistakes and also learn faster from them…And with clear logic and action, you will lead the Asuras to regain their past glory. Go Ravana, and own the world!”
Ravana responds: “My aim is neither become God nor achieve moksha…I am sad to disappoint you, but I shall live like a man and die as one. I will never try to be a God. I will live exactly as my emotions tell me to. I do not want to be a model man for future generations to follow. My life begins with me and ends with me. But I will live my life to its full and die as a man should. So borrowing from your words, I shall be a man with ten faces — I am Dasamukha.”
This section of the story beautifully explains what many a times we choose unconsciously.
Bhagavad Gita, which is part of Mahabharata enumerates transcendental qualities and demoniac qualities in texts 1 to 5 in Chapter 16 as below:
श्रीभगवानुवाच:
अभयं सत्वसंशुद्धिर्ज्ञानयोगव्यवस्थिति:
दानं दमश्च यज्ञश्च स्वाध्यायस्तप आर्जवम् ॥१॥
अहिंसा सत्यमक्रोधस्त्याग: शान्तिरपैशुनम्
दया भूतेष्वलोलुप्त्वं मार्दवं ह्रीरचापलम् ॥२॥
तेज: क्षमा धृति: शौचमद्रोहोनातिमानिता
भवन्ति सम्पदं दैवीमभिजातस्य भारत ॥३॥
The Supreme Personality of the God said: Fearlessness; purification of one’s existence; cultivation of spiritual knowledge; charity; self-control; performance of sacrifice; study of the Vedas; austerity; simplicity; nonviolence; truthfulness; freedom from anger; renunciation; tranquillity; aversion to fault-finding; compassion for all living entities; freedom from covetousness; gentleness; modesty; steady determination; vigour; forgiveness; fortitude; cleanliness; and freedom from envy and from the passion for honour are transcendental qualities (Texts 1 to 3).
दम्भो दर्पोऽभिमानश्च क्रोध: पारुष्यमेव च
अज्ञानं चाभिजातस्य पार्थ सम्पदमासुरीम् ॥४॥
Pride, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness and ignorance — these qualities belong to those of demoniac nature (Text 4).
दैवी सम्पद्विमोक्षाय निबन्धायासुरी मता
मा शुच: सम्पदं दैवीमभिजातोऽसि पाण्डव ॥५॥
The transcendental qualities are conducive to liberation, whereas the demoniac qualities make for bondage (Text 5).
It is about the struggle that we go through every day being half-God and half-animal. Both Absencing and Presencing are essentially human. So, both sides of the human are real and there is no right or wrong about them.
What choices do we have?
Daniel Kim, one of pioneers in Systems Thinking says, “As the quality of relationships rises, the quality of thinking improves, leading to an increase in the quality of actions and results. Achieving high-quality results has a positive effect on the quality of relationships, creating a reinforcing engine of success.”
We can improve the quality of our relationships and the results by suspending or challenging our three inner voices. This may improve the quality of the actions and results we create.
Going back to where we began, to the lyrics of the Tamizh song, the existential question seems be: How do we grow the Godly Self when the animal in self is consuming the God in self faster?
With inputs from Deepa Ram Bhat
References
- Kadavul Paadhi |Aalavandaan|Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
- Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges: Book by Otto Scharmer
- Absensing and Presencing Pic Credit: Otto Scharmer / Presencing Institute
- “INVICTUS” About the film — UNRIC.org
- ASURA Tale of the Vanquished: The Story of Ravana and His People by Anand Neelakantan
- Bhagavad Gita As It Is, Second Edition, By A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
- What is your Organization’s Core Theory of Success? By Daniel Kim
