SMALLNESS OF MAN

-Why do we want to prove that man is small?

-Is smallness of man a curse or a boon?

Certain persons feel that to think of smallness of man discourages him to do his feats.

Man must have correct valuation of his strengths and weaknesses so as to be able to draw maximum advantage out of different elements of this universe. A person, who has a penny and thinks himself to be a millionaire will certainly attract losses. Man fills with pride on looking at his works and starts considering himself as owner of this universe, who can do everything. If we look at it thoughtfully, we will realize that it is a great folly on the part of man to consider him in such a way. Though, man is the greatest creation of God but looking at all the powers of this universe, we realize that man’s power is very little or small. His independence, greatness, power, knowledge et cetra are limited and have boundaries. If, we say man is small then, we must have some basis of saying so. Let’s consider smallness of man below with regard to different aspects:

Physical Aspect: Man is not strongest animals of the Earth. Power of his senses too, is small. He cannot view a distant object like eagle. He cannot run as fast as deer. He, unlike whales, cannot hear many types of sounds. He cannot see many sorts of colours and shapes et cetra et cetra.

Aspect of knowledge: Even knowledge, because of which man is able to harness many powers of the world and on which man is very proud, is very very small. The more a man knows, more remains to be known. As a man gathers knowledge, he realizes the vastness of the realm of unknown. All scholars of their respective fields, for example, psychologists, doctors, engineers, geologists, writers et cetra, who have spent their whole lives gathering knowledge, are of the view that they have been able to grasp only a very small segment of the knowledge of their respective fields. Also, a scholar of a particular field knows nothing or very less regarding another field, for example, a writer, who has a terrible insight and analytical mind over all segments of the society does not know how to make a basket of bamboo. When greatest scholars of human race, who are not more than one in a crore, are able to harness only a very small segment of whole knowledge of the universe, then how such a race can have the right to be proud of its knowledge. Human race is greatest amongst all the other races on the basis of its mental power. When scholars of the greatest race have such a pathetic condition with regard to realms of known and unknown, then there remains no doubt with regard to smallness of man.

Aspect of Power: Man has been able to change the surface of the Earth but only through imitation. Man has observed different objects and events of the universe and has tried to imitate one or more attributes of such objects or events. On being successful in imitation, he has drawn laurels of the world. Everybody cannot imitate. Only very intelligent persons can imitate. Look at all the works of man. He has not created anything. All his works, for example, building of great mansions, rockets, trains, information technology et cetra are imitations only of the physical works or physical laws of the universe. Today, if a person succeeds in making a mango of paper or clay, he is praised a lot and is rewarded by many organisations of the world for his intelligence for performing such a feat. These praises and rewards are bestowed on him for imitating only one attribute of mango. Other attributes of mango like taste and smell are left apart.

      Intelligent persons of the world are continually inventing one thing or the other and earn praises of many. But what is invention? By invention, we mean making an object which is similar to the objects of the universe in certain proportions or in other words, we can say that inventions are nothing but imitations of certain physical laws of the universe. Imagine that a small child goes to a teacher for learning. During a class, the teacher writes some alphabets on the copy of the child. The child tries to imitate his teacher and write the alphabets likewise. Whatever he writes is of very lower class than his teacher’s but he feels proud of his alphabets as he thinks that he has written the alphabets like his teacher. Even if he could write better than his teacher, he could not consider himself better than his teacher because he could write only through imitation of his teacher. Though, great inventors of this world are adorable because of their work but they have no authority to consider themselves as ‘very knowing’ and no inventor or scientist is so foolish to make such a claim.

Historical Aspect: While looking at history of man, we come across a very strange thing. Man has tried continuously from time immemorial to harness the powers of the universe and every time he has met a defeat. Before moving further, let’s have a look over an imaginary instance. This world is an arena where powers of the universe teach man different techniques of wrestling. While teaching wrestling, the teacher sometimes deliberately falls or assumes defeat to encourage his disciples or uses only a part of his power. But when any disciple starts considering better than his teacher then, the teacher makes his disciple realize his folly in the next imaginary fight between them. Similar condition is of man before God. Rivers, mountains, wind et cetra have bowed down before the will of man to change their course, cut and blow but, as soon as he starts considering these powers of the universe as his servants, these powers give such a slap on the face of man that he is left with no option but to think of his smallness.

      Great warriors of the world like Sikander, Hannibal, Napoleon et cetra, too, realized the fact that their power was very little as compared to the power of the universe.

      Inventions of the scientists, too, can be placed on the same platform. In manufacturing the ship named Titanic, which had a length of 1,000 feet and a height of 165 feet above sea, all the concerned technologies invented up till  that time were resorted to. But that ship was drowned in the sea in its first voyage. Titanic, here, denotes limited power of man which is almost nothing before the great power of the universe.

      Such sort of experiences, where we feel that what we want to do does not happen for one reason or the other can be summed up in a English Proverb-‘Man proposes and God disposes’. We all have such sort of experiences. These experiences loudly testimony smallness of man.

As such, the Gita says that man has the right only to do its karam but the right to give fruit of that karam lies with God and man has no control over that.

Some people feel that feeling of proudness over his achievements is a motivating force, which encourages man to do more and more. By trying to prove smallness of man, we are stealing that motivating force from him. Every action of ours has its roots in some sort of hope. It includes the hope of getting acclaim from the world. Actually, existence of hope in man supports the idea of smallness of man instead of contradicting this idea. How? Existence of hope in man proves the fact that he has faith in some sort of power higher than him because of which he can be sure of certain ends. For example, man is sure while sowing the seeds of mangoes that those seeds will give the fruits of mangoes.  Consideration of such sort of principles in nature as infallible generates hope in man and he is encouraged to perform certain action in accordance with his will. We believe that there is a power higher than us, which does not allow its rules to be broken by anyone. This belief is a real motivating factor for all our actions. All feel and realize that we cannot know our future with certainty. Looking at the future is like gazing in the dark. We cannot say with certainty that a particular result of an action will come. Many times patients, who are declared by doctors as ‘gone cases’ recover and the patients, whom doctors had declared as fit, collapse for emergence of certain unthoughtful conditions. There is no denying the fact that in a field, in which wheat has been sown, mangoes will not germinate but for wheat to germinate many other conditions have to be fulfilled over which man has no control whatsoever. It is possible that there may be more or less of manure in the field. It is possible that there is less rainfall that season or there may be flood. It is possible that the produce is destroyed by mice or other animals. As such, we can say that man can be sure of very near future only.

Everything of the universe attracts man towards it but because of his smallness, he is able to look at only a portion of it. For example, a blooming flower wants man to know about its origin, method of its origination, its colour, its smell, its beauty, its role in the universe, its link with other things of the universe et cetra. Flower never hides any of its attributes from man but it still remains an unknown. It is for man to know about the things of the universe, with the realization of limits of his power. As such, smallness of man does not act as an obstacle in gathering the knowledge of the things of the universe. Rather, because of smallness of his powers, it is easier for him to develop a faith over a power higher than him. Once man is able to develop such a faith, all the powers of the universe come to his help in revealing the secrets of the universe or in other words we can also say that powers of the universe allow man to harness them as long as he obeys the rules framed by creator of the universe.

-Thoughts of Pandit Gangaprasad Upadhayay