Hindu View of Life - Dr. S. Radhakrishnan (Lecture Three)
Lecture III - Hindu Dharma: I
In this lecture, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan turns to the question of Hindu ethics, asking: What is the moral basis of Hindu life? Before explaining the ethical ideals themselves, he begins by clearing away certain misconceptions about Hinduism—especially the accusation that the Hindu doctrine of māyā (illusion) denies the reality of the world and, therefore, makes ethics meaningless.
Misunderstanding of Māyā
According to Radhakrishnan, critics—both Western and some modern Indian thinkers—often claim that if the world is unreal or illusory, then human actions and moral obligations cannot have any true value. If life itself is illusion, what meaning can right and wrong have?
However, Radhakrishnan argues that this is a serious misreading of Hindu philosophy. He explains that the Vedic thinkers and the Upanishadic seers took a realistic view of the world. They saw nature and human life not as false or worthless, but as expressions of the Supreme Reality. The world, they said, is not unreal—it is relatively real.
Through metaphors like clay and pots or gold and ornaments, the Upanishads show that worldly objects have reality so long as they derive their being from the ultimate substance, Brahman. Just as pots may break but the clay remains, so too the forms of the world may change, but the underlying spirit endures.
Śaṅkara’s Doctrine of Māyā – A Qualified Interpretation
Radhakrishnan admits that the philosopher Śaṅkara, who represents the Advaita or non-dualistic school, did indeed use the term māyā to describe the phenomenal world. But even here, the word does not mean that the world is a hallucination. Rather, it means that the world, as we perceive it through space, time, and causality, is imperfect and incomplete—a partial revelation of truth, not its total expression.
He gives a philosophical explanation:
Our experience of the world, whether through coexistence in space or sequence in time, is fragmentary and never fully unified. There is always something beyond what we can comprehend. Hence, the world of multiplicity cannot be “absolutely real.” Only the unchanging, eternal foundation behind it—the Brahman—can be truly real.
The Meaning of History and the Goal of Life
Radhakrishnan then reflects on the meaning of time, change, and history. If all of life were merely a process with no completion—“a perpetual travelling without arriving,” as he says—then existence would indeed be meaningless. But the Hindu vision does not end in despair.
For Hinduism, history has a purpose. It is the gradual unfolding of the divine plan in human life. Each soul moves toward mokṣa—liberation or perfection—which is the fulfillment of its purpose. When a person attains mokṣa, he or she transcends the limitations of birth, death, and individuality. The process of history thus moves toward a spiritual culmination.
When one individual reaches perfection, Radhakrishnan explains, they do not vanish into nothingness. They retain their individuality, not as a separate ego, but as a centre of divine action and compassion. Such liberated beings continue to assist others still caught in ignorance. This, he notes, is the highest moral service.
The Cosmic Process and the End of the World
Radhakrishnan then expands this idea to the cosmic level. When the entire universe completes its evolutionary purpose, it too will dissolve back into the Absolute. The “great drama” of creation will end—but divine freedom remains, capable of beginning another cosmic cycle.
He even refers to Einstein’s theory of relativity, suggesting that modern science, by acknowledging that space and time are finite and measurable, does not contradict the Hindu idea of a world that eventually dissolves. The end of the physical universe, therefore, is not destruction but fulfillment—the completion of its journey toward perfection.
Activity, Perfection, and the Meaning of Work
Some thinkers, both Eastern and Western, imagine heaven or liberation as a place of eternal rest or idleness. Radhakrishnan criticizes this view. Eternal inactivity would mean stagnation and death, not perfection. True perfection is dynamic—it expresses itself in compassion and service.
As long as there are souls still in ignorance, the liberated ones have work to do—they guide, uplift, and inspire others. Only when all beings reach perfection will creative activity cease. Until then, the universe continues as a field of moral and spiritual striving.
He quotes philosophers like Herbert Spencer and Bradley to illustrate the paradox: perfection implies stillness, but the path to perfection requires movement. Creation, therefore, is both a process of travail (struggle) and transcendence.
The Hindu insight, Radhakrishnan says, lies in harmonizing both—accepting the world as real and meaningful, yet recognizing that it finds its true worth only as a step toward the eternal.
The True Meaning of Śaṅkara’s Philosophy and the Hindu Conception of Reality
After discussing the general misunderstanding of the doctrine of māyā, Radhakrishnan continues by defending Śaṅkara against the common charge of illusionism. He explains that Śaṅkara’s view is far more realistic and nuanced than his critics allow.
Misinterpretations of Śaṅkara’s Doctrine
Radhakrishnan first points out that many critics wrongly assume that Śaṅkara denied the existence of the external world, as if he believed that things disappear when we stop perceiving them. This, Radhakrishnan insists, is not Śaṅkara’s position.
Unlike the Vijñānavādins (Buddhist idealists) who held that objects exist only in the mind, Śaṅkara affirms the extra-mental reality of objects. His philosophy does not say that the world is a mere dream or hallucination. Instead, it claims that the world exists — but as a dependent reality, drawing its existence from Brahman.
Śaṅkara clearly distinguishes between dream experiences and waking experiences. Dreams are private and fleeting; waking experiences are shared and continuous, and therefore have objective validity within empirical life. The world of waking experience is not contradicted by anything else in our logical knowledge. Thus, as Radhakrishnan emphasizes, Śaṅkara is a realist within the empirical order: “Things control thought.”
A further misunderstanding concerns the concept of avidyā, or ignorance.
Radhakrishnan clarifies that avidyā, for Śaṅkara, is not individual or psychological, but cosmic and universal. It is not the delusion of a single person; it is a principle of limitation inherent in finite existence itself — the condition that gives rise to the entire empirical world (prithivyādi prapañca).
In this sense, ignorance is not merely a mistake of thought but the root of finitude.
Mokṣa (liberation) does not destroy the world — it merely removes ignorance from the individual’s perception. When ignorance is replaced by knowledge (avidyā by vidyā), the world is “reinterpreted,” not abolished. Radhakrishnan gives the analogy of a mirage: when scientific knowledge reveals that the mirage is an illusion, the phenomenon may still appear, but it no longer deceives us. Similarly, after enlightenment, the world remains, but its true spiritual meaning is understood.
The World and Brahman
Śaṅkara’s ultimate claim, Radhakrishnan says, is that the duality of subject and object is not final. Both belong to the same spiritual essence — they are phases of one Reality, Brahman.
All universals and particulars, whether conscious or unconscious, are included within this single, all-encompassing Universal — the mass of pure intelligence (prajñānaghana). This does not mean that God and the world are identical, but rather that the world has no independent existence apart from God.
The world is not identical with Brahman, but neither is it separate from Brahman. It is a dependent reality, existing through the divine ground. When Śaṅkara denies the “reality” of effects, Radhakrishnan explains, he does so only in the sense that effects have no existence apart from their cause — just as the pot has no being independent of the clay.
The Mystery of Creation
Radhakrishnan then turns to the age-old philosophical question: How does the finite arise from the infinite?
Śaṅkara’s answer, he says, is profoundly humble — it is a mystery. The process by which the Absolute manifests as the world is beyond the scope of human reason. We know three things:
There is an Absolute Reality (Brahman).
There is an empirical world.
The empirical world depends upon the Absolute.
But the “how” of this dependence remains unknowable — this is māyā in its truest sense, not as illusion but as the mystery of creation.
Radhakrishnan examines and dismisses several philosophical attempts to explain the relation between God and the world:
The theory of creation, which imagines that God existed alone and then decided to create, is inadequate—it attributes temporality and desire to the Eternal.
The theory of manifestation, which says the world is a manifestation of God, also fails to explain how the infinite can appear as the finite.
The theory of transformation (pariṇāma), which suggests that God transforms into the world, leads to contradictions. If the whole of God is transformed, there is nothing left beyond; if only part is transformed, it divides the indivisible.
Śaṅkara therefore wisely refrains from forcing a logical explanation. As he says, we must “hold fast to both ends” — affirming both the Absolute and the world — even if we do not know how they are connected. Radhakrishnan quotes Śaṅkara’s commentators humorously comparing the error to “cutting a fowl in half” — one part for food, the other for eggs — to show how absurd it is to divide the divine.
Philosophical Humility and the Limits of Reason
Radhakrishnan remarks that the history of philosophy, both in India and the West, shows humanity’s persistent inability to explain the relation between the infinite and the finite. The greatest thinkers, he says, are those who recognize the mystery and accept the limits of reason.
Śaṅkara in the East and F. H. Bradley in the West both demonstrate this humility. They affirm that while distinctions exist, they are grounded in a unity that transcends human comprehension. The finite world, with all its beauty and suffering, depends on something more ultimate — the Absolute.
The Problem of Evil and Western Attempts
Radhakrishnan then connects this discussion to the problem of evil. If the world proceeds from God, how can it contain so much pain and imperfection?
He surveys how Western philosophers have tried to answer this troubling question:
The Bible simply asserts that creation is “very good,” but this optimism does not convince reason.
Plato suggested that God’s goodness was limited by the stubbornness of matter.
The Gnostics claimed that the world was created by an evil power, and that God merely tries to redeem it.
St. Augustine introduced the idea of “total depravity” and divine salvation.
Some, to preserve divine omnipotence, even imagined that God created the devil.
Leibniz proposed that this is “the best of all possible worlds,” but Radhakrishnan notes that this too places a limitation on God’s power, implying He could not do better.
Thus, all philosophical systems struggle to reconcile the existence of evil with belief in a perfect God.
The Hindu Position
In contrast, the Hindu approach does not attempt to solve this mystery through logic or dogma. Instead, it accepts the paradox of a world that is both real and dependent, both divine and imperfect. Hindu thought insists that the world, even in its limitations, is a necessary stage in the spiritual unfolding of the Absolute. Evil and imperfection are not meaningless—they are conditions of growth, opportunities for the realization of the good.
The Ethical and Spiritual Foundations of Hindu Thought
Radhakrishnan then addresses a persistent problem in philosophical thought — the question of how perfection gives rise to imperfection, or how the perfect Absolute can produce an imperfect world. Western thinkers like Bergson and Croce, he observes, have attempted to explain the world as a dynamic or creative expression of spirit, yet they have not succeeded in explaining how the Absolute itself differentiates into multiplicity. In contrast, Hindu philosophy, especially that of Śaṅkara, admits that any attempt to make this relationship fully intelligible must employ metaphor. Thus, Hinduism speaks of the world as an overflow of the divine perfection, as the līlā (play or sport) of God — a spontaneous, creative outpouring of divine energy. Creation is not a burden or a necessity but an expression of joy and freedom. The world, then, is not illusory in the sense of being non-existent; it is real as the manifestation of the divine but not ultimately real in itself. Māyā, in this view, is not “illusion” but the principle of objectivity — the means by which the infinite spirit expresses itself as the finite world.
Radhakrishnan is careful to insist that no major Hindu system teaches that life is a mere dream or that the world is wholly unreal. While later interpreters may have given such an impression, this does not represent the central tendency of Indian thought. On the contrary, Hinduism acknowledges the reality of the world as the field of divine activity, though it remains dependent upon and grounded in the Supreme Spirit.
He next turns to a common Western criticism — that if the world is divine, then moral distinctions lose meaning. If everything is God, the critic argues, then there is no reason to condemn evil actions, for even the pickpocket and the perjurer would be divine. Radhakrishnan rejects this caricature. To the Hindu mind, God is both immanent and transcendent. The divine dwells in all things, yet is not exhausted by them. The world exists in God, but God is not identical with the world. The cosmos is not an exhaustive revelation of the divine nature; rather, it is one mode of manifestation. The same divine light shines through all levels of existence, but with differing intensity — more fully in the organic than the inorganic, in the conscious rather than the unconscious, in the good man rather than the wicked. Even so, no being is wholly cut off from the divine presence. Even the sinner contains within him divine potentialities, and therefore no one is beyond redemption. “The worst sinner has a future,” says Radhakrishnan, “even as the greatest saint has had a past.” The moral mission of the great souls of the world is to awaken the sleeping divinity within all.
From this metaphysical basis Radhakrishnan moves to the law of Karma, which is often misunderstood as fatalism. Properly understood, Karma does not deny human freedom but rather expresses the principle of spiritual causality. It is the moral counterpart of the scientific idea of natural law — the assertion that the universe is lawful, rational, and moral “to the core.” Karma represents the rule of order, not the play of chance or caprice. In the early Upanishadic vision, this order was called ṛta, the universal law that governs both nature and human conduct. As the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad declares, the sun, moon, earth, and rivers all move “at the command of the Imperishable.” Similarly, human actions are bound by the law of moral necessity. Yet this law is not mechanical; it is the expression of the divine justice and wisdom that permeate creation. Hence, says Radhakrishnan, “All is law, yet all is God.”
Karma, then, is not blind fate but divine justice in operation. Every action bears its fruit, not because of arbitrary punishment or reward, but because divine law is woven into the very fabric of human nature. Sin, in this scheme, is not rebellion against an external deity but betrayal of one’s own higher self. Judgment is not postponed to the afterlife; it is constant, immediate, and inward. Yet the same moral law that ensures justice also allows for forgiveness. Forgiveness, in Hinduism, is not the cancellation of law but its fulfillment — for the divine justice itself provides for growth, repentance, and transformation. Thus, while “the past cannot be erased,” the future can always be remade through conscious effort and spiritual realization. The doctrine of Karma, rightly understood, is not pessimistic but profoundly hopeful and educative. It assures the sinner that it is never too late to change and reminds the saint that growth never ends.
Nevertheless, Radhakrishnan admits that the idea of Karma has sometimes degenerated into fatalism in later ages, when human will grew weak and self-effort declined. It became a convenient excuse for social inertia and moral indifference. Such a misinterpretation, he warns, is alien to the original and essential meaning of the doctrine.
Having established this metaphysical and ethical groundwork, Radhakrishnan now turns to the practical aspect of Hinduism. Hinduism, he declares, is not merely a system of metaphysical speculation but a way of life. It provides freedom of thought and belief — “the theist, the atheist, the sceptic and the agnostic may all be Hindus” — so long as they accept the moral and spiritual discipline of dharma. What matters is not doctrinal conformity but right conduct and spiritual aspiration. “The doer of good,” says the Gita, “never comes to harm.” Practice, not profession, is the real test of religion.
The central principle of this practical religion is dharma, the moral law that sustains individual and social existence. The word is derived from the root dhr, meaning “to hold” or “to sustain.” Dharma is that which upholds life and maintains harmony in the universe. In the Ṛg Veda, this principle was called ṛta — the right order of things — encompassing both truth (satya) and moral law (dharma). Every form of life and every human group has its own dharma, its own rule of being, by which it fulfils its place in the cosmic order. Virtue, then, is living in conformity with the truth of existence, while vice is disharmony with it.
Human life, Radhakrishnan observes, is driven by various basic desires — for pleasure, wealth, power, affection, and spiritual fulfillment. These are not isolated drives but interrelated aspects of one organic life. Hinduism therefore recognises four puruṣārthas, or legitimate goals of life:
Dharma (righteousness),
Artha (material well-being or wealth),
Kāma (emotional and aesthetic satisfaction), and
Mokṣa (spiritual liberation).
In this scheme, moral order is not opposed to material or emotional life but integrates them. Artha and Kāma are not condemned but are to be pursued in the light of Dharma, and all three lead ultimately to Mokṣa. Hinduism, Radhakrishnan stresses, does not believe in a permanent conflict between worldly and spiritual aims. The world is transient but not worthless; it is the pathway to the eternal. To reject it is to deny the very manifestation of the divine. The Upaniṣadic wisdom holds that both the finite and the infinite must be embraced — “he who knows both saves himself from death by the knowledge of the former and attains immortality by the knowledge of the latter.”
Thus, renunciation (tyāga) in Hinduism does not mean rejection of life, but detachment from it as finite and recognition of it as a vehicle of the infinite. True spirituality lies not in escape from the world but in transforming it through right understanding and right action.
Radhakrishnan concludes this section by noting that even in the pursuit of wealth and power (artha), moral discipline is essential. Human freedom and dignity depend upon restraint and self-control. The rules of dharma are therefore not arbitrary taboos but instruments of spiritual growth. They differ across regions and ages, reflecting the diversity of human life, yet their central aim remains constant — to bind the practical and the spiritual, the individual and the cosmic, into a harmonious whole.
Conclusion
In this lecture, Radhakrishnan thus restores the ethical foundation of Hindu philosophy. Far from denying the value of life, Hinduism sees the world as a sacred arena for moral and spiritual growth.
The doctrine of māyā does not negate duty or responsibility—it deepens them. Every act in the temporal world gains meaning when seen as part of the soul’s eternal journey toward realization.
Through this interpretation, Radhakrishnan shows that Hindu ethics is not pessimistic or world-denying but world-transforming. The ideal is not withdrawal from life, but liberation through life—a vision that blends metaphysics, morality, and compassion into one continuous movement of the spirit.
By reinterpreting Śaṅkara’s philosophy in this way, Radhakrishnan defends Hinduism from the charge of otherworldliness or moral indifference. The doctrine of māyā, properly understood, does not deny the world—it reinterprets it as a symbol of divine mystery and purpose.
For Radhakrishnan, the great strength of Hindu thought lies in its intellectual honesty and spiritual tolerance. It refuses to reduce the infinite to human categories. Instead, it stands in awe before the mystery of existence, affirming both the reality of God and the meaningfulness of life as stages in the soul’s eternal pilgrimage toward truth.
Radhakrishnan’s argument unfolds as a vision of Hinduism as a spiritual humanism — a system that reconciles metaphysics and morality, freedom and law, worldliness and transcendence. The Absolute is not a remote perfection but a living spirit immanent in all things; the world is its field of creative expression. The law of Karma affirms the moral structure of the universe, uniting justice with compassion. And Dharma, as the principle of right living, translates this cosmic order into daily conduct. Hinduism thus emerges not as a creed of dogmas but as a comprehensive philosophy of life, embracing all forms of human aspiration and binding them to the eternal rhythm of the divine.
The Gita and the Drama of Dharma
In the second half of “Hindu Dharma I,” Dr. S. Radhakrishnan turns to the Bhagavad Gita, not merely as a religious scripture, but as a living philosophical dialogue that expresses the essence of Hindu ethics. The battlefield of Kurukshetra, where the Gita opens, is not simply a physical field of war but the symbolic stage of the human soul. Here, the eternal conflict between right and wrong, duty and desire, faith and despair unfolds within every person’s heart.
At the beginning of the Gita, Arjuna, the great warrior and hero, stands ready for battle but is suddenly overcome by grief and moral confusion. He sees his own teachers, friends, and relatives standing on the opposite side and feels that killing them, even for the sake of justice, would be an unholy act. He drops his bow and declares that he would rather die unarmed than fight those he loves. For Radhakrishnan, this moment of paralysis is profoundly human — it is the crisis of the moral consciousness itself. Arjuna’s heart rebels against the law of violence, yet he is also aware that inaction in the face of evil is itself a form of wrongdoing. The tragedy of his situation is that both action and inaction seem sinful.
Radhakrishnan sees Arjuna’s despondency as symbolic of the spiritual conflict of mankind. Every person who faces a moral decision — between duty and desire, between self-interest and righteousness — experiences this same inner tension. The Gita, therefore, is not a call to blind action or fanatic duty; it is a search for the principle of right action. Through Arjuna’s crisis, we are led to the central problem of ethics: How can man act effectively in the world without becoming enslaved by it?
In the dialogue that follows, Krishna does not condemn Arjuna’s feelings but transforms them through knowledge. He leads Arjuna from emotional despair to spiritual understanding. The essence of Krishna’s teaching is that renunciation does not mean escape from action, but rather detachment from the fruits of action. Action is necessary, for no one can live even for a moment without acting. The real question is: How shall we act? The answer, says Krishna, is to act according to one’s dharma — to do one’s duty as an offering to the Divine, without selfish desire or fear of result. Such action purifies the mind and leads to liberation.
Radhakrishnan stresses that this teaching marks a turning point in the moral evolution of Hinduism. It resolves the apparent conflict between the ascetic and the active ideals of life. The world is not to be renounced in disgust but transformed through spiritual insight. True renunciation (sannyāsa) lies not in withdrawal but in inner freedom amidst action — a principle he calls the “spiritualization of the practical.”
Krishna teaches Arjuna that his hesitation arises from a false identification of the self with the body and its relations. The soul, being immortal and divine, neither kills nor is killed. The death of the body does not touch the essence of the person. Recognizing this, Arjuna must rise above his sentimental attachment and perform his duty as a warrior in the service of cosmic order. To shrink from battle would be to betray that order, to fail in the responsibility assigned by the divine plan.
Radhakrishnan interprets this not as an endorsement of war, but as a symbolic call to moral courage. Every human being must, at some point, fight the inner battle of life — against ignorance, inertia, and selfishness. To do one’s duty with a spirit of dedication, without attachment to success or failure, is the central teaching of the Gita. The battlefield becomes the theater of self-realization, where man learns that action and knowledge are not enemies but two expressions of the same spiritual truth.
Krishna’s teaching also unites three paths that had often been seen as distinct in Indian thought —
Jnana Yoga (the path of knowledge),
Karma Yoga (the path of action), and
Bhakti Yoga (the path of devotion).
Radhakrishnan shows that in the Gita these are not rival methods but complementary aspects of one integrated life. Knowledge without action is sterile; action without devotion is blind; devotion without understanding is sentimental. The harmony of the three paths is the mark of the Hindu synthesis, which refuses to separate the intellectual, ethical, and emotional elements of life.
Arjuna’s despondency is thus not a sign of weakness but the beginning of wisdom. It forces him — and through him, the reader — to move from emotion to understanding, from self-pity to self-knowledge. The crisis of doubt becomes the occasion for revelation. In the end, Arjuna is not commanded to believe, but to see — to realize the divine nature within himself and act in accordance with it. The Gita’s central vision, says Radhakrishnan, is that “life is duty, and duty is worship.” When one acts in the spirit of service and surrender, the battlefield of life itself becomes sacred.
This interpretation leads Radhakrishnan to an important reflection on Hindu ethics as a whole. Unlike systems that base morality on external commandments or social utility, Hinduism roots ethics in the nature of the self. To act rightly is to express one’s true being; to act wrongly is to deny it. The law of righteousness (dharma) is not imposed from outside but discovered within. Religion, therefore, is not submission to authority but realization of the divine order through self-knowledge. “He who knows himself,” says the Upanishad, “knows the Lord.”
In this way, the Gita’s teaching, as Radhakrishnan reads it, reconciles the inner life of meditation with the outer life of service. It offers an ethic of harmony — between spirit and matter, self and society, knowledge and action. The perfect man of the Gita is neither an ascetic who runs away from the world nor a restless worker driven by ambition, but a balanced soul who acts with freedom, lives with love, and serves with understanding.
Radhakrishnan concludes that this spirit of the Gita — this union of knowledge, devotion, and action — embodies the highest expression of Hindu dharma. It reflects the Hindu conviction that the world is not a trap but a means of self-unfolding, that duty is not drudgery but worship, and that the path to God lies not in renunciation of life, but in the sanctification of life itself.
POINTS IN A NUTSHELL
Through Arjuna’s crisis, Radhakrishnan illustrates the heart of the Hindu moral vision:
The self is divine, and realization of this truth is liberation.
The world is sacred, for it is the field of God’s play (līlā).
Action is worship, when done without attachment.
Duty is not external compulsion, but self-expression of the spirit.
The Gita, in Radhakrishnan’s reading, thus becomes a spiritual manual for modern humanity — a call to integrate thought, love, and work in the service of truth. It shows that the true victory is not over others but over the self, and the true battlefield is within the human heart.
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