DIOGENES, not as popular a name as Socrates, Plato or Aristortle, but a man of worth, the king of cynicism andperhaps the stoic culture. Seneca wrote his letters as a stoic; Rome and then the world read them, but who practiced them first? Diogenes did. That’s as far as history goes. The atom bomb when first invented by the Americans, Japanese and Germans were themselves close to getting at it, but America beat them. The practices, inventions have followed a pattern of parallelism across the world and so goes with Romans and Greeks. But again, that’s history recorded in one form or the other. What kind of history is not recorded then? Why do Buddhist sculptures have such a Greek look? What did the world have to learn from the East before Alexander was born?

Buddha was born before 400 B.C, before Diogenes, before Alexander. When the first attempt towards unifying India was under play under the shrewd leadership of Chanakya, Buddhist monks were already chanting their hymns in the undergrowth of forests. Who laid the principles of stoicism then?  Diogenes lived in tatters, in a tube, ridiculing the people in power around him. He hated hypocrites. When his guru Antethisis practiced the principles of cynicism living in simple quarters barely furnished with a bed and basic s, Diogenes rebuked him for not following what he practiced and living in luxury. People found his words acrimonious for he never took anything seriously and laughed at what the society around him practiced. Once while he was sitting in his tube, he heard a few citizens marching for some cause through the lanes. He started rolling his tube back and forth. People asked him what he was doing and he replied ‘I am trying to be as busy as they are’. He ridiculed people for their false standards and short sightedness, but he took it to one extreme. More than putting down his thoughts, he practiced his principles and in the age when writing wasn’t as great an influence like it is today, he was one of the major centers of awe and surprise for people around him, and one of them, was Alexander.  Alexander however respected him. He identified the streak of genius in that man. Once Alexander came to see him and asked him

‘Don’t you fear me?’

‘Are you a good or a bad man?’ Diogenes asked back.

‘Good.’ Alexander retorted.

‘Then I don’t see any reason why I should fear you.’

The precise scope of the conversation is the demonstration ‘Don’t waste my time. If you must find reason to waste your words and efforts for nothing, find a reason better than wasting my time.’

During another interaction Alexander came to see him and asked him to pay tributes. Diogenes never bothered and simply asked him not to block the sunlight that he was enjoying. Alexander acknowledged his courage and said that if he were to be born someone else he would want to be Diogenes. His practice of ridiculing the world in an attempt to bring man face to face with his follies is highlighted by the most popular instance when he was roaming around the town in bright day light, with a lantern by his side. When asked what he was doing, he replied ‘I am looking for one honest man in town’. He is infamously known to defecate at market place, masturbate and spite people who wore the mask of status symbol and false honor. This was one man who did what he practiced and saw the things in the lights of man as an animal that didn’t need much to survive. He found better friends in dogs than another human being, because dogs like him, were not hypocrites. But where did such a practice come from? He could have easily found isolation somewhere in the forests to practice life the way he wanted to, instead of attempting to prove how unaware people were, but somehow the thought didn’t cross his mind. Perhaps a few more generations of practice could have led the followers to isolation, but the idea itself didn’t blend with the Western school of thought.

We know Chess was already being played amongst kings in India, long before the world started playing it. We also know that the first modern age civilization with trade, society and role in a kingdom originated in the East. How come then the West gets all the credit for laying the paths to a civilized society? People in Norway were fighting with bones, Vikings were pulling the intestines out of each other when man first conceptualized the practice of sharing and peaceful coexistence in the East. Who was the first man then who could even think that when man learns to identify what is sufficient for him, he discovers happiness. Who first thought of inner peace? Certainly again, Buddha was not the first one if we consider the pattern of parallelism. Only that Buddha could take himself to the extreme and was capable enough to communicate and convince people around him about the strength in the experience. Alexander was surprised to see thousands of men like Diogenes in India, during his march of victory. They didn’t care about the world, but only their inner selves. Unlike Diogenes they chose to dwell in the forests, away from human contact. When Alexander spoke to them, they talked wisdom, they were the only ones who generated enough fear in him, not as mortals who could harm him, but the purpose of life itself. What he learnt from Diogenes, reinstated itself. He questioned himself for the first time with a sane mind. Such philosophers dwelling in the forests not only overwhelmed him, but propelled him to seek private meetings with them. On one such meetings the ascetic Galyan says ‘If you want to learn, shred your clothes like me and lie on that stone, awareness will come from within. Are you ashamed? Yes you are because your mind has found an illusion to focus itself on. If you want to learn the truth, forget thoughts, lust, hatred.’ Ascetic Galyan warns him later ‘You are defeated by the desire of victory, and you want to conquer the world.’ The surprising thing is that Alexander was perhaps the first person who understood the worth of the ascetics, not for personal benefit or cause, but for the cause of learning itself. The ascetics called gymnosophists in modern language, a handful of them were captured by Alexander. He is known to ask these clever philosophers tricky questions. Some of them were brought to Macedonia.

Having come from a background that laid a lot of emphasis on learning in the contemporary times, the Greeks, Romans, Macedonians learnt staying ahead of the rest of the world in architecture and sciences; they first recognized philosophy as a school of thought.  Where did the East lose then? The precise idea that each philosopher, each ascetic was too consumed by his own self and self learning, without any concern for popularity, power and control, that he never went around preaching his principles. Students found these ascetics, just like Alexander did; a true ascetic never advertised his presence, like most philosophers in the West did. In the East, the knowledge and awareness factor built up so much at the point of inflection that it was looking for a release. Even a regular guy who took a little interest in philosophy was capable of understanding and coming to terms with life, the environment around him was so conducive. The breaking point arrived with Buddha and if one can scale the following ages into an order of chronology, multitude of gurus followed, each one with a variation in experience, but leading to the same goal. At one point Jesus arrived, and more followed, but the maximum points still go to the East and the trend still continues. Ever questioned why the West still sees India as the hub for mysticism and philosophical learning? The answer is easy. They get to experience, they get to find a comfortable environment of peace and serenity, inspite of the strong intrusions brought in communal rivalry, population overgrowth, lack or resources. The original momentum delivered by the practice of ascetics, perhaps thousands of years before Christ was born has been so strong that the process has founded itself in our genes. Give it names, mar it with Aryan resettlement, Moghul invasion, the ascetics can still be found living along Ganges, dressed in ash, smoking chilam, and smiling in peace. A handful of Diogenes couldn’t influence the practice enough, in the West. But millions of un-remembered ascetics changed the way India thought and led her way. Their role has been as primal in governing our own disposal towards life, as has been with the successful kings who sought their advice. Not to forget Chanakya, who successfully united India first and from the school of stoics, Mahatma Gandhi was only next to him, who equally practiced simplicity, but in an expression that could be exemplified for the millions of believers he raised. His non-violence is only another synonym for Buddha’s self contentment, Chanakya’s shrewd mind devoid of worldly materialism and the practice made easy for the world to understand. East isn’t a loser then. It preaches practices and lives a life that is envied by the West. Even after attending numerous seminars and session, you find that seeker, ending up in the heart of India, to experience it for real, for once in his lifetime. What other reasons could drive George Harrison to embrace India eternally, as ashes in Ganges?

Reference:

• 1. ‘Chanakya , TV series‘ – Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi
  2. A history of cynicism from Diogenes to the 6^th Century AD-Donald R Dudley, 1937
  3. A Summary of Stoic Philosophy: Zeno of Citium in Diogenes Laertius Book Seven
  4. Wikipedia