Abstract
lajjA is a personal virtue to be cultivated, not a social sanction to be avoided, to lead a noble life. It guides us in life by (1) prescribing what we ought to do and (2) proscribing what we ought not do. It is cultivated through cultural socialization process from early childhood, but as young adults we make choices that leads to further learning, unlearning, and relearning lajjA in multiple social contexts. In this paper, I employ autoethnography to show how I learned, unlearned, and relearned lajjA hoping to throw some light on the developmental trajectory of this construct.
Harvard-Kyoto protocol for transliteration for devanagarI is used for all saMskRtaM and hindI words and names, and the first letters of names are not capitalized. All non-English words are italicized.
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Notes
- 1.
“lajjA makes me feel like a woman. Having lajjA does not make me any less determined, any less ambitious or any less strong as a human being. It just makes me graceful in my mannerisms and I appreciate the beauty in that (Sinha & Chauhan, 2013, p. 134)”.
- 2.
asTAGgayoga or the eight-fold path of yoga includes the following eight practices: yama (or controls), niyama (or restraints), Asana (or control of posture with effort), prANAyAma (or control of breath with effort), pratyAhAra (control of senses with effort), dhAraNA (holding of manas with effort), dhyAna (holding of buddhi with effort), and samAdhi (buddhi is in equanimity without effort).
- 3.
uttiSTha jAgrata prApya varAnnibodhata, kSurasya dhArA nizitA duratyayA durgaM pathastatkavayo vadanti (kathopaniSada: 1.3.14)—
|| Finding a teacher, rise, wake up, and realize. The wise say that the path is like a razor’s edge, difficult to walk on. - 4.
I have not been able to find a written evidence of this episode, though more than one person has reported hearing about it. In my studies of the biographies of ML, JL, and Gandhiji (Nanda, 1962; Gandhi, 1957/1993; Nehru, 1942) it is clear that ML was a very strong person who could publicly disagree with Gandhiji on issues and defend his position. I do not mean to slight either ML or Gandhiji. My father never slighted other people, and admired ML, JL, and Gandhiji. So, I believe the incident is likely to be true. The story is an important part of my development process even if it were made up.
- 5.
manas in sanskrit or mana in hindi is the center for cognition, affect, and behavior (Bhawuk, 2011), and, therefore, it is difficult to translate it in English. Mind is a widely used translation, which only captures the cognitive function of manas, but not the affective and behavioral functions. Therefore, I use manas in my writing, and use “manas or mind” from time to time to remind the readers of the translation issue. See bhAwuk, 2011, Chap. 4, for a definition and discussion of manas, buddhi, ahaGkAra, and antaHkaraNa. The closest translation of ahaGkAra would be ego, which comes at the cost of much loss of meaning. People often use mind for manas, which is simply wrong, since manas is the locus of cognition, affect and behavior, whereas mind is only cognitive. And buddhi is closest to the super-ego in Freudian parlance, but without ego, which makes the similarity rather superficial. And antaHkaraNa is the composite internal organ or agent combining manas, buddhi, and ahaGkAra.
- 6.
Gandhiji is instinctively quoting bhagavadgItA verse 6.29 that captures the idea of samadarzana or harmonious perspective where one sees the self in others and others in the self. Verse 6.29: sarvabhUtasthamAtmAnaM sarvabhUtAni cAtmani, IkSate yogayuktAtmA sarvatra samadarzanaH. One who sees the self in all beings and all beings in oneself, such a person, who is absorbed in yoga, has a harmonious global perspective.
- 7.
Gandhiji is instinctively quoting bhagavadgItA verses 2.56 and 2.57 that describe the person whose buddhi is in equanimity or one who is free of all passions, a sthitaprajJa. 2.56: duHkheSvanudvignamanAH sukheSu vigatsprihaH, vItarAgabhayakrodhaH sthitdhIrmunirucyate. When facing sorrow one’s manas is not agitated, and when facing pleasure one does not desire more; one who has transcended attachment, fear, and anger is said to be in equanimity by the seers. 2.57: yaH sarvatrAnabhisnehastattatprApya zubhAzubham, nAbhinandati na dveSTi tasya prajJA pratiSThitA. One who is without attachment or fondness in all situations, and neither celebrates the appearance of what is pleasurable nor mourns the appearance of what is detestable; such a person’s buddhi is in equanimity.
- 8.
“In bidding farewell to the reader, for the time being at any rate, I ask him to join with me in prayer to the God of Truth that He may grant me the boon of ahiMsA in mind, word and deed.” (Gandhi, 1957).
|| Finding a teacher, rise, wake up, and realize. The wise say that the path is like a razor’s edge, difficult to walk on.References
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Professors Jai B. P. Sinha, Ramadhar Singh, Braj Bhushan, Smriti Anand, Richa Awasthy, Chandra P. Sharma, Dr. Om P. Sharma, Anand C. Narayanan, Vikram Patel, Ajay Chugh, Rekhanshi Varma, and Robin Singh for their insightful comments that helped improve the paper. An earlier draft of the paper was presented at the International Congress of International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Guelph, Canada, July 1 to July 5, 2018.
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Bhawuk, D.P.S. (2019). lajjA: Learning, Unlearning and Relearning. In: Mayer, CH., Vanderheiden, E. (eds) The Bright Side of Shame. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13409-9_3
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