Paper 9 - Modern Literature

Topic: RECONFIGURING THE WAITING FOR GODOT WITHIN SOME PARADIGMS OF HINDU PHILOSOPHY

Paper:9

Submitted to:Smt.S.B.Gardi

      Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar university

Bhavnagar 

  (Gujarat-India)

 

RECONFIGURING THE WAITING FOR GODOT WITHIN SOME PARADIGMS OF HINDU PHILOSOPHY

   Circumscribing Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and the philosophy of ‘waiting’ within several intriguing parameters of Hindu philosophy can be a challenging and a celebratory experience, not just because it unearths new interpretive spaces, but also for the critical temerity that this venture entails, given Beckett’s unendorsed association with Indian philosophical systems. Unlike Eliot or Arnold or Emerson or Thoreau, the authenticity of Beckett’s personal linkages with the complicated matrix of Indian philosophy is suspect. However, given the conceptual pliancy of the play, the provocation to offer philosophical re-constellations in line with Indian philosophical systems can hardly be ignored. Hear the concept of Karma, Dharma, and the Indian value system, so as to offer a new perspective on ‘waiting’. The critique of ‘waiting’ concentrates on Hindu philosophical-metaphysical-ethical interpretation and tries to unearth a fresh dimension to the relation plexus between Godot, Vladimir and Estragon, which in a way, reorients  our entire approach to the play itself.

In the light of Hindu philosophy, the Godot-denied world of the play can ne categorized by pramada, alasya and nidra as mentioned in the Gita. it is a drugged state reeking with the ‘incomprehensibility’ of the ‘real’-a near misguided obstinacy. so the initial feeling for the situation in the play speaks of the tamasic state which is born of ignorance: it deluded. from a tamsic state we find at a certain stage in the drama, a clearer conative perception in a rajasic state that is, however, void of the unity of existence. it lacks the deeper insight into the unifying factor that Godot’s anticipative presence purports to bring to the surface.it is karma, samsara and then the inevitable bandha that constitute the fundamental existential matrix of Vladimir and Estragon. but what I propose hear is that, when drawn into relation with certain paradigms of Hindu philosophy Beckett’s work dose not just foreground am incessant undertow of non-knowledge, nescience or avidya but also a possibility for ‘discriminative knowledge’ figuring the way of release.it neecs to be understand that,in Hindu philosophy ,’waiting’ is the unity of existence,the inspiring to reorient the undertow of moral slackness and other entropic forces. Following such premises, the ‘waiting’ ,as conative presistence can have as consequence a ’consummation’ that provides a clear understanding of the situation-a state of being free from the morbid transition can matter. So a positive liberty is underlined where self-determination can adjudge the possibilities for self-transcendence.

The ‘inauthentic’ milieu in the waiting brings us to the conceot of the adhyasa in Advaita philosophy. Steeped in avidya, the world of Vladimir and Estragon becomes a state of consciousness where realizing Godot would be realizing Brahman, the ultimate reality under Advaita Vendnta of Sankaracarya. Adhyasa is brought by maya :maya is concealment and superimposition. maya in the Vladimir and Estragon  world springs from ‘inauthenticity’ and give rise to indiscrimination and this leads to attachment to Ragadvesadi, to Karma, to embodiment and finally to misery.it is this misery that forbids the kierkegaardianleap into enthusiasm and thus promotes a dichotomized entity in reading Godot.It is worthwhile to note that the interpretations arrived at within this as well as other paradigms of Hindu philosophy cannot be conclusive, because the pregnant conceptual ‘fluidity’ of the play enables a plurivocity of philosophy interventions.

However, the problems of inauthentic modes of existence can be seen to revolve around the mimamsa philosophy of holding  the individual to be morally responsible for this action. This is notthe concept of karma as found in the Nyaya-Vaisesika system or Buddhist philosophy ; it is, rather the judgmental axis of performance of the mimamsa .so hear we have vidhi which mean that one has to wait for Godot and Nisedha which implies that one can not move away but simply wait for Godot . the karma of waiting has for me a truth of spiritual world;the karma-vipaka or fruition of action is in waiting for movement that decides the arrival of Godot. the philosophy of Avidhya might interpret the situation to be noumenally false yet it is not simply anonetity or a purely subjective experience for it is here, within it that the struggle is actuated’the karmic process to realize the dharma of Godot’s Dasein. The Godot-awaited world is the product of avidya which is a kind of non-discriminative knowledge where jivatman is exempted from avidya. It is avidya that inspire the momentum for salvation or salvaging the ultimate Dharma. With some effort the inauthentic, adharmic state of being can be interrogated when anticipating the future is privileged over mere waiting.   

Under the Sankhya system,we know that no action can take place unless there is a decision to act. The arrival of the boy bearing a message from Godot is a stimulation to initiate, or rather manifest ‘action’:

                         

                        Vladimir: It’s starting that’s difficult

                        Estragon: You can start from anything.

                        Vladimir: Yes, but you have to decide.

   

    Without fatalistically waiting for future to drew near,Vladimir understands the difficulty to starting amidst avidya and the evolution of the situation that makes for karmic flexibility. Godot and the duo of Vladimir and Estragon range in the scale of Hindu philosophy between monism, perfection and being eternal contrasted with pluralism, incompleteness and transience. The hesitant in ability to offer a rejoinder to Godot’s ‘deferred’ visit-‘tell him….. tell him you saw us. you did see us,didn’t you?-underwrites an incompetence in their conduct of temporal affairs which precludes the essential means to a spiritual realization in waiting for Godot. Godot within the value system of Hindu ethics is integrated consciousness .Vladimir and Estragon cannot respond to this naked condition of pure selfhood because action in the realm of dichotomous being they fail to achieve an integrated personality. However, the rajasic state of affairs puts the creation of their personality in train ;it is a state that preludes a condition of recuperation. Godot has the potential to reveal an order of being which, more than being merely human, is a spiritual reality which is also the source of the significance of what happens in the temporal order of begin. But importantly, despite the hesitant rejoinder to the boy, the message they wish to communicate concerns the persistent act of ‘waiting’. They have no left their ground and the ‘consequent’. 

The situation of Vladimir and Estragon cannot carry its own final meaning: avidya springs from the acceptance of this world as final and conclusive. Whatever the result of action may lie, whether in the action itself or in the agent or somewhere else, it become obvious that it has been generated in the course of the ‘performance’. Vladimir thinks of change, desires reconfiguration, contemplates a ‘performance’ and thereby lends the power of contingency to their predicament. Vladimir says, ’let us do something while we have the chance …Let us make the most of it ,before it is too late!’.This performative potency insinuates the finality achieved in Godot.in the theory of Prabhakara, Godot could be the Niyoga; it is the incentive to prompt the Apurva to realize the dharma of authenticity. We presume that Karma in Vladimir and Estragon world can be exercises in efficient causality but not without the actuation of Godot.IT is Godot karma that establishes the dharma both at the micro and the macrocosmic level in the Vladimir-Estragon existential circuit. so Godot can be interpreted as an efficient cause.But under the theory of the sahakarivada of the naiyayikas,Godot’s causal efficiency needs to take into account what Vladimir’s and Estragon’s ‘being’ and ‘action’deserve.

                       

                           Vladimir: Let’s wait and what he says.

                           Estragon: Good idea.              

                       Vladimir: Let’s wait till we know exactly how we stand.

                    Estragon: On the other hand it might be bitter to strike the iron before it freezes.

                     Vladimir: I’m curious to hear that he has to offer. then we’ll take it or leave it.

So in a way, Godot exists because Vladimir and Estragon wait; Godot stand to be realized because of the karmic self-reflexivities of the two, So the possibilities of Godot’s ‘being revealed ‘ are ingrained in the givenness of Karmic  potency, the whatness of things.

Hindu ethical philosophy would argue that ‘waiting’ in its steadfastness then becomes the functioning unity of the personality that is realized when thought ripens to judgment through value choices. Vladimir assesses the situation appropriately when he stresses the need to know exactly how they stand. It is a critique of the relation he has with the ground and the consequent. within the philosophy of karma, waiting, then calls for an intensely self critical awareness where the functional and intentional capacities available to Vladimir demand the responsibility of exercising them. Within such tenets of Hindu philosophy reaching for Godot would mean a combination or synthesis of jnana and karma under the theory of samuccaya. So, if efforts are directed at the karmic honesty of situation, we can have  condition suitable for the revelation of the knowledge. The ‘inexhaustibility’ reminds me of what Krishna tells Arjuna on the eve of the Kurukshetra.    

                       

                        If filled with pride,you say, I will not fight

                        it is all on vain you are foolish

                        Fight you will, your nature will make you fight

                        Your karma will make you fight

                        You are foolish. You will fight in spite of yourself

                        Doesn’t the world revolve like the magic wheel?

                        Isn’t Brahman the hub?

The question hear is: Isn’t Godot the hub? According to the Bhatrprapanch karma is essential to the process of Brahman realization.Godot’s implicit ‘you ought’ awaits the right response of I ought. Volitionally, Vladimir needs to set in place an attitude which act like the formation of a centre of gravity in a cosmic nebula.HE understand the need to wait- ‘Let’s wait and see what he says’; he grows curious to ;earn what Godot is capable of delivering. His karma will make him fight.

Knowledge of the vyakta is essential to a realization of moksha. The dramatic milieu foreground the dialectic with the avyakta-the perishable and the caused conflated with the manifold, the emergent and the all pervading. In fact ‘waiting’, inveterate anticipation, ascertains and appends ‘value’ to reality where the totality of reality is realized   in the maturity of the ‘partnership’. Godot’s values are not karmasadhya; they are intrinsic and absolute beyond the scope of human agency.So it is pointless to believe in the pointlessness of existence in the Godot –delayed-denied-deferred universe of man. Its basic resistance to analysis defies all categorized hermeneutics of self. For me, its silence revels in interpretation: waiting .non appearance calculates the modes of appearance. At most,a kind of ‘self-realization’ is hinted at by Beckett where more than ‘voidness’, it is self identity with the existent; it is a striving towards attainment of identification with the ultimate. Vladimir, thus admits that they are ‘inex haustible’. Within concept of moksha, the self. having an intuition of the supreme self, is a conscious self persisting in the state of release.

                        

                        Vladimir: Tied.

                        Estragon: Ti-ed

                        Vladimir: But to  whom by whom?

                        Estragon: To you man.

                       Vladimir: To Godot? Tied to Godot? What an idea!     

  It is a liberating ‘idea’ to be tied to Godot. So the effort to struggle to maintain –‘Let us do something, while we have the chance…Let us make the most of it. before it is to late!’-is the restoration of a ‘natural positon’, a perservation of the self’s  distinctive essence through being identified with Godot.

So what I term a Godot liberated status is a positive state of consciousness, not a bare existence afflicted by desolate materiality and soul stultifying inertia.It should be a freedom that makes a claim on value and puts a premium on knowledge that affect, infiuences and purifies being. Within the formative matrix of the play there is a clear change in the trajectory of knowledge , especially for Vladimir, and in the knowledge content which is implicit in the play. For instance, the insistent enquiry ,’will night never come’ and Pozzo’s affirmation that he would have waited for Godot till it  was back night, point to change in process that border on Karmic and the Dharmic entelechy as mentioned above. Estragon’s Adam-like stature confirms a ‘struggle’ and Pozzo’s call to be a ‘littele more attentive reinforces greater involvement with self-reconstruction. However, Karma, is more significant paradigm and Beckett seems to put greater emphasis on karma then, the concept of dharma, as traditionally propounded, intimation of the godot-world make us believe in interrelatedness, implicating a possibility for ‘growth’. the dharma, as implied through the godot world, is a philosophical reinterpretation of the temporal schema. Dharma, for Beckett,would propose a valued order which more than a specific order  of life is ‘thoughtful’ orderliness.

Godot, thus, within  several tradition of Hindu philosophical thought defies low; the uncertainty concerning Godot is a revaluation of the Hindu view of the temporality and materiality of existence. the dharma in waiting would never discount the samsara or Vladimir and Estragon’s circumstantial immediacy.the ethical perfection waiting to be actualized is the condition which precedes the achievement of a liberation through karman which does away with the sacred –secular dichotomy. karman  would brighten the possibilities of being identified with Godot and the dharma of ‘waiting’ foreground the partnership that decimates this dichotomy. In the event of this realization in waiting .the situation , conceptually, leads us to a site where dharma and moksha caninterwine, the ethical and the spiritual  can enmesh. The intermeshing is graded: in the interactive situation involving Vladimir and Estragon the value in the lower rung of the Indian value system are put on trial and are sublimated and transformed in the light of the ‘waiting’ for Godot.

so, following the graded system of value of Hindu philosophy , Godot has intrinsic value whereas the rest of the values are instrumental. I refuse to read the play as predominantly absurdist because ends can be ascribed to most of the action and most of the consequence are meaning full and symbolically fruitful. the frustration and resistance involved in the time portal situation of vladimir and estragon is integral to the very ontology and teleology of the waiting. The message contained in the waiting concerns a correspondence between matter and brahman with stress being laid on a new degree of ethical activism .thus with the right kind of realization of the dharma of the existential situation oje would be assured of reaching the gateway to moksh. vladimir and estragon need to understand that morel ethos of the given in their existential circuit is not the absurd realm which is self sufficient and self complete. One has to go beyond the ethics of the situation to reach the state of being free where; in the complete experience of spiritual freedom all contradiction will be resolved. nothing would then remain uncertain thereby negating estragon’s assertion no nothing is certain .the remained state of waiting will have godot as the final the all sufficing human toad and the following true philosophy of authenticity .Godot is seduction and enticement.