| The Role of Religion In Asians High Performance In America |
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| Friday, 06 October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN ASIANS HIGH PERFORMANCE IN AMERICA Ozodi Thomas Osuji Like many people in America, I have taken notice of the fact that Asian children, on the whole, tend to do better than white and black children at schools. Their scores at Scholastic Aptitude Tests, particularly the quantitative sections, generally, are higher than those of other so-called races. Their high performance is such that if America’s elite universities were to admit students solely on merit grounds, a preponderance of their students would be Asians. Like many people, I have wondered why Asians do better than white and black American students. In this essay, I will argue that one of the reasons why Asians do better than other students is religion. There are many religions in Asia, such as Taoism and Shinto, but the universal ones are Hinduism and Buddhism. A look at these two religions, therefore, is necessary to understand the Asian mind and behavior. Buddhism sprang from Hinduism and, for all intents and purposes, is a sect of Hinduism, just as Christianity is a sect of Judaism. If you understand Hinduism, with a little tweaking, you will also understand Buddhism. The two primary Asian religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, want people to give up their ego separated selves and return to the awareness of a shared self, a unified self, a self that does not see itself as separated from other selves. My experience is that those who live from their unified self, generally, tend to do better at learning, whereas those that operate from their separated ego states tend to do poorly at structured learning situations. The person, who is full of himself, is full of ego, is a poor learner; whereas the person who is less full of himself tends to be calm and learn more easily. Africans and black people in general tend to be full of themselves; they are too egotistical and, indeed, think that it is good to affirm their separated ego selves. Their apparent unbridled egotism, I believe, prevents them from being good learners. Europeans tend to be in the middle between Asians and black folk in the affirmation of separated self, egoism. European culture does not teach the elimination of the separated self, as Asian cultures do, but asks folk to keep their separated selves and use them for public service. In social service, what Hinduism would call Karma yoga, the ego is socialized and redirected to good use. Christianity’s emphasis on love, forgiveness and social service has a tendency of making the ego socialized. Because the European tries to make his separated ego an ego of love (ala Ramakrishna, see the Gospel of Ramakrishna by M) he tends to be somewhat calm and is able to learn, but not as efficiently as Asians. On a scale from best learners to poor learners, Asians learn best, followed by Europeans and at the bottom of the scale, Africans. The implication of this assertion is that if Africans want to learn effectively, to enter into the world of science and technology, they have to give up their egotism and embrace a less egotistical life style; they have to embrace a religion and culture that puts emphasis on “we rather than I”. Africans have to develop a spirit of public service, not their present ridiculous self service. A QUICK REVIEW OF HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM I have covered Asian religions elsewhere and will only briefly review them here. Hinduism is probably the oldest of the world’s major religion (Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Hinduism did not come into being through the auspices of one person. Rather, a group of shepherds, called Rishis, contemplated God and left poems on what they thought was the nature of God. Their poems formed the basis of the Veda (Hindu religious literature). The Veda is composed of the early poems, followed by heroic poems, such as Ramayana and Mahabharata (the most famous section of which is the Bagavad Gita), then the philosophical discourse called Upanishads and Patanjali’ Yogas. Over millennia, individuals added to Hindu religious literature, thinkers like Manu, Shankara, Ramanuja, Guru Nanak, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda etc come to mind. Hinduism has a large literature, some as old as 4000 years. This literature was originally written in Sanskrit. Basically, Hinduism teaches that there is one God, called Brahman. Brahman is speculated to have cast Maya, magical spell, on himself and went to sleep. In his sleep, he dreamed that he is now more than one self, that he is all of us. In effect, one self has become infinite selves. One self, Brahman is the same as each of us, Atman. Atman, our real self (who is one with Brahman) complicates the situation by seeing himself as separated from other Atmans and from Brahman. In our world, called Brahman’s sleep-dream, each of us sees himself as separated from other selves. This separated self identification is called Ahankara. Each person on earth fancies himself separated and different from other selves and sees his self interests as different from other people; he works mostly for what he considers his own self interests and sometimes at the expense of other people’s interests. Because each of us pursues his self interests, conflict and war becomes necessary in society. Because of the inevitable conflict in a world of competing self interests, we must have governments and laws to guide our behaviors, to prevent us from stepping on each others toes. Hinduism teaches that the perception of ones self as separated from other people is, at best, an illusion and, at worse, a delusion. That is correct, Hinduism teaches that to see ones self as apart from other people is to be deluded. Delusion disorder is one arm of psychosis, it is belief in what is not true, as true and acting as if it is true. (The other arm of psychosis is hallucination, seeing what is not there and or hearing voices that are not spoken by other people; the schizophrenic has delusions and hallucinations.) Because Hinduism sees belief in separated ego self as insanity, it teaches its members to abhor the separated self, the ego, and to seek ways to return to the awareness of what it considers sanity, one self, a self we all share, Brahman. Most Hindu religious practices are designed to enable the individual to give up his separated ego self and return to our putative shared self and shared mind, Brahman. Patanjali, one of the earliest Hindu teachers, recognized that people are different and approach their God differently. He provided them with four ways to rejoin with Brahman, the four Yogas: Bhakti, Janna, Karma and Raja. The Bhakti likes to see God as a person and so he is encouraged to worship a personal God. In worshipping God, as if he is a king to be served, singing praises to him, he forgets affirming his own separated ego. Prayer enables the individual to deemphasize his own ego. (To sing in a chorus, particularly in the public, is one of the best ways to lose sight of ones individuality, ones ego.) The philosophical type of person cannot worship a personal God for he does not see God as a king. He wants to think about God, Hinduism lets him do so, until he comes to understand that the one is the many, this is the Jnana path. The doer type of person does not have time to think about God, so Hinduism lets him go and amass wealth and encourages him to share that wealth with the public; in giving money to the people, since people are God, he is serving God; this is the Karma path. Finally is the royal yoga, Raja Yoga. We all believe that we have separated selves and should meditate; in meditation people lose their separated self consciousness and experience their unified self. Other Yogas were added to Patanjali’s four basic yoga, such as Ayudi Yoga (Hindu medicine), Hatha yoga ( Hindu physical exercises), Tantra Yoga (the notion that one should not avoid pursuit of pleasure but rather see all people as divine and love them). Hinduism does every thing to enable its members to lose their sense of I, the separated, ego self. If the individual succeeds (while in meditation) in losing the separated self, he goes into Samadhi, the world of unified, shared, joined self, the world of Brahman. In Brahman, there is no you and I, no seer and seen, no subject and object, just one self. In it, the individual is said to be enlightened to his one light self, is illuminated and is now self realized. Such a person no longer emphasizes his separated ego self, but lives from our unified, shared, joined, and connected self. He does not talk of the separated self but the joined self. His life is subsequently peaceful and happy. He lives in the bliss of union with all being. The person who emphasizes the separated self lives in conflict with other selves and lacks peace and happiness. Hinduism accommodates people and permits them to approach God according to their basic temperaments. Thus, those who are Bhakti are allowed to call whatever they want God. India has many Gods, including Nirguna Brahman, Brahma, Ishvara, Vishnu, Shiva, Kali, Divas and Davis (human beings that have attained god status, now live in light bodies), Avatars (Gods incarnated as human beings such as Rama, Krishna…equivalent to Christian Jesus Christ), Saints (such as the nineteenth century Ramakrishna) etc. These Gods are personification of the impersonal God, Brahman. Essentially, God, Brahman is not a person; it is a life force but if it makes you feel fine to see him as a person, to anthropomorphize him, then go ahead and do so, and worship him accordingly. Worshipping him enables you to lose awareness of your ego separated self. You can use the illusion of a personal God to enable you to reach the reality of no personal God. Buddha was supposed to be a Hindu aristocrat who did not know of human sickness and suffering until he was twenty eight years of age. Apparently, he was secluded in his father’s gilded palace until, finally, he stepped out of it and beheld death and suffering, the lot of mankind. Apparently, he had not seen people suffer before. He was then seized by an obsession to understand why people suffer. He abandoned his wife and young son, left his golden palace (illusion of happiness in ego) to go study Sadhus, Hindu holy men. He tried many paths and austerities and settled on the middle way: moderation in everything. Unable to find what he was looking for, Gautama allegedly sat under a Bo tree and refused to get up, until he found out what this life is all about. Like Jesus Christ in the desert, before he began his ministry, Buddha was tempted by Mara (Oriental equivalent of Satan). He was told to give up his quest for salvation (return to unified spirit) and, instead, seek the fleshpots of this world. He refused and eventually his mind escaped from this world and he entered into Nirvana. Upon coming back from his unified experience, Gautama Buddha tried to cut through the chase and formed a religion where he did away with the various gods and goddesses that litter the Indian landscape. Gautama Buddha simply practiced Raja Yoga, meditation, and that is really what Buddhism is all about. Go into meditation, negate your separated self, see all thinking emanating from the separated self as false, for they affirm the world of separation and multiplicity; negate the ego and its categories. Clean your thinking, mind, of all ego based thinking. In fact, deny that you have a separated self. Let go of the ego, separated self, let go of your self concept, let go of your self image, let go of your human personality. Be open for your true self to be shown to you. If one negates the ego separated self and its world, Buddhism teaches that one may experience Nirvana (which is the same as Samadhi, Satori in Zen Buddhism), oneness with all creation. That experience is ineffable, for words cannot describe it, words can only describe what is in the world of separation. When Buddha experienced Nirvana, his followers asked him to explain it and he kept quiet, for words cannot explain what he felt, union. In union one is ones self and simultaneously all selves and is one with God and such experience cannot be explicated by the language of separated selves. Buddha taught that to live as a human being is to suffer. He said that this suffering is inherent in human existence; it is built into the structure of life on earth because to live on earth is to desire to live as a separated self. One cannot be on earth unless one wishes separated self. To seek a separated self, that which, in fact, does not exist and defend it, is to seek an illusion, which is to suffer. A person who denied his real self, unified self, and acts as if he is a false, separated self is, ip so facto, in pain. Thus, to be human is to be in psychological pain. This existential pain is self induced and, as such, can be given up. It is given up when the individual gives up the desire to have a separated self. When the individual stops wishing for the chimera of separated self and stops defending that illusion, he stops his existential suffering. Or his pain is reduced. However, as long as he still lives in physical form, in body, he must still have residual wish for separation hence pain. He must have some separated wish to be in form, so psychological pain cannot be completed eliminated on earth. Buddha urges his followers to see other people as like them and relate to them as such. They are to be compassionate for all mankind, for men are prisoners who do not know that they are prisoners; they imprison themselves into the prison house of separation and feel pain, without recognizing that they did it to themselves. Therefore, have pity on them, aware that they brought their suffering unto themselves and all your compassion is not going to prevent their suffering until they give up their wishes for separation. Live a moral life, speak the truth, be honest towards your neighbors, and be gentle and kind to all people. These moral teachings Buddha called the eight noble truths. For our present purposes, Buddhism teaches the elimination of the separated ego self and return to “unified spirit” self. Those who attain “no separated self” status are said to be illuminated’; they become the teachers of Buddhism. They are perpetually calm, not having a separated ego to be upset by the ever changing issues of this world. When Buddhism traveled from its Northern Indian place of origin to other parts of Asia, it took on local cultural practices. In some places, it became almost primitive. In China it became Cheng which was transmuted to Zen in Japan. Essentially, there are two denominations in Buddhism: Mahayana and Theravada. Mahayana is like Bhakti in that it visualizes Buddha as a person and worships him, whereas Theravada accepts an impersonal life force that one wants to unify with. (Why are there almost always two approaches to the major religions: in Christianity, Catholicism and Protestantism; In Islam, Sunni and Shii; in Hinduism Bhakta and Jnana?) Buddha established monasteries and encouraged folks to become monks and beg for their food. Apparently, the idea is that to beg is to humiliate our proud egos. We feel in control of our lives and are proud, so if we have to beg for our food, we feel humbled (not humiliated). The monk must be humbled, for it is in humble minds, minds that do not have egos illusions that they are in charge of their lives, that the awareness of God dawns. The proud cannot know God, for God is beyond our proud ego control All over Asia, Buddhist monks live simple lives, clad in orange robes, with their bowls begging for food and teaching the Dharma, the oneness of all life and the need to have compassion for all living things. The core of Hinduism and Buddhism is the elimination of the separated self and return to the awareness that our true self is unified self. That unified self has no name though some call it Brahman/Atman and others call it Buddha. Call it what you like, it means the awareness that our real self is not the ego self we currently see as our selves. The enlightened person sees all selves as parts of his one shared self. The whole self (Holy Self) is all of us connected to one another. The sane person sees himself as parts of all selves whereas the insane person sees himself as separated from other selves. Human beings are psychotic, insane, and mad, Hinduism/Buddhism teach to the extent that they believe that they have separated selves and defend them. The purposes of this world is (1) to first strive after separated ego and experience its pains and then (2) to see the world as opportunity to recognize that in truth we have only unified self and then work for that unified self. As A course in miracles puts it: we first chose separated ego and must choose again, this time, unified self. If we refuse to choose unified self (aka Christ self, Buddha self, Krishna self) we come back to this world, over and over, (reincarnation) until we accept unified self. Both Hinduism and Buddhism teach reincarnation and Karma. People are spirit but they dream that they are separated selves housed in bodies. They pursue their different interests and in the process harm one another. In hurting one another, they build negative consequences for them selves. These negatives, called Samsara, must be worked out (with acts of love and social service) before people return to the grace of God, oneness, and its peaceful and happy experience. As long as folk seek separated selves, they dream for as long as they wish, coming back to the dream, over and over, until they awaken to the truth of their unified self. To identify with the separated self is to be metaphorically dead. To resurrect from death is to awaken from identification with separated self. When people resurrect to the awareness of union, they break the wheel of rebirth and no longer return to this world. They become the Divas, beings with light bodies and live near heaven, heaven’s gate; from their near heaven state, they teach those still in the world of darkness, those who forget their true self and see themselves as separated selves that they are unified. All in all, in Asia the goal is to eschew the ego separated self and affirms unified self. Those who succeed in doing so are generally calm, peaceful and happy. Asiatic cultures teach their children to see the ego, the separated self, as not well; they teach their children that to be egotistical, vain, and proud is to be insane. Children raised in a culture that discourages egoism tend to be calm and happy. Such children’s thinkings are not cluttered with the vain desires of the ego. In my view, such children tend to learn more efficiently at school. This situation probably accounts for Asians high performance at Western schools? I believe that Asians do better at learning than the rest of us because of their more philosophically valid religions and culture. (When, in the nineteenth century, the great German idealistic philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, came into contact with Vedanta, the philosophical aspect of Hinduism, he said that the West has produced no philosophy close to it. I agree. I am familiar with Western philosophy, from Plato to Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Hume, Berkeley, Pascal, Voltaire, Rousseau, Bergson, William James etc, and can tell you that none of them comes even close to Hindu thinkers like Shankara and Ramanuja in his observation of phenomena. In the West, it is said: study Plato and you learn all you need to know about philosophy; I think that that view is wrong; it should be: study Shankara and you learn all you need to know about philosophy.) GRANDIOSE EGO EQUALS MENTAL DISORDER Western secular psychology teaches that human beings are sick to the extent that they have grandiose egos. A mad man is full of himself. A sane person knows that his self is an illusion and to the extent he still has it, make it as little and flexible as is possible. Traditionally, the function of religion and, now, psychotherapy, is to shrink the human ego down. To the extent that folk have humble egos they tend to learn effectively and succeed in life. If you are a teacher, even in Africa, you probably have noted that your best students are general humble students; whereas those youngsters who act “as if” they are superior persons are generally unable to learn at a higher rate. It does not follow that the best learners are of superior IQ. In fact, the kid who fails his courses may have the highest IQ in the class. Gifted children who have neurosis, the wish to seem superior, learn at a lower rate because of their psychological issues. If a kid is haughty he must be a slow learner. Pride, and consequent anxiety to live up to a prideful self concept/self image, reduces learning by, at least, fifty percent, Indeed, proud children often drop out of school, for they do not want to be taught by others; they feel that they already know it all and resent others being more knowledgeable and teaching them. The proud child is always in a power struggle with the teacher, and often drops out of school to go feel his fictive sense of superiority and knowing it all-ness. In oppositional defiant disordered children, there is exaggerated pursuit of power and such children oppose their teachers and have reduced learning curve. The goal of psychotherapy is to teach proud students to shrink their egos and their power drive and, for them, to accept the authorities of teachers hence learn from them. It takes humility, the acceptance that one does not know much, for one to learn anything new. Asians, in my observation, tend to be more humble than other races hence tend to be good learners. This does not make them superior persons. Their high performance at school and work, I believe, is not due to genetic superiority, but to religious and cultural issues. (Their culture is highly disciplined and rewards good work ethic. Asians admirable work ethic is a topic for another paper; here, I am talking about religion and its influence on learning.) Black people, particularly Africans, are too full of themselves, too egoistic and too arrogant. You can see an African who actually has very little knowledge and he feels superior to you. Like Alfred Adler’s neurotic he feels inferior and compensates with fictional imaginary sense of superiority. He in fact convinces himself that he is better than you. It is as mess. Useful religions enable people to shrink their egos hence enable them to learn effectively at school. On the other hand, religions that permit their people to affirm their separated selves produce people who do poorly at structured learning situations. African religions, apparently, do not shrink Africans egos. For one thing, most of us brought up in the new Western dispensation really do not understand our African religions. We tend to rediscover those religions from an egoistic perspective. When we recognize that Christianity and Islam, Africa’s current dominant religions, are not our people’s religions, we feel shamed. We wonder whatever happened to our traditional religions. We resolve to go find out about our ancestors’ religions. Thus, we resurrect our people’s dead religions. These behaviors are done from injured pride perspective. Injured vanity, narcissism, is not the basis for true religion. True religion comes out of humility, not haughty effort to show the world that ones people had comparable religions of worth. Thus, you see Africans talking about their people’s noble religions but not behaving like religious persons ought to: humble. They are full of pride and vanity, conditions that are the antithesis of God. (Apparently, many Africans, like Neurotics, equate superiority feeling with desirable mental status; actually it is mental disorder to feel better than any other human being. Both inferiority and superiority feeling are delusions; mental health is a sense of perfect sameness, equality and union with all people.) For our present purposes, Africans do not seem to have true religions that shrink their human egos down, thus enabling them to be good learners at school. Africans, serve public good? You got to be kidding. No, they think that to be unbridled in their self centered egoism is to be important. Thus, you find adult Nigerians giving themselves empty titles that they think make them seem very important persons, such as masquerading as: Professor, Dr, Alhaji, and Chief “Do Nothing For His People”. At American universities, you often find African-American professors in three piece suits. These trot around like coxcombs fancying themselves very important persons. Their white counterparts, productive persons, are generally in denim jeans and or khaki pants and T shirts. Often these black professors would not lift a finger to mentor young black students. As it were, they say: I got mine, you go get yours. In fact, some of these deadwood professors could put obstacles on your path if they consider you bright and a threat to their positions. They figure, correctly, that white universities want one or two token blacks on their faculties and that if you come on board and demonstrate excellence, that you could replace them, so they do their best to keep you are. And it does not end there; they are generally very minimally academically productive. They produce just enough to be given tenure and after that, die on the job. They can go for years without doing research and publishing, as scholars are supposed to do. All that these empty vessels want is for you to call them “Professor Little Publications”. I contend that the black man’s egoism is what accounts for his tendency to do poorly at schools, and what makes him unable to govern himself in Africa. The black man is too self-centered and too egoistic to truly see other people as parts of his one shared self and devote his life to serving all of them. The concept of public service is anathema to the black man. No, he sees other people as not related to him. If you doubt this fact, then relate to Africans. You quickly find out that contemporary Africans are like their ancestors that sold their brothers into slavery. They would not hesitate, not for a second, in selling you into slavery and use the money they receive to buy trinkets to adorn their bodies; body that they do not realize are food for worms. The African does not seem to know what the Asian knows: that our true self is unified spirit, not the animal bodies we parade about as if they are important. DISCUSSION To believe that the separated ego self is not who we are and work for common social good, is to be civilized. On the other hand, to see the separated ego self is who one is, and work only for ones self is to be primitive. In this sense, in as much as, many black folk pursue separated ego selves, they are primitive persons. We can disguise the truth and mask it with numerous euphemisms; the plain truth is that the African and the African-American is a primitive person. I believe that Africans have religions and cultures that accentuate the primitive in us, self interest; whereas others, particularly Asians, have religions and cultures that accentuate public service. For Africans and black people in general to amount to anything in this world they have to develop a religion and culture that shrinks their separated selves and affirm the unified self. They can do it as Europeans do by retaining their egos but putting them to serving the public (karma yoga) or eliminate the ego and see all people as parts of their unified self (experienced in meditation). Hinduism teaches that we are all one, literally. What one does to other people, good or bad, one does to ones whole self. Serve the public and you have a well ordered society, live for your self alone and you have the chaos that is called Africa and the black world. When I was a college teacher, it used to be a joy having Asian students in my classes. They were humble and would do their work as asked. They spent umpteen hours in libraries and laboratories doing what they were asked to do. On the other hand, you see a typical black student; you literally have to beg him to go study. He acted as if he owned the world, talked boisterously, was proud and arrogant (restitutions over underlying sense of inferiority). You ask: what is this guy making noises for, when he is doing C work in his courses. Asian religions sought ways to eliminate the separated ego self. Of course, they did not succeed, for Asians are still egoistic, but generally they are less egoistic than Africans. Hinduism teaches that if one completely let go of ones separated self, one would die and exit from this world. This world is a place folk came to seem separated from each other. It is a world of illusion where those who are in eternity unified dream that they are separated. People are allowed to keep their illusion of separation but use their seeming separated selves to serve one another (the Christian approach). If one extinguishes ones separated self, as Jesus did, one would not be defensive and one would be killed and exit from this world and return to the world of light forms, the world of divas. A course in miracles called that borderland between heaven and earth, the gate of heaven. Heaven’s gate is akin to what the Catholic Church called purgatory. Here, folk still live in forms, but forms of light, and from there teach those in gross forms, us, how to love and forgive one another. Whoever is in our present world must be egoistic but he can recognize that egoism is prison, a jailhouse, not the joy primitives think that it is. You see Nigerians parading around as very important persons unaware that in doing so they are in hell, in a jail of their own making. They live in psychological pain to the extent that they think that they have separated special selves. A person lives in peace and happiness when he deemphasizes his separated ego and emphasizes the collective self and serves the public. But primitive persons do not yet know this fact and think that it is cute to eat while their brothers are starving. Here is the scoop: as Africans are currently constituted, egoistic, I do not think that they can do high level research work. Low level research work where their egos take credit for their work, yes, but to really do physics, chemistry and biology one needs to forget about ones separated self and simply see ones self as part of life and work for all life. I do not expect Africans to win Nobel Prizes in the sciences until African cultures are changed to encourage selfless devotion to duty and work. Africans are so self centered that if you made the mistake of trusting them, they would take advantage of you and, like the savages they are, laugh at what they did. You cannot count on them to help each other but to exploit each other. They are, let us dispense with euphemism, savages and are not yet at a level of development where they recognize that a life of service to other people is the only worthwhile life. They are like predatory animals and exist only to kill other Africans and eat and stay alive, to live, live for what they do not know. It would seem that Africans are almost sub human beings. But, no, they are human beings! It is just that their ideational processes are replete with desires for separate self; they are not yet aware that originally we are unified self, sought separation, a mistake (separation is the fall of man, the descent into darkness) a mistake that is corrected when we affirm union and public service. CONCLUSION I have observed Asians in person, at school and work. They are like all of us, human beings. What seems to dispose them to perform at a higher level than the rest of us are their religions; religions that discourage egoism. Their cultures are also very achievement oriented and encourage disciplined work. If Africans want to perform at the level of Asians, they have to have religions and cultures that socialize them to shrink their egos and devote what is left of those egos to public service. Ozodi Thomas Osuji October 5, 2006
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Posted by Robot| 06.10.2006 07:29