Social distancing is not a new phenomenon. It’s just that it never made news the way it is making today. The phrase had until now largely remained confined to academic circles. Although most of us didn’t talk about it, social distancing has always existed in societies the world over.
No matter which part of the world we look at, we find people clustering together to form groups and separating themselves from others who are seen as somehow different from them. These differences are based on gender, race, caste, class, wealth, religion, culture, nationality, politics, or whatever. Even when equality is proclaimed, morally cherished, and legally codified, social distancing still occurs, often unconsciously and usually voluntarily. Self-segregation is a fact of life.
That is why, for instance, people choose to live in neighborhoods or forge friendships with those that in some way reflect their own identities and preferences. Which is how in US we have states which are Blue or Red, cities that are conservative or liberal, neighborhoods that are white-collar or blue-collar. In other parts of the world also we see a similar phenomenon based on diverse criteria. “Birds of a feather flock together”—this proverb, traced back to the 16th century, speaks for itself.
When we speak about social “distance,” what we usually mean is “difference,” not necessarily physical distance. We all know that, much as we would love to be around people we see as our own, we can never be with them all the time in a literal sense. Nevertheless, in spite of physical distance, “our people” always remain psychologically near to us.
It’s just the opposite when we are forced to be with those who don’t belong to our circles. At workplace or in the mall, in restaurants or in sport arenas, on the beach or on a plane, people from diverse backgrounds are physically near but psychologically apart. The interactions between them are avoided when possible and limited to civilities when not. Especially in big cities, people just walk past each other without even acknowledging the other’s presence. This is the classical version of social distancing.
In times of pandemics, such as the one we are passing through, “social distancing” has a decidedly literal meaning. In a “normal” social distancing, we may be physically far but psychologically always near those we see as our own, and physically near but psychologically far from those we see as strangers. In a “pandemic” social distancing, we are asked to remain physically far from everyone without exception. We are told to stay away from those who are our own as well as those who are not. And that’s tough. It becomes even more tough when such enforced physical distancing triggers questions we may have never asked before.
Being forced to keep everyone at more than an arm’s length (who amongst us has six-feet-long arms?) and feeling cut off from community, questions may bubble up in our minds: What is a community really? How important should it be to me? Why have I become so dependent on it? What does my community do for me and what am I expected do for my community? Is a community even necessary?
These are important questions. They have a range of answers, depending on who is asking the question and who is attempting to answer them. A person’s worldview plays a major role in answering questions related to community. We always see ourselves and the world around us through the prisms of our minds—and the mind is programmed to think through concepts it is familiar with. How would a Vedanta student answer these questions? Here is one possible way to do so.
When a baby is born, it takes a few days or weeks for the baby to know that she is an individual. The idea of “I” arising in the mind is a major breakthrough in a child’s life. It is this idea that makes the child feel, “I am someone”—and this awareness stays throughout life even after the childhood is outgrown. It doesn’t take too long before every person realizes that what is “not me” is much vaster and way more powerful than I can ever be. When everything and everyone who is not me are lumped together, what we have is “the world.”
The world is obviously much bigger than me. I am surrounded by the world 24/7 and I am susceptible to every major upheaval in it. Being at the mercy of the mighty global forces operating in the world, I become aware of my vulnerabilities and feel helpless. Who will help me? Who can support me? Luckily for me, in the formative years of my life, I have the protection of my family, often also of my neighbors, my close friends, and teachers from school. More people enter into my orbit as I grow older. These become my community—my larger self, which is more powerful than my own little self. I realize that there are a lot of things my community can do for me which I cannot do on my own.
I see what others around me have done and I follow them because “that’s what everyone does.” I surrender a part of me and my freedom to the community and, in return, the community protects me with its collective power and wisdom. My community becomes my larger self. It makes me feel bigger than who I am. My little self never really goes away, it keeps reminding me how small and powerless I am. The only way to not have to deal with it is to keep myself busy with something else. I discover that the more I remain engaged with my community, the less I am troubled by my personal failings. I depend on the community to give me strength and to make me forget that, on my own, I can do a little but not much.
As I grow older, or if I move to a different place, or when I switch careers, the individuals in my community change, but the community as an entity continues to remain an integral part of my life. My community can take many forms, including in its fold people from my family, workplace, gym, and church or temple or mosque or synagogue, and yes, even my neighborhood, my city, and my country. I may find that I am actually a part of several overlapping communities serving different purposes—and all of these taken together become “my community.”
This community of mine is almost an extension of me—so much a part of me that I cannot think of my own existence apart from it. Aristotle’s dictum—“Man is by nature a political animal”—has been so powerful and influential, especially in the Western world, that it is accepted today as almost a matter of fact. It is easy for people to believe that if they are left alone for an absurdly extended length of time, they will go insane.
In the age of the coronavirus, we haven’t gone insane (not yet anyway), but the lockdowns and the stay-at-home notices have begun to make people antsy, restless, bored, and craving for company. The internet, the television and the social media may bring temporary relief, but these can never ever be an effective substitute for a community.
What is an effective substitute for a community, if there is indeed one? To answer this question, we need to begin by acknowledging the essential role a community plays in our lives. Our first “community” is the mother, soon joined by other members of the family. No being is more helpless than the baby immediately after birth. It is my mother and father who take care of me after my birth, providing me with everything necessary for my survival.
In time my community expands: my relatives, my teachers, my friends come along and help my growth. I keep growing and my community keeps getting bigger. I am now no longer the helplessly dependent baby I once was. I am now an independent adult capable of taking care of myself. That is the miracle of community—facilitating the journey from dependence to independence.
My independence, though, may not be complete. I feel a sense of fulfillment but not all the time. There are things I am happy about, but there are also things that bother me. I possess plenty of stuff that I love, but there is also lots more that my heart aches for. I have great friends but I have also folks whom I can barely tolerate. My happiness alternates with my suffering. I still depend on the community to add meaning to my life. Is this all that life is—this perpetual dependence on things and people and the community? In themselves things are fine, people are fine, the community is fine—but why the dependence?
The problem of dependence is caused not by what I don’t have but by what I do have—a body and a mind. These are great instruments in themselves but by no means perfect. They have a shelf life and it’s not long before they start to break down and need constant fixing. They also make endless demands. Everything that I feel I need is fulfilling not my need but the need of either my body or my mind. It’s a neat little trick that they play on me—getting what they want and making me feel that it was I who wanted it. I slave for them all my life without even realizing it. My so-called freedom is a delusion. I am not free. I am not independent, so long as my body and my mind are calling the shots.
Speaking at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, Swami Vivekananda reminded everyone that our true identity transcends the body and the mind:
“Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; you are not matter, you are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.” (CW 1: 11)
This is the message that the Upaniṣads hammer away tirelessly. I am “immortal, free, blest and eternal.” I don’t feel that way right now because the body and the mind have covered me (which is bad enough). I have forgotten my true identity and have deluded myself into thinking that the body and the mind are “me” (which is worse). Neither the body nor the mind is perfect. They have lots of problems but now, because I see my body and my mind as “me,” they become my problems. The body and the mind are always in need and, since I have merged my identity in them, I feel that it is me who is always in need. What wonder then that the needy-me will look around for support? Enter community.
Identifying with the body and the mind has other problems too. They give me a distinct identity—which connects me to a gender, race, class, caste, color, religion, culture, nationality. Based on these and other considerations, I form groups for solidarity, self-affirmation and the security of “belonging.” That’s how communities come into being. They support me and, by being an active member, I support them. My community’s strengths become my strengths and, inevitably, my community’s weaknesses become my weaknesses.
A major weakness in most communities is that the kind of identity they foster in their members is related to the body or the mind, or both. The life in communities can provide a lot of fun, meaning, and support—but it still keeps me locked up in an identity limited to my body/mind persona. This prevents my being truly independent and free in every way. It would seem, therefore, that communities are a mixed blessing—they do a lot of good, but they also have some built-in limitations.
The only community that has the potential to be free from such limitations is a spiritual community. By definition, a spiritual community is a group of people who wish to affirm their spiritual identity—an identity that is not limited to the body and the mind. An identity that is connected with “the spirit”—broadly, with whatever or whoever is not bound by material laws.
A spiritual identity thus can take many forms: “I am a child of God” (meaning, “God is my father” or “God is my mother”), “I am a servant of God” (“God is my master”), “I am a part of the Divine” (“God is the totality of existence”), “I am the spirit encased in the body and the mind.” This is just a sampling of the different ways in which my spiritual identity can be affirmed. In all of these cases, the “I” is primarily connected to God, not to any material thing. Sri Ramakrishna called this “I” the “ripe I” and distinguished it from the body/mind centered “unripe I.”
It is not enough for a community to be attached to a place of worship or to be formed around a spiritual personality in order to deserve the name “spiritual community.” What makes it “spiritual” is not its affiliation but the conscious effort by its members to connect their “I” to a spiritual ideal, personal or impersonal. Our thinking, our actions, and our relationships are influenced considerably by the primary identification of our “I.” How I view the world is directly related to how I view myself.
If I make a conscious effort to see myself as a child of God, it becomes easier for me to see others in my community as children of God. When I treat others as children of God in my conversations with them or when I work alongside them, it becomes easier for them to see themselves as children of God (or whichever way they identify themselves spiritually). In making an effort to develop a spiritual identity, I am thus helping not only myself but also other members to develop and strengthen their own spiritual identities. In this way, a community becomes a powerhouse of members reinforcing one another’s spirituality.
All distinctions spring from the differences in the characteristics related to the body and the mind. A predominantly spiritual identity is able to rise beyond such distinctions and see others not merely as equals but as one. As human beings we are many, but as spirit we are one. Social distancing in the classical sense falls by the wayside when the spiritual identity becomes the primary identity. Which is why we see that the saints and the mystics, the prophets and the avatars, cared little for distinctions based on things such as caste, class or race. They saw the one divine pervading everyone and everything.
In the case of “pandemic” social distancing, it is prudent to keep distance not only to protect oneself but also others. Even when physical distance is maintained, the awareness of spiritual oneness prevents the feeling of being cut off from others. Affirming one’s spiritual identity infuses the practices of prayer, japa and meditation with depth, power and joy—and this prevents boredom and restlessness. Recognizing one’s relationship with God is a way of making God one’s own companion. With God for company, why would anyone ever feel lonely?
The present crisis gives us an opportunity to re-evaluate our relationship with the communities we are a part of, and also take another look at the relationships we have with the people in those communities. What kind of identity is my community reinforcing in me? If it is a limited identity, then I can expect some challenges while navigating through my life. I can make a conscious effort to connect my “I” to a transcendent ideal. If I can do that well, most of my life’s troubles will look like trifles. Including the present pandemic. The new coronavirus can infect the body and (through the related anxiety and fear) also the mind—but it can never infect the spirit.
In social distancing, “distancing” is not the problem, but thinking of my identity as primarily “social” is the real problem. If you don’t believe in miracles, try acquiring a spiritual identity and dwelling in it for some time. You will experience the greatest miracle in your life.