Understand the need of unleashing the secret tantric tool- the Das Mahavidyas as a solution to today’s global societal crisis. It attempts to cover the need of the Divine Feminine energy in the world today.

Keywords

Kali Yuga, Divine, Feminine, Consciousness

Bio

Dr Manmit is a Spiritual Master, a gifted Psychic Medium. She pioneered Automatic Writing and Akashic Records in India. She works with international police agencies to find missing children. She is currently working on creating an online Spiritual School to promote energy work. Her passion is bringing Divine Feminine Consciousness through workshops on Maa Kaali and the Das Mahavidyas. She is the founder of Soul Miracles- a platform for empowerment.

Abstract

In the context of Kali Yuga, the age characterized by spiritual decline, chaos, and moral degradation according to Hindu cosmology, the energy of Maa Kali holds profound significance in overcoming the pervasive darkness and challenges of this era. Maa Kali is revered as the fierce and compassionate aspect of the divine mother, embodying the power to destroy ignorance, ego, and negativity while nurturing the seeds of spiritual awakening and transformation.

In Kali Yuga, where materialism, selfishness, and spiritual ignorance abound, the energy of Maa Kali serves as a potent force for liberation and renewal. Her fierce form represents the destruction of all that hinders spiritual evolution, including attachment, delusion, and egoism. By invoking the energy of Maa Kali, individuals are empowered to confront and transcend the darkness within themselves and in the world around them, paving the way for spiritual growth and enlightenment.

Moreover, Maa Kali’s compassionate nature ensures that even in the darkest of times, she remains a source of refuge and guidance for seekers on the path of righteousness. Her loving embrace provides solace and protection amidst the tumult of Kali Yuga, instilling hope and courage in the hearts of devotees as they navigate through life’s trials and tribulations.

In essence, the energy of Maa Kali is indispensable in overcoming the darkness of Kali Yuga, as she embodies the transformative power of divine grace and unconditional love. Through her fierce yet compassionate presence, individuals are inspired to confront their shadows, cultivate virtues such as courage and compassion, and ultimately transcend the limitations of the material world, attaining liberation and union with the divine.

Introduction

The paper emphasizes on the need of unleashing the secret tantric tool- the Das Mahavidyas as a solution to today’s global societal crisis. It attempts to cover the need of the Divine Feminine energy in the world today. It explains how we need to shift our consciousness towards balance by elevating our feminine qualities and how the worship of the Das Mahavidyas is instrumental in this shift. It covers the correct way of practice and encourages the reader to explore their own role as a Light worker, in the war between darkness and Light. It also covers the correct way of invoking them and the right deity to pray to.

The Das Mahavidyas, originating from the rich spiritual tapestry of India, embody profound universal truths and transformative energies that are relevant globally, especially in today’s complex world. These ten aspects of the divine feminine offer powerful tools for personal and collective healing, promoting balance, and confronting modern challenges with wisdom and strength. In an era marked by rapid change and global crises, the teachings and practices associated with the Mahavidyas could provide much-needed insight and resilience. By introducing these concepts onto the Source:(Pinterest) world stage, we can foster a greater understanding of inner transformation as a catalyst for external change, making them a vital resource for global spiritual and cultural enrichment. Their universal appeal and relevance can help address the spiritual void often felt in contemporary society, bridging diverse cultures through shared spiritual wisdom.

1.1 Why are the Das Mahavidyas the biggest tantric secret that has been kept away from the world?

The Das Mahavidyas, as central figures in Tantric practices, have historically been shrouded in secrecy, and there are profound reasons why these powerful forms of the divine feminine are not easily accessible to all. One significant reason is the intrinsic nature of Tantric knowledge itself, which delves deeply into the realms of mysticism, esoteric energies, and the transformation of consciousness. Such knowledge demands a high degree of spiritual maturity and preparation, as it involves techniques and insights that could be misunderstood or misused if not approached with the right intent and guidance. Thus, the guardians of this wisdom have traditionally kept these teachings somewhat concealed to protect both the integrity of the practices and the practitioners.

Adding to the complexity, there is a thematic “war” between the forces of light and darkness, which is a recurrent motif in many spiritual traditions, including those that venerate the Das Mahavidyas. This metaphorical battle represents the ongoing struggle between knowledge and ignorance, creation and destruction, and elevation versus degradation within the cosmic order. It is suggested that dark forces, representing ignorance and chaos, resist the dissemination of profound spiritual knowledge like that of the Mahavidyas because such wisdom has the power to liberate individuals and transform societies by illuminating the darkness with the light of awareness and understanding. By keeping such powerful transformative knowledge obscured, these dark forces maintain a kind of status quo that favors disarray and spiritual stagnation.

Therefore, the relative obscurity of the Das Mahavidyas is not just a matter of tradition or the complexities of their worship but also a reflection of this larger cosmic battle between enlightenment and ignorance. Those who seek to engage with the Mahavidyas must not only be prepared to face these spiritual challenges but also contribute positively to the cosmic balance, using the profound energies and insights gained to foster light, knowledge, and harmony in a world often veiled in spiritual darkness. This dynamic ensures that the teachings of the Das Mahavidyas remain both sacred and potent, accessible only to those who are ready to undertake such significant spiritual responsibility.

1.1.1 The need for rise of The Divine Feminine:

In today’s global society, there’s a marked predominance of masculine energies characterized by competition, aggression, and individualism. This imbalance contributes significantly to various forms of conflict, environmental degradation, and a pervasive sense of disconnection among communities. The masculine qualities, while essential in certain contexts for progress and protection, have overshadowed the nurturing and cooperative spirit that is equally vital for the sustainability of our world. The resultant imbalance has led to a skewed approach to development and problem-solving, often at the expense of holistic well-being and environmental health. This underscores the necessity for reintegrating the feminine principle, which emphasizes care, empathy, and interconnectedness.

The need for the divine feminine is more pronounced now as the world faces complex challenges that cannot be resolved through force or competition alone. Qualities traditionally associated with the feminine, such as intuition, inclusivity, and collaboration, are crucial for creating solutions that are sustainable and equitable. Rebalancing with the divine feminine allows for a more comprehensive approach to global issues, where the focus shifts from merely exploiting resources to nurturing them, and from dominating others to understanding and supporting them. This shift is not about replacing one with the other but about harmonizing the masculine and feminine energies within societies to foster a more resilient and compassionate world.

1.1.2 Shiva and Shakti- the Divine Balance

In the Hindu Tantric system, Shiva and Shakti epitomize the cosmic dance of masculine and feminine energies, integral to the universe’s dynamic equilibrium. An evocative story that illustrates their union is the tale of the Ardhanarishvara, the composite form of Shiva and Shakti. This form symbolizes the perfect synthesis of male and female, where Shiva, the embodiment of consciousness and passivity, and Shakti, the personification of energy and action, merge into a single entity. This confluence of energies teaches that neither force is effective without the other, mirroring the essential balance needed for creation and destruction, demonstrating the universe’s profound interconnectedness and dual nature. Another compelling narrative is that of Shiva’s deep meditation and how Shakti comes to awaken him, necessary for the creation of the world. Shakti, in the form of Sati, wins Shiva’s affection and construction, and hospitality, leading to debates about labour rights, wages, and job competition among native workers.

Addressing illegal immigration requires a comprehensive approach, encompassing border security measures, immigration reforms, diplomatic cooperation, and efforts to address root causes such as poverty, inequality, and political instability. Collaborative initiatives between India, the USA, and Canada are essential to manage migration flows, enhance information sharing, and promote legal pathways for migration while combating human trafficking and smuggling networks.

Historically, factors such as economic disparities, political instability, social unrest, and regional conflicts have been primary drivers of illegal immigration from India. These factors have prompted individuals and families to seek better opportunities and living conditions abroad, often resorting to irregular means due to limited legal pathways for migration.

During the mid-20th century, events such as the partition of India in 1947 and subsequent communal tensions led to population movements within the Indian subcontinent. Additionally, economic hardships in post-independence India prompted some individuals to seek opportunities in other countries, including those in Europe, North America, and the Middle East.

In more recent decades, globalisation, advancements in transportation and communication technology, and increasing interconnectedness have facilitated greater mobility and migration from India to various parts of the world. However, alongside legal channels of migration, there has also been a continued flow of illegal migrants seeking better economic prospects, employment opportunities, and social welfare benefits in destination countries. While illegal immigration from India is not a recent phenomenon, its scale and dynamics have evolved over time in response to changing socio-economic and geopolitical conditions both within India and in destination countries.

2.0 Data of migrants that illegally crossed borders

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) last year in December 2023 disclosed in Parliament that US authorities encountered more than 200,000 illegal Indian immigrants over the past five years (Economictimes, 2023). The data presented by Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan revealed a significant increase, with the highest number of cases, 96,917, reported in 2022-23 (Dieterich, 2023). The figures indicate a notable rise from previous years, with 8,027 encounters  in  2018-19,  1,227 in 2019-20, and a substantial surge to 30,662 in 2020-21. The number in 2021-22 was 63,927 while 96,917 cases were reported in 2022-23 (Patel, 2024). The total number of illegal Indian immigrants encountered by the American authorities comes to 200,760

(Economictimes, 2023). Figure 1 illustrates the number of migrant deaths in the Americas in 2022, rouses him from his deep yogic trance. Their marriage symbolizes the union necessary for the universe’s cyclical processes, such as creation, preservation, and destruction. This story not only highlights the dependence of passive elements (Shiva) on dynamic forces (Shakti) to bring balance and activity into existence but also underlines the concept that the divine feminine is indispensable in prompting action within the sphere of divine consciousness.

The Das Mahavidyas

All “Names” And Forms Are of The Divine Mother. ‘I Am Alone Here In the world. Who Else Is There Besides Me? Behold, o vile one! These Are but Projections Of My Own Power, Now Entering Back Into Me.’ (Jewel, 2023)

Top of Form

The Das Mahavidyas represents a profound and essential pathway to invoke the divine feminine consciousness, encapsulating the multifaceted nature of Shakti within Tantric practices. Each goddess in this group embodies a distinct aspect of the divine feminine, offering unique insights and transformative powers that are pivotal for spiritual awakening. These deities challenge the practitioner to engage with aspects of the self and the universe that are often overlooked or suppressed in more orthodox spiritual practices. Through rituals, meditation, and mantra chanting associated with each Mahavidya, devotees not only honor these divine figures but also tap into deep reservoirs of feminine energy. This process is not merely about seeking blessings but involves an experiential understanding and integration of these energies into one’s spiritual journey, thereby enhancing one’s consciousness and encouraging a holistic embrace of both the material and spiritual realms. Moreover, the worship of the Das Mahavidyas in Tantra is not just a religious practice but a dynamic engagement with the living forces of the universe, seen as manifestations of the divine feminine.

This engagement is characterized by an acceptance and celebration of the complexity of life, including its darker and more mysterious aspects. Each Mahavidya, from the ferocity of Kali to the serene bounty of Kamala, provides a specific lens through which the divine is realized and internalized, making the abstract intensely personal and experientially accessible. In doing so, these ten goddesses facilitate a deeper communion with the divine feminine, unlocking layers of consciousness that foster a profound understanding of existence itself. This transformative process is crucial for those on the Tantric path, as it empowers individuals to transcend traditional boundaries, harness inner spiritual forces, and ultimately achieve a state of unity with the cosmos.

2.1 Tantra and the Das Mahavidyas:

Tantra is deeply linked to the Das Mahavidyas in several profound ways, reflecting a symbiotic relationship between the esoteric practices of Tantra and the worship of these ten powerful goddesses.

1. Integral Part of Tantric Practice:

The Das Mahavidyas are central to many Tantric rituals and practices. They are often invoked through specific mantras, yantras (mystical diagrams), and rituals which are intrinsic to Tantric methodology. Each Mahavidya has a specific set of practices that are used to invoke her energy and blessings, often involving complex rituals that include offerings, meditations, and the recitation of specific verses.

2. Embodiment of Transcendent Wisdom:

Each of the Mahavidyas represents a particular aspect of cosmic wisdom that challenges conventional perceptions of reality. Tantra, with its emphasis on seeing beyond the surface to the deeper truths of existence, utilizes the Mahavidyas as embodiments of these transformative insights. For instance, Kali represents time and the inevitable decay all beings face, encouraging devotees to look beyond their fears of mortality.

3. Pathways to Liberation:

In Tantra, the ultimate goal is moksha (liberation) or spiritual enlightenment, achieved by transcending the ego and the dualities of existence. Each Mahavidya offers a unique path to this enlightenment, embodying both the challenges and the spiritual tools necessary for overcoming them. For example, Chhinnamasta’s act of self-decapitation symbolizes the ego’s surrender, a crucial step in achieving spiritual awakening.

4. Integration of the Feminine Divine:

Tantra significantly emphasizes the divine feminine or Shakti as a fundamental cosmic force. The Mahavidyas, as ten aspects of the divine feminine, represent various dimensions of Shakti’s power and wisdom. Their worship in Tantra underscores the importance of acknowledging and venerating the feminine as integral to spiritual development.

5. Challenge to Orthodox Practices:

Both Tantra and the worship of the Mahavidyas often challenge conventional religious practices and societal norms. The Mahavidyas, with their sometimes fierce and untamed forms, encourage practitioners to question and transcend traditional boundaries and limitations, much like Tantric practices do.

6. Esoteric Knowledge and Secrets:

Tantric texts often detail secretive and esoteric practices associated with each Mahavidya, accessible only to initiated practitioners. These practices are believed to unlock profound spiritual powers and insights, offering direct encounters with deep truths about the universe and one’s own consciousness. In essence, the Das Mahavidyas are not just worshiped within Tantric traditions; they are integral to understanding and practicing Tantra itself, providing a structured yet profound approach to engaging with the spiritual and material complexities of life.

7. Dhumavati – Despair:

Often depicted as an old widow, Dhumavati embodies the principle of overcoming despair and hopelessness. Her solitary state teaches the resilience and inner strength required to face life’s challenges and adversities.

8. BAGALAMUKHI– DECEIT:

Bagalamukhi, known for her power to paralyze enemies, symbolically combats  the  vice of deceit. She freezes negative speech and actions, promoting transparency and honesty in interactions and dealings.

9. Matangi – Pollution:

Matangi, who is associated with the outcast and the polluted, teaches purification from spiritual and physical pollution. Her domain over the marginalized aspects of society challenges norms and purifies devotees through acceptance and integration.

10. Kamala – Greed:

Kamala, a form of Lakshmi and associated with wealth and prosperity, helps devotees overcome greed by fostering a sense of contentment and generosity. Her nurturing presence encourages the sharing of wealth and the recognition of abundance in all forms of life. These Mahavidyas exist within our consciousness, and through awareness, we can shift between them, depending on what we are facing.

Story of the Das Mahavidyas

Here’s a brief look at the story or the symbolic significance behind each Mahavidya:

1. Kali:

Kali is about the darker aspects of nature and our own human nature, yet she also speaks to us of love, for she became the consort of Shiva, adopted by tantric practitioners of the Kaula path (Odier, 2016). Kali first appeared from the brow of Goddess Durga during a battle with the demons. In a fierce form, she defeated the demon Raktabija by consuming his blood, preventing him from replicating. Kali’s untamed energy and wild demeanor symbolize the ultimate reality of time and the transformative power of destruction, which clears the path for new creation.

2. Tara:

Similar to Kali, Tara is believed to have emerged during a cosmic crisis. When Shiva drank the poison Halahala, which emerged from the ocean during the churning of the Milky Ocean, he fell unconscious. Tara then appeared and took Shiva on her lap, sucking the poison from his body and saving the universe. She represents compassion and offers guidance and protection to her devotees.

3. Tripura Sundari:

Also known as Sodashi, Tripura Sundari is considered the most beautiful in all three worlds. Her beauty and grace seduce all creation to unify with her divine essence. She represents the perfected or idealized beauty in nature and the arts, encompassing the truth that lies beyond the cosmic illusion (Maya).

4. Bhuvane shvari:

Bhuvaneshvari means the ruler of the world. According to mythology, she is the divine spatial aspect of the universe and represents the infinite space in which all creation happens. Her worship implies a realization of one’s own potential and power as being infinite.

5. Chhinnamasta:

The self-decapitated goddess, Chhinnamasta stands for the immediate and direct perception of reality, which is beyond the dualities of life, such as sex, death, and creation. The legend has it that while bathing with her attendants, she decapitated herself to feed them with her own blood, symbolizing the self-sacrifice and the cycle of life.

6. Bhairavi:

As per legends, Bhairavi is the fierce and terrifying aspect of the Goddess who guards the boundaries of the universe. Her story revolves around her role as the protector of the realm and the leader in times of cosmic instability. She teaches resilience and the transformation through trials.

7. Dhumavati:

She is depicted as an old and ugly widow, and her story is associated with loss and inauspiciousness. Dhumavati is said to have manifested from the smoke when Sati, the consort of Shiva, immolated herself. She represents the unavoidable and harsh realities of life, such as isolation and poverty.

8. Bagalamukhi:

The legend goes that during a cosmic storm that threatened creation, Bagalamukhi emerged from a cosmic yellow lake, and calmed the storm by gripping the demon’s tongue who was causing it. She symbolizes the power to control and paralyze enemies, representing dominance over our foes, whether external or internal dialogues.

9. Matangi:

Matangi is said to be born from the thoughts of Lord Shiva. She is considered an outcaste or the “Chandalini”, symbolizing the breaking of societal norms and purity laws. She represents inner thought and wisdom, and her worship is particularly favored by those who seek supernatural powers.

10. Kamala:

Kamala is essentially a form of Lakshmi and emerged from the churning of the ocean, symbolizing wealth, prosperity, and fertility. Her story teaches about the importance of material and spiritual wealth and the cleansing of spiritual impurities.

According to Kinsley (1997), “The Mahavidyas might be also understood as symbols of the stages of consciousness experienced by aspirants in their spiritual development. Each goddess confers a certain type of perfections, blessing of awareness. These perfections might be understood as progressive, some pre supposing or being more inclusive than others.”

These stories and symbols of the Das Mahavidyas not only depict their divine functions and powers but also reflect deeper philosophical and existential insights into life, making them central figures in Tantric worship.

This also depicts that divinity incorporates both creation and destruction, gentleness and fierceness. By embracing these paradoxes, devotees are encouraged to transcend dualistic thinking and perceive the underlying unity in all aspects of live (Rashinker, 2023)

INVOCATION OF THE GODDESSES

The Das Mahavidyas are each associated with specific mantras that are used in rituals and meditation to invoke their energies and blessings. The ten Goddesses can be categorized as below in terms of their energy (Rashinker, 2023): Soumya (docile)- Lalita Tripurasundari, Bhuvaneshwari, Matangi, Kamalatmika Ugra (ferocious)- Kali, Chinnamastika, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi Soumya-Ugra (docile-fierce)- Tara, Bhairavi

Below is a brief description of each goddess and her corresponding mantra:

1. Kali: Known for her power over time and transformation, Kali’s mantra is often chanted to seek protection and the strength to overcome obstacles and negativity.Mantra: Om Krim Kalikayai Namah
2. Tara: Tara is considered a source of compassion and a provider of salvation. Her mantra is used to gain wisdom and understanding.Mantra: Om Hrim Strim Hum Phat
3. Tripura Sundari: As the goddess of beauty and truth, her mantra is used to attract all types of good fortune and to realize divine truth . Mantra – Om Aim Hreem Shreem Sri Lalita Tripurasundari Padukam Poojayami Namah.
4. Bhuvaneshvari: Governing the material world, her mantra is chanted for harmony and spiritual growth.

Mantra: Om Hreem Bhuvaneshwaryai Namah

5. Chhinnamasta: Her mantra is used to cut through obstacles and personal limitations, representing self-sacrifice and transformation.

Mantra: Om Shrim Hrim Klim Aim Vajra Vairochaniye Hum Hum Phat Swaha

6. Bhairavi: Bhairavi’s mantra invokes her protective energies and is used to conquer fear and negative influences.

Mantra: Om Hrim Bhairavayai Namah

7. Dhumavati: Invoked for overcoming sadness, conflicts, and quarrels, her mantra is also used for protection from all sorts of adversities.

Mantra: Om Dhum Dhum Dhumavati Swaha

8. Bagalamukhi: Known for her power to paralyze enemies and manage difficult situations, her mantra is chanted for dominance over adversaries.

Mantra: Om Hleem Bagalamukhi Sarvadustanam Vacham Mukham Padam Stambhaya

Jivham Kilaya Buddhim Vinashaya Hleem Om Swaha

9. Matangi: The goddess of the spoken word and arts, her mantra is used to attract and charm others, enhancing the devotee’s communication skills.

Mantra: Om Hreem Aim Shreem Namo Bhagavati Ucchishta Chandalini Saraswataye Hreem Swaha

10. Kamala: As a form of Lakshmi, Kamala’s mantra is chanted for prosperity, purity, and elevation in life.

Mantra: Om Shrim Hrim Shrim

Kamalatmika Mahalakshmyai Namah

These mantras should be used with respect and proper guidance, ideally under the supervision of a knowledgeable practitioner, as they are powerful spiritual tools and form an integral part of Tantric worship.

4.1 Can anyone worship the Das Mahavidyas?

Yes, anyone can worship the Das Mahavidyas, but there are several important considerations and preparations that should be taken into account due to the complex and powerful nature of these deities within the Tantric tradition:

1. Guidance from a Qualified Guru:

It is highly recommended that worship of the Das Mahavidyas be undertaken under the guidance of a knowledgeable and experienced guru. These deities represent profound and often intense aspects of the divine feminine, and their energies are not only powerful but can be difficult to understand and integrate without proper guidance.

2. Understanding and Respect:

Before beginning worship, one should seek to understand the significance, symbolism, and stories associated with each of the Mahavidyas. Respect for their distinct characteristics and what they represent is crucial. This respect also involves recognizing the cultural and religious context from which these deities emerge.

3. Preparatory Practices:

Engaging in preparatory practices such as purification rituals, regular meditation, and study of Tantric texts can help prepare the mind and body for worship. These practices help in developing the spiritual maturity necessary to engage with such powerful energies.

4. Ethical Living and Intent:

Tantra emphasizes ethical living as a foundation for spiritual growth. The intent behind worship should align with principles of selflessness, compassion, and spiritual enlightenment, rather than selfish gains. A pure intention is crucial when dealing with the potent energies of the Mahavidyas.

5. Ritual Adherence:

There are specific rituals and offerings associated with each Mahavidya, and these should be followed carefully. Deviations or incorrect practices not only reduce the effectiveness of the worship but can also lead to undesirable outcomes.

6. Psychological Readiness:

The path of Tantra is not just spiritually demanding; it is also psychologically intense. Potential worshippers should be prepared to face and integrate their shadows and subconscious fears, which the Mahavidyas can bring to the surface.

7. Universal Accessibility:

While the above conditions may seem daunting, it is important to note that Tantra, at its core, teaches that the divine is accessible to everyone, regardless of social status, gender, or previous spiritual experience. The key is to approach with humility, proper preparation, and genuine devotion.

Conclusion

In summary, while the worship of the Das Mahavidyas is open to everyone, it requires a significant level of preparation, respect, and understanding due to the intense and transformative nature of these deities. Proper guidance and adherence to traditional practices enhance the safety and efficacy of engaging with these powerful aspects of the divine feminine.

Furthermore, when these practices are embraced at a societal level, the potential for global change becomes palpable. Through a sincere and thoughtful engagement withthe Das Mahavidyas, humanity can catalyze a significant shift towards healing, unity, and sustainability, demonstrating the transformative power of the divine feminine in guiding us towards a harmonious future.

References

Jewel, R. (2023). Devi Mahatmaya. Discover the Divine consciousness. Retrieved April 25, 2024 from https://devimahatmya.com/the-divine-mother-alone- is-here/

Kinsley, D. (1997). Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine. The Regents of the University of California, pp. 1451.

Odier, D. (2016). Tantric Kali. Secret Practices and Rituals. Inner Traditions, ISBN13: 9781620555590, pp.6.

Rashinker, V. (2023). Dasa Mahavidya: The Ten Great Tantric Wisdom Goddesses. Notion Press.com, pp. 27-28.

Generically summarize an overview of the building blocks of Western values through the movement of empire and especially cultural legacy.

Keywords:

Values, Hellenism, Greco- Roman, Judeo-Christian, Western Culture

Bio

A distinguished professional blending leadership, ministry, and careers in electronics engineering, automation, and financial planning. As a Licensed Lay Minister in the Anglican Church, Paul fosters spiritual and community growth. His diverse educational background and technical prowess drive innovation while his commitment to history and community synthesis reflects a holistic approach to life. A graduate of Acadia University and Crandall University, Paul holds a Bachelor of Arts in History and pursued studies in Religious Studies. With a focus on Electronics Engineering Technology (EET) from DeVry Institute, he excelled as an Automation Solutions Manager at Rockwell Automation, driving efficiency and innovation. Beyond his career, Paul actively participates in leadership and ministry roles within various communities, reflecting a holistic approach to life and work.

Abstract

The big picture. This presentation summarizes research tracing the evolution of some of the values Western culture has inherited through the complex interplay of Hellenism, Roman assimilation, the decline of the Roman Empire, and the emergence of Christianity from within. The global expansion of Western influence through colonialism created what we call today ‘The West’. It highlights the persistent tension within Western culture, which, now rooted in Christianity, has absorbed and romanticized Greco-Roman influences while inherently possessing conflicting core values. The juxtaposition of Judeo-Christian values with the lingering echoes of Greco-Roman culture generates an enduring internal dilemma, subtly shaping and confusing the fabric of contemporary Western societies. The cultural trichotomy, often masked by modern entertainment’s repackaging of ancient mythologies, remains a nuanced and unresolved undercurrent in the Western mindset.

In this paper, I will generically summarize an overview of the building blocks of Western values through the movement of empire and especially cultural legacy. Going forward, the great movements of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment continued to romanticise the ancient legacy as academic and historical resources allowed deeper study, debate and appreciation of the ancient cultures of the west. I will complete the paper with a short series of examples of contradicting values inherent simultaneously in the western mind.

Introduction

The original title of this article used the word dichotomy. The Merriam- Webster definition: a division into two especially mutually exclusive and contradictory groups or entities. In this case we have three mutually exclusive and contradictory cultures merged together over time in the modern western culture.

First let’s define culture.

It’s not civilization. Civilizations rise and fall. Culture is the fabric of society, the fabric of civilizations, which may survive long after the political, eco- nomic, or military structure is gone. The flow of history is not fixed in time or place. Cultures are fluid, unlike social and political structures and move through time and space (by space I mean geography).

Most of the time religion is tied to culture as well. Values tend to have either religious or philosophical roots or both mixed together.

Values are trickier to define. The dictionary takes the pragmatic route and defines numerical values or price associated with goods and services. Google gave me what I was looking for: “Values are the beliefs and principles that you believe are important in the way that you live and work. They (should) determine your priorities, and guide your decisions and the way you act toward others. When the things that you do and the way that you behave match your values, life is usually good.” Values are actionable. Values should not be confused with ethics. Ethics are moral constructs often communicated as virtues. Virtues are defined as the quality of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong or moral excellence (definitions by Oxford Dictionary). Virtues are often defined by the culture or religion we live in.

Before I begin, the modern West is not Greek or Roman. Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome are a legacy. In this respect, the ancient institutional church is also a legacy in this post-Christian era. Every age perceives itself to be modern and, as the centuries go by, see the past in the rear-view mirror, categorized and defined by retrospect. We may repeat the mistakes of the past but we cannot relive the past because the culture of the past is fluid and gone down the river of time. As one culture touches another it creates ripples and even the viscosity of the culture may change. What does endure from each culture is values. The legacies of modern Western culture provide roots for three primary values.

1.1 Ancient Building Blocks of Western Culture

I’ve chosen to list the historical pivotal dates here because we are discussing a cultural process and although these dates are significant milestones in that process, they do not define it:

331 BCE Alexander the Great conquers Persia

146 BCE the Romans conquer Greece

63 BCE the Romans come to Israel as peace-keepers

27 BCE the Roman Republic ends, the Roman Empire begins

~33 CE the birth of Christianity

324 CE Constantine the Great retakes the Eastern Roman empire, establishes Byzantium as the new capitol, and decriminalizes Christianity

476 CE official fall of the Western Roman empire (536AD famine)

1453 CE the fall of Constantinople (Byzantium) to the Ottomans

The Germanic invasions of the Roman empire did not change the legacy of the ancient cultures and at times enhanced it. Those cultural legacies are very much alive but adopted and buried or visible in festivals and celebrations related to the ancient cultures. The influences are not based on values but on adoption or modification of what already existed. The German influence was much stronger in the Reformation which is not the topic of this paper.

Hypothetically, imagine someone you know has damaged your reputation. What do you do? Find some way to get back at them to set the record straight? Look for justice or restitution by law in court? Pray for divine intervention and resolution – beginning with forgiveness? There you have it – Ancient Greek, Roman, and Christian approaches. The western mind will con- sider all three choices and choose one. This is not a strong example but its simplicity serves to illustrate the point. Although modern Western society is rules based; as individuals we are not all necessarily taught the same rules.

Today we live far removed from our Greek and Roman heritage by hundreds and even thousands of years. Yet in the modern western mind ancient Rome still looms large. It’s a kind of cultural nostalgia, maybe even a romance with the past. As with many romances we are blinded by our affection and selective memory.

However, in the course of the rise and disintegration of the Roman empire, another empire rose from within, whose ethics and values were contradictory to classic Rome, the institution of the Christian church. The church politically and culturally grew stronger as the Roman empire faded. Long before that, Rome had already been infused with another foreign culture, the Greeks; what historians call Hellenism.

Together these three empires constitute or infuse the western cultures of Europe which was exported around the world during colonialism. Outside of the western genre, Greece and Rome and even Christendom have more of an academic interest the way a west- ern culture would look at ancient Egypt or the Aztecs. They are unique and fascinating as history but not legacy.

Our modern western cultures incorporate the influences and values of Ancient Greek, Roman, and Christian cultures. The roots of these cultures are blended together like strands of rope but also create contradictions in western thought and values.

However, add to this what we call the modern age; with the influence of the industrial revolution, the application of science as we know it today, modern democracy, the influence of ‘modern’ philosophers (rationalism, empiricism, political models, idealism, existentialism, pragmatism, analytic philosophy) all who have built upon or argued with the philosophical originators of mostly Greek philosophers. Also today we are influenced by capitalism, the social sciences, modern medicine, and proper astronomy. The list is long. These are all post-Christian era influences.

This seems like a big topic but I’m hoping to narrow it down.

1.2 The ebb and flow of three cultures, the linear approach

The first great influence on the modern western values were the Greeks. However, their initial impact was not in the west but the east. It is well known that Macedonian general Alexander the Great consolidated the Greek states under his leadership and pursued his arch-rival – the ancient Persians. Being somewhat ambitious he took Egypt and the Middle East along the way. His ambition did not stop at Babylon and he stretched the empire all the way to India. The Macedonian empire lasted only for his lifetime. When he died, the empire was divided into four parts by his four most powerful generals. So politically, militarily, and economically the empire did not endure. What did endure was Greek culture and its influence through- out the region.

Greece was called Helle at the time. The military called themselves Hellenic. The culture was labelled Hellenism. Concerning the impact of Hellenism, think of the prevalence of American culture around the world today. Think of both the acceptance and resistance to that culture. Now the Hellenist culture in the Middle East sustained two cultural blows – first the Romans and then the Ottomans. The Ottomans represented a completely different set of values and religion so other than the resilience of Greek architecture the rest is gone east of the Hellespont.

At the time, most cultures kept their spoken language but learned Greek too. Greek became the common language of commerce and literature. However, as most cultures within the realm of Greek influence adopted what the Greeks brought with them; in particular a common language for science, commerce and diplomacy. The common written language became Kione Greek. Many of the ancient written languages under Hellenism faded over time. This is much like English is today; the common language of commerce and science but does not necessarily erase the language heritage of the regions if they are strong enough.

One exception stands out: Israel. Alexander swept through the Middle East around 332 BCE. The last entry of the Canonized Old Testament came shortly after. What Alexander left in his wake was Hellenism. Israel is a passionately monotheistic and survivalist state made up of Judah, Benjamin, and Samaria. Israel had survived with its cultural identity in tact in spite of the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and now the Macedonians. The continuing Hellenization of Judea pitted traditional.

Jews against those who eagerly Hellenized. The latter felt that the former’s orthodoxy held them back. Hellenism was their version of modernism. Jews were divided between those favoring Hellenization and those opposing it. The New Testament reflects the survivalist nature of the Jewish culture and clearly shows the religious opposed to Hellenism. The rejection of Hellenism carried into early Christian culture. However, the language of many Hebrews was Aramaic and the writ- ten language of Kione Greek was adopted. In fact, Jewish scholars at Alexandria were translating the Jewish scriptures into Greek at the time; the Septuagint.

2.0 Classical Greek Culture (Khan Academy)

• The Greeks made important contributions to philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. Literature and theatre were an important aspect of Greek culture and still influences modern drama (comedy and tragedy) today.
• As mentioned, the Greeks were known for their pantheon of gods. A dysfunctional family of superbeings reflecting the short comings of their worshippers. An entertaining mythology still enjoyed today. Mythology was central to Greek culture, the gods were the honoured, and there was no separation of religion and state.
• Later the Greek philosophers began to develop the role of reason and inquiry, stretching the perception of reality past the superstitions about the Olympic gods.
• Finally athleticism was venerated and is still celebrated globally in the Olympics today.

Enter the Romans. The Roman Empire overran Greece in 146BC. Greece was overcome at the battle of Corinth in 146BC and Macedonia two years earlier. The conflict between the Hellenistic and survivalist Jews erupted into civil war a generation before the birth of Christ and the Romans were invited into Israel by its rulers as peace-keepers. The Romans were rapidly absorbing the ancient Greek empire and like the Greeks, were once again focused on challenges from Persia (now Parthia). The Jewish province was now resisting two cultures – Hellenism and Romanism.

Greece continued to pros- per under Rome. Romans began to adopt Hellenism and ultimately integrated the Greek pantheon into their own. At the same time, Hellenism was spread through the empire by infusing the Roman culture with Greek teach- ers, the arts, architecture, philosophy, accounting, etc. So Greek Hellenism now moved to the west. Ultimately Roman values and Greek values coexisted throughout the Roman empire.

Figure 1: Roman Empire at it’s geographic peak 117BC

Roman Culture

Romanism was pragmatic, heavily meritocratic and accomplishment oriented. Everything served the empire. The empire operated under the assumption that expanding its boundaries and subjugating the peoples on the periphery was the formula for peace and prosperity inside the empire. The Romans saw everything as a contest of dominance. They thought that in every relationship there was a dominant and submissive party. The Romans were also patriarchal beyond any degree we understand today. Family was a central institution but the pater familias held absolute control over family matters.

• • Citizenship – loyalty to the republic and later the empire. As time went on the empire was not a homogeneous society but very cosmopolitan. As peoples were conquered and Romanized, many made their way to Rome itself either in bondage or as emmisaries.
  • Justice – Roman law was supreme and brutally enforced, it was codified under Justinian (Constantinople) 100 years after the Western Roman Empire was gone. It is still the foundation of law in Western culture today.
  • Aesthetics – beauty, art, architecture, theatre – influenced heavily by the ancient Greek culture but Rome had some scholars of it’s own. Literature and theatre mostly influenced by the Greek culture.
  • The Roman sculpture and architecture was influenced by the Greeks but was raised to new heights through innovation and economic power. In this case the Greek arts were very much Romanized because Rome used cement and could build much grander.
  • Education – Sciences and Math – imported from the Greek and continued to evolve
  • Innovation and Invention – Romans did not trust change, BUT as the empire expanded were willing to adopt what they needed to be successful and to defeat or govern other cultures than their own. One major contribution was the invention of cement/concrete.
  • Slavery and Serfdom – on a much grander scale than the ancient Greeks, Rome’s economy depended on it to afford the luxuries of the upper classes, the cost of their cities and the support of far-flung legions expanding the Empire. How many slaves owned was also a status symbol.
  • All military and cities were also subsidized by taxes or tributes. Marcus Aurelius granted Roman citizenship to all male res- idents of the empire to maximize the tax base. The empire was not a homogeneous society but very cosmopolitan. As peoples were conquered and Romanized, many made their way to Rome itself either in bondage or as emissaries.

2.2 Greek Religious Values

Religion and mythology were mixed together. The mythology explained the gods and heroes of the culture and provided life lessons and some moral code to the hearer. There was no separation of body and soul. There was no orthodoxy or dogma of a personal relationship to the gods and the afterlife was shadows. The ancient Greek was an opportunist with the gods. He chose to worship whichever god he thought would help him advance his cause or help him overcome an obstacle. The city state also had their own patron gods. There was no dispute with the gods of surrounding nations.

2.3 Roman Religious Values

Religion and mythology were more hierarchical. That said, there was a greater acknowledgement of their family ancestors. The mythology explained the gods and heroes of the culture and provided life lessons and some moral code to the hearer. There was no orthodoxy or dogma of a personal relationship to the gods and the afterlife was shadows or nothing at all. The gods of Rome were more formal as overseers and not so much as intervenors. Romans honored the gods to keep them on side. Romans expected the gods to be on their side; it was transactional. Each family had its own shrine to a particular god or goddess. The god of the empire was Jupiter (Zeus). There were other favorites depending on the times, place and the needs of the population. Gods of other nations simply accepted in their context or were Romanized.

2.4 Christian Culture

The flow of history and cultures continues. Picking up the thread from the Roman occupation and eventual destruction of the province of Israel, Jews and Christians became a diaspora throughout the empire. They were mutually exclusive communities except for the survivalist heritage born of the same monotheistic faith of the God of Abraham. The Jews were a diaspora successful in business, commerce, and crafts. From the Maccabean period Rome had agreed to tolerate Jewish religion as long as they didn’t interfere with Roman law and administration. The Jews were not a threat to the polytheism of the Roman empire and could be tolerated because they were isolationist. Of course, we know that didn’t last.

However, Christians were also spreading through the empire through proselytization. Christians openly opposed and interfered with the Roman polytheism, especially once the emperors started to declare themselves gods. Notably this is right on the heels of the partial Hellenization of Roman culture.

During the same time Latin was  becoming  the  language of administration, law and literature through- out the empire. There was a lot of movement of culture, language, and religion during this time.

Skipping past all of the martyrdom and bloodshed of the early empire, in 313AD Emperor Constantine (the Great) was pivotal in decriminalizing Christian worship. He also epitomized the unity of church and state. Having effectively moved the center of the empire from Rome to Constantinople, the road was paved for the Bishop of Rome to grow in power. Over the next 200 years the mantle of power in the West would shift from the Roman emperor to the Roman Pope. The last western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus, would be deposed by the Germanic Arian leader, Odoacer, in 476AD and Pope Simplicius forged a cooperative relationship with the newly proclaimed Germanic king of Italy.

The church became a consolidating force in Eastern Rome because the emperor was also the head of the church starting with Constantine himself. The Church of Constantinople evolved into the Greek speaking Eastern Orthodox Church. Hellenism had moved  east  again.  The West soon was disintegrating into competing Germanic kingdoms and the church was becoming the unifying force in the West as Roman institutions crumbled due to invasion, economic collapse, and dis- ease. The church of Rome became the new empire superimposed on the European geography and its governance was imperial, similar to the model from the Roman empire, and Latin was entrenched in the liturgy and business of the church.

Institutional church aside, the Christian religion, now the state religion, continued to spread through governance and evangelism. The Roman empire became a nostalgic notion of the past.

2.5 Christian Social Values

Social core values:

• • Citizenship-in the kingdom of God, love one another
  • ender unto Caeser what is Caeser’s, at this point rulership was local kings
  • Democracy – only in some instances after the Reformation. The Reformation and the movement to consolidate the multitude of European kingdoms went hand in hand

Athleticism – a community activity, no Olympic vision

Justice – Roman laws are the codified root of Western Justice but Christians view justice in the hands of God and focus on forgiveness as a first step

Aesthetics – still Greek until recent modern arts decoupled from the past

Education – Sciences and Math and Literature – the Enlightenment broke the arts and sciences free of constraints from the church, until then education was only in the domain of the clerics

Innovation and Invention – in modern Western culture it is a way of life

Slavery and Serfdom – it took a while because scripture takes a neutral stand on the subject, but over time Christian principle banned them both but embraced capitalism.

2.6 Christian Religious values

Religion and culture are mixed together and monotheistic by definition. There shall be no other God before me. (Exodus 20 vs 3). The One God is represented on earth by the Church and described as soul and spirit – although poorly defined and open to discussion. The Christian can bypass the metaphysical for a pragmatic faith in God. The Christian prays for providence, blessing, and deliverance.

The institutional church depends on orthodoxy and dogma to preserve established truths but the individual relationship with God depends on faith and experience of each person.

3.0 Summary of the Western Culture – simplified

The Romanized Church dominated what we refer to as the Middle Ages. In the early 5th century (the 400s) St. Jerome translated the scriptures from Greek to Latin, known as the Vulgate. Pope Gregory 590AD organized missionaries to evangelize Europe and England. St. Augustine of Hippo reintroduced the Greek philosophers into the scholarship of the church with a preference for Platonism. Hellenism is back in the West.

The 15th and 16th centuries saw the reintroduction of classic Greek philosophy and with it, humanism. The Renaissance loosened the romance of Ancient Rome and launched a renewed interest in all things Greek. So academically Latin and Greek were proceeding together. In 1517 Luther posted the Ninety-five Theses initiating the first serious crack in the Roman church rule. He and other reformers launched the Protestant Reformation dividing the Christian empire and an alternative to the Romanized church and introducing dramatic geo-political change. The liberation of knowledge led to innovation, and invention and exploration. This opened up the period of colonialism which began exporting European culture (western culture) around the world, nowhere more complete than the Americas, the Caribbean, and Australia/New Zealand. As colonialism continued a new phenomenon over- came Europe and its colonies. The age of Enlightenment is dated as 1685 to 1815. Once again, all things ancient became of interest in the age of reason. The Classic philosophers were thoroughly investigated and Greek philosophy moved West again. All things ancient became popularized outside of the academic milieu. The scientific and medical language still uses Greek and Latin words for descriptive annotations and definitions and some law.

3.1 Illustrations of the Trichotomy of Western Values

Ambition is a strong desire to do or to achieve some- thing, typically requiring determination and hard work. (Oxford Dictionary) “Ixion was a figure in Greek Mythology known for his hubris, or excessive pride. Ambition, and defiance” (Sullivan (2023) Ixion in Greek Mythology) It was mythology which defined the Greek mind-set. Quoting Aristotle: “It seems that ambition makes most people wish to be loved rather than to love others. The truth is that men’s ambition and their desire to make money are among the most frequent causes of deliberate acts of injustice.” (Note: The attitude toward money in Sparta was an exception).

As with today, ambition is often associated with the successful or the aristocracy. Therefore, there existed both a negative and positive view of ambition. Greek history is poorly documented and focuses on the aristocracy. Home was where the heart was for the  Greek  freeman, whether that be city state or his agrarian property. Wars were usually fought until harvest season and the ambition was to go home. It ultimately came down to a form individual- ism serving the civic good.

Roman: The core ambition to excel as a collective whole, strive for a better tomorrow. The ambitions were to serve the empire. If you disagreed with the empire, then your ambi- tion was to stay alive. Making money was also more important than for the Greeks. Of course, the aristocracy was usually an exception above the rule. Today’s modern version is patriotism.

Christian values are explicit in their scripture:

“Make it your business to live a quiet life, to mind your own business.” I Thess 4:11 Philippians 2:3 “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit”

Galatians: “If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

Ascetism: Ascetic as a noun is defines as “a person who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of  contemplative  ideals and practices, extreme self denial usually for religious reasons”. (Definition from Oxford Languages) As an adjective, ascetic means “the doctrine that one can reach a high spiritual state through the practice of extreme self denial”. ‘Ascetic” originates from the ancient Greek term askesis, which means training or exercise”. The modern use of the word simplifies to doing without, self-denial.

Greek: In particular the Spartans have been presented to us by historians such as Plutarch as pragmatic, militaristic, and frugal. The storied nature of this city state attracted the Romans because its values seemed to mirror their own. Roman soldiers and bureaucrats occupying for- eign lands valued military fitness, service to the state, equality of citizenship, and austerity. The focus of this comparison is austerity. The modern-day version is perseverance, resilience, and determination. Unlike the Romans, the Spartans avoided wealth and money.

Roman: Romans respected the Spartans but there was a more powerful form of ascetism in Roman culture – Stoicism. For the Romans  Stoicism  originated in Athens but was borrowed from further east by the philosopher Zeno. Being stoic is being calm and almost without emotion. Stoics mute their feelings and accept what- ever is happening. Today, the noun Stoic refers to a person who seems emotionless and almost blank. Mr. Spock on Star Trek characterizes this trait. Emotional outburst, positive or negative, is not being Stoic. Values of the modern Stoic is not about things but living virtuously, making reasoned choices, acting for the common good.

The great philosopher Emperor Marcus Aurelius was a disciple and sponsor of Stoicism. The weakness of Roman Stoicism was that all gods were seen as part of the natural order of things. The concept of only one god was sacrilege to stoics. Thus, Stoicism encouraged persecution of the growing Christian phenomena.

Christian: Asceticism is the practise of the denial of physical or psychological desires to attain a spiritual purpose or goal. Hardly any religion has been with out elements of asceticism.

For Christian culture, asceticism relates to the body, mind, and soul. Christian asceticism is the practice of self-denial (i.e., control of one’s passions and base impulses) to overcome our fallen nature with the help and grace of God.

“Do not think about or do anything without a spiritual purpose, whereby it is done for God. For If you travel without purpose, you shall labor in vain.” ~ St. Mark the Ascetic. (5th century)

From this value grew Monasticism.

4.0 Conclusion

The confines of the paper limit me to two illustrations of the three ways modern Western thinking weighs the values from the three different legacies. I chose ambition because it is a strong modern value with both positive and negative connotations, I chose Aestheticism because it is a broader consideration in times of constraint and frugality and cannot be wrapped up in one word. A note on the Christian component. One does not have to be a participant in the faith to be influenced by what is already built into our culture. All three cultures are predicated on religion and I avoided the application of faith.

The values handed down to our generation from Greece, through Rome, and through Christendom never went away. None were really dismissed but were layered in and inter- woven into the Western culture. They were not mutually compatible. Thus, the trichotomy of Western values.

Much like a philosophy course, each value presented on its own appears to be a valid way of thinking. The modern Western mind gets to choose which one to be actionable.

Bibliography

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To develop Needonomics School of Thought for street SMART (simple, moral, action oriented, responsive and Transparent) stakeholders of the economy with spiritual input from Gita & Anu-Gita.

Keywords

Needonomics, Greedonomics, Street SMART and SIMPLE

Bio

Professor Dr Madan Mohan Goel is Founder Needonomics School of Thought, experienced Vice-Chancellor at Starex University, Gurugram, Jagannath University Jaipur, RGNIYD, Sriperumbudur, Pro Vice-Chancellor VKSU Ara & Superannuated Professor at Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra.

Abstract

In the wake of Coronavirus (Covid 19), the global economy faced many challenges and stands victimised with recession in most of the economies including India. Covid 19 proved as the ‘Black Swan’ of global economy which has swallowed millions of human lives better not to be quantified. To cope up the impact of Covid 19, every citizen as consumer, producer, distributor, and trader has a role to play in the global economy to be revived from the recession caused by demand and supply distortions during covid (DC). It will be relevant to understand the functioning of the global economy before covid (BC), during covid (DC) and after covid (AC) by the economist to ponder over the solutions for the problems. Being a votary for needonomics school of thought, I believe that every citizen must accept the responsibilities of needo-education for educating youth not only employability and entrepreneurship but the basics of everything we need in our daily lives. We need to go beyond looking at government to find ways to develop the most valuable resources, the people. Needohealth : how to lead a healthy lifestyle, have a balanced diet, need of doing physical activities and taking care of our thoughts and emotions. Needofinances to earn a decent living by judicious spending. Nee-do-morality for living a disciplined life with empathy (not lip service of sympathy) towards all around us. calls for under-standing the principle of ‘Needonomics (economics of needs)”. We need resources which are cer-tainly limited and required to be spent judiciously confining to needs. The domain of ‘Needonomics’ as innovation is spiritual, nonviolent and ethical in nature based on the logo of Life Insurance Corpora-tion (LIC) of India ‘Yogak-shemam Vahamya-ham’(Your welfare is our responsibility). ABC of Needonomics with accu-racy, brevity and clarity have to be understood and adopted for the solu-tion of economic and non- economic problems in the society. Needonomics can say no to inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and takes care of the minimum needs of the weaker sections of the society (practising the art of giving with living in minimalism). It is believed by the researcher that the problems including violence, terrorism, exploitation and corrup-tion of all kinds are caused by ‘Greedonomics’ (eco-nomics of greed) and can be reduced if not removed by ‘Needonomics’ which deserve attention and adoption by all the stake-holders including politi-cians ( both in power and opposition) as an innova-tion of India. We need to research and rethink out of the box solutions for the problems of the econ-omy. We have to be com-passionate towards the weaker sections of the society requiring art of giving, possible only by adopting Needonomics. Economy can be people friendly and socially bene-ficial only if undertaken in accordance with NAW approach (Need, Afford-ability and Worth of the goods and services) of international marketing.

To become the desired human resources, the stake holders must become street SMART and SIMPLE with spiritual input flowing from the epics including Gita and Anu-Gita.

Introduction

In the wake of Coronavirus (Covid 19), the global economy faced many challenges and stands victimised with recession in most of the economies including India. Covid 19 proved as the ‘Black Swan’ of global economy which has swallowed millions of human lives better not to be quantified. To cope up the impact of Covid 19, every citizen as consumer, producer, distributor, and trader has a role to play in the global economy to be revived from the recession caused by demand and supply distortions during covid (DC). It will be rele-vant to understand the functioning of the global economy before covid (BC) and after covid (AC) by the economist to ponder over the solutions for the problems. Being a votary for needonomics school of thought, I believe that every citizen must accept the responsi-bilities of needo-educa-tion for educating youth not only employability and entrepreneurship but the basics of everything we need in our daily lives. We need to go beyond look-ing at government to find ways to develop the most valuable resources, the people.

Needo-health:

how to lead a healthy lifestyle, have a balanced diet, need of doing physi-cal activities and taking care of our thoughts and emotions. Needo-finances to earn a decent living by judicious spending. Nee-do-morality for living a disciplined life with empa-thy (not lip service of sympathy) towards all around us. calls for under-standing the principle of ‘Needonomics (economics of needs)”. We need resources which are cer-tainly limited and required to be spent judiciously confining to needs. The domain of ‘Needonomics’ as innovation is spiritual, nonviolent and ethical in nature based on the logo of Life Insurance Corpora-tion (LIC) of India ‘Yogak-shemam Vahamya-ham’(Your welfare is our responsibility). ABC of Needonomics with accu-racy, brevity and clarity have to be understood and adopted for the solu-tion of economic and non- economic problems in the society . Needonomics is capable of saying no to inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and takes care of the mini-mum needs of the weaker sections of the society (practising the art of giving with living in mini-malism). It is believed by the researcher that the problems including violence, terrorism, exploitation and corrup-tion of all kinds are caused by ‘Greedonomics’ (economics of greed) and can be reduced if not removed by ‘Needonom-ics’ which deserve atten-tion and adoption by all the stakeholders includ-ing politicians ( both in power and opposition) as an innovation of India. We need to research and rethink out of the box solutions for the problems of the economy. We must be compassionate towards the weaker sec-tions of the society requir-ing art of giving, possible only by adopting Needon-omics. Economy can be people friendly and social-ly beneficial only if under-taken in accordance with NAW approach (Need, Affordability and Worth of the goods and services) of international marketing. To become the desired human resources, the stake holders must become street SMART and SIMPLE with spiritual input flowing from the epics including Gita and Anu-Gita.

To develop the study on the important issues of relevance it has been divided into various sec-tions including section 1 introduction, section 2 understanding of the global economy before covid (BC), during covid (DC) and after covid with various performance indicators, section 3 includes needonomics as a strategy and Section 4 conclusions and policy implications.

2.Understanding of the global economy

Although it is difficult to explain the economic damage from the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, yet it has had severe negative impacts on the global economy. During 2020, the world’s collective gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 3.4 percent. To put this number in perspective, global GDP reached 84.54 trillion U.S. dollars in 2020 – meaning that a 3.4 per-cent drop in economic growth results in over two trillion U.S. dollars of lost economic output. Howev-er, the global economy quickly recovered from the initial shock, reaching positive growth levels again in 2021. That year, it reached 92.3 trillion U.S. dollars, and it is expected to continue to grow in the coming years, although Russia’s war in Ukraine since February 2022 and its impact on the world’s economy may hamper economic growth. To my mind, every sector of the global economy suffered from the covid crisis. The entire analysis of the impact of covid on global economy suffers from data limitations. It is very difficult to measure the impact without proper data not available which has to be generat-ed and required to be authenticated by various data collection agencies.

2.1 Strategy of Needonomics

As ‘Needonomist, I believe in the strategy of ‘Needonomics’ as the smooth path of survival and revival of the global economy including India. Strategy is essentially a choice- a choice of time, place and manner of attack on the problem at hand. The crisis of recession must be handled with care and convictions by the large breed of economists at all levels.

We must adopt common sense approach. I believe that common sense is to have sound judgment without specialized knowledge. One being street smart understands and assesses the situation and adopts common sense approach for under-standing, analysing, inter-preting and adopting the solutions of the problems at hand.

Needonomics requires actions suiting circum-stances as a com-mon-sense approach of ‘cut the coat according to the cloth’. It is an old proverb mostly before the ready-made dresses start-ed flooding the shopping mall. In those days, people bought the cloth accord-ing to the requisite mea-surement for stitching new dresses, including the coat. Even now many people do that. However, if the cloth purchased is cut more at one or two places than the required length and breadth, then there will be shortfall of material for other areas of the body, like arms, collar and pockets. Like the body and mind coordina-tion for any action of ours, these two, income and expenses, go together. It is all in one’s hand, mostly in middle class and even among higher income group of people, too. A father is the breadwinner of a family. He works and earns, so that he and his family members who depend on him for a living, find all the bare necessities and live peace-fully. At home, both the father and mother jointly discuss and plan the monthly expenditures so that it should not overlap the income. This proverb applies not only to individuals but also to business establishments. Of course, a company may raise a loan to expand or diversify its business. But it must do so judiciously; otherwise, it can even go bankrupt. Even the government of a nation has to keep in mind it’s total resources while spending. if it does not do so and goes on borrowing recklessly from banks and foreign countries, it could result in severe economic problems for the nation-als. The saying is of great practical value applying it in life makes one happy and contented.

Income can be compared to output, and expenses to input. If the input exceeds the output, then there is bound to be financial crunch every month. This will lead to debts and worries. And if the same situation per-sists, resulting in the accu-mulation of debts, it will shatter the peace in the family. So, it is the duty of the heads of the family to chalk out a strategy in such a way like cutting the cloth to the requisite measurement that both ends can be met with. It is not applicable to family alone, but applicable to any economy in the world including India. Now even the superpower USA also undergoes trials and tribulations, resulting in recession.

It is worth quoting a great saying by an anonymous writer, “They live in a beautiful little apartment overlooking the rent.” Though it sounds funny, it is true in many families who give utmost importance to luxury, a sort of face-saving attitude among their near and dear, by borrowing money and becoming debtors in the long run. One must have some comforts. There is no second opinion about it. But at the same time, it is the best policy to curtail unnecessary expenses.

To say goodbye to the ‘Cobra Effect’ of international debt, we should adopt needonomics which is ethical, nonviolent and spiritual in nature and says no to greed authenticating economic thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi , is based on the logo of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC )of India ‘Yogakshemam Vahamyaham’(Your welfare is our responsibility).ABC of Needonomics to be understood, analysed, interpreted and adopted for the solution of economic and non- economic problems in the global society as consumers, producers, distributors and traders. Altruism, Basic Needs, and Commitment for the society are the implications of needonomics We have to focus on the need-based priorities in choices as consumers.

The joy of freedom cannot be found in the art of living for the livelihood but with the art of giving by adopting lifestyle of altruism (not me but you) with limited use of resources for the self. The excessive dependence on FDI can be reduced to a considerable extent by adopting needonomics. The call for stopping the use of foreign (Chinese ) goods can be successful only if we confine to needs only and say no to greed which falls in the domain of greedonomics (economics of greed ). Internationalization of Indianization is possible by adopting diplomacy of Glocalization (think globally and act locally) and sharing and caring of others.

To enhance the international stature of incredible India, we should stop war of words and win over the adversaries in neighbourhood with diplomacy.

To create capacity in the economy, we must build infrastructure which require investment and is dependent on domestic saving rate. This is possible with expenditure policy based on needonomics. One can increase the capacity of investing, saving and donating for public wellbeing only by confining to needs. There is no substitute of the control of expenditure and consumption for investment to enhance the capacities and capabilities.

I believe that ‘needonomics’ is necessary and sufficient for solving the economic and non-economic problems anywhere in the world including India.

Needonomics is required for saying no to most of the problems caused by Greedonomics (economics of greed) including violence, terrorism, exploitation, deprivation, discrimination, discontent, and corruption of all kinds prevailing in the society. Endless greed is the real menace facing the world today. To my mind, an economist who speaks and argues needonomics is known as Needonomist.

2.2 Strategy of Spiritually Guided Materialism (SGM)

To implement the strategy of ‘Needonomics’, I believe that strategy of spiritually guided materialism (SGM) flowing from LIC of India’s slogan in the logo ‘yogak-shemam vahamyaham’ in Sanskrit which loosely translates into English as “Your welfare is our responsibility” derived from sloka no 22 of chapter 9 of Bhagvad Gita “ananyāśh chintayanto mā˜ ye janāḥ paryupāsate teṣhā˜ nityābhiyuktānā˜ yoga-kṣhema˜ vahāmya-ham”. Meaning there by “There are those who always think of Me and engage in exclusive devotion to Me. To them, whose minds are always absorbed in Me, I provide what they need and preserve what they already possess”

Recession in the global economy including India needs proper diagnosis by the economists of all shades and creed with Gita based wise words of wisdom (www) to create conducive climate and work culture with honesty of purpose. It needs to be understood, analysed, and interpreted that spiritual-ism and materialism are complementary to each other and not substitutes. To mitigate the miseries of materialism, modern economics must consist of spiritualism which is necessary and sufficient for ethical behaviour of economic actors including consumers, producers, distributors, traders and above all policy makers and facilitators. Economists have the unique responsibility towards the moral empowerment of all the actors in the economy.

2.3 Needo-consumption by Consumer as a hero of economics

I believe that a consumer as a hero of economics is always interested in a heroin (goods and services) and all those who pollute the relationship are called villains in the real drama in the market. Everyone is a consumer and is expected to behave in the market with rational behaviour which falls in the domain of consumer psychology.

Consumer psychology is the study of why and how people buy things in the market (online and offline). Every consumer should consume the goods and services as per the needs. It is unfortunate that leading economists of the world promote greed as the basis of economic growth, turning it into a “Greedon-omics”. Economics should be based on need, not on greed. It should be a “Needonomics”, and not a “Greedonomics”.

To boost immunity of the people as consumers, we have to adopt eclectic approach towards consumption of food by replacing the attitude of eating to live in comparison to the Americans who live to eat.

2.4 Stakeholders of Needonomics as Street SMART and SIMPLE Global Citizens

For revival of the economy, we need street smart citizenry as consumers, producers, distributors, and traders. A person is street smart with the attributes including simple, moral, action oriented, responsive and transparent (SMART) along with needonomics in the present economic scenario of materialism and consumerism.

We have to adopt SIMPLE model of empowerment consisting of six human development activities such as spiritual quotient (SQ) development, intuition development, mental level development, love oneself attitude development and emotional quotient (EQ) development. The synergy of these six aspects is essential requirement for us to emerge and realize our full potential.

SQ development is essential for the removal of stress and strain as well as social and economic health of the society. SQ development is necessary and sufficient for converting human beings into human capital. – the process of HRD. Spirituality is the science of soul- the spirit to know actuality with spiritual path.

To attain sustainable development, it is very important for us to develop intelligence to understand and accept situations, people and the changes happening around us through intuition which is possible only by believing, trusting and worshiping God (Bhakti).

A calm and contented mental clarity, kindness silence, self-control and purity of character constitute the austerity of the mind which is the need of the day for the mental level development.

An old and wise saying – ‘A sound mind lives in a sound body’ makes the justification for physical development. Having a sound body is very essential for the proper development of one’s life. If our body is not working properly it is diseased. We cannot perform our duty well and will be inefficient in our work, The growth and development of one’s life depends upon the development of physical powers. Physical develop-ment is possible by the kind of food we eat by understanding, analysing and adopting Bhagvad Gita in our life.

It is a love of oneself that urges to take those activities where we get pleasure and discard all those activities where pain is there. This calls for love oneself as true soul to perform the duties without fear.

There are three major components to improve EQ such as motivating oneself, motivating others and empathizing and not sympathizing with others, which clearly prescribe the functional areas which determine the EQ of a person. All these three components of EQ are related to the teachings of Bhagavad Gita to a great-er extent.

To understand, analyze, interpret and adopt dharma as spirituality, we need to read and reread Bhagvad Gita which is ism neutral religion free treatise on management. It promotes spiritual mathematics ( yog= summation) as 1+1=1. One soul added to God becomes one. Soul do not die and death rate is zero in the science of spirituality, than why fear death. As physical body everybody is to die and death rate is 100 percent, then why worries. To fulfil the desires, wants and demands of all kinds, one needs to unite with God. This is the only path to be followed for peace, progress and prosperity.

2 . 5 Strategy of Glocalization as alternative to Globalization

My perceptions about globalization in present times of covid created economic crisis is to understand, analyse and interpret globalization as internationalization of Indianization which I have been promoting since 1991.

To implement the vision of New India, we should be little diplomatic and use the wisdom for
‘Glocalization’ to promote Vasudhiava Kutumbakam (the world is one family) as the Indian ethos. We have to control our tongue and appetite of the war of words and agree to disagree respectfully. For determination of implementing the desired vision, we must accept needonomics as the key for self-reliance. It is pertinent to mention that self-reliance (Atamnirbhar) without the knowledge of the self as soul ( atma) is a distant dream and calls for imbibing human values of public wellbeing ( lokmanagal).

2.6 NAW Approach of Marketing

Economy can be people friendly and socially beneficial only if undertaken in accordance with NAW approach (Need, Affordability and Worth of the goods and services). The pertinent questions before the people ‘Do one Need the good or service, which has been so glamorously advertised? Is the good or service Affordable? Is the good or service Worth its price?’ The market should satisfy the essential needs of the people, create employment opportunities and be utilitarian. We must understand, analyse, interpret and adopt NAW approach for the goods and services. To create work culture, there is need of converting holiday culture in to holy-day culture. I firmly believe that the rate of progress in spiritualism is faster than the rate of progress in materialism.

Therefore, there is need of accepting spiritually guided materialism (SGM) strategy making a case for ‘needonomics’ which is nonviolent, ethical and spiritual (no to greed ‘greedonomics’) as a solution of various problems in any economy. Efficacy and esteem should be the belief to shape the economy which calls for zealous (not jealous) human resources with spiritual input. To make it happen we should adopt an evolutionary approach and should not expect miracles.

Conclusion

The global economy can be people friendly and socially beneficial only if undertaken in accordance with NAW approach (Need, Affordability and Worth of the goods and services). The pertinent questions before the people ‘Do one Need the good or service, which has been so glamorously advertised? Is the good or service Affordable? Is the good or service Worth its price?’ The market should satisfy the essential needs of the people for needo-consumption, create needo-employment opportunities and be needo-utilitarian. We must understand, analyse, interpret, and adopt NAW approach of international marketing for the goods and services which falls in the domain of needonomics. We must be alert, aware and awake of the ‘Cobra Effect’ which occurs when an attempted solution to a problem makes the problem worse, as a type of unintended consequence. We have to accept and adopt the principle of needonomics with mindfulness which can address the negativities of greed prevailing before and after covid. We must adopt SMART and SIMPLE models for the global citizens as stakeholders of the global economy to become street smart. We must fit into the dynamic business environment by adoptive attitude for the changed patterns in post pandemic era.

References:

Professor Madan Mohan Goel: 221 blogs on ‘The Speaking Tree’ of Times of India www.speakingtree.in Needonomics School of Thought Facebook page by Madan Mohan Goel

M. M. Goel ( 2022). “Gita based Needonomics for Cobra Effect of Debt”, FII News Letter https://ww-w.fii.org.in/July,2022

M. M. Goel ( 2022). “Industrial Devel-opment in Haryana,” FII News Letter https://www.fii.org.in/-June,2022

M. M. Goel ( 2022): NEEDO-RESEARCH FOR SWARNIM BHARAT (GLORIOUS INDIA) in 2047, FII News Letter https://www.fii.org.in/ May,2022

M. M. Goel ( 2022): NYAY ADYAY KI SHURUAAT (Hindi article on Industrial Development in Haryana), Panchjanya June 12,2022 Vol 74 No1 ISSN 2349-2392,pp56-60

M. M. Goel ( 2021): RATIONALE OF BAD BANK FOR NEEDO-BAKING IN INDIAN ECONOMY, jointly with Mayank Goel Varta Vol. XLII ,October 2021,No 2 Peer Reviewed Journal ISSN 09709177,pp 06-08

M. M. Goel ( 2021): 25 YEARS PANCHYATI RAJ INSTITUTIONS REFORMS IN INDIA: NEED FOR SMART AND SIMPLE MODELS OF GOOD GOVERNANCE, published in The Grassroots Governance Journal Vol. XVIII (Numbers 1 & 2) and Vol. XIX (Numbers 1 & 2), 2020 and 2021(ISSN:0973-0257)

M. M. Goel ( 2020): RATIONALE OF NEEDO-FINANCING : AN ANALYSIS of FISCAL POLICY OF HARYANA jointly with B.B.Tiwari Varta Vol. XLI ,April 2020,No 1 Peer Reviewed Journal ISSN 09709177,pp 05-15

M. M. Goel ( 2021): CHALLENGES IN NEEDO-EDUCATION FOR EQUALITY AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY, University News, Vol. 59 No 47 ISSN -0566-2257 November 22-28,2021

M. M. Goel ( 2021): AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF PUBLIC EXPENDITURE IN MUNICIPALITIES AND PANCHAYATS OF HARYANA, jointly with Ishu Garg NAGARLOK ISSN 0027-7584VOL. LIII, Part 1, January-March 2021pp 16-37.

M. M. Goel ( 2020): REVIEW OF RESEARCH STUDIES ON INFLA-TION IN INDIA, jointly with Mayank Goel Nava Arthiki, ISSN 2277-2529 vol.28 no. 1- Dec.2020, pp 1 – 26

M. M. Goel ( 2020): A VIEW ON HIGHER EDUCATION IN NEW EDUCATION POLICY 2020, The Rise.co.in, August 04 also on eduvoice.in

M. M. Goel( 2019): PERCEPTIONS ON DRAFT NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY-2019, University News, Vol. 57 No 29 ISSN -0566-2257 July 22-28 M.M. Goel (2020): RELEVANCE OF NEEDONOMICS FOR REVIVAL OF GLOBAL ECONOMY, Dailyworld, July 09 also Needonomics for Revival of Global Economy, https://th-easianindependent.co.uk/ on July 07

M.M. Goel (2020): COMMON SENSE APPROACH NEEDED FOR FACING COVID CREATED CHALLENGES, https://theasianindependent.co.uk/on May 30

M.M. Goel ( 2012) : ECONOMICS OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA

M.M. Goel( 2013) : CHALLENGES AND RELEVANCE OF ECONOMICS AS QUEEN OF SOCIAL SCIENCES IN PRESENT SCENARIO, European Scientific Journal (ESJ) ISSN: 1857 -7881

Research Objectives

Detailed description of Isaac Beshevis Singer Jewish Mysticism work

Keywords

Isaac Beshevis Singer, Jewish Literature, Analysis, themes, Mysticism, Jewish mysticism, Jewish Religion, Two Corpses Go Dancing, Zeitl and Rickel, The Spinoza of Market Street, Taibele and Her Demon

Bio

Prof. Sheelu Singh Bhatia is a Professor of English in one of the leading Universities of India. She has more than twenty years of teaching and research experience. She specialises in Diaspora Literature. She also studied language and linguistics. Her articles have appeared in various International Journals.

Abstract

Isaac Bashev is Singer cherished the short story because, in his opinion, it provided a considerably greater opportunity for perfection than the novel did. His stories, however, rarely exhibit the meticulous craftsmanship of a conscious craftsman; instead, they flow effortlessly, often mindlessly, without any sense of manipulation. Indeed, Singer’s work derives from a rich oral storytelling tradition that has been thriving for generations throughout Eastern Europe. As the de facto historian of the Jewish experience in the twentieth century, Singer opts to ignore the Holocaust and the six million European Jews who were killed by Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Since he doesn’t think a simple storyteller could ever convey a tale this awful and unintelligible, he instead evokes it by describing the civilization it wiped out in detail and the scattered melancholy it left behind. Singer’s protagonists, like the Jewish people as a whole, face unfathomable atrocities and fight with their identity in a changing world. They must decide whether to give up or endure. The person in their family, neighborhood, and world is eventually the person in their universe, frequently by themselves with the supernatural forces that rule it. Singer uses a variety of Jewish mysticism and demonology to embellish and draw from to personify these forces and their impact on the human condition. In this research paper, I tried to anlyze the element of this Jewish mysticism in some of his popular works.

Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Polish-born American Jewish author who first authored and published in Yiddish before translating himself into English with the assistance of editors and collaborators.

Singer authored a minimum of 18 works of fiction, 14 children’s stories, memoirs, essays, and articles. He is best known for his short stories, which have appeared in over a dozen collections. Gimpel the Fool, Singer’s first collection of short stories in English, was published in 1957. Saul Bellow translated the title story, which was published in the Partisan Review in May 1953. Selections from Singer’s Daily Forward “Varshavsky-stories” were later published in anthologies such as My Father’s Court (1966). Later collections include A Crown of Feathers (1973), with notable masterpieces like The Spinoza of Market Street (1961) and A Friend of Kafka (1961) in between (1970).

His stories and novels are inspired by his upbringing in the world of East European Jewry. After many years in America, his stories depicted the world of immigrants and their pursuit of an elusive American dream that always seemed out of reach. Prior to Singer’s Nobel Prize, English translations of dozens of his stories were published in popular literary magazines such as Playboy and Esquire. Singer continued to write about personal morality throughout the 1960s. Because of the contentious aspects of his plots, he received harsh criticism from a variety of sources, some for not being “moral” enough, others for writing stories that no one wanted to hear.

Singer was influenced by a wide range of authors. He grew up hearing Jewish folktales and worldly Yiddish detective stories about “Max Spitzkopf” and his assistant “Fuchs” in addition to the religious texts he studied. At the age of fourteen, he began reading Russian,including Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. In his memoirs, he emphasized the significance of Yiddish translations donated in book-crates from America, which he studied as a teenager in Bilgoraj: “I read everything: short stories, novels, plays, essays, and so on. Rajsen, Strindberg, Don Kaplanowitsch, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Maupassant, and Chekhov were among the authors I read.” He studied Spinoza, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Otto Weininger, among others. Singer regarded his elder brother as his greatest artistic example among his Yiddish contemporaries. He was also a lifelong friend and admirer of Aaron Zeitlin, the author and poet.

Anton Chekhov and Guy de Maupassant influenced his short stories, which some critics believe are his most lasting contributions. Singer inherited Maupassant’s finely honed sense of drama. Singer’s stories, like those of the French master, can pack a lot of visceral excitement into a few pages. Singer learned from Chekhov how to draw characters with enormous complexity and dignity in the shortest of spaces. He describes the two writers as the greatest masters of the short story form in the foreword to his personally selected volume of his finest short stories.

Among his non-Yiddish contemporaries, he was strongly influenced by Knut Hamsun’s writings, many of which he later translated, while he was more critical of Thomas Mann, whose approach to writing he considered opposed to his own. Unlike Hamsun, Singer shaped his world not only through the egos of his characters, but also through Jewish moral tradition as embodied by his father in the stories about Singer’s childhood. There was a schism between the lives of his heroes and the lives they felt they should lead, which gave his art a modernity that his predecessors did not. His themes of witchcraft, mystery, and legend are based on traditional sources, but they are juxtaposed with a modern and ironic sensibility. They are also interested in the strange and grotesque.

Singer has an unusual and convoluted relationship with Judaism. Though he felt a connection to his Orthodox background, he self-identified as a skeptic and a recluse. In the end, he came up with a philosophy and religious perspective that he dubbed “private mysticism.” He stated it this way: “God could be imbued with whatever attributes one wanted to hang onto Him since He was entirely unknown and forever silent.”

Singer was brought up as an Orthodox Jew and learnt all the Jewish prayers as well as Torah and Talmud. He also studied Hebrew. In his autobiographical short story “In My Father’s Court,” he described how, in his early twenties, he broke away from his parents. He started hanging out with non-religious Bohemian artists in Warsaw after being influenced by his older brother, who had already done so. Singer stopped going to Jewish religious services of any type, even on the High Holy Days, even though he believed in a God, much like Orthodox Judaism. He battled the idea that a loving and merciful God would never tolerate the immense suffering he witnessed all around him, particularly the Holocaust deaths of so many of the Polish Jews from his youth. He stated, “I am angry at God because of what happened to my brothers,” in an interview with the photographer Richard Kaplan. Singer’s younger brother perished in Soviet Russia about 1945 after being sent with his mother and wife to Southern Kazakhstan as part of Stalin’s purges. Singer’s older brother passed away unexpectedly in February 1944 in New York from a thrombosis.

Singer spent his entire life in the Jewish community, despite the complexity of his religious beliefs. He didn’t appear to feel at ease unless he was surrounded by Jews, especially those who were European natives. Although he was fluent in Hebrew, English, and Polish, he always thought of Yiddish as his native speech. He was the last well-known American novelist to write in Yiddish and he did it exclusively. Singer and his wife started spending time in Miami during the winters with its Jewish community, many of whom were New Yorkers when Singer became successful as a writer in New York. They eventually relocated to Miami as retirees. They had a strong sense of belonging to the Ashkenazi Jewish society. Singer was laid to rest in a Jewish cemetery in Paramus, New Jersey, following his passing, following a customary Jewish ceremony, once in an interview with The Times, he said,

“I think that the question of whether the world is nothing but a physical accident, or whether there is a plan—this is the main question of every human being,” he declared. “Because the only answer to our suffering would be that there is purpose in it, that there is a spirit behind it. these would not exist, our life would be a hopeless business. It is my conviction that telepathy, clairvoyance, and premonitions do exist and do have a value. And the more I hear about them, the more comfort I get, because this means that life is just not some soap bubble which today flies around and tomorrow, in a second, it bursts.”

Singer made a connection between his parapsychology interest and his religious beliefs. A former Warsaw rabbinical student and the son and grandson of rabbis, he considers himself to be religious but is dubious of dogma and structured religion.

The lightheartedness with which Singer approaches death, demons, and betrayal is seen in one of his early pieces. Two Corpses Go Dancing is recounted from the perspective of the ‘Evil One,’ a technique Singer also uses in stories like ‘The Destruction of Kreshev’ and ‘The Unseen,’ which were initially published in The Jewish Daily Forward in 1943. The Evil One amuses himself in “Two Corpses Go Dancing” by reviving the corpse of Itche-Godl, a forgotten beggar who “had been a corpse even when living.” When Itche-Godl gets back home, he discovers that his widow has remarried to a bigger man. Even though Itche-Godl, who believes he is still alive, is terrified by his two appearances at her door, he is baffled by her actions. Singer rejects any pretension of realism in “Two Corpses Go Dancing” and instead creates a surreal world in which no presumptions are true. The material and heavenly worlds are entangled: Corpses have superhuman abilities but are really helpless; they are visible to the outside world but lack self-knowledge; they have desire but are ultimately unable to fulfill it.

“Taibele and Her Demon” is a story that equally straddles the line between the material and spiritual worlds without ultimately sacrificing physical credibility. The irony of Taibele’s obsession with the monster Hurmizah is what gives this tale its power. Here, the strange world only exists in the thoughts of the protagonists since demons are real enough as long as people believe in them. Singer is making a point about the hidden connections that might form between people when the imagination is allowed to run wild. However, the resulting affection does not come without a cost. That price is premature death for Alchonon, and the burden of sin, mystery, and wilderness for Taibele.

Another of Singer’s most well-known and frequently reprinted stories is “The Spinoza of Market Street”. It tells the tale of Dr. Nahum Fischelson, a renowned philosopher, teacher, and librarian who has spent his life to researching the theories of Baruch Spinoza, a Dutch Jew who lived in the seventeenth century. Fischelson aspires to adhere to the rigid rational philosophy that Spinoza’s Ethics demands. In contrast to the world below, where the unthinking rabble stands in for reason, he thinks about the stars and the mysteries of astronomy.

Singer again concentrates on an erratic relationship and the depth of human love and devotion in “Zeitl and Rickel,” but this time she more firmly places it in the context of social attitudes. The amazing story the narrator is about to tell proves that one level, this is a tale of two women’s intense love and the mysterious and ultimately disastrous forms it takes (with the possibility of lesbianism, though it is never stated explicitly). On another plane, it concerns how the neighborhood is seen. The story, as related by one of Rickel’s former students, is a collection of rumors elevated to the status of spiritual mystery.

The story implies a perspective on the role of women in shtetl culture as daughters and wives, as well as the unconventionality of two women developing a spiritual bond and dedicating their lives to one another. Despite never having been accused of feminism, Singer occasionally feels awestruck by the complexity and influence of the female psyche.

Going through the works of Singer, we can analyze that Singer uses a variety of Jewish mysticism and demonology to embellish and draw from in order to personify these forces and their impact on the human condition. The outcome can be obviously mythological at times or it can explore the limits of what is possible under very real conditions. Whatever the format, Singer never holds back from delving deeply into the broad, literal concepts of life and death, sin and atonement, good and evil, and heaven and hell. He places a high value on inventiveness, and nothing is ever beyond bounds. Most of his works are characterized by a startling contrast between the breathtakingly cosmic and the absurdly simple, the apocalyptic and the everyday, and the macabre and the romantic.

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Kresh, P. (1979). Isaac Bashevis Singer: The Magician of West 86th Street. New York: Dial Press.

Noiville, F., & Singer, I. B. (2006). A Life, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Saltzman, R. (2002). Isaac Bashevis Singer: a bibliography of his works in Yiddish and English, 1960–1991.Lanham: MD: Scarecrow Press.

Straus, D. (1982). Under the Canopy. New York: George Braziller.

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