by Hayagrīva dāsa Adhikārī (ISKCON New Vṛndāvana)

Even the philosophers of the modern churches are declaring that God is dead. In one sense this is true, for in the societies of the modern world God remains an obscure mystery which most people prefer to forget. He is considered dead because He has been buried beneath tomes of speculative philosophy.

In recent years there have been many philosophies based around the premise of the nonexistence of God. One such philosophy, existentialism, which emerged in a shattered France during World War II, maintains that the universe is purposeless and that there is no supreme controller. The existentialists assert that man has free will to struggle against purposelessness, but they give no information as to how the exercise of this will can give life real purpose. Out of a rather bleak and antiquated philosophy synthesized by Jean-Paul Sartre emerged the philosophy of l'absurde popularized by Albert Camus. This philosophy appealed to the post-War mentality by dint of its rather simple but unabashed assertion that all life is absurd. As is often the case, Camus was half right, for mundane materialistic life is absurd. It is absurd that man bears his burden of sense gratification like an ass bearing a burden of stones. Camus' most famous essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus," which summarizes the philosophy of l'absurde, utilizes the ancient Greek myth about the shrewd and greedy King of Corinth, Sisyphus, who was forever doomed in Hades to roll uphill a heavy stone which always rolled down again. Camus equates the absurdity of Sisyphus' position with that of all men. He sees man as condemned to roll the heavy ball of material conditioned life to the top of some unknown hill where it simply rolls down again and forces him to repeat the drudgery. This is a sort of eternal position. Camus concludes from this that, "The only philosophical problem is the problem of suicide." It is to his credit that he has the insight to perceive the futility of mundane existence, yet he poses no positive solutions outside of encouraging men to recognize the absurdity of their position and seek refuge in a humanistic "solidarity."

The popularity of this philosophy in America was almost inevitable, and it was picked up about five years later by the Beat movement. And its transformation was also inevitable: if life is absurd, then let us enjoy our gross senses as much as possible. This is also the hedonistic philosophy of Hippyism. Initially, at any rate, this hedonism, which is grounded in aspiritualism and pessimism, grew out of the refuse of the Christian church just as mushrooms grow out of dung.

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were the forerunners of this movement, Sartre and Camus were the popularizers, and the masses were the dupes. Suddenly every major writer from Homer to Chaucer to Shakespeare to Melville to T.S. Eliot was analyzed as an "existentialist." Books entitled Existential Thought in Wordsworth and Coleridge were placed on front counters in book stores while the Bhagavad-gita was placed in the occult section.