Victory without defamation (1)

Two months ago I had a chance to visit a tomb of Javanese saint named RMP Sosrokartono. He was a noble man and the first Indonesian scholar who studied in overseas (Holland) in the western type of education during Dutch colonials. In the year of 1897-1926,  his social life in Europe were between the noble society and scholar society. He could speak 26 different languages, 10 of indonesian tribes and 16 of international languages inlcuding Basque, France, Spanish, and Portuguese. He was the first indonesian war reporter in the era of World War I and translator for the Nation League. He was the one who supplied the information of the World War I in Europe to American readers, one that higlighetd his caree was the secret agreement that happened in France between the two faction because he was appointed to be the translator in it.

That was his worldly achievement. In the year 1926 he returned to Indonesia and led a very different life. In his tomb there was eight philosophy of life written in javanese scripts and language. One of the philosophy stated there said 'menang tanpo ngasorake' which is very profound in relation to the javanese way of life; it means victory without defamation. What does it mean? It means as it is, very obvious: victory without defamation.

Win-win situation

Compare to the Stephen Covey philosophy of 'win-win situation' this philosophy is more potent in dealing with everyday or any principal problem though only very few have the ability to apply it in their life. For one who wins has tendency to be confident with their strength, excessive in celebrating their victory and arrogant in their victory.

In his book of seven habit of highly effective people, Stephen Covey stated the characteristics of win-win solution. It said that win-win solution is a mind and heart frame that continuously seek benefits in the human interaction. It is an agreement or solution that's gives mutual benefits and satisfaction. With win-win solution both parties happy with the decision and tied to the its plan action. It sees life as an arena of cooperation not competition. Most people think in dichotomy that is strong or weak, hard or soft, win or loss. Win-win solution is a belief to the third alternative, not your way or may way; it is a better way, a higher way.

Unlike win-win situation

Now, victory without defamation is unlike win-win solution. Because it is based on reality of things as it is, not to the way of human mind thinks. Let me elaborate here.

The existence of strong, weak, hard, soft, win, loss are there. And competition is also there, whether we accept its existence or not. And people sometimes can't see things beyond their mind and feeling, that they can't see the good in anything that happen in their life. And solution doesn't always mean applicable to both parties. It could only be applicable to one party that happen to be in the weak, soft and lost one. And there are situation where winner do not gain anything from their action because to them the action is their common sense for they're the one who have come to the state of self liberation / self actualization. Because of such nature, win-win solution may not be applicable. The best transcendental action in such situation is victory without defamation.

The victory without defamation is actually in accordance to the Qur'an surah An-Nashr (110) that said:

Sahih International

When the victory of Allah has come and the conquest,

110:2

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Sahih International

And you see the people entering into the religion of Allah in multitudes,

110:3

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Sahih International

Then exalt [Him] with praise of your Lord and ask forgiveness of Him. Indeed, He is ever Accepting of repentance.

As the last verses stated, the guideline given to those who has come to self liberation are of three actions which is against to common people do as i mentioned above. One is to exalt (Him) with praise of your Lord, this is to actually know and realize that their victory isn't because of their own strength; the strength to win the situation comes from Allah. Two is to ask forgiveness of Him that is in their realization that it could be that in their way of celebrating the victory, they may do something that is against the rule of Allah or it may cause people dislike them. Three is to repent that is to say that any arrogancy that may come either they realize it or not is needed to be continually cleased away from their heart.

The basic nature

The philosophy of victory without defamation came from the origin of Truth. As stated in the Quran that said: And say, "Truth has come, and falsehood has departed. Indeed is falsehood, [by nature], ever bound to depart." [QS 17:81]

Truth can't be mixed up with falsehood, Light can't be mixed up with darkness. Their existence is such a way that if Truth exist falsehood will disappear, if Light exist darkness will disappear. And because of such nature, it is impossible to cooperate the two. For the non-existence of one is the cause of the existence the other.

When the Light comes, darkness go.
The existence of one is the cause of non-existence of the other

And as the last verse stated that 'the nature of falsehood is ever bound to depart'. It means that falsehood isn't real, darkness isn't real. It is unreal - it is only real to the mind who perceive it, but in essence they're unreal.

Practicing the philosophy

True victory is victory over ourself

This victory without defamation is a moment of Truth. It could be that the situation at that time is both parties win, or one wins while the other lost. But at that time the winner practice this philosophy in such a way that in the end the other party come to the realization that in their defeated moment, they are transformed to be the winner and that the one won do not take advantage from their victory. When the defeated one has come to this realization, it is then understood that actually they're the ones who have won.

The core principle values to practice this philosophy in one's life is sincerity in its essence in which one lives a self-less way of life. And the dimension of this philosophy is also a little bit different from the one mentioned by Stephen Covey in his book. I will try to elaborate more in the next section.