Being Living-beings

The Past

A look into the past reveals that Roman Church and Islam had rapid success in converting the populations of Europe, Arabia, parts of Africa, Iran, and parts of Afghanistan, devouring the indigenous cultures and misappropriating many of their traditions. They could take absolute political control of these areas within a few years time. But the story in Bharat was different. The early forays by muslim invaders into Bharat were met with by stiff resistance and they could not establish roots here despite displaying unparalleled brutality. It took them many centuries of constant attacks to gain semi-permanent politcal dominance in this land.

Although they gained political power through deception, and shrewd policies- such as by Akbar, they still were not successful in converting the people to any large extent. Even though they were making progress, the indigenous culture of dharma was strong,  and it motivated the people to resist the adharmis consisitently. When the bigotry of islamists such as Aurangazeb became excessive, they were defeated by the people of this land.

When the britishers came, the close to one millennium of slow wearing down of indian culture was begining to show some discernable results. The britishers correctly identified the prevalent traditional education system as the mainstay of cultural strength and continuity that resisted foreign influence. They went about dismantling and replacing it with western education system with appreciable results, producing brown sahibs. Yet, they were met with resistance regularly from the people inspired by bharatiya samskriti, such as Tilak, Aurobindo, Savarkar. There were also people such as Swami Dyananda Saraswati, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, who revived the spiritual values that strengthened this culture. The cunning british then made a clever move positioning the british-influenced Gandhi, who appropriated the icons of cultural strength such as bhagavad gita and Sri Rama naam, that were vital sources of inspiration for dharmic thought, and misinterpreted them, twisting their meaning around. For half a century the british fostered Gandhi, who went on to emaciate the people of this land of their dharmik strength and vitality. Then weakened by WW II, they handed over power to the brown sahibs that they had bred. These brown sahibs then continued with all the systems created by the british for exploitation and emaciation of this land and its people; their education system continued to churn out coconuts (as defined by Richard Crasta in ‘Impressing the Whites‘).

The trend to be noted is that, the conversion of people away from dharmic thought was extremely slow in the begining, the pace has been slowly picking up over the past millennium.

The Present

The majority of people born in india today automatically grow up to be ‘coconuts’. That is not surprising, considering that the earlier generations grew up listening to stories of Ramayana, Mahabharata and puranas from their grandparents that inculcated a strong sense of dharma in them. The current generations probably hear only stories of Cindrella and red riding hood and grow up to consider Sri Krishna and Sri Hanuman as indian versions of superman and batman. The effect of this is reflected in the way even some supposed torch bearers of indian culture are now seen following the way of the westerners.

The current situation is such that the system of deracination now runs on its own steam. Earlier considerable effort needed to be put in by muslim marauders through acts of monstrous brutality to convert the people, which were met with by strong backlash from the indians. Thereafter, the british had comparatively easier time making use of the already converted people as sepoys and further creating brown sahibs, although they still had to face considerable resistance from the rest. But now, the brown sahibs and sepoys find little resistance; they only get adulation and are even considered role models. Currently, the pace of conversion is very fast, with influence of TV, Internet, prevalent ‘education’ system which has been made compulsory now, and the emerging culture of seeking employment as white collared labourers for MNCs or in companies abroad. The trend is similar to the exponential curve or the trend of compound interest.

The characteristic of an exponential curve is that at advanced stages, the growth is unfathomably phenomenal. When that stage is reached, the transformation of society would be spectacular, yet almost imperceptible to the transforming people themselves in their adharmik stupor. In structural engineering, when an object is subjected to continuously increasing external pressure, at first there may not be any discernable effect, later it starts to deform in elastic fashion, i.e., it changes shape but would return to original shape when the external force is removed. Later it reaches its limit of elasticity called yield point and starts to yield, i.e., deforms in plastic fashion, which means, some amount of deformation is permanent even if external force is removed. By and by it reaches a point, caled Ultimate Strength, beyond which even if the applied external pressure decrease, the deformation will continue to occur, ultimately leading to a point where the material ruptures completely.

bharatiya samskriti has been resisiting applied external forces for millenniums, at some stage it began to yield little by little. At present it seems that the ultimate strength point, beyond which deformation occurs with reduced external pressure, has been crossed. A pessimistic view though it may be, if the trend seen is correct, it seems like things are moving towards rupture point.

However

Unlike material structures, that undergo permanent plastic deformation and yield to rupture inevitably, living beings have the potential to reverse the trend, not only to gain back the previous position of strength, but also to go further beyond the earlier strength. They have the ability to regenerate and rejuvenate themselves- physically, mentally and spiritually. However depraved a being may seem, s/he is always integral with brahma and have the potential to realize themselves as such. 

The question is, will indians utilise their potential, regain their dharmik consciousness and bring back rama rajya ?

The Future

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

… is yours ours to fill.

 

 

 

 

Gandhian Ahimsa

 

Ahimsa is to not initiate violent act with selfish intent.

Like all other good qualities, ahimsa is the by-product of a life lived with spiritual purpose.

Materialistic purpose to life, exemplified by self-interest, self-gratification and self-aggrandizement, is what inevitably leads to himsa.

When ahimsa or other such qualities like Austerity or Tolerance etc., are attempted to be ‘adopted’ and ‘implemented’ into the life of a materialistically oriented person, they become mere tools for further self-aggrandizement and for public consumption.

Forcibly adopting ahimsa is actually himsa on oneself.

When a person subjects himself to be beaten up by another, in the belief that such act will cause the other to feel guilty and withdraw, this person does three wrong things.

One, he tolerates the intolerable. He tolerates adharma.

Second, he does  himsa  to himself, though he may mistakenly believe that he is upholding the spirit of ahimsa.
A person who allows violent act to be done to himself, is also a participant in himsa.

Third, he is doing so in anticipation of eventual fruit, which is to cause guilt on the other. This is against the spirit of nishkama karma, action without seeking fruits thereof.

All three points are against the message of the bhagavad gita, mahabharata, ramayana and the ‘traditional indian culture’ which exhorts people to uphold dharma, to live peaceful life in consonance with Nature and to actualise karma without seeking fruits thereof.

Gandhi’s exhortion to accept indignities without demur is on the lines of  “show the other cheek” phrase attributed to christ.
That he was comprehensively influenced by church and bible is evident upon reading his collected works(CWMG).

His public claims of following the bhagavad gita and Sri Rama are incongruent with his actual actions and exhortions.

Gandhi, on retrospection, turns out to be a product of those times, a result of missionary influenced education system that de-valued indian culture and values, which caused many such ‘educated’ people to be influenced by christian ideas and western propaganda. Such people, deracinated, were unable to appreciate indian culture, unable to understand spirituality, which is the main theme of indian culture.
Gandhi’s ‘brahmacharya’, ‘austerity’ and his version of ‘ahimsa’ were the result of misguided attempts at borrowing from indian culture, something which westerners were actively doing at that time, and even now. Like all such attempts, gandhi’s too failed to reflect the real worth of indian values and culture because they were taken out of their most important context of spirituality.

This is the reason Max Mueller’s and such others’ attempts to understand Vedas were failure. Just as a carnivores animal cannot digest grass, a person holding materialistic motives, which is what all western approaches are all about,  cannot understand indian culture. Whatever they feed off it, remains undigested and is discarded, often with condemnation.

West-educated Gandhi and Nehru, among many others of their time were unable to understand their own culture, as are many others even now,  because they abandoned its central theme of spirituality, which is not just to read the bhagavad gita and other texts or imitating spiritual greats, but orienting one’s life purpose towards realisation of higher truths about oneself and creation. It was this that was central to indian culture. When taken away from this context, themes such as ‘brahmacharya’, ‘ahimsa’, austerity etc., become dogmatic pursuits towards self-aggrandizement and for public show.

Some people, under the influence of christian propaganda about christ ‘dying for sins of mankind’, attempt to achieve a halo around them by projecting an image of ‘suffering’ and austerity. They mistakenly believe that by following christ’s action, as propagated by the church, of forgiving all sins of others while suffering themself,  they will also be exalted. Self-aggrandizement is the motive behind this.

Some others, equally so influenced, yet unable to gather enough gumption to hurt themselves in search of such ‘glory’, consider the people who appear to be doing so with awe, almost christ like, for their acts of ‘suffering’ and ‘forgiveness’.

Since british education was imposed upon india for two hundred years, it was natural that many people in early 20th century considered the ‘acts’ of Gandhi with awe and respect. Britishers, who naturally preferred peaceful agitators to violent ones, gladly propagated such ‘gandhian values’.

Nehru, a similar product of his times, took after the british who tutored him, and appropriated the symbol of gandhi, and like the british, used it for political benefit. His succesors have merely followed his lead.

The result is for all to see.

When China does border intrusion, India finds virtue in ‘ahimsa’.

When Pakistan sends armed merceneries to kill indian civilians, India seeks virtue in ‘restraint’ and ‘talks’.

When Nepal, Bangladesh act against Indian national interest, India is silent spectator.

When America funds Pakistan who funds jihadis, India does not demur.
When Saudis fund madrassas, India is not concerned.
When Indian culture is being eroded by capitalist consumerism and communist activism, India calls it progress.
When missionaries, the maoists in their payroll and jihadis kill indians unprovoked, India is unmoved. It being ‘gandhian value’ for indians to suffer.
When indians express outrage at such acts and retaliate, it is vehemently condemned. That being not ‘gandhian value’.
It appears, in India ‘gandhian values’ are meant for indians alone, not for followers of western constructs such as christianity, islam, consumerism, communism, secularism, even maoism.

Gandhi is rightfully called ‘father of the nation’. That is actually an indictment considering the state of the nation and that of its citizens, many of who display inability to understand dharma let alone the need to uphold it, under the influence of western materialism.
This being the same land that nurtured the civilisation that realised the concept of dharma.
This is the tragedy of gandhi. And much of India today.

 

 

—-This post was inspired by comments on Sastwingees blog—