Your experiences with various institutions/ people during the last few days were a thrill to my eyes. I liken your efforts to those of the Gandhian, Dharampal, who appeared to have been similarly driven in his efforts. What is gratifying though in your case is that it is reaching the intended audience and may therefore have a real positive impact that has not happened so far.
I wish to however convey some personal views on the overall issue; apologies if these are pedestrian views but you have inspired me to air these. I also apologize for being very long in articulating the viewpoint. Trust you will find these useful and maybe some of your future works can factor these thoughts.
Around more than a millennia back, Shankara encountered Kapalikas in around Bengal/ Assam area' these people were worshippers of Devi and used to indulge in human sacrifice. Shankara debated with them for days and they also actively debated with Shankara. At the end of a long debate, the Kapalikas saw through the fault of human sacrifice and decided to discard this practice. The key point to note however is that nothing really changed in terms of their external culture, external dress and even their deity, which remained Devi. However, they were converted to the core by obtaining a better understanding of their own culture and customs. This is real conversion where people's cultures are respected but they are all brought together to pursue the same truth that binds the entire world together.
Sandy Bharat in her wonderful book "Christ Across the Ganges" examines this issue from an Indian perspective quite well. It is interesting to hear arguments as a Hindu from a Western Hindu. Sandy feels that Indians have already resisted, to use your term, digestion by reversing the gaze and making the West relearn their own traditions in the light of Dharmic traditions. She quotes sages like Yogananda and Aurobindo to prove her point. She goes a little further and also questions whether Semitic thought is indeed relevant to the modern era and adds that Semitic traditions can benefit significantly from an influence of the Dharmic thought. Indeed this is already happening but only up to a point as you have indicated. She believes that Indians have become a far more confident bunch of people and this increasing confidence will negate scope of digestion. Unfortunately, as we have been observing, the reality is not that simple as she has opined and efforts are indeed needed in this direction which need to be vigorously pursued to negate digestion.
Fundamentally speaking, Universalism is innate in the minds of Indians for generations though many of today's generation do not know why indeed does universalism appeal to them. The issue is not whether Universalism is correct but the absence of self awareness as to why Indians take naturally to Universalism in a form and manner not seen in other civilizations. For example, with concepts of Ram Rajya drilled into the minds of Indians for generations which reinforces again and again that PRAJA is prominent and RAJA is successful only if PRAJA meets its needs under such a RAJA. It is for this reason why Indians took to democracy far more easily than other countries which were similarly under the British rule. However, we as Indians are taught to discount this inherent inclination but instead praise the British for giving democracy to our country. Further, we are taught that our past is uniquely feudal and hierarchical (as if the whole world was any different) and therefore, it is the British only who deserve credit.
Our view of the world is a subjective view – THIS IS OUR VIEW. We look at the world with this view, we formulate opinions with this view, we pass judgements with this view, we govern our lives with this view, we run families, we talk to friends, we run governments, etc with an innate world view. This aspect is innate to our persona though it is surprising as to why we do not shift our gaze inward to figure out as to where are these world views coming from and why we think in a certain manner. UNFORTUNATELY, THE VERNIER CALLIPERS IN OUR BRAINS HAVE GOT TWISTED. To my mind, the concepts like yearning for freedom, the world is one family, condone the evil in the person rather than the person himself, avoid death penalty as much as possible, etc come quite naturally to Indians because of the effect of Dharmic philosophy. This is where the slow poison of MacCaulay approach has succeeded even though British have left the country for many decades now. Keeping Universalism still in our minds, OWING TO LACK OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT OUR OWN LEGACY, we have inherited tools made available by the West (Secularism, Democracy, Fundamental Rights, Minority protection, etc). These tools however have their own limitations and while modern Indians may have become more confident, use of faulty tools have led to a struggle in the minds of today's Indians and none of them know how to argue out of their well entrenched positions. Modern Indians have therefore become confident of their Charvaka ways and this is necessarily therefore not the perfect soil for re-growth of Dharmic way of life. Simply put, if Constitution of India starts with the origin of the world from ONE where the ONE projects the many (like how Manu's Dharmasutra begins its narrative), all subsequent stipulations (society layout, understanding evil, understanding the enemy, architecture, art, etc) will focus on returning back to the ONE. Without this common narrative, any outcome will be a partial outcome and may not meet its objective of bringing perfect unity, peace and success in this land of yore.
Fundamental cause of confusion today is therefore a complete lack of knowledge of our traditions and more importantly, their relevance to modern India. Your efforts are indeed a much needed though significantly delayed step in the right direction and it is not surprising that it has resonated strongly in many minds once your ideas were put in front of them. In fact, I regard the work of Dharampal as very effective in attempting to bring people back into a Dharmic viewpoint but given its lack of spread in the minds of people, it remained in the minds of very few people and is dying a natural death. On the contrary, your efforts to establish contact with academic institutions, Ashramas as well as business communities are well rounded and have higher probability to achieve its end outcome.
WENDY'S CHILDREN NEED TO BE RECONVERTED AS CHILDREN OF YAGNAVALKYA OR CHILDREN OF JANAKA!!!
What is our end objective? This is indeed the fundamental question to answer. Why are you doing what you are doing? While I am not aware of your personal inclination to drive efforts, in my opinion, these efforts are geared towards embedding a Dharmic outlook to life. Once this thought process is embedded, our society construction, our way of interaction with the world, our perspective on growth, etc will spur a huge creative explosion and thereby create a society that is as utopian as the Guptas achieved in our Golden era. If this indeed is our endeavour, your efforts need to be supported or backed by three ideas/ initiatives that should bring about complete success in this endeavour.
a. Rewriting our entire history of the country with the Dharmic mindset is essential. The Cultural History of India is the only piece of work (by Ramakrishna Mission) which comes close to meeting this objective. However, starting from the Vedic era, much of our ancient history has a Indological mindset and even if someone is inclined to possess a Dharmic mindset, he can get easily swayed by a few sentences and learn Indian history in the wrong way. A complete re-write is required which will learn history not from the mindset of who ruled the kingdoms, etc but how society evolved/ devolved from time to time and how the Dharmic mindset led to significant achievements that no other civilization has achieved. The task is stupendous, ardous, requires committed people and with formal institutions unwilling to support this, one is left with private initiative to meet this urgent requirement.
b. Bringing back certain consistent symbolism across all people adopting Dharmic way of life is critical and a must have. Today's so-called Hindus do not know the meaning of Gayatri Mantra, meaning of OM, purpose of vegetarianism, meaning of DHARMA, ideas about BRAHM from whom BRAHMA emerged, true meaning of UPANAYANAM, etc and therefore are rejecting these symbols in a geometric progression (or regression). All spiritual GURUS will need to come together to reorganize society by making certain symbolisms mandatory so that a basic external unity is achieved before we embark upon internal unity. All Hindus must undergo Upanayam ceremony (essentially, all of them must undergo the ceremony of spiritual rebirth) as well as follow certain traditions as a common minimum (child naming, marriage ritual WITH MEANINGS CONVEYED CLEARLY, minimum Yog that is meditation oriented instead of exercise). This will immediately bind people of Dharmic traditions. Common principle that must be consistent across all these ceremonies has to be achievement of Unity with cosmos and understanding diverse aspects with this common goal will drill in the concepts of Dharmic way of life in a fundamental manner. However, we must also give freedom to pursue their individual thought process that is beyond the common minimum (conception of Bhagavan through Advaita, Dvaita, Devi, etc) and thereby allow the sense of freedom to search for truth in their own way.
c. Bring back the use of Indic languages in day to day life. You have indicated the importance of knowing Sanskrit but I must confess that this is easier said than done. However, if Gurus set up free 3-month or vacation driven classes across country and mandate "Indic-Language" speaking days in the spirit of fun, slowly but surely, we may reach a day when we can shed the baggage of English (it is funny that I am expressing myself in a language that I would like to discard!!!) and return to our roots. As you have rightly said, Chinese translate all the world literature in their own language and therefore understand the world in their own terms. We have to bring this back to our country though I am not sure how and where can this be started.
You have showed us some success and people like me have become greedy and are yearning for more. Given that you have already established a good platform, if you will be able to use this platform to achieve our end objective, I guess I can die happily that the right direction has been set and we are on the right way towards reestablishing Dharma across the world.
-V.R.
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