Very interesting story of a north Indian saint from medieval times. He was the guru of Kabir and inspired Guru Nanak too.
The video is in Hindi. One of the comments by Nikhil Tiwari gives an English summary:
Crux of the video in English for non Hindi speakers is that Swami Ramanand was a teacher to Kabir and Tulasidas both who took two different paths of Bhakti to attain truth. He was a teacher of Swami Ramdas, a tanner or Charmkaar who later became teacher of Rajput queen Mirabai. So whats happening here is that a Brahmin is teaching a Shudra and the Shudra later becomes guru of a Kshatriya. This dismantles all caste based discrimination theory by leftists. Ramanand also converted about 34,000 Rajputs who were converted to Islam back to their faith. So the video is asking that why Ramanand isn’t found in our history books but his disciples Tulsidas, Kabir, Ramdas? Simple because it will threaten the so called anti brahmin narrative by leftists who have propagated that brahmins, rajputs are castiests who have always suppressed dalits & pave a way to further the unity among Hindus.
I agree with this. Emphasis is mine.
Another point worth repeating from my other post on caste is that Swami Ramananda is another example of the self correcting nature of Hinduism. Yes, caste-based discrimination happened in the past and is still happening. But always there have been counter movements within Hinduism for correcting it. There is no need for external intervention, especially not from the abrahamics.
This video is from the high profile Harvard India Conference in Feb 2019 at Harvard. It was organized by Indian student body at Harvard. Sadhguru was first questioned by a panel of three students (two from Harvard Business school and one from Kennedy public policy school) and it was followed by audience Q&A.
This post is about the attitude of these students, the crème de la crème of India and the world.
First, I think it would be fair to say that Sadhguru has likely accomplished a lot more than any students in the panel or the audience, even if you exclude the spiritual angle, which, of course, is Sadhguru’s greatest contribution. I am talking about “measurable” achievements like number of people educated, treated, trees planted, impact on education and environment policy. The number of people that Sadhguru has positively impacted is more than the whole population of most countries in the world. And he has done all this primarily through volunteers. So one would think that the Indian students at Harvard would recognize these contributions and be proud of a global leader of Indian origin, especially given that the forum is India conference. And they would treat it as a master class and have an attitude of, well, students!
Far from it.
The panel and the questioners later seemed more interested in conducting a trial of Sadhguru with an aim of “exposing” him and, by proxy, the deep problems of India which, of course, Harvard understands far better than an uneducated guru. Indeed, the MC kicked off the session by asking the panel to take Sadhguru “to task”! I think Sadhguru sensed this early on because his responses were uncharacteristically hard hitting.
So what were the students interested in?
The conversation started with “philosophical” questions. No, not to explore the philosophy which has driven Sadhguru’s incredible public service. Not also to explore Sadhguru’s spirituality. The goal seemed to be to point out holes in Hindu philosophy. In the very first question one panelist said that Gita teaches karma karo fal ki chinta mat karo (do your work without caring for the results) and points out that she finds it non-sensical.
I wonder if the questioner would be able to tell the names of five chapters of Gita, or even how many chapters and shlokas it has, forget reading it. Most likely all she knows about Gita is from hear say (read whatsapp university). But her limited knowledge does not prevent her from casting doubts on the Gita with such certitude.
By the way, I have read Gita and karma karo fal ki chinta mat karo is not the lesson I got from it.
This is a common trend among educated Indians. I have seen my friends mock the Vedas, Ramayana and, of course, the manu smriti even though none of them have read any of it. A friend said to me – I would rather watch a Netflix series than waste my time on reading Hindu scriptures. So he hasn’t read and won’t read but yet he is certain that these scriptures are worthless.
This is chutzpah — confidence in spite of ignorance.
Later someone from the audience asked – why should a youth like me care about religious celebrations like Maha Shivratri? (By the way, people should check out the amazing 2019 Maha Shivratri celebrations of at Isha foundation, Coimbatore.) Again he likely has no idea about the origin and significance of Maha Shivratri. The fact that millions have been celebrating it for thousands of years means nothing to him because he has already concluded that anyone taking part in this festival seriously is obviously deluded and superstitious.
The rest of the questions pretty much followed the clichés and talking points of BBC, NYT, Economist and NDTV — india is a rape capital, it is full of discrimination, intolerance, regressive religious practices, etc – essentially propagating what RM calls the caste, cows and curry caricature of India.
The amazing thing is that such hinduphobia is rampant in people who grew up in India in a Hindu household. Hindu bashing for them is cool and progressive. Again, their cynicism is only matched by their ignorance.
My take
I think two things are going on here.
First, is the elitism and arrogance of the Ivy league. That is universal and not limited to Harvard and Yale. We all know people from IITs, IIMs, etc who behave like they are a gift of God to humanity. I am not too concerned about this elitism because the sensible ones usually get over it once they come out of campuses and enter the real world.
The other thing is more deep rooted, harder to correct and malicious — it is hinduphobia. It is no longer limited to the humanities students in JNU but has also infected the science and engineering colleges. The weird and dangerous aspect of it is that hinduphobia in India is not restricted to badmouthing the Hindu spiritual leaders like Sadhguru and Baba Ramdev who are the obvious targets. It extends into every section of society including media and education.
[by the way, I loved Sadhguru’s response to “a monk like Yogi Adityanath ought not to hold an important political position like that of chief minister”. The response was essentially — what is your bloody problem?! Yogi is a citizen of India and followed due process to get where he is. He didn’t get any special treatment – forget political favors, he reminded people that a Hindu monk in India can’t drive without a license or take a flight without a ticket .. he has no special privileges! Then why should he not be able to exercise his political rights?]
So, why is hinduphobia so wide spread in India?
Here is my theory — Indian culture even as it is today does go back continuously for thousands of years to the pre-christian times. Many religious ceremonies and metaphors in Indian languages today can be traced right back to the Vedas. As a result, it is not possible to separate religion (hinduism) and culture in India. Of course, I don’t feel the need for such a separation. But on college campuses it is cool to be anti-religion or, at the very least, SBNR (spiritual but not religious). And since Hinduism is the dominant religion in India, and also far less assertive and more tolerant than the abrahamic religions or, for that matter, the Richard Dawkins brand of atheists, Hinduism becomes a natural and a soft target.
You can find many more examples of this in Sadhguru’s Youth and Truth series with college students on campuses across India.
You will find hinduphobic chutzpah all around you. Pay attention.
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Isha or Harvard.
I started writing this blog more than three years back. Since then I have studied Hinduphobia in different sections of the society both in India and outside India. The trend line of Hinduphobia is steadily increasing and, if this continues, the Hindu civilization in India will mutate beyond recognition and beyond repair in the next 50 years. This is certainly not good news for Hindus in India, but neither is it good for muslims or any other community in India. It is the Hindu ethos which have allowed so many different cultures and religions to coexist peacefully in India.
Of course, this process of decline started over 1000 years ago. But in this post I want to list case studies from very recent past – in the last few decades. All this happened in our living memory or that of our parents. I have reviewed the evidence for each of this cases and have posts on each.
Sabrimala, is an example of Hinduphobia under the cover gender equality.
I recently met a Kashmiri Hindu who had to flee Kashmir in the most recent exodus of Hindus in 1990. This exodus happened in my lifetime, not in distant past. Yet I had no idea about the scale and brutality until a few years back. It is amazing how this story has been kept under wraps. I am not surprised that the government and media suppressed the facts, but I am surprised that this is not common knowledge for Hindus outside of Jammu and Kashmir. This ignorance is a good example of Hindu disunity – Hindus in Kerala don’t care about something in Kashmir and vice versa.
Hindus being driven out of Kashmir becomes particularly tragic when one considers the history of the region. Kashmir was the home of Sharda Peeth, a revered university of ancient and middle ages, now in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. It was the home of the great philosopher and polymath, Abhinav Gupta. It is also said to be home of Panini and Patanjali.
This interview of author Rakesh Kaul gives a good overview of the glorious intellectual legacy of Kashmir.
And this talk by activist Sushil Pandit talks about the current state of affairs and the utter failure of the Indian state to uphold justice and the rule of law.
(update on Aug 29, 2019)
Below is a great 8 min summary of Kashmir by Ashish Dhar. He rightly calls Kashmir a Civilizational War. I want to emphasize again that the seventh (and last) exodus of Hindus from Kashmir happened in independent, democratic and secular India and in our life time. There is no Aurangzeb or Britishers to blame.
The question that you should be asking now is – what, if anything, prevents Kashmir from happening to you?
In my other post, I explained that mind sciences is at the core of the Yogic world view and can be considered the organizing principle for the Indian civilization. Various Dharmic schools (including Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism), Sanskrit, Yoga, meditation, Pranayaam and Ayurveda were all developed to create an ecosystem for exploring the mind. Needless to say this is not generally appreciated, not even by Hindu Indians, forget the rest of the world. I myself didn’t appreciate this until a few years back while I was still an IBCD!
Why so?
One of the reasons is the systematic decoupling of the Indian mind sciences from Hinduism and, consequently, India. RM’s talk in this earlier post (India’s (unacknowledged) contributions to Mind Sciences by Rajiv Malhotra) presents numerous examples of famous westerners indulging in this appropriation and digestion. They are all from recent times (last 100 years); some are around today. I think I have found one more who can be added to this list — David Chalmers, a professor of philosophy and a cognitive scientist in NYU and Australia.
I came across this episode of NPR’s TED Radio Hour titled the Unknown Brain. Last segment of the show is on the below TED talk by Chalmers. With over 600,000 views, this is one of the most popular TED talks. Watch it before reading further –
Amazing, isn’t it?! It could hardly have been grander. With his following two crazy ideas, Chalmers is sketching the outlines of the next scientific revolution which might well be much more fundamental than quantum mechanics and relativity combined (!):
Idea 1: consciousness is fundamental – in the same sense as space, time, mass and charge are; he calls it HIS postulate. Idea 2: consciousness is universal – everything is conscious, even the rocks. There is even a word for it — panpsychism!
I was stunned when I heard this talk. Stunned not in the least by the grandness of his vision or the originality of his ideas. Even a casual reader of Vedanta would recognize the ideas as the core tenets of the Vedanta, as I explain in the other post using references to a talk by Sadhguru. In fact these ideas would not be novel to any one who knows about the philosophies of any of the Indian-origin Dharmic traditions. Still, all that Chalmers says about the eastern connection is a casual side comment – these ideas are not all that alien to people from the eastern traditions. But an unsuspecting viewer might not pick it up and may well get the impression that these are radical new ideas and that Chalmers has pioneered them!
At this point, you may say – all right, he is not crediting the source adequately. What’s the big deal?A friend of mine actually said this to me. And he is not one of the JNU-type who are constitutively Hinduphobic. He is just confused – my target audience!
Ok, so what is the big deal? For starters, using an idea without crediting the source is considered academic misconduct. Chalmers, being a professor, ought to know this. Perhaps he is not aware of the Vedic philosophy? Possible, but unlikely. He is a philosophy professor, after all! So yes, I do suspect that he has plagiarized from Indian thinkers, but I can’t make that claim just based on a 15 min video. I am raising a red flag, just like RM raised a red flag for Wendy Doniger, Sheldon Pollock, Devdutt Pattanaik and many more. Readers should investigate further. But certainly, if Chalmers ever applies for a patent for a product (say a new “mindfulness” app!) based on these not-really-that-crazy ideas, I hope the patent office consider Vedic mind sciences as prior art. (Related – Dr Mashelkar on The Turmeric Patent Battle and KSRI, Chennai)
Now, whether or not Chalmers has plagiarized from Indian thinkers or is “inspired” by them is not really my main concern. Ignoring the ethics for a bit, look at this from the point of view of one of the TED talk viewer who likely has no exposure to Hindu philosophy but is curious about meditation, brain, mind, etc. I happened to be in that category until recently but lately, I have been listening to an (authentic) lectures series on Patanjali’s Yog Sutra, the master text for meditation. And I am completely awe struck by the depth, sophistication and rigor of it. Patanjali, unlike Chalmers, is not iffy about things. He does not use words like “postulate” or “crazy” to describe his theories, presumably just to be safe, in case they turn out to be wrong later! Patanjali has developed the whole thing from theory to application. And by the way, Yog Sutra is just one of the many Hindu theories of the mind.
My point is that, not only is Chalmers not original, his formulation is likely also crude. So, a new student would be well advised to refer to authentic Hindu material along side Chalmers and see which makes more sense. For me, Patanjali’s Yog Sutra is the real deal. Why would you go for something like scotch when scotch is available; or, since it is mango season now, why go for any other mango when Indian mangoes are available?! RM has often commented – the digested versions of Indian traditions are invariably inferior to the original. And it is not always due to an ulterior motive. For a westerner, it may just be due to a lack of context.
Now, let us change the point of view to that of a nation or civilization. Imagine a TED talk which starts with these words: Imagine if we could cure diseases without any chemical drugs or surgery .. just by poking on your skin with micro needles. We call this technology micropoking! And on and on for 15 min without any mention of acupunture or China. Anyone, even an IBCD, would smell something fishy. The fact that people do not associate meditation with Hinduism, in the same way as they associate acupunture with China, or, for that matter, cheese burger with the US, shows how India has squandered her greatest soft power. Even in India today, Vedic mind sciences are not given enough attention in school curriculum nor in medical training. The centers of excellence in mind sciences are all in the west and that is where most innovation (new apps, courses, etc) is taking place. The situation is very much like that of yoga 25-30 years ago. India had nearly lost the adhikaar on Yoga till PM Modi intervened a few years back. Different matter that the intervention may be too little and too late. Ayurveda and meditation are fast heading in that direction.
Finally, I think I should make a disclaimer which should really not be necessary for those who have read the rest of this blog. But then, this is on the internet and people have short attention spans! Some of you might be asking – so, you think all of modern neuroscience — fMRI based brain mapping, human-computer interfaces, artificial intelligence, moon shot projects like BRIAN — are all pointless? I never said that. And I don’t think so. But I am asserting that the Vedic mind sciences are useful and have relevance today. The object of study for both the Hindu rishis and modern neuroscience is the same – the human mind. The two approaches have to be complementary, not at conflict with each other.
Note to reader: Hindu, Vedic, Yogic and Dharmic are used interchangeably.
Interpreting Tantra As Subjective Neuroscience by neurologist Anand Venkatraman. A thought provoking and intriguing talk on the analogies between modern neuroscience and Tantra, another one of ancient Hindu theories of mind from the Kashmir Shaivism tradition.
Here is another one (Gareth Cook from Scientific American) in the league of Chalmers who just discovered panpsychism!
Sadhguru was recently (May 2018) on a panel on The Technologies of the Future. He shared the stage with three scientists and innovators, including eminent physicist Michio Kaku, also a great communicator of science, in the league of Carl Sagan and Arthur Clarke. Kaku kicked of the discussion by presenting a fantastic science fiction like vision for the future — exoskeletons, thinking robots, humans upgrading themselves by merging with robots and so on. And according to him all this will happen in the next 100-200 years and he was very optimistic and upbeat about everything! I don’t quite share Kaku’s optimism for the future, but I respect his opinion and would consider his predictions within the realm of possibility. The two speakers after Kaku were far less eloquent than Kaku, but just as high on science!
Sadhguru spoke in this science-is-God context! The link below starts with Sadhguru (~43 min) but I would recommend that you sample a few minutes of Kaku first.
I feel Sadhguru elevated the whole discussion to a completely different level. More important than what he said is what he did not say, given that he is from the fluffy world of spirituality as against that of the real world of science. Sadhguru did not dismiss Kaku’s vision or that of the other speakers, nor did he minimize the importance of science or pass any moral judgments of any sort. Neither did he say that all of modern science is already in the Vedas! In fact, Sadhguru whole heartedly acknowledged the contributions of modern science and embraced it for the future.
In any such discussion, someone always mentions the problem that every technology is a double edged sword, and then the science-is-God panelists will use phrases like human rights or democracy (Kaku used it) or corporate social responsibility and the religious-types would resort to high morality using cliches like love thy neighbor. In the end there is no concrete suggestion on how to blunt the evil edge of the sword. This is because responsible use of science is no longer within the domain of science. And of course, science is out of the domain of the Abrahamic religions.
But this panel was different because of Sadhguru bridged the two worlds of science and spirituality in what he called the yogic science of mind and consciousness.
His framework is basically that of Vedanta or Upanishads. In fact, an undergraduate level student of Vedanta (like me) can easily draw parallels between Sadhguru’s ideas and those in Upanishads, Gita and Yoga Sutra. In other words, Sadhguru here is articulating a well developed world view. I can imagine many other gurus rooted in the Vedas giving a similar vision.
Sadhguru eloquently explained how modern science nicely fits into the yogic world view but does not really address the big picture. In other words, there is no conflict between modern science and the yogic world view; there never was. However, if pursued within the yogic world view, science would automatically be used responsibly. Sadhguru argued that, in fact, the yogic world view will become more and more relevant as science advances. I agree with him.
All this is not just a theoretical framework like most social theories (e.g. Marxism) which look great on paper but are just not practical. Indian civilization actually implemented the yogic framework for thousands of years and developed elaborate social structures around it. No wonder ancient India achieved incredible heights in all spheres of life till the islamic invasions disrupted the process around 1000 year back. Of course, it is not all gone. After all Sadhguru exists today!
This yogic world view is India’s soft power. The final frontier of science (and humanity), is not the outer space, it is the human mind. And no civilization other than the Indian Vedic civilization has placed more importance on the mind and actually developed theories and methods to understand and enhance it. India today should be owning, developing and exporting this soft power.
(Jan 2020: Previous link to YouTube video was broken. I am not able to embed the NDTV link.)
This conversation was pure music to my ears, not because of what Sadhguru was saying, as I had heard him say most of it before, but because he was saying it on NDTV!
NDTV is India’s equivalent of Fox news of US, but one who has successfully been pretending to be CNN. Most people, regardless of whether they like or hate Fox, are aware of the biases of Fox. It is amusing that “Fair and Balanced” used to be Fox’s motto until not too long ago! But many people are not able to see through the biases of the smooth-talking (pseudo) intellectuals on NDTV. By the way, to NDTV’s credit, it does have lower decibel levels than most other news channels of India.
Enough NDTV bashing. Now coming to this conversation. It is a must watch for the people who like to use cliches like all religions are the same, I am spiritual but not religious, all religions are irrational and require blind faith, all gurus are crooked, etc. The ones I like to call confused.
The host Arundhathi Subramaniam in the first few minutes says that she first approached Sadhguru 12 years back with a
.. certain measure of caution because the very word Guru seemed to be such a loaded one. It seemed so hierarchical, so authoritarian, so medieval in my understanding of it.
In other words – she was confused too! But not anymore. I should also commend her on how she conducted this interview. She asked all the questions that a typical confused person might have but in a sincere and respectful manner. She is skeptical, but not cynical.
While watching this video, note how the audience is reacting. Sadhguru is witty as usual and narrates some of his favorite anecdotes and metaphors to which most audiences, including in the west, applaud, but not this NDTV crowd. For example, there was an uncomfortable silence when Sadhguru said “in my mind secular means you are not screwed up in your head” around 17min!
And “state” doesn’t just refer to higher states of consciousness but also the mundane stuff of the multi-billion dollar business of Yoga and the appropriation of Yoga by those from the Judeo-Christian camp as well as those from the “secular science” camp.
For a change, Rajiv Malhotra is not the interviewer, but the interviewed. He has said most of this in his interviews with other yoga Gurus (real and fake!), but it all comes together very well in this video. I don’t think anyone other than Rajiv Malhotra can provide such a 360 view of the current state of yoga world wide.
The video refers to many interviews done by Rajiv Malhotra. Following are some of them, along with some of my recommendations.
Barkha Dutt’s new incarnation is as the host of a talk show #openmind. Ah, the irony of Barkha Dutt and openmind in the same sentence! In this video she asks Amish all the usual libtard questions on caste, tolerance and women’s rights. Amish gives quite thoughtful and well articulated responses with which I almost completely agree. He seems to get the idea of Indian Grand Narrative. Got to read his books.
He made one insightful remark on the secularism and tolerance debate
Indian society is and has always been inherently secular, but post-independence Indian state has never been secular.
Glad he mentions RTE and government control of temples as examples of state not being secular. Got to read his new book Immortal India.
Sounds familiar? I have heard this from many a gurus and (confused) Hindus. Below is Rajiv Malhotra’s response in 7 min. For a rigorous response, read the Gita in Sanskrit. Or if you don’t know Sanskrit, follow an authentic interpretation, for example, from Arsha Vidya Gurukulam.
This is Not Right Wing! 