1. Hinduism accepts all religions as true but the religions of Abrahamic origin, namely, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are exclusive in their views and assertions and hold themselves to be true alone with the practised fanaticism increasing down the line.
2. Hindus must learn Sanskrit to get to the heart of their heritage and culture. It is ignorance of this grand literary legacy that is the cause of our current corruption and decadent trends.
3. Rationality must combat fanaticism, liberalism must win this war against extremism, but to do so one must have the clarity to identify and the courage to name the fanatical faiths and cults of tribal origin, of obsolete practices and of dangerous doctrines.
4. Ramakrishna is the way out of the current mess the Hindus find themselves in. And stop bragging that you are an atheist Hindu.
5. If Vivekananda is heard by us today, we will survive. Else, in the absence of knowledge of the Self, our doom is at hand.
6. Brothers, read the Bhagavad Geeta and strengthen your souls. Then serve the nation to strengthen it.
7. Hindus must practise the principles enshrined in their scriptures in their bid to usher in a golden age in human civilisation.
8. Today, we look forward to your advent, O Lord, to save the world from all-round cataclysm.
9. Will fanaticism end it all, this greed for territorial gain in religion and statecraft, or will it be the degrading environment?
10. The Hindu space is declining by the day. From a world of immediate influence we have been reduced to a factor of minimal impact.
11. If not now, then when? Awake to the misery of the world in chains to death cults and strike off the fetters that bind.
12. Saffron is the colour of renunciation, of the soul in all its radiant hue, of the rising sun of spiritual consciousness. Om!
13. The Vedas were revealed to the rishis from the depths of their souls. There is a vast inner world which is the repository of all truth, temporal and spiritual.
14. Fanatical faiths must stop conversion and seek enlightenment from Hinduism in the science of spirituality that is neither doctrinaire nor personality-based, neither heaven-oriented nor hell-centred but is simply the statement of the divine in all of sentience whose highest manifestation man is.
Spirituality consists not in numbers but in purity of being, catholicity of comprehension and universality of acceptance. Holiness goes along with liberalism of a high order and never so with narrow fundamentalist attitude that is the bane of the Abrahamic religions with the unmitigated evil of fanaticism progressing down the historical line. Time it is that these religions, barring Judaism which does not convert, give up their malefic agenda of numerical expansion and concentrate on real human welfare. Only then may inter-faith dialogue have any substance to it.
But will these archaic formulations of godhead resort at last to fundamental honesty about the whole discourse or will they continue to verbally harp on one thing and in real harbour another? Will these archaic articles of absolutist arbitration on matters spiritual ever be challenged in a manner forthright enough to cause them to take sufficient cognisance of the resistance to their malefic agenda or will they continue to benefit from liberal non-intervention and cowardly acquiescence to their endless arrogance and relentless aggression?
If the current inertia to change and the persistent diffidence to effectively counter these medieval monstrosities masquerading as messianic mercy continues, then humanity is gravely imperilled. In such a case Hinduism, shorn of pretentious selective self-reading, must take the lead and invest all its energy in redirecting the course of the world to the righteous path redolent of the realisations of the rishis (seers of transcendental Truth) and save civilisation from its precipitous fall into barbarism. The Sanatan Dharma is the only way out of the chaos of the times but how it may engineer the change in a resistive social order that is culturally bound to its fanatical formulations is a matter for investigative study which ought to engage our best attention if we are serious about meeting the threat of impending cultural subversion at the hands of horrific hoodlums masquerading as messiahs of peace, for, after all, these are religions of the Almighty who is the ever-munificent and the peaceful one.
It will be a tribute to those that take the charge of altering this decadent course of the historical stream and steer the wheel of evolution to humanity's highest cherished ends. The Christian Reformation was bloody and was rooted out of Europe to be relocated in colonial-imperial terms in Asia, Africa and America. It remains to be seen what the magnitude of the price humanity has to pay to make for similar reformation in the Islamic world.
But the transformation must happen and happen it will. Enlightenment came to Europe despite opposition from the Church and enlightenment must come to Arabia despite the resistance of tradition. Education will proliferate and make for the change and it is here that Hinduism must come to the aid of the world in setting the discourse between matter and the Spirit straight, in meeting midway between science and spirituality to harmonise each in the light of the other and in helping humanity stand together as the supreme manifestation of the highest ultimate reality that is the eternal essence of all.
Such a day is not yet in the offing and it seems we are in for a protracted struggle for human transformation, especially, when geopolitics plays truant with the entire episode of this religious cultural change.
15. Constant conversation in English among elite Indians speaking the same vernacular is a disease rampant, pernicious and reprehensible. This shallow sense of self-identification through reflected culture having no roots in one's own national heritage is a sort of cultural treachery that is gaining moment among the growing middle class as well and is proof of our lack of knowledge of our glorious cultural traditions, rich and diverse, one that has nourished the civilisation of Asia for long and whose influence was once felt even in ancient Greece.
An incorrect and biased history of India presented by Western historians and Indologists coupled with independent India's capitulation to and furtherance of such a narrative where the West has ever been portrayed as the major civilising and modernising force for India and the abysmal ignorance of one's culture thereof, has been the cause of this debasement of educated India. This sort of rootlessness in language comes from a shameful complex of inferiority vis-a-vis the British and must forthwith be rectified through an amendment of our attitude towards our vernaculars. Only when we feel proud of our heritage and culture will we gain national efficiency in work and will be respected in turn by all the peoples of the world who for their part have always retained their cultural identity through strict adherence to their language and lore.
No comments:
Post a Comment