SELF-DELUSION AND SOPHISTRY ... 1

SELF-DELUSION AND SOPHISTRY ... 1

This atheism in the name of the Vedanta is not vanity fair but is vanity foul. It is nothing but a misinterpretation of the ancient texts by ordinary sense-bound creatures masquerading as philosophers with all the baggage of their flawed reasoning. Verily have the shastras (scriptures) said :
शब्दजालामं महारण्यमं चित्तबिभ्रम कारणम ||
The web of words is a forest vast that befuddles the mind.

This, indeed, is the case with shallow men trying to pose as philosophers with all their base sense associations and appetites having their spontaneous sport in enjoyment, their mind not under the minimum of control as ought to be the case with realised souls and their arsenal consisting only of self-confusing words and half-baked ideas to stun them into self-hypnosis of an ulterior kind that misconceives it as the realisation of the absolute truth.

The vast network of words and their corresponding images leave most bewildered and in the consequent confusion that reigns in their brain they come to facile conclusions about their spiritual status. One such stupendously fallacious inference drawn is that they are realised souls by birthright simply because the texts declare that they are in essence Brahman. They may be engaged in carnal activity whenever it suits them to do so, impelled by impulse which they call natural and spontaneous and, so, perfectly compatible with their living free status. This spontaneous marriage of carnality with consciousness absolute is what these neophytes are preaching these days to gain the favour of the masses who are thus being given a comfortable religion to follow, quite in keeping with their ordinary sensate life and with nothing to renounce except that old fool, humility.

These new age Gurus, with mind mired in materialism which they hide under sophistry, are the current corruption that afflicts a sizeable section of the polity composed of gullible souls who can scarce pick the grain from the chaff when it comes to specious argument. Consequently, a vast number of Hindus are being led astray by charlatans that change colour like the chameleon in order to preserve their malefic hold on their duped desirous flock.

Having read the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, these pretenders to piety, these false prophets gather information enough which they mould in the modern tongue to fool the masses. The gift of the gab is not spirituality, neither is crafty but fallacious reasoning so. Digesting material from Vivekananda, interspersing it with scriptural aphorisms and presenting the delicacy as neo-spirituality may suit commercial considerations but not fulfil the requirements to become acceptable as valid truth. Delusion is a disease that affects all except the genuine self-realised souls of rare occurrence, and delusion affects most these pretenders to realisation who preach gibberish in the name of high-sounding philosophy. The common man's delusion will go one day but woe unto these false philosophers who deceive for theirs is the cartload of consequence to bear!

Christ had warned his followers thus : "Beware of false prophets!" Indeed, false prophets did arrive in course of time. But the forewarning had been given and sounds even today to keep us from falling into falsity in the name of the spirit. Guru Gobind Singh had warned his followers the same and to preempt any such happening that could precipitate future trouble, he declared the sacred scripture of the Sikhs their eleventh and last Guru. Thus, the Guru Granth Sahib has since then been recognised as the ultimate Guru, the combination of the wisdom and realisation of all the preceding ten Gurus beginning with Guru Nanak and saints and sages like Kabir and kindred exalted souls.

This is the common ploy used to prevent future contamination and corruption of the original message of the spiritual master(s). This method preserves the pristine purity of the message of the master, true, but it has a great defect as well. It prevents the future growth of the religion in terms of evolution of the original idea as per new findings of the unfolding ages and altered circumstances. Man keeps growing but the religion remains stagnating in its dated form.

Hinduism is free from this defect. It is fluid and flexible and free to be reaffirmed or negated through fresh findings by the pilgrims of the spirit. Nowhere is there a bar to the discovery of new principle, to the amendment of old ones or even outright rejection of the old on the basis of coherent and persuasive argument backed by a life full of the realisation of the newly discovered principle. Thus, there is tremendous freedom of thinking and affirmation of the ideas conceived, their validation in the light of the Vedas or even in contravention of it when a non-Vedic religion comes into being like Jainism and Buddhism and flourishes when backed by sterling character and purity of its founder and adherents. However, the classical Indian tradition of debate must be followed when the founder of a new sect attempts to establish his foundational principles in debate with an adversary adhering to a different viewpoint. It cannot be a blatant self-assertion and crude thrusting of opinion on the people having no sanction from the learned and the wise of society. Such is the civility that the Indian spiritual tradition has ever been observing since remotest antiquity where world civilisation dare not peep.

However, this freedom that Hinduism, or more correctly, the Sanatan Dharma offers is being badly abused by quack Gurus, charlatans and self-declared saints and Avatars, godmen with no character or moral uprightness and with only the impelling motive to fleece the gullible public for their material ends. In earlier centuries whenever a new wave of spirituality arose, there was a man of sterling character attributes and erudition in the scriptures who would often resort, nonetheless, to scriptural text-torturing to establish his philosophical thesis. But, nowadays, these unholy men of flesh and cash who masquerade as spiritual luminaries have neither the erudition nor the purity of character that can establish them before the masses as men of God. They, thus, resort to all sorts of cunning and crafty manipulation of the gullible mind of the commoner to suit their selfish ends. Some of these godmen know a smattering of Sanskrit which they selectively quote to gain ground while some others have the gift of the gab and a sufficient diction to carry them through their campaigns of untruth. The people at large are fooled --- all for some time, some for all time but not all for all time, as the saying goes.

This is a pernicious problem plaguing Hindu society these days more than ever before. This corruption of the spiritual discourse is by no means new, for charlatans have ever been there to spice up the proceedings the vicious way, but its frequency and magnitude is gaining ground by the year in a booming economy where spiritual fraudulence can earn enormous sums in a dubious way with impunity and ease. And herein major difficulty of rooting out this corruption for it is coupled with material greed and the easy availability of resources for appeasing this gluttony in an economy that is thriving ever more.

...to be continued...

Written by Sugata Bose