Opposing the Left is Not “Right”- Part I: A letter to students
Two Facebook Posts and a Debate with a Journalist Supporting Indian Left-Wing Thinking—A Case study
It all started with the JNU row. Being an academic in the United States who teaches and researches in the areas of spiritual philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, Contemporary and Traditional Vedanta, Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, Sufism of the Indian subcontinent, Comparative Mysticism, Transpersonal Psychology, Cultural and Cross-cultural Psychology, Indian Psychology, Philosophy of Science and Epistemology and Postcolonial Thought, I wrote a post for the students of India to critically examine the ideological substratum of left-wing thought so that they could include in their thinking and practice the projected idealism of Indian left as they transcended it into something truly spiritual, a field which largely comes from the classical Indian traditions—Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism—and Sufism.
Before I proceed further, here is a complete reproduction of the post, posted on 16 February:
Dear Students of India,
The university campuses in India are on a boil, and it is this socio-political situation, which inspires me or compels me to write to you. My appeal to you is that instead of having a knee-jerk reaction either in favor or against this post, you would take some time to sit back and reflect on the contents. The job of an academic is always to make his/her students think critically, and it from this perspective that I write to you.
I am sure that some of you when learning about the mythologies of India must have heard that an asura (a demon) sometimes comes in the garb of a beautiful nymph, an enchantingly beautiful woman, to mislead and to disrupt an ongoing spiritual experiment for the larger good of humanity.
What I am going to say next may come as a little shock to you: the left wing thinking in India is basically that asura which will derail your commitment and continued endeavor to make India strong, beautiful, and powerful. But what is the facade that is takes? Inspired from the Marxist thought, it presents in front of you a utopia, where there is equality, respect, distribution of resources, no difference between the haves and the have-nots, etc., etc. But at the core of it, it has violence embedded in it.
It attempts to accomplish this through a violent overthrow of the bourgeois by the proletariat, of the elite by the subaltern. It is the commitment to create a beautiful world, which is the facade which it puts out in front of the idealistic youth but at its core, it turns them into spiteful, hateful, vengeful, vindictive, and malicious individuals. It continually creates, either truly or fictitiously, a powerful elite or the other against whom a violent battle has to be raged.
So what is it that you need to do at this point in time? You need to separate the wheat from the chaff—beautiful from the ugly, idealism from violence, commitment to create a beautiful world from the means that the left wing thinking, either explicitly or implicitly, proposes. You would need to find other ways in which you can keep your idealism intact and remain committed to creating a beautiful world. What those ways can be will be the content of a different post.
I am least surprised today that there is a possible nexus in India between the left-wing academics and students in India and the jihadists. And the reason why I am not surprised is because the ideologies of both these parties have violence at the core. You must have heard the saying, “birds of the same feather flock together.” The latter perpetrates violence explicitly whereas the former subtly and surreptitiously.
If you want to save your country from fragmentation, you would need to critically examine the left-wing thought. And it is important that you do it because of the “maya” that it puts out in front of you that in your idealism you get mislead—in fact this thinking attracts some of the best minds in social sciences. So extract the idealism of the left-wing thinking and junk it for systems that are different and truly spiritual in nature. As I conclude, please keep the following in mind: A critique of left does not put me in the category of right. I do not belong to the right either. By putting me in the right, the whole purpose of this post would get lost.
Embellishing the post
Before my detractors begin insinuating obscurantism and superstition, I want to underline that that I took the descriptions of asuras from puranas, and I do not consider the puranas myths or mythologies as described in the western literature. The current western framework operates in the paradigm of positivism and logical positivism (which states that only that is real and worth investigating is which can be perceived by five senses) and rationalism (which privileges mind, reason, and logic as the ultimate instruments for knowledge pursuit), and it cannot really do any justice to the investigation of reality or superstition of these matters.
This is primarily because the epistemology (theory of knowledge) and methodology, which has given birth to puranic literature categorically holds that there is a profound realm of knowledge, which cannot be accessed through five senses, emotions, or mind. This realm of knowledge is however scientific, though not in the positivistic sense, and it can be accessed through subtle senses that are behind our gross senses. This realm of knowledge is verifiable and reproducible, and that is why yogis across the ages in India have underlined the existence and reality of these subtle and invisible realms. These realms that are behind the manifest can be accessed and known by anyone who engages in spiritual and yogic practices, which includes the practices of various “paramparas” of Vedanta, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sufism.
The Asuric or negative hostile forces not only have an occult existence but also have certain characteristics. One of those characteristics is deception, which the asura produces through a façade in complete contrast to what it is in actual existence. These forces are masters at creating illusions, which deceives—and that is the reason they are called “mayavi.” These are illusions of profound beauty but actually are mirages hiding violence, disharmony, and fragmentation. This is a larger topic, and the paucity of space here precludes me from going into further details.
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The left thought in India actually represents this force. The façade of their teaching is social transformation (which is extremely important for India given the many centers of oppression that have come about because of the brutal history that it has faced) but at the core of the ideology is violence.
There is always a real or fabricated other against which the left has to wage an ideological war—and this has its roots in the thoughts of Marx and Lenin, which for right or wrong reasons (a commentary on the righteousness or not of their battle cry is not the topic of discussion; therefore I will request readers not to draw me into that debate here) gave a call to the proletariat to fight and exterminate the bourgeois. I am not saying that the left intellectuals are stuck in Marxism but whatever and whichever ideology or philosophy they have acquired whether it is from post-colonialism or subaltern studies or from Frankfurt school of Adorno or Mercuse, there is always this implicit and explicit violence. It is in the façade of social transformation that this violence is embedded.
My appeal to the students through the post was inspired from the profound teachings of Sri Aurobindo to help them transcend and integrate the façade of the leftist thought—which I must underline has wonderful and necessary considerations and critique for social transformation—to something more profound and spiritual, where the utopia of the left is preserved but at the same time, its exploration happens in the spiritual cosmology of India: the same cosmology that the Indian left has taken extra pains to kill through various ways (this again is a lengthy topic of exploration which will need many books to cover; the paucity of space makes me stop here).
I had not taken a dualistic instance against left thought. I had not rejected it in entirety. It was not that I did not acknowledge some of their necessary and relevant critiques for social transformation. I had not asked their literature to be not read or burned. I had not asked for JNU to be shut down. I had not said the Indian left needed to be silenced. On the contrary, what I said was that it was necessary for the students to separate utopia and beauty from implicit and explicit violence, and look for literature in which their aspiration and desire for social transformation could be assimilated and transfigured. My take on the left thought was beyond the binaries of pro and against, celebrating it or silencing it, etc, etc.
To recap, I closed by suggesting the following:
- I was not surprised that there is a possible nexus between some of the Indian left-wing academics and students and Jihadists because both these groups propose social transformation through violent means.
- That the students critically examine the Indian left-wing thought so that they can separate the idealism and utopia from the violence, which the Indian left implicitly or explicitly, proposes.
- The asuras promote fragmentation and thus I gave the call to the students that in case they are interested in preserving the integrity and togetherness of India, they need to take a critical look at the thinking of the left.
- And given that I have taught the Indian spiritual thought in the university system for over a decade now which necessarily is accessed after dualistic thinking has been transcended (Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism especially specialize in this), I specifically made it a point that I was not writing this post from the perspective of Right.
Next Up: A sequel regarding the Mahishasura controversy.
How the hell did this get published?
some of the wonderful points raised by Shri Rama :
\ Sufism in India has a violent past and is not an innocent “Dharsana “. It does not belong to the Dharmic faiths. \
Sure, it is not a dharmic darshana. Then a question arise as to whether it is a monstrous Islamic cult. considering the past campaign of butchery conducted by a good lot of sufis for conversion of Hindus into Muslims, one would ofcourse conclude that they were extremely violent.
But were there exceptions? From my limited knowledge, I would say, yes.
Take for example, the poet, Meer Muhammad Taqi Meer……..his most famous couplet with meaning :-
“Mir ke deen-o-mazhab ka
poonchte kya ho un nay to
kashka khaincha dair mein baitha
kab ka tark Islam kiya”
What can I tell you about Mir’s faith or belief ?
A tilak on his forehead in a temple he resides, having abandoned Islam long ago (courtesy : wikipedia)
Another example that comes to my mind is that of Khanzada Mirza Khan Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khana. Fondly called in the Hindi Literature circles as Rahim Das. Rahim was born in a yavana family and died a yavana. The poems Rahim das had written about the divine yugalam……….Radhakrishna……..in brijbhasha is a treasure trove for the krishna baktas. This noble soul has composed two works on Jyotisha Sastra in Samskruta bhasha named Ketakautukam and dwawishad yogavali. But did he altogether converted to Hinduism. Nope. He died a yavana. Today his mazar is there to the east of Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah Sherif in Delhi. (Again courtesy : wikipedia)
The sufis of yester years were violent. Yes they were extremely violent and they brutally converted Hindus to Islam. But their role during medieval period had also the impact of sort of checkmating the Arabic influence of Turkish moslems and injecting among them the values of Hindustan. And thats how it was manifested in the likes of Mir Taqi Mir and Rahim das.
\ Why give this alien cult an Indian colour? \
This cult is alien. Yes.
Does it have alien flavor. yes.
Does it also has Hindustani Colour? A BIG YES.
And the likes of Mir and Rahim Das…….. are they part of the proud heritage of Hindustan? In my considered and informed opinion, yes.
This sufism is an alien cult. Ok. They were bitterly hated by the medieval powers that be which butchered them like they butchered Hindus. Then where do they stand?
I am not knowledgeable enough. May be a learned person like Shri.Kundan Singh may throw more light on this aspect.
From my limited understanding, they are somewhat sort of neither here nor there. But still, I hope they are a sort of bridge between Dharmic Hindu Darshanas and Adharmic mlecha darshanas, if I comprehend the phenomenon properly.
my two cents.
Krishna Kumar ji, Thank you for this post.
You are considering only 2 persons. Their effect is minuscule compared to what happened earlier. Yes as always you find a few good people everywhere. But that doesn’t mean the ideology as a whole is beneficial. In Shree Rangam we have a shrine for a deity called Tuluka(Muslim) nachiar who was a great Bhakta of the lord. But that does not mean there were no temples demolished due to the invasions down south. Later sufi’s borrowed heavily from Vedanta/Bhakti.But considering the original sufism, it is no different from orthodox Islam with respect to adherence to Sharia etc.
Please read my post once again. I counted just two. And I know there are many more. And I counted them as EXCEPTIONS. I am very much aware of the role of sufis AS A RULE was converting Hindus to islam in a brutal manner. Thats nowhere rejected in my post. Nor the fact that the cult of sufis is an alien cult.
But during the course of history, it is true that it acquired Hindustani colour too. thats undeniable.
We have to condemn unequivocally those people who perpetrated worst crimes against Hindus in the past. But from among them, if there were good people too, why should not they be highlighted as such.
Ofcourse, if their lives contained negative aspects too apart from the positive aspects I had highlighted here, I feel that they should also be simultaneously portrayed, if there are any.
If the moslems in Hindustan have not become carbon copies of Arabs or persians and they still retain some Hindustani flavor, I hope that it should be due to the contributions of noble souls like these people.
I may be corrected where I am wrong.
Krishnaji i am replying to your 2 posts in this single post,
1 “Honestly, I do not know what is original sufism, if there is any, by the way.”
What i mean by original sufism is the one that was practiced by those sufis who came with the invaders. I forget their names. But a simple google search would throw up quite a few. These people were not having Vedanta/Bhakti ideals. They just gave a pantheistic interpretation to the Quran, which as you note was not accepted at all.
2 “This **Sharia** is a funny phenomenon in Islamic countries.”
This is a very very very wrong statement. In fact i would say that your statement is a wild guess and reeks of ignorance. There are four Sunni schools of Jurisprudence or Madhab, in islam 1. Maliki 2. Shafiqi 3. Hanifi 4. Hanbali. There are 5 shiite ones too, i forget. Also there is a book called “Reliance of the traveler” by Egyptian 14th century scholar Ahmed ibn Nabiq Al Masri. This book has the stamp of Al Azhar university in Egypt(AKA Mas’r in Arabic, thus “Al Masri” Means “From Egypt”), Islam’s most revered authority on Sunni Islam, next only to the shura council of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. This book is being followed in all countries that follow Sunni Islam.
The reason i say all this is, all the above schools/books quoted, agree on the following,
1. Cutting a thieves hands off.
2. Stoning for adultery/homosexuality. Some differ on the mode of death but finally punishment by death is agreed upon.
3. Death penalty for apostasy or leaving Islam
4. Position of women in the society. For example all of them agree that a women’s testimony in court is worth half. Worth of women is half when property sharing comes up. Infidels cannot testify against Muslims in a Muslim country.
5. Women have to be covered all times.
6. Women have to be accompanied by male relatives and cannot go alone.
7. Jihad as an obligation. To non muslims first offer islam, if they do not accept impose Jizya and Dhimmi status, if still not accepting it wage a war and kill.
8. The rules of marriage and divorce.
9. The age of marriage.
10. The way to distribute spoils of war like slaves, property, valuables etc.
12. The division of the world into Dar al Islam(House of Islam) and Dar al Harb(House of war). Dar al Islam should be perpetually at war with the later till all get converted or killed
I can go on and on. All of these or at-least most of these are still being followed in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Sudan etc. There can be 100 sects as you say. The only thing that they do not agree is who is a true Muslim. But once it is determined, they declare Takfir on the perceived non believers(Again a concept in the Sharia where a Muslim can kill their fellow Muslims to preserve the purity of the Ummah). They follow the same set of laws I state above to deal with them(As infidels of course). Please never say that Sharia is a funny phenomenon in an Islamic country. You may be beheaded for it!!!
3. “If the moslems in Hindustan have not become carbon copies of Arabs or
persians and they still retain some Hindustani flavor, I hope that it
should be due to the contributions of noble souls like these people.”
Actually you are inverting the credit here. As i said the original Sufi’s did not have Vedanta or Bhakti ideals. It is only here they acquired it and fused it into Indian classical music. So credit should be due to the ideals of Vedanta and Bhakti, It smoothed out certain souls and instilled higher ideals in them. Not the other way around. Yes credit and respect should be given to great people everywhere like for example Kabir etc. But that is just it.
The islamic world is a mad mad world. The various theological schools of shia sunni divide is there. But practically it is sort of……….. jiski latti uski bhains…….means the one who has got the cane is the owner buffalo.
Ofcourse, the credit for softening a brutal cult goes to the Bakti movement. I gully agree and stand corrected. Respect should be given to great people everywhere. And we give respect with out fail. The Ekatmata stotra of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh specifically names a noble soul born in yavana family and turned a krishna bakht.
Thanks Krishnaji. Event though Shia and Sunni are theologically slightly different. The legal code is almost same. You can see in Iran Homosexuals are hanged, Apostate’s are put to death etc. Same in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. As i said to the Sunni follower the Shiite is a Murtad/Munafiq and deserves to be killed as per Sharia. Similarly vice-versa. That’s why you have Hezbollah(Meaning part of Allah) which is a Shiite terrorist group, supported by Iran. The rest of the known one’s Al-queda etc are supported by the Saudis, Oman etc. But in both cases they follow the same code of law. That’s the crux. Thanks Krishnaji again. Had a good discussion with you
There’s a subtle matter that Hindus are prone to overlook, not just concerning sufi “Krishna/Rama bhakts”, but more generally:
Sufis, just like Manichaeans and the adherents of the recently invented Bahai, spun Krishna and Rama into prophets of Abrahamic religion/islam.
https://rethinkingislamwithsultanshahin.wordpress.com/2015/05/02/shri-ram-and-shri-krishna-in-urdu-literature-and-sufism/
Some of the many examples to note there and elsewhere:
1. Manichaeans had also hijacked Krishna as a prophet of Manichaeism, another abrahamic religion.
2. Bahai, yet another abrahamic religion, has also totally hijacked Krishna (and Buddha) as a prophet of Abrahamism. Bahai use their reinvented Krishna and their inversion of the Vedas as being Bahai (Abrahamic) literature to target Hindus for conversion. And before you conclude that Bahai must love Krishna and are Hindus therefore, you may want to read the Bahai spin on the matter:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100709220617/http://www.alaska.net/~peace/krishna.htm
“Introduction to the Baha’i Faith for the Followers of Krishna”
Another eye-opener is at angelfire.com/mo3/bahai/krishna.txt , where some Bahaiist propagator of “aryan” fantasies twists the Mahabharatam to argue that Krishna — and Buddha — were “white” (Europeans).
So while to an innocent and gullible Hindu it may look like the Bahai affirmation that Krishna is an avatar implies that Bahai have Hindu views, the Bahai religion actually merely subverts Hinduism and Hindu Gods, using these for promoting its own brand of Abrahamist nonsense.
3. This is what Sufis were and are doing when they encroach on Hindu Gods. Going by superficial indicators, one thinks they are worshipping Hindu Gods. But actually they are projecting Hindu Gods as upholders of Abrahamic religions, rather than the reality: that Hindu Gods are exclusively upholders of Vedic religio (the Dharma).
Note that other religionists inculturating on Hinduism and invoking Hindu Gods for their own ends — let alone as members of Adamic/Abrahamic religion — does not prove that they know the Hindu Gods. (Though one could argue they are merely using Hindu Gods.)
The Krishna and/or Rama and/or Buddha that Manichaeans, Bahai and Sufis speak of has nothing to do with the actual Krishna and Rama of Vedic religion or the Buddha of Buddhism. There’s no need for Hindus to deceive themselves into thinking that all who exalt Rama, Krishna or Buddha do so because they are Hindus or Buddhists, and know Rama/Krishna, and understand what Rama/Krishna or Buddha actually taught. They are merely using our Gods and Buddhism’s Buddha as props for their own (almost always Abrahamic/Adamic) religions. It is simply a feature of syncretistic religions and cults — and Manichaeism, Bahai, Sufism and many others are known to be outwardly syncretistic (often/usually for proselytising purposes), but remained Abrahamistic in essence.
In Iran, sufism encroached on Zoroastrian religion likewise and tried to backproject islam using Zoroastrianism and turn Zoroastrianism into an Abrahamism too.
That Sufis are and were aiming to subsume Hinduism and convert it into islam (using Hindu Gods) is clear from how sufism still uses Hinduism. This is for instance seen in the current Sufi attempt to turn the recent concoction of an alleged medieval islamic pirate — which muslims needed, to insert into the pre-existing narrative of the great God Ayyappa — into suddenly having been a “Sufi” instead, and “not a pirate after all”, but who was doing “yoga and tantra” and teaching “mantras” about allah instead. The Sufis (islamic inculturationists) have then developed on their sudden conversion of the invented Turkish/Arabian/Middle-eastern pirate into a Paki Sufi “yogi”: declaring that, as per the concocted “SufI tradition” on God Ayyappa, Ayyappa was “just a human in reality”. Tomorrow, the sufis may develop further on their theme of hijacking Ayyappa from heathenism, by reinventing Ayyappa as a sufi muslim worshipper of allah too. The way Manichaeism had reinvented Krishna, and Bahai has reinvented Krishna & Buddha, as upholders of the abrahamic religions of Manichaeism and Bahai respectively.
As an aside, there’s of course no such thing as a “sufi yogi”, unless a sufi accepts not just re-incarnation but the full samkhyan view. (I specifically do not count new age re-definitions, i.e.
falsifications, of yoga.) From the point of view of Hindu cosmology — which is very distinct from even Buddhist and Jain ‘cosmologies’, not to speak of Abrahamic ‘cosmologies’ — there is actually no connection between Hinduism and Abrahamic religions including the syncretic Sufi subsect of islam. Contrary to new age opinions, Vedaanta is not actually saying the same as Sufism. (Actual vedantins, as opposed to new-ageists, insist as ever that Vedaanta is not saying the same as Buddhism or Jainism.)
The recent and sudden Sufi encroachment on Ayyappa summarised above was covered in detail by certain western authors who are very anti-Hindu and very anti-Hindu nationalism. The authors were probably just christians, doing the usual of using islam as a stick to beat Hindus and nationalism with, by claiming that since islam now has involved itself with Ayyappa, that therefore Sabarimalai belongs “equally” to islamic theology now. (The western authors’ christianity was also apparent from the fact that they carefully avoided mentioning christian inculturation on Ayyappa: the authors clearly wanted to keep christianity pristine and unaffected by “pagan Gods” or even an Ayyappa re-invented as a human but invariably “pagan”.) But since these authors didn’t need to swear by islamic authenticity, they did fortunately blurt out that the islamic pirate story is itself but a few centuries old and was grafted onto the long pre-existing Hindu, traditional Ayyappa narrative. And they were further forced to admit that the recent Sufi spin on the islamic pirate fiction was far more recent indeed. (Not that this need come as any surprise to Hindus.)
In the future, if this nonsense has had sufficient time to sink in to become part of the landscape too, some Hindus may choose or like to believe that Sufis have become Ayyappa bhaktas or know Ayyappa in any sense. But for now, one may still see how sufis are busy laying the groundwork at present to use Ayyappa to promote islam.
Although, the reply is quite lengthy, it is full of information which are quite authentic. I am extremely thankful to you for this lengthy and informative reply. I wished to add some more of my thoughts in the context of my association with Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh. But I am busily engaged in writing a series of essays aimed at rebuttal of an ongoing misinformation campaign in Tamil Nadu against Valmiki Ramayana and Ramayana in general. Again, I am thankful to you for having taken your time to explain the horrible facts about sufis and their inner meanings on appropriation of Rama, Krishna and Budha. Somewhere down the line, Francis Clooney and his works strikes my mind. thank you.
\ But considering the original sufism, it is no different from orthodox Islam with respect to adherence to Sharia etc. \
Honestly, I do not know what is original sufism, if there is any, by the way.
I am not a theologian. I know this much from the pages of history that most of the sufis were very brutal and indulged in brutally converting Hindus to islam. And there were exceptions to that rule.
This **Sharia** is a funny phenomenon in Islamic countries. What is sharia is a wild guess. Any and every body in these countries would swear upon it without knowing what it is. shia, sunni (barelvi, deobandi, wahabi, salafi et al et al) hazra and ahmedia ……… all of them would be swearing on it. But its only their god who knows as to why every moslem in the world is killing other moslems in the name of sharia.
Its a very nice article, Shri Kundan Singh. And the participation of the author of the article adds to the sheen. In the current era of Bourgeois exploiting the proliteriat, the ideology of left in this regard has relevance. The sort of inhuman conditions in which the labour is expected to work in factories, malls et al et al could not be explained in words.
In as much as the left remains in the political and intellectual arena to fight for the rights of labour, it is ok. But left does not have this as their exclusive agenda. They come with a heavy baggage of many intellectual nonsense which has to be rejected. And I hope your article has done justice in this regard clearly identifying their deception, ideas of fragmentation, their penchant for violence either explicit or implicit…….. you called a spade a spade.
But whether we like it or not, the entire eco system of the country is sort of infected by this virus. The judiciary, intelligentsia, academia, arts, politics……… you name any social arena……. there they are……. the virus is omnipresent. The forces of Hindutva, perhaps I hope should have underestimated the might of this goliath and that speaks the problems / lack of strategy they face while facing this monster.
The article is nice vis.a.vis visualising the left monster. But it does not go to the next step of handling……. how to tame this monster and domesticate this creature as a harmless one.
In my understanding the dharma tradition will need to take a very nuanced approach to the left. IMHO, taking a contrarian stance against the left may appeal to the base instincts of us humans but if we really want to raise the level of discourse with the left, their concerns with legitimate social causes will have to be incorporated and transcended. The full addressing the Indian left cannot happen in an article series–it is a larger endeavor, which will happen gradually and slowly. Thanks much for appreciating the article.
At the risk of sounding impertinent and irreverential, I would like to call this article a feel-good fraternization with the devil or a Gandhian style adoption of Christianity into Hindu tradition. Before I can explain myself, I am not advocating a violent confrontation with those who seem to be at cross with dharmic traditions of India. The author is an arm chair philosopher – reads many texts and treatises and synthesizes his own interpretations. The modern vedantins, as he chooses call them, have each had a very different approach to personal practices and sacrifices needed to attain moksha. In this sense, while they may all be alluding to the ancient ideal of moksha, they had very very different prescriptions for their respective followers. Given there are very very few practitioners of ancient traditions today, it is nearly impossible to debate whether the ancients and the moderns had any equivalence. The ancients also advocated karma – the ritualistic adherence tradition and personal worship – practices that are completely voided in modern life, saving a few rare individuals here and there. I wonder why the list of “modern vedantins” excludes the heads and leaders of the traditional Mathas – the Kanchi, the Sringeri, the Kashi, the Puri, the Madhura etc, while conferring equivalence with Vedanta to Sufism and Christian mysticism. It is very comforting to believe that all great paths have to lead to the same one noble goal, but really, . . . who has the first hand knowledge to prove this?
An appeal to understand the religious tradition to deal with contemporary political problems is more than welcome. Gandhi attempted this and created an even bigger mess for India. In present times, India has a well framed nationhood and constitution and legal jurisprudence. The rest of the world also operates under similar frameworks. IMO, this is more than adequate to deal with contemporary problems of law and order. I would first ask campus miscreants to be prosecuted legally and later be reformed, if needed. Reform is for the border line deranged and those who have hope of recovery. For the completely deranged, a penal course or an asylum is a must.
Out here in the USA, you need a municipal permit to have loud party in one’s backyard. You will be fined for tossing a piece of paper on the roads. You wonder how the JNU miscreants are entitled to carry their seditious activities, post graffiti, defile walls and peace of co student with political sloganeering while enjoying the tax payers’ grants. Why should a college campuses be above laws that normally apply to other civilians outside the campus walls? It is high time that all forms of unacademic activities are forbidden on college campuses. Want to run AISF, SFI, CPI or any other political streaking? Get out of the campus & do it in the local CPI offices. Want to shout slogans – get out of school first and go to some deserted place and have a blast. This guy Kanhaiya’s mother works hard for a meager wage to keep their family and bed ridden father going. And what is this guy doing at JNU? Why can not this guy be responsible towards his family like millions of other kids of his age do? The answer lies in JNU providing him with the ideal of freedom – the freedom to behave as one wants, so long as that tax payers are picking his bills. If Kanhaiya were to foot his own bills at JNU, he will not last a single day; I am not suggesting this to underscore his economic status, but that he will find it unworthy of his time and money to serve as a political pawn for the powers that are playing with his life and those of countless others.
There is no need to overly philosophize this problem. Let prosecutors and courts do their jobs. Colleges are supposed to breed smart and hardworking productive individuals who can be torch bearers to those around them. Decades of Congress rule allowed universities to be bred into political cesspools, while those at the helm of those politics send their kids to expensive colleges abroad. Pathetic, pathetic and pathetic.
With regards to your second point, I would say that please wait for the full series to appear–you will see why I closed the first part as such. With regard to the modern vedantins, these are not mere vedantins–they are yogis. And in my understanding of the dharmic tradition, the yogis are the best representatives of the tradition.I do not think that the modern yogis are averse to “karma” and I do not think that the ancient yogis always and necessarily prescribed “karma.” The necessity of “karma” ceases after a point in time when the being is fully involved in the divine but it can continue with the performance of “karma” as well. The difficulty with and the beauty of the dharma traditions is that they cannot be put in any form of binary or either/or. There is a tremendous flexibility with respect to how one approaches the divine. In this particular context, it can be with or without “karma” and if I understand the fundamentals of the dharma traditions, this is how it must have been in the ancient times as well. From what I can project, there was “karma” for all and sundry living within the confines of the society–guided by varnashrama and the stage of purushartha one was in–and when one stepped outside the confines of the society through sanyassa, the necessity of karma ceased. In addition, all Vedic karmas as explained by Sri Aurobindo in the “Secret of the Vedas” is that they had esoteric meaning attached to them. Once one reached the stage where one could dabble in the esoteric aspects of dharmic spirituality, the performance of karma was not binding.
It was all good till the Sufi bomb……..why would the author -so well versed in Indian ideas-abruptly include a Jihadist apology in this article? Also what about the IndiaFacts group itself?Did they not notice this ? Or is IndiaFacts morphing into another “Hindu but not too much so ” outlet? Please pause and take a look at yourself.You are one of the best out there and we like coming here.Please do not put us down.
As pointed out by others, I have problem with this article. Like Sufism put in the same category as Sanatana Dharma. Sufism in India has a violent past and is not an innocent “Dharsana “. It does not belong to the Dharmic faiths.Why give this alien cult an Indian colour? Traditional and contemporary Vedanta? God forbid. And why we should not come onto the leftist anti nationals like a ton of bricks? Perhaps the author is advocating “Tolerance” of the Bollywood kind?
Though I do not deny that there have been some Sufis directly involved with conversion in India but I have enough knowledge and experience–actually extensive-of listening to Sufi qauwallis to say that there is a substantial chunk of Sufi thought which represents Vedantic non-dualism and extreme bhakti of the dwaita kind. You may not agree with me but by equating Sanatna Dharma only with the known dharmic traditions of Bharat, we not only do harm to the Sanatana Dharma but also to the spirituality that Bharat represents. It is in this context that you would want to know that traditional Islam has persecuted the Sufis quite severely–it considers them heretics.
///I have enough knowledge and experience–actually extensive-of listening to Sufi qauwallis to say that there is a substantial chunk of Sufi thought which represents Vedantic non-dualism and extreme bhakti of the dwaita kind///-Could it not be Digestion by Sufis of Vedantic Thoughts so as to attract more Hindus to Convert them????
“Islamic sense, pantheism is a sacrilegious doctrine—professing self-absorption, self-effacement, selfannihilation—which allegedly leads to confluence of the individual with God. At this stage of development,they do not require a guide (i.e., a prophet) or law-book (i.e., the Quran). They give up almost all rituals required in orthodox Islam and the Sharia: fasting, prayers, Hajj pilgrimage and so on. In Islamic society, they became identified as bisharia—i.e. outside the Sharia or Islam.”
The deviant beshariyah Sufis often suffered brutal persecution and even death. For example, Sultan Firoz Shah Tughlaq (d. 1388), an austere orthodox believer,records in his memoir that he had put Sufi Shaykh Ruknuddin of Delhi, who called himself a Mahdi (messiah)and ‘led people astray into mystic practices and perverted ideas by maintaining that he was Ruknuddin, the prophet of God.’ People killed Ruknuddin and some of his followers; they ‘tore him into pieces and broke his bones into fragments,’ records the Sultan.”
Moinuddin Chisti and Nizamuddin Auliya were the most unorthodox and liberal amongst India’s
Sufis. Annoying the orthodox, they had adopted musical sessions (sama) and dancing (raqs) in their rituals.However, when it came to the real question of Islam, they never took a stand against classical orthodoxy; they always put the Ulema ahead of them in religious matters. To the question of whether dancing and playing of musical instruments, as had been adopted by Sufi dervishes, were permissible, Auliya said, ‘‘What is forbidden by Law (Sharia) is not acceptable.’’ On the question of whether the controversial Sufi devotional practices were permissible or not, he said, ‘‘Concerning this controversy at present, whatever the judge (orthodox Ulema) decrees will be upheld.’’
Reference Pg 89,90 http://www.islam-watch.org/books/islamic-jihad-legacy-of-forced-conversion-imperialism-slavery.pdf
So does it not mean that Beshariyat Sufis dont exist and even if they did they would be equated to Kaffirs and after all many of the things that these Sufis speak of have been actually appropriation of BHAKTI Saints or Vedantic thoughts.Isn’t Sufism rejecting the concept of Aham Brahmasmi or Tat Tvam Asi by that logic its actually rejecting those concepts which are Poison Pills to Islam???? while these concepts are very much an integral part of Vedantic thought.Please let me know and dont be offended as I am no expert and its an honest enquiry.
I do not even deny that many Sufis may have been political and in cahoots with Traditional Islam vis a vis Hindus aka kafirs. However it is also true that some of them have spoken about Union and Oneness with God. The question is whether they have appropriated it from Vedanta for conversion of Hindus or if it was their sheer quest to unite with God that they took to the Vedantic ideal is a matter of perspective and opinion. Given that the cost of the practice of Sufism was death at times, I would rather want to think that it was their preoccupation with complete union with God that they gravitated towards it. Were some of them scoundrels? I do not deny it. But I would rather want to highlight the best among them than the scoundrels. This is the power of the land of Bharat. There is no country, no civilization, no tradition in the world that speaks about the oneness of humanity, oneness of humanity with divinity, oneness with everything animate and inanimate. In my humble opinion, Hindus and protector of Hinduism would not want to forget this very core of the very tradition that they are trying to protect otherwise in the very effort to protect it, they may destroy it. But this does not mean that we should not be aware of hostile forces but if we only focus on the hostile and the negative, then we forget the shining citadel, the very core of dharma.
Kundan,
Btw great article. I enjoyed it.
There is specifically one problem with “Oneness with God” experience of Sufis. Their say they feel (the mediocre ones) or experience (the profound ones) oneness and is categorically different from the vedic oneness which is lost beyond experience, senses, hence descriptions. So even from a level of consciousness or philosophically they are not with Buddha or Shankara or Patanjali …. and we should perhaps be a little careful of what we call as sanataria dharma. it doesn’t have to be indian, but it does have to contain the peaks of universal consciousness. so Dzogchen is sanataria dharma, but in my view not sufi.
Sir Sufi’s supported Jihad and many Sufis have been responsible for the massacre of Hindu’s and supported came along with the Islamic invaders. They also advocated collecting Jizya from Hindus. They considered Hindu’s as Dhimmis. So equating it to existent Dharmic traditions of India is equivalent to shooting oneself.
Leftist/Moaist terrorism has killed 40,000 Indians. That fact alone should give everyone a pause unfortunately all the facts of maoist brutality,like 1000s of rape, plunder etc, are hidden from public gaze & justified in the name of poverty.
Interesting. Sufism is listed along with Vedanta and Jaina as a parampara. In reality, Sufism is a pseudo-mystical form of Cultural Marxism with music as the key ingredient.
“I had not asked for JNU to be shut down…” Yes of course it can function on its own fund and not feed on the tax payers’ money