SEERS AND CULTS
Our India is a
country of spirituality. Many seers have born here and revealed the truth.
Upanishadic seers are the first in this category. Knowledge of Self (Atmajnana
or Brahmajnana) is the content of Upanishads. Spirituality is the essence of
simplicity and possession and experience of real knowledge. Simple living and
high thinking are its tenets. Sense of independence, liberty, courage, daring
nature, compassion, love for knowledge, truth, peace, bliss and longing to be
silent are its characteristics. The
spiritual person possesses all these traits. We call such individuals as seers.
They were, have been, are and will be influencing the society in the right and
desired direction by their mere presence. They need not have to participate in
any activities as we.
Seers experience
the truth and reveal it. And it is interesting that different seers expressed
the same truth in different technical terms. Sometimes these revelations appear
contradictory. The famous advaita,
visistaadvaita and dvaita schools’ interpretation of the Upanishadic contents,
The Brahma Sutras and The Bhagavadgita (together called the Prastaanatraya) is a case in point. And more interestingly
most of us revere all the three Achaaryaas, Sankaraacharya (Advaita), Ramaanujaachaarya
(Visistaadvaita) and Madhvaacharya (Dvaita), with equal veneration. But the
chief question remains: What actually the Prasthaanatraya contain- is it
advaita, vissitaadvaita or dvaita or saakaadvaita?
An impartial
observation informs that the view with which the books are interpreted is more important
than the books themselves. How the view is formed and, does it precede or
succeed the study of the books, is not clear. This separates the seers among
themselves. It informs that same truth experienced can be expressed differently
based on individual seer’s kind and quality of experience, affiliation,
preference and awareness of experience had. And cults are formed around each seer and his
interpretation. The followers of the seers are less tolerant than the seers and
many times “quarrel” among themselves claiming their seer’s view is the
“correct” one. Cults mask the teachings of the seers and develop divisions.
That is how Hinduism is not following one school of thought about truth.
Through centuries
many seers have originated from all over India and taught the truth as they
experienced and saw it. Upanishadic seers, sage Vyasa, The Buddha, The
Mahaveera, the compilers of the shad darsanas (Gautama-nyaya,
Kanada-vaisheshika, Patanjali-yoga, Kapila-Samkhya, Jaimini-poorva meemaamsa,
Badarayana-uttara meemsa or Vedanta), the Charvaaakas expressed truth in their
own way and cults were formed around them.
Veera Saivam,
Veera Vaishnavam-offshoots of Saivism and Vaishnavism dominated in the middle
centuries. Then many individuals followed with their own interpretations. Even
the rationalists do not object to be called as seers. The most famous modern
seers who are roughly contemporaries- Vivekaananda (Sri Rama Krishna), Sri
Aurobindo, Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri J. Krishnamurty have experienced the
same truth but revealed it in different technical terms giving an impression to
the uninitiated as different. [J. Krishnamurty though claimed not to be
influenced by any study or learning including ancient Indian thought, the study
of the course of his life that led to the experience he had in the USA and
subsequent utterances, resemble Upanishadic expressions. (He is independent in
the experience of the truth and so are Upanishadic and other seers.) The famous one being, the Krishnamurty’s tem mental conditioning is equivalent of
Ajnana, the term used by the Upanishads for the same understanding. ].
Similarly only the technical terms used by Sri Aurobindo, Sri Ramakrishna and
Sri Ramana Maharshi differed but in essence are the essence of the Upanishadic
expressions.
The cults formed
around them in addition to the ones formed earlier and later to them are
presently “owned” by different organizations and give us a feeling that all of
them are not the same. The current owners of the cults around seers feel it is
their obligation to quote the seer or refer to him at every instant trying to
give us a feeling that their seer is omniscient. The present proliferation of
commercial spiritual gurus and the cults around them are in hundreds in our
country. All of them are individually striving to spread spirituality but are
not ready to accept for commercial reasons the reality that what all of them
teach is essentially same. The financial empires built around the various
seers’ teachings are so lucrative that the individualities will be maintained
at any cost. But cults formed around the teachings of respective seers are not
reflections and true representations of the seers’ original teachings. Many
distortions have taken place. Further the money factor is relegating the
spiritual part to the background. Just as we have castes we have cults. Castes are social institutions. Cults are
“spiritual” institutions.
We follow the
cult of our liking and choice and will be “imprisoned” in it. Cults rob us of
our independence. The very essence of spirituality, that is independence, will
have to be sacrificed. And individuals with incomplete and imperfect
understanding of the seer’s teaching will be our masters and we their followers
than the followers of the seer. Cults may do more harm to the spirit of the
seer’s teachings and an independent interpretation is always safe and reliable.
The intuition in us will be our spiritual teacher and we can guide ourselves.
No mediator is necessary. If we feel that
we are not capable of such “strenuous” work, we have no choice but to be
parrots in the cage of the cult.
But spirituality
is not dependence or slavery. It is self-reliance. Let us be self-reliant in
spiritual matters. Gurus are necessary. But a Guru is like a catalyst in a
chemical reaction. A catalyst only enhances the rate of the reaction, it never
participates in the reaction and once the reaction has taken place, its use is
over. After proper initiation the Guru must leave. But modern spiritual gurus
love to be our masters for our lives and this is not spirituality but something
else. The mark of true spiritualist is
we feel peace in their presence. We are not told to give them money and the
like. Fashion to be called as devotee of such and such a popular spiritual guru
or an Ananda or Baba or Amma is not
spirituality.
Spirituality is
essential for us but not fake spirituality.
ROLE OF FAITH IN HUMAN LIVES
Faith is a sublime state of human mind. It
is a state of mind free from the rigors of logic and reasoning. It is a state
of experience and understanding too. Faith creates insight straight away.
Intuition, which is beyond and transcends logic, originates from and leads to,
a state of understanding, experience and faith. As science students we know that the element
iodine directly becomes gas or vapor skipping the phase of liquid, transforming
from the solid phase. The process is called sublimation. Human mind knows,
perceives, reasons out, experiences, understands and forms an insight. This is
the usual procedure. Certain times we can directly understand immediately after
knowing, skipping the phase of reasoning and knowing becomes perception and
instantaneously becomes understanding. State or phase of understanding is the
phase of experience and also of intuition. It is the experience of all of us
that intuition plays an important and useful role in our daily worldly,
professional, devotional, spiritual and the like lives. Intuition is result of the
state of understanding or experience which by passes the route of intellectual
exercises in the form of logic, induction, deduction etc.,
We become sublime human beings if we have
faith in us, our near and dear and divinity. It is our experience that, because
children have faith in their parents, spouses in each other, students in
teachers, and devotees in their spiritual masters, we are all able to live beneficially
and peacefully. It is a commonsense thing that if we start doubting every thing
and are suspicious of every body, incident, event or the like we lose peace of
mind and will always mentally get disturbed. Because we have faith in the
Almighty that He will take care of us, we are able to walk on the roads, travel
in buses, trains, planes etc. in these days of accidents and terrorist strikes.
We are still going to restaurants to dine with families, visiting entertainment
places, and are doing everything normally despite the probability and
possibility of our being the victim of a terrorist attack is high. We simply
ignore earlier ghastly incidents and are sure we will not be the targets of
these attacks. But as we know this does not stand the rigor of logic or
reasoning. Any time we can be victims of any attack. We avoid this line of
thinking and are able to manage living peacefully and undisturbed. Same faith
we have in our near and dear. Else we can not live even for a moment
peacefully. Faith gives peace and also bliss.
We do not care for the feelings of the
atheists. We do not care for their
rationalism or radicalism; because, many atheists of today are selective in
their abuses of faiths. And also they pamper certain other faiths for vote bank
reasons. They are not sincere in their non-belief. We must here note that
atheists are also believers; they believe in the non-existence of God. They
have faith in such a conviction as we have faith in our conviction of the
existence of God and Almighty and Divinity. Anything relating to God is a
matter of faith-His existence or otherwise. Reasoning or logic fails here.
Intuition and individual’s experience and understanding play prominent and
dominant role in matters of faith. The mental make-up, upbringing, culture and
genetics play a chief role in making one faithful.
Without faith we cannot live even for a
moment peacefully. But the blind faith of our voters in caste leaders and other
exploiters that they will improve their economic situation, is the bane of our
democracy. Except here, faith is useful every where. Faith is our life-giver
and saver and makes our lives lively and pleasant. Faith is a sublime state of
mind that ensures peace of mind to us in all aspects and in all respects.
THE DILUTION OF LEARNING
Learning has two senses. One is mere
learning of languages and other disciplines. The other is scholarship. In both
the senses it is has been and is highly diluted in our country. The purpose of
education as different from mere literacy is to become adept in the three Rs-
reading, writing and ‘rthemetic. But
present generation of schools are not capable of imparting these three minimum
essential requirements of learning. The reason is obvious. Most of the parents
want ranks to their kids and do not know the pleasure, beauty and usefulness of
learning. They want their children to settle in good jobs. Some parents want to
show their status by joining their offspring in “prestigious” institutions.
Earlier generation of students and teachers
were keen about the acquisition of good knowledge also in addition to imparting
the contents of the syllabi. Every science student also is well-versed with the
literature in one’s own mother tongue in addition to English literature. And
humanities students were having a reasonable general knowledge about science.
For example when we were doing degree course we were having three papers in
English language-old poetry, modern poetry, two full-length dramas of
Shakespeare (one tragedy and one comedy), modern prose, select one act plays
and non-detailed. And only essay questions and annotations are asked. One has
to write descriptive answers. Of course many students were not able to complete
degree because they could not pass in English. That was having a filtering effect.
Now it is completely opposite. And also there is a misnomer that students other
than English literatureneed not be proficient in English. Many do not know that
one must be proficient in the language of instruction and learning. It is not
an exaggeration that we find today ninety percent of school- and college- going
students not adept in any language even in mother tongue. The misplaced
obsession with computer in learning from UKG itself is unfortunate. The
managements of the schools are catering to the “ambitions” of the parents.
The primacy of the education is to train
the mind and not stuffing the brain with information is long forgotten and
neglected. The ability to write a few sentences in any language learnt
including mother tongue is becoming rare. The privatization of education at all
levels has attracted intelligent businessmen to the field of education and
transformed the auspicious learning process into another industrial enterprise.
Hundreds of crores of rupees of business is done in the name of imparting
education.
As the privately run educations are run as
commercial enterprises the teachers have lost their significance, relevance and
importance. It should not surprise any one if a lecturer in a privately run
college is drawing a salary of a mere Rs. 4000/- a month. A laborer is getting
more than that. Utter disregard is shown to the teachers by most of the
privately run educational institutions. We are only boasting when we say that
we have so many schools, colleges and universities. The mushroom growth of
deemed universities is another face of the commercialization in education. If many of us not associated with the field
of education are thinking that by sending our children to these institutions
our responsibility as parents is over are sadly mistaken. A degree without
proficiency in language and knowledge in chosen discipline is the norm of the
day. We are all, including every responsible person associated with the field
of education, like the proverbial cat which thinks no one is observing it
drinking the milk if it closes its eyes. The reality is glaring. The words
bioinformatics biotechnology and nano-technology have become famous.
The
privately run colleges and universities are making money on our craze of such
words even though a degree in these fields can not and most of the times do not
guarantee a job. Fascination and fashion are consuming us as our “lust” for
modern gadgets. Entertainment is dominating our lives and no enlightenment is
available and we are not caring for getting enlightened. We being well-versed and acquainted with day
to day happenings on the globe alone is not enlightenment. Enlightenment is a
more sublime process and progress of human intellectual and emotional make-op. The role of radio (FM broad-cast)), TV (cinema
based programs) and the like are having more influence on youth than the
teacher in the class.
Some students are getting plum jobs in IT
industry but rest of the students are in the lurch. There is no hope to get a
good job and a decent living. Most are not able to manage to make both the ends
meet. Especially the youth are wasting their lives in private concerns with
meager salaries. This should be taken note of by the concerned. Else we will be
a nation of highest degree holders in the world without any reasonably decent employment
to our youth. Another craze is naming the institutes. Now we are going to have
IITs, IIMs and AIIMS like hospitals every where. An institution is made by a
combined effort of the faculty and the students. Just naming new institutions
after famous institutes will not and can not guarantee excellence in these days
of pampering.
Learning in the sense of scholarship is out
of fashion now. Rarely people are applying their minds to learn in depth in
their disciplines. Everything is going on the periphery. Understanding, getting
insight, experiencing the acquired knowledge are becoming rare or even extinct
in many cases. Mere ornamental writing and lecturing are dominating and actual
scholarship is missing. Also the entrance tests for admission into higher
studies or job opportunities have turned out to be tests of elimination rather
than tests of selection. The understanding and insight of the individual and
other faculties other than logic and reasoning are not tested at all at these
tests.
Education in the sense of acquiring positive
qualities and become a humane person are completely out of the radars of almost
all the educational institutions and parents also. Every one wants good job
without deserving and mentally equipped for the tasks associated. A lot of
pampering is taking place around. It is of no use to any one; definitely not to
the nation. Even though this description of education scenario is disturbing
and pessimistic, it is the reality. We must be alarmed of the situation. But
who cares.
We are all divided into various
affiliations. We can not tackle united any challenge. The divisions among us by
various realities and their perpetuation with immunity and impunity are not
good for the nation. Citizens have to make a nation. A nation can not make
citizens. We will really progress when this reality dawns in the hearts of all
Indians and they do not confine to their narrow divisions of all kinds. Very
few of us are pursuing knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Many are in
academics and are studying degrees to get a job. But this type of academics can
not give job opportunities, is not known to and realized by most. Even if they
know they do not have any alternative. This compulsory adherence to academic
studies is diluting the learning process and learning. This dilution in and of
learning is not good for the individual, society and nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment