बल या प्रज्ञा

बल या प्रज्ञा

महाभारत की इस कथा का सूत्र हरिवंश में पाया जाता है । इस लेख में तीन पात्र हैं, हालांकि उन तीन पात्रों में से दो व्यक्ति हैं और एक शहर है ।

महाभारत की इस कथा का सूत्र हरिवंश में पाया जाता है । इस लेख में तीन पात्र हैं, हालांकि उन तीन पात्रों में से दो व्यक्ति हैं और एक शहर है ।

यह तो सब भली भांति जानते हैं कि श्री कृष्ण की ही राय पर मथुरा को छोड़ने का निर्णय लिया गया था। मथुरा से दूर, समुद्र तट पर द्वारवती नामक स्थान पर एक नए शहर का निर्माण किया गया । मथुरा छोड़ने का कारण था जरासंध के उस शहर पर निरंतर आक्रमण । वृष्णियों ने यह भी स्वीकारा की वो जरासंध को सौ साल में भी पराजित नहीं कर सकते थे । ऐसी स्तिथि में मथुरा नगरी छोड़ने के अतिरिक्त कोई और विकल्प था ही नहीं।

मुचकुन्द की आँखों की ज्वाला से कालयवन का जलना [श्रेय: http://bhaktiart.net/]

जरासंध का अंत हुआ, और श्री कृष्ण की उसमे अहम् भूमिका थी, हालांकि वध भीमसेन के हाथों हुआ था। जरासंध वध की कथा महाभारत में  सभा पर्व के जरासंध वध उप-पर्व में पायी जाती है । इस लेख में मै जरासंध से अधिक कालयवन पर ध्यान देना चाहता हूँ । जरासंध की भांति कालयवन भी ऐसा व्यक्ति था जिसे वृष्णि और अंधक पराजित नहीं कर सकते थे । क्यों? कालयवन की क्या कहानी थी?

कालयवन की कथा भी एक ऐसी कथा है जिसमें सारे मानव भाव पाए जाते हैं । गार्ग्य एक ऋषि थे जो वृष्णि और अंधकों दोनों के गुरु थे । पर मथुरा में उन्हीं के बहनोई ने उनका तिरस्कार किया, यह कहकर की गार्ग्य मर्द ही नहीं थे। गार्ग्य अपमान नहीं सह सके और उन्होंने मथुरा नगरी त्याग दी । पर अब गार्ग्य, जिन्होंने न विवाह किया था, न संतान जन्मी थी, उसी गार्ग्य मुनिवर को अब संतान चाहिए थी । यह था अपमान का परिणाम! गार्ग्य ने शिव की आराधना की, और रूद्र से वरदान प्राप्त किया की उन्हें न सिर्फ़ एक पुत्र की प्राप्ति होगी पर एक ऐसा पुत्र जो वृष्णि और अंधकों को पराजित करने में समर्थ होगा। अब यह एक पहेली ही है कि गार्ग्य ने संतान के साथ क्या वृष्णि और अंधकों को पराजित करने वाली संतान का भी वरदान माँगा था, क्योंकि हरिवंश पुराण ने इस विषय पर रौशनी नहीं डाली है । पर जो भी हो, शिव से यह वरदान तो मिल गया था गार्ग्य को ।

यवनो के राजा को इस बात का पता चला । यवन राजा को भी पुत्र की अभिलाषा थी । राजा ने गार्ग्य को अपनी राजधानी बुलवा लिया । यवन राजा के महल में युवतियों में गोपाली नामक अप्सरा भी थी, जो मानव रूप में अन्य युवतियों के साथ थी । गोपाली  ने ही गार्ग्य के पुत्र को जन्म दिया । इस पुत्र को यवन राजा ने अपने पुत्र की तरह पाला पोसा और राजा के देहांत पर यही पुत्र यवनों का नया राजा बना । नए राजा का नाम था कालयवन ।

कालयवन ने मथुरा की ओर कूच कर दी । श्री कृष्ण युद्ध के उत्सुक नहीं थे, यह तो तय था । परंतु, वे एक बार कालयवन से मनोवैज्ञानिक युद्ध अवष्य करना चाहते थे, संभवतः कालयवन का लोहा देखने के लिए । इसिलिए उन्होंने कालयवन को एक मटका भिजवाया जिसमें एक काला नाग था । तात्पर्य स्पष्ट था – कृष्ण ने अपने आप की तुलना एक काले नाग से की। प्रत्योत्तर अब कालयवन को देना था, और उसी भाषा में जिस में प्रश्न किया गया था । कालयवन ने मटके में चींटियाँ भर दीं । चींटियों ने नाग को इधर उधर काट लिया – नाग नष्ट हो गया । कृष्ण को अपना उत्तर मिल गया था । कालयवन एक समक्ष प्रतिद्वंदी था जिसे रूद्र के वरदान का कवच भी था। इसे युद्ध में पराजित करना असंभव था।

कालयवन का अंत श्री कृष्ण के कारण ही हुआ पर, वो कैसे? मथुरा वासियों को द्वारावती पहुँचाने के बाद कृष्ण मथुरा दुबारा लौटे । कालयवन मधुसूदन के पीछे पीछे आने लगा । कृष्ण कालयवन को मुचकुंद की गुफ़ा में ले गए । मुचकुन्द एक राजा था जिसने असुरों के विरुद्ध देवों की सहायता की थी| युद्ध के पश्चात आभारी देवों ने मुचकुन्द को यह करदान दिया कि जिसने भी उसे नींद से जगाया वह मुचकुंद की आँखों की ज्वाला से भस्म हो जाएगा । कालयवन का अंत कैसे हुआ इसका तो खटका आपको हो ही गया होगा । कालयवन ने गुफ़ा में प्रवेष किया, सोते हुए मुचकुन्द के शरीर को कृष्ण समझ बैठा, और उसे लात मारी । मुचकुन्द उठे, कालयवन को देखा, और अपनी आँखों की क्रोध की अग्नि कालयवन को भस्म कर दिया ।

ऐसा नहीं है कि श्री कृष्ण ने अपने प्रतिद्वंदियों से कभी युद्ध नहीं किय। कंस, नरकासुर, शाल्व सब उदहारण हैं राजाओं के जिनसे श्री कृष्ण ने युद्ध किया और युद्ध में उन सब का वध भी किया । जरासंध और कालयवन ऐसे शत्रु थे जो वृष्णि या अंधकों के हाथों प्रत्यक्ष युद्ध में पराजित नहीं हो सकते थे । कृष्ण स्वयं की परिसीमा से भली- भाँति परिचित थे । जरासंध और कालयवन की घटनाएं हमें दर्शाती हैं की कृष्ण का जीवन हमें भगवान के रूप से अधिक मानव रूप में देखना चाहिए । धरती पर मानव रूप में, मानवों की सीमाओं के घेरे में रहकर ही श्री कृष्ण ने दर्शाया कि कहाँ बल का प्रयोग किया जाना चाहिए और कहाँ बुद्धि का । बल-बुद्धि का संतुलित मिश्रण ही विजय सुनिश्चित करता है । जो साधन और सीमायें श्री कृष्ण की थीं , वही हमारी भी हैं । संभवतः यह श्री कृष्ण का सबसे महत्वपूर्ण सन्देश और सीख है हम सब के लिए ।


Sabhar from India Facts.

Written by Sh Abhinav Agarwal

Why compassion to animals is not a cultural universal

This article gives a comparative survey of Indian and western attitudes towards non-human life in general and towards animals in specific.

Given that more than 10 billion animals get slaughtered every year, it should make us wonder what kind of an outlook, what worldview enables so much cruelty. Towards that end, I will herein be attempting a comparative survey of Indian and western attitudes towards non-human life in general and towards animals in specific. More importantly, we would be looking at deep differences in ideas that shape these attitudes. I will stick to broad currents within each world view and avoid minor exceptions within each, so we do not miss the forest for the trees. Once we identify the deeply embedded differences in ideas, we would be able to better appreciate and comprehend the ground realities that we see.

As an outline, I wish to introduce the various world views that we would survey. We would begin with the Abrahamic religions and proceed to the outlook of most modern day secularists as these occupy maximum mind space in the world today. We will then look at Dharma as an alternative and in contrast to these. Once we have covered sufficient ground on the ideas of each, we will then briefly visit the cocoon of the Indian secularists and also touch upon issues with present day animal rights activism.

Abrahamic worldview

We are invariably confronted with the question of religion in shaping attitudes towards non-human life and hence we shall begin here. With regard to animals and nature, we can place the Abrahamic religions in the same basket i.e. they force the world into a binary – only humans have souls while the rest of life do not.

Genesis 1-26:28 says – “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Islam, being a derivative of Christianity, was not much different in that the all merciful God added the constraint of halal, which is arguably a crueler means of slaughter. In a nutshell, these religions view all life apart from humans as purely mechanical automata. It is also intriguing to note that in the few dialogues that Christian missionaries had with Hindu pundits in the early 18th to the early 19th century, the Christians’ poor treatment of animals was a recurring theme of criticism advanced by the pundits [1] I reproduce here a recording of a Christian missionary Rogerius (1651) about his frustration with the pundits: [2]

“You cannot make them admit that Man outstrips the beasts and that he is a nobler creature than the animals because he has a superior soul. If you try to remonstrate with them on this, they would say, animals also have a similar kind of soul. If you try to demonstrate this by the workings of the rational soul, which is evident in Man and not in the beasts: you may expect an answer… that the reason why animals do not exhibit the kind of rationality and understanding that human beings can show, why they cannot speak as man does, is because they are not given a body capable of exhibiting the qualities of their soul …”

Bridge to the Secular

Though, it is straightforward to understand the implications of such religious beliefs in the treatment of animals, which correlates with the ground realities that we see today, one wonders as to why the secular world hasn’t changed much in their outlook towards them. This becomes clear once we understand the secularized version of the belief that animals do not have soul – “animals do not have consciousness”. Before we dive deeper into this belief, let us pause and note that this secularized attitude towards animals is not an inch different from Christian theology, i.e. that non-human life are purely mechanical automata (although framed in a more sophisticated and scientific terminology).
Allen and Trestman rightly note: “…there is a lot at stake morally in the question of whether animals are conscious beings or “mindless automata”. Many billions of animals are slaughtered every year for food, for use in research, and for other human purposes. Moreover, before their deaths, many — perhaps most — of these animals are subject to the conditions of life that — if they are in fact experienced by the animals in anything like the way a human would experience them — amount to cruelty. Arguments that non-human animals are not conscious, therefore, effectively double as apologetics for our treatment of animals. When the question of animal consciousness is under consideration, our guilt or innocence as a civilization for an enormous body of cruelty may hang in the balance.”[3]

Consciousness here refers to phenomenal consciousness, i.e. the subjective, qualitative, experiential experience, otherwise, referred to as “qualia”. As an example of phenomenal consciousness, consider the experience of sound as compared to a coax cable carrying an audio signal or the qualitative experience of vision as compared to a camera. Though the ear and eye relay information much the same way the cable or the lens in a camera relay information, the former is followed by a qualitative experience. It is this qualitative experience that is theoretically denied for animals. Hence, an argument can be made that animals cannot experience pain as a subjective mental state or some psychologists and neuroscientists claim that they are not bothered by the pain.

The secularized version, i.e. the idea that animals are devoid of consciousness begins largely with Rene Descartes and his philosophy of Cartesian Dualism by which he held that material processes are insufficient to explain rational thinking and language. This is also why he drew the line between animals and humans as the former do not have rational thought or language and he held that a purely mechanical explanation could account for their behavior [4] Hence, he claimed that a purely mechanical understanding of animal existence absolved people of any guilt in killing animals and also of performing vivisections for experimentation [5] This view doesn’t hold weight in the light of modern science as language and rationality can be explained largely through a mechanical view. The same is not true for phenomenal consciousness.

Secular worldview

Most modern secularists being materialists, i.e. who hold a completely material account for the human being and brain (and also the world), see consciousness as an evolved characteristic of the human mind through natural selection (evolution). Most scientific studies into animal consciousness proceed through a behaviorist approach, i.e. they study the behavior of animals to infer consciousness. On this account, it is important to note the problem with such an approach. Allen and Trestman (2015) note that consciousness cannot be inferred based on behavioral studies, if (and only if) phenomenal consciousness has no measurable effects on human behavior (epiphenomenalism). It will be shown shortly why this conclusion (that phenomenal consciousness can have no measurable effects on behavior) is inevitable in a materialist world view. They continue further, “If phenomenal consciousness is completely epiphenomenal, as some philosophers believe, then a search for the functions of consciousness is doomed to futility.” [6] [From a Dharma point of view, that consciousness would have no measurable effects on behavior follows from the notion that the atma is akarta i.e. the atma (as pure consciousness and witness) is not the doer – see Bhagavad Gita 13.32. This is not to say that consciousness is epiphenomenal from a Dharma point of view. However, elaboration on this is beyond the scope of the present topic. This was highlighted just to show that, even as per the Gita, a behavioral approach to judge the presence/absence of consciousness is flawed]
Epiphenomenalism (as stated earlier) means that mental states are produced by physical states of the brain and cannot themselves influence the physical states in the brain. Huxley (1874) gives an excellent analogy where he compares mental events (and hence phenomenal consciousness) to a steam whistle that contributes nothing to the work of a locomotive. [7] With a material monist world view, this conclusion would be unavoidable for if every consciousness state has an equivalent neural correlate then the question arises as to which (mental or neural i.e. consciousness or physical) has influence over the other. All stimulus having its origin in matter must then eventually work its way to a resulting neural state (through physical forces) thereby establishing the priority of the neural state (material) over the mental (consciousness). This invariably leads to the conclusion that the mental state has no effect whatsoever on the physical and thus no effect on behavior. If one pursues this line of thought, then even human beings can be explained away as purely mechanical automata and deserve no rights themselves.

Setting aside this dead end for a behaviorist approach, there are other problems we can note in the studies. Very often the impulse is to study animal behavior in the light of human behavior. The invariable fall out of this is that the conclusion is already assumed in the inquiry, i.e. that animals are acknowledged to have consciousness based on the degree with which they match human behavior.
There is also extensive neuroscience research to compare human nervous system against several animal species. As per Griffin & Speck, the search for neural correlates of consciousness has not revealed “any structure or process necessary for consciousness that is found only in human brains.”  This view is widely although not universally shared by neuroscientists. [8]

This inevitably brings us to the mind-body problem that is explained in the book, “The Architecture of knowledge”, by Dr. Subhash Kak. He notes that the materialist doctrine implies either a denial of consciousness or that mental events are epiphenomena. [9] That mental events are epiphenomena has already been established to be a road block in inferring consciousness from behavior as shown earlier.
To conclude, there is no evading the fact that in a reductionist and materialist approach, it is inevitable that consciousness as mere epiphenomena reduces human beings to mechanical automata much the same as animals were viewed up until now (i.e. even human rights has no basis and secularists being materialists themselves aren’t taking their world view to a logical conclusion in their so called fight for ‘human rights’). Therefore, we are not only guilty of great crimes against non-human life, but we would also have no basis for law or “human rights”, since humans would be reduced to mere mechanical automata.

This treatment of animals is yet another instance of a recurring pattern seen in the history of the West. The “other” of the day is subjected to extremely reductionist views and violently subjugated. Once the damage is done (viz. colonialism, imperialism, genocides, etc.) and there is no turning back, then there is an acknowledgement of past errors and liberal apologists will elevate the suppressed often to boost their own “savior” complex. We can see this happening even with respect to the present case where voices in some branches of the academia are acknowledging the presence of consciousness in animals, but this will take a long time to become a mainstream view before which many more billions of animals will have been slaughtered.

Dharmic worldview

In direct contrast to the world views discussed so far, Indian traditions view consciousness as a) all-pervading and b) present as the essential self of all jivas (both human and non-human life). The Chandogya Upanishad declares that the self, pervades all existence like salt in water. The very first verse of Isha Upanishad states that all existence is inhabited by Ishvara. The Manu Smriti (1.49) explicitly declares that even plants have consciousness. It is thus evident why Indians revere nature and why ahimsa assumes a high stature in Indian culture. This does not mean that injury or violence is avoided wholesale and is totally absent, as that would be impossible, but rather that there is a conscious awareness of the harm being caused and a worldview, which advocates minimizing such injuries to the extent possible in one’s own life. Harm is seen as an inevitable necessity for life as the Bhaghavata Purana states, “The life of life is life [9]”, i.e. plants and animals, which as food gives life to humans, are life as well.

There is vibrant debate among various Indian traditions as to what extent of harm is valid and we have the Jains taking the most extreme position of pacifism. Thiruvalluvar dedicates a whole set of 10 couplets (ch26) towards non-harming of animals in his Thirukkural. There is also gradation in allowable harm for different stages of life and based on one’s svadharma. A Sannyasi, for example, avoids any form of injury, including cooking of food, whereas a Kshatriya must take up arms for the sake of Dharma. Ahimsa is also recognized as a Samanya Dharma i.e. universal principle irrespective of class, gender or station in life. [11] Bheeshma, the Kshatriya par excellence, explains the glory of ahimsa in the Anushasana parva of Mahabharata thus, “Non-injury is the highest duty, non-injury is the highest self-restraint, non-injury is the highest gift, and it is the highest austerity.” [12] Viva Kermani in her article “Hindu roots of modern ecology” shows in detail how various plants and trees are protected and revered in the traditions of India and also how animals have been integrated in Indian culture in the form of vahanas of different deities. It demonstrates as to how the indigenous tradition of India is a vibrant nature tradition with nature protection forming the very seed ideas right from the Vedas. Since, the seed idea of ahimsa is deeply embedded in Indian culture, it has sprouted and flowered in various forms amongst different communities and traditions. The idea here is not to analyze micro level/specific instances and judge them, but rather to defend the intrinsic value of ahimsa and let it work itself out among the various communities and cultures across the world. I see that it is the vision of the Rishis to introduce the concept of ahimsa as a guiding principle without strict quantification so that each individual or tradition may strive towards the ideal to the best of their ability or svadharma. What we have in the present worldview of modernity is a total denial of this ideal or at best applying it only to humans. The result is the most horrific forms of factory farming guided solely by a cold maximization of profit.

The cocoon of Indian secularists

The secularists of India reduce all this complexity to “religious superstition” notwithstanding the fact that the rate of slaughter has grown tenfold in the past thirty years, clearly a feat of “progress” and “modernity”. [13] The hollowness of their thinking must be evident from the ideas surveyed so far. They even give news space to the likes of Kancha Iliah, who claims that our (Indians’) brains are not growing as we gave up eating beef. [14] The Christianized Indian elite perpetuate the same Christian idea on India that practices are derived from scriptures.[15] Hence, Indian practices of ahimsa are watered down as they may not always be found in the “holy books”. Practices like avoiding meat on particular days of the week are treated as “superstition” by the more secularized Indians and are slowly being discarded. Hardly any modern Indian is aware of their daily dharma towards feeding animals. The secular intellectual elite display a total lack of original thinking, when it comes to animal welfare. Hence, we see a frantic quest for conservation of species, once they enter the “endangered list”, while displaying a total disregard for traditions that protect them. Case in point is the recent ban on Jallikattu, where the animal welfare board of India claimed that they are more interested in animal “welfare” rather than conserving species (ironically in response to the charge that the ban results in native breeds being sent to slaughter houses) [16] Please read this article for a detailed analysis of the Jallikattu ban and hypocrisy of the courts.
Secularism has had a detrimental impact on the environment as shown here. The secular intellectuals never fail to break the pattern of playing the “individual rights” card when it comes to animal slaughter while being more than happy to ban Indian traditions that involve animals even when they don’t involve killing or even injury.

Modern animal rights activism

The fact that animal rights activists frame their campaign as a “rights” campaign shows us that the eventual aim is to bring the issue into the purview of law and the state. As this article shows, India is a Dharma society rather than a law driven society. The inevitable fallout of such a stance is that what will be deemed as right/wrong will become purely a function of numbers and political clout rather than truth. So, we see that tens of billions of animals are slaughtered per year without the slightest reaction by our “conscience keepers”, while a festival like Jallikattu, where no animal is killed will be branded as animal abuse and banned. The native custodians of the traditions hardly have a say in the matter and are poorly represented. The same secular intellectuals that claim that such traditions are barbaric are the ones who gleefully advertise their beef eating sprees and beef fests (One wonders how beef eating became fashionable in India). The same applies to the ban of temple elephants in Kerala. Of course, these motivated stunts are more political in nature than a genuine case of animal rights activism as shown here. The problem lies in the fact that many well-meaning Indians buy into this farce.
The secularized discourse by activists, who are so sure that “religion must never be dragged into animal rights”, just facilitate the digestion of Indian ideas into Western universalism as shown by Rajiv Malhotra. [17] Most activists rejoice the ban of the aforementioned traditions and very often are the ones leading the legal case towards the ban. By their commitment to never touch “certain” religion in their criticism, they ensure that large scale violence towards animals will remain unchallenged.

Conclusion

With a comparative study of various worldviews as shown above, it is safe to conclude that it is only from the Indian traditions and worldviews that any genuine case for animal welfare can be made and hence it remains the sole hope for millions of innocent and peaceful creatures across the globe. I hope this article has put to rest the shallow thinking of the likes – “survival of the fittest” – that has enthralled many modern Indians. The horrendous treatment they are subjected to, needs no mention here. Modern factory farming is the biggest shame on human civilization.
Indians must hence pose a serious intellectual challenge to such reductionist ideas about animals and enable the spread of the notion of ahimsa, which must be our minimum commitment to Dharma. It is very clear from the analysis so far that the very notion of ahimsa is in question not merely, in practice, but in the academia and the sphere of ideas. The gravity of this cannot be over stated.

Sabhar from India Facts.

Hindus - The Trap and the Way Out

It was my intention to include in this series a few essays on Hindu Sociology and Hindu History as I see them after many years of study and reflection. But these themes would have to wait for some time. I will return to them later and discuss them with reference to Hindu Spirituality as I have presented it so far.

 

I have received many letters from the readers of this series as I did when I wrote some earlier ones. Most of the readers have appreciated what I have said. A few friends have reacted against my repudiation of Monotheism. It has not been possible for me to reply to these readers individually in spite of a strong desire to do so. But I have felt immensely encouraged. The appreciation as well criticism confirms that there is a large number of my countrymen who are conscious of their spiritual and cultural heritage, and who are moved by more than mundane matters.

 

Before I conclude, I should like to summarise what I have said so far in the context of Hindu Spirituality.

1. Hindu society has been sustained by its spiritual center throughout the ages, particularly in the face of Islamic and Christian barbarism. Countless Hindu heroes and heroines have defied death rather than renounce their ancestral religion. Hindu society will be revived and revitalised only by recovering its spiritual centre which is Sanãtana Dharma.

2. Hindu society has been thrown on the defensive by blood-soaked bigotries, clay-footed creeds, and a mercenary modernist culture because Hindu society is suffering from self-forgetfulness. A re-awakened Hindu society will not evaluate its own heritage in terms of ideas and ideals projected by imperialist ideologies. On the contrary, Hindu society will process these ideologies in terms of its own vision and world-view. That will restore the self-confidence of Hindu society as also Hindu pride in the ancient Hindu heritage.

3. The self-forgetfulness of Hindu society is symbolized by a wide-spread misinterpretation of the Vedic verse ekam sad viprãh bahudhã vadanti to mean that the Vedas also advocate Monotheism. This misinterpretation is motivated by a psychology of surrender as signified by the Hindu slogan of sarva-dharma-samabhãva vis-a-vis Christianity and Islam. A psychology of imitation is also at work. It has led some Sikh theologians to cast into monotheistic moulds the Vaishnava spirituality of the Ãdigrantha.

4. Monotheistic creeds like Christianity and Islam view Sanãtana Dharma as chaos and anarchy because Sanãtana Dharma does not (1) swear by a historical prophet or saviour, (2) grant a monopoly of truth to a book (al-kitãb), (3) prop up a True One God against False Many Gods, and (4) seek the intercession of a prophet or saviour for escape from an eternal hell and get admitted into an eternal heaven. But that is not the fault of Sanãtana Dharma. That indicates only the limitations from which the monotheistic mind suffers. A monotheist feels lost in the spiritual freedom of Sanãtana Dharma like a Soviet citizen who fails to understand the functioning of a democratic society.

5. Evaluated by Sanãtana Dharma, Christianity and Islam turn out to be constructs of the outer human mind, drawing upon dark drives of the unregenerate unconscious. Sanãtana Dharma stands for self-exploration, self-purification, and self-transcendence, while Islam and Christianity stand for self-stupefaction, self-righteousness, and self-aggrandizement.

6. The central message of Sanãtana Dharma is that (1) the spiritual aspiration for absolute Truth, Goodness, Beauty and Power is inherent in every human being, everywhere, and at all times, (2) the spiritual striving cannot come to rest till a seeker overcomes all limitations of human and universal nature, and emerges as master of himself as well as of the universe, and (3) the way to world-discovery and God-discovery is through self-discovery. At the same time, Sanãtana Dharma proclaims that there are as many ways of spiritual seeking as there are seekers, and that spiritual seeking does not express itself in any single and set doctrine or dogma. This is the basis of true universalism enshrined in Sanãtana Dharma, as opposed to the counterfeit universalism of Christianity and Islam which prescribes one fixed, fossilized, and uniform system of belief and behaviour for everyone.

7. Sanãtana Dharma is ingrained in the Hindu psyche which sees the same divinity in everything and everywhere, and which invests our entire environment with innumerable Gods and Goddesses. The mullah and the missionary denounce this Hindu psyche as poisoned by Pantheism and Polytheism. But that is the language of Monotheism which is incapable of understanding any type of spirituality whatsoever. Monotheism is disguised materialism which makes God extra-cosmic and denies divinity to God�s creation. The God of Monotheism is soon replaced by the only son or the last prophet who, in turn, is replaced by a monolithic Church or Ummah out to conquer the world by force and fraud.

8. Hindu spiritual consciousness is expressed in terms of a plurality of Gods. These Gods are many a time symbolized by concrete images such as Sûrya, Agni, Marut, etc. This is because Sanãtana Dharma allows many variations on the same spiritual theme, and does not put Matter in an irreconcilable opposition to Spirit. The forms and features of Hindu icons have a source higher than the normal reaches of the human mind. Idol-worship is the only way by which the sense-bound human mind reaches something of the higher spiritual knowledge.

9. History is a witness that the spiritual consciousness of mankind everywhere had expressed itself in a plurality of Gods and in widespread idol-worship, before Christianity and Islam destroyed many ancient religions by fire and sword and imposed monotheistic materialism on large sections of mankind. Hindu spirituality which still retains its ancient intuition and genius, has to help many societies in Asia, Africa, America, Europe and Oceania to reject these impositions and revive their old Gods. That is the only path towards their spiritual and cultural emancipation from the imperialist and inhuman yoke of Christianity and Islam.

10. Monotheism of Christianity and Islam is not only an impediment on the path of spiritual progress, it also divides mankind into warring camps by giving currency to a number of hate-filled words such as infidel, kãfir, heretic, idolater, polytheist, etc. What is worse, Monotheism promotes the most degenerate type of idolatry by manufacturing myths and miracles about its all-too-human apostles and prophets, saints and sufis, and by seeing the supernatural in dirt and dross such as the hair, the saliva, the shoe, the shirt, and the shroud. It expects the idols of the infidels to perform the same supernatural miracles, and breaks them when the miracles are not forthcoming. Monotheism thus turns out to be the most abominable superstition.

11. Hindu sages and seers could tap the sources of universal spirituality because they did not start with an a priori assumption of an Almighty God as the creator and controller of the cosmos. Their starting point was the human person. That is why Hindu spiritual literature abounds in psychological and psychic terms. Hindu sages and seers explored human consciousness till they discovered the highest dimension of humanhood. It is seldom that Hindu spirituality speaks in the language of Theism. God as the creator and controller of the cosmos is unknown to the Vedas, to the Upanishads, to Jainism, to Buddhism, and to the six systems of Hindu philosophy. Hindu spirituality never renounces its base in humanism; it only raises humanism to its highest meaning and significance.

12. Christian mystics and Muslim sufis continued to travel on the same path of universal spirituality because the new creeds sat lightly on them, and discovered the true fount of freedom from bondage. But Christianity and Islam used the power of theocratic states to suppress this natural and spontaneous mysticism and sufism. In due course, the mystics and sufis were made to serve the imperial establishments of the Church and the Ummah, and they became degenerate accomplices of predatory imperialism. Hindu spirituality has to rescue Christian mysticism from the clutches of Christian theology, and salvage sufism from servitude to prophetic Islam. That is the only basis on which Hindu society can come to terms with Christian and Muslim communities in India.

13. The true character of Christian theology and prophetic Islam is revealed when one studies the genesis of Christianity and Islam in the Gospels and biographies of the Prophet. Such a study leaves no doubt that Christianity and Islam are not religions but political ideologies pregnant with imperialist ambitions. Their appetite has been whetted by their conquest of a large part of the world by the power of the sword. Hindu society is making a serious mistake in treating Christianity and Islam as religions, and by extending to them the same samabhãva as has always prevailed among the various sects of Sanãtana Dharma.

14. Hindu society has never had an established church, nor ever known a theocratic state. This society has always been a secular society. This society, therefore, does not need lectures on Secularism such as are delivered to it daily by the Nehruvian ruling class. An honest Secularism would have addressed itself to Christianity and Islam which are the strongholds of exclusiveness and the advocates of a theocratic state. This has not happened because the Nehruvian brand of Secularism arose out of surrender to Islamic separatism. Having failed to overcome Islamic separatism, a section of the national movement, particularly the Leftists under the leadership of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, blamed their own frustration on what they called Hindu communalism. As a consequence, Nehruvian Secularism is no more than the embodiment of an anti-Hindu animus. The secularists serve as the sappers and miners of Islamic and Christian imperialism. They are also encouraging the imperialism of an Islamicized Akali clique which has been allowed to control gurudwara revenues and thereby dominate Sikh society which is only a section of the larger Hindu society.

15. Hindu society should see through this perverted Secularism, and reject it not only as a counterfeit coin but also as high treason to the Indian nation. That is the only way to defeat the gangster game which goes on all around Hindu society, and which threatens to reduce it to a minority in its own ancestral homeland. The secularist who accuses Hindu society of communalism is no more than a thug who wants to hoodwink this society into believing that its nationalism is communalism. He has to be unmasked and isolated.

HINDU SOCIETY STANDS TRAPPED BY ITS OWN SLOGAN

What is the situation at present?

The Hindu elite continues to shout its slogan of sarva-dharma-samabhãva vis-a-vis Christianity and Islam. It is rare to meet a member of the Hindu elite who does not shout from the housetops that Christianity and Islam are as good religions as his own Sanãtana Dharma. There is no dearth of dim-witted but sanctimonious scholars who line up quotations from the Bible and the Quran alongside quotations from Hindu shastras in order to prove the �essential unity of all religions�. Matters have come to such a pass that a Hindu who does not subscribe to this slogan suffers ostracism from the elite circles of Hindu society. Hindu politicians are the worst culprits. They are mortally afraid of being branded as �Hindu communalists�. And they have neither the knowledge nor the courage to change the universe of public discourse. The secularists have only to invent a new slogan, the Hindu politicians are the first to fall in line. The only purpose they serve is to keep Hindu society always on the defensive.

Neither the missionary nor the mullah subscribes to the slogan of sarva-dharma-samabhãva. Each one of them is convinced and proclaims publicly that his own creed is the only true one, and that to equate it with Sanãtana Dharma is the height of blasphemy. Each of them claims that Hindu society cannot stop him from converting as many Hindus as he can, by all means including force and fraud, without repudiating its own slogan and thus knocking the very bottom out of Secularism. Every Hindu objection to conversions, they say, exposes the Hindus as hypocrites who do not mean what they say. But if you ask the Hindu leaders to renounce this mischievous slogan, they denounce you as one who is trying to upturn an established Hindu tradition. They do not know that this slogan was coined by Mahatma Gandhi, and that it stood totally defeated in his own life-time. The future of Hinduism and Hindu society is dark if this is not debunked, and Islam and Christianity are allowed to march as they are doing at present.

What is the treatment prescribed for Hindus in case Christianity or Islam acquires state power in India? The prescription provided by the missionary as well as the mullah is again unequivocal.

The mullah says: �Allah has mandated the lands of the infidels to his last prophet who, in turn, has bequeathed them to the Ummah. India continues to be a Dar-ul-harb. It is our Allah-ordained duty to convert it into a Dar-ul-Islãm. Our scriptures prescribe a total destruction of kufr (infidelism) and shirk (idolatry). Allah is very jealous of his own position as the only one worthy of worship. He cannot stand the sight of these Hindu idols imitating his majesty and trying to share his divinity. These idols have to be destroyed and trodden under the feet of the mu�mins in order to propitiate Allah. The temples which house these idols have to be demolished and converted into places worthy of our own way of worship. We will, of course, invite all idolaters in India to embrace Islam, willingly and voluntarily. But if they do not come round of their own accord, we are afraid we shall have to use force in furtherance of the only true faith. Allah had sent his last prophet to save all mankind from perdition. The divine duty has devolved on the Ummah after the departure of the Prophet. We cannot turn traitors to his mission.�

If a Hindu protests at this revelation of the �divine duty�, he invites an angry howl from the Ummah. And the whole of it thunders: �So you do not want us to be true to our religion as revealed by Allah to his last prophet, as enshrined in our sacred scripture, the Quran, and as enjoined by our sacred tradition, the Sunnah? What sort of a Hindu are you? Have you not read the books written by your own scholars and sages such as Dr. Bhagwan Das, Pandit Sunderlal, Rahul Sankrityayan, and Vinoba Bhave about the sublimity of Islam? Have you not heard the lectures on sarva-dharma-samabhãva delivered by your own leaders, day in and day out, and over all these so many years? It seems that you are not secular. It looks as if you are a Hindu chauvinist out to deny to us the fundamental right of religious freedom guaranteed by the Constitution of the country. We appeal to you to shed your narrow Hindu communalism, and be true to your Hindu Dharma. We assure you that we shall not fail to be true to our Islam. This is the only basis on which our two communities can coexist peacefully till, in due course, the true faith triumphs.�

The Christian missionary also talks in the same vein, though his language is less crude than that of the mullah, and his manners are more sophisticated. His methods of salesmanship are more mature. Also, the mullah is aggressive because he knows that a whole Islamic world supports his onslaught against Hindu society and culture, and because he finds that the Indian ruling class gets really frightened by his threats to mobilize frenzied Muslim mobs for committing gangster acts. He has demonstrated any number of times that his threats are not empty. The Christian missionary, on the other hand, knows that he does not enjoy such solid support in the West, and cannot mobilize Christian mobs on the requite scale.

Hindu society is thus trapped by a slogan which it has itself coined and made current countrywide. It is the same sort of trap in which a democratic society finds itself the moment it grants that the Communist fifth-column or a fascist phalanx is a legitimate political party entitled to enjoy freedom to function and expand.
 

THE WAY OUT
What is the way out?

Hindu society has to realize that Christianity and Islam are not religions but political ideologies inspired by imperialist ambitions. These ideologies came to India as accomplices of Islamic and Western armies. Those armies have been defeated and driven away. The ideologies which came with those armies should now find no place in India. They, too, have to be defeated and dispersed. Hindu society has to recover the ground that was lost to these ideologies during periods of Islamic and Christian expansion and domination. Those sections of Hindu society which were forced or lured into the folds of these ideologies, have to be brought back into their ancestral fold. This is the minimum task which Hindu society has to set before itself. The maximum task is to carry the campaign against these ideologies into their own homelands, and to free large sections of mankind from the abominable superstitions which breed intolerance and aggression.

The cultural climate in the modern West is favourable for the spread of Sanãtana Dharma. The West has repudiated Christianity and returned to rationalism, humanism and universalism, all of which are values cherished and promoted by the Hindu view of life. But the West does not realize that the massive finances which the Christian missions collect over there in the name of doing social service in �a poor, starved, diseased and illiterate India� is used by the missions for the nefarious work of subverting the only sane society which has survived the depredations of genocidal creeds. Hindu society, particularly the Hindus settled or working in the West, have to provide this information to the West so that the menace of Christian missions is challenged in their own homelands.

It is true that Christian missions are involved in the foreign policy manoeuvers and intelligence networks of the various Western nations. The systematic building up of a Christian missionary like Mother Teresa by the U.S. State Department provides an obvious pointer. But Western foreign policy establishments are using Christian missions because Hindu society has made them respectable in India. The day that respectability is destroyed and Christianity and its missions are exposed for what they are, the Western nations will have no use for them.

Islam is a harder nut to crack. The Islamic countries everywhere are closed societies presided over by theocratic states which do not permit any scrutiny of Islam or the propagation of a rational and humanist view of life. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in many Muslim lands has let loose a reign of terror against all those enlightened sections which have tried to free their people from the stranglehold of a fanatic falsehood. The Western democracies, particularly the United States of America, are encouraging this fanaticism in the fond hope that it will stand as a bulwark against Soviet imperialism.^* A dark night envelops the Islamic countries at present due to a combination of historical circumstances, and there seems to be little hope that the Muslim masses will be able to emancipate themselves in the near future.

But it is also a fact that the rise of fundamentalism in a closed creed is a sign of panic, and sounds its death-knell. Christian fundamentalism which surfaced in Europe in the form of Protestantism proved to be the death-gasp of Christianity. For, fundamentalism brings to the fore, in one fell sweep, all the crudities of a closed creed - crudities which normally remain hidden under borrowed cultural trappings.

There is a large number of Muslim students, scholars, scientists technicians, and other sections of Muslim intelligentsia who find no place in their closed societies, and who have fled to other countries including India. Here is a fertile field in which Hindu society can sow some seeds which will bear fruit in due course. These refugees from Islamic terrorism have to be convinced that it is not the politics of their motherlands that has become perverse, it is the culture cultivated by Islam which has poisoned their societies.

But before Hindu society can perform these minimum and maximum tasks, it has to revive its own spiritual centre and re awaken to its own ancient heritage. The rest will follow.

 By Sh. Sita Ram Goyal