Reclaiming India
The
land we know today as India was undoubtedly the centre of the most ancient
global civilisation from which knowledge and spiritual practices flowed. Their
knowledge civilised the world only to be corrupted by the creation of the new
gods to greed and selfishness.
Some time back in the distant past, people thought about where they lived, their
place in the universe and our confinement to this planet. Consequently they
began exploring and discovered a great many aspects of our remote corners within
our galaxy and our universe.
The people for the most part discovered that by living a life according to
Sanatana Dharma and maintaining a personal spiritual practice, they became
co-creators on this planet and unlocked rivers of joy within themselves.
Lets not pretend that everything was perfect, it is probable there was always
some competition over resources and ideologies which were resolved fairly
amicably with the famous Mahabharata war being one of the greatest
inconsistencies. Perhaps it was a consequence of this war that Gotama saw the
solution to suffering and consequently sought out a solution because at that
time what people call as Hinduism will buy more correctly termed as Sanatana
Dharma was already corrupted by patriarchal capitalism that may have evolved in
the north-west, perhaps Persia or further up into central Asia.
Capitalism per se within Sanatana Dharma appears to have been fairly benign and
a practical solution to record-keeping between merchants, traders, employers and
their workers as industrialisation began to take place and agriculture
intensified. The real punchline here is that at some point perhaps around or
before 8000 BC, men began to find they could use their newfound power and wealth
to achieve their material dreams.
This bought about what I term as patriarchal capitalism and this is what is
shaping our modern world. It created the ideological split within Vedanta they
gave birth to Avesta which in turn spawned the world's religions and the
majority of our sociopolitical ills. Those ills were initially rather small,
breakaway kingdoms, banditry and overtime a more organised economy which in
India was likely based around the temples with administrators who are overtime
perhaps became King's dealing with the political infrastructure but protecting
the population and the developing temple culture that was primarily democratic
and aimed to give every individual the freedom to participate in society and
most importantly explore the depths of their inner world or humanity.
Outside of India, materialism was embraced, religions were created as tools of
control and looking back through history is not too hard to see the vast amount
of conflict that has taken place in the name of pure selfishness for someone
else's positions or as part of an ideological crusade as happened with
Christianity and Islam.
By the time Islam came crashing through the gates of India, the country was
weakened by patriarchal capitalism, the Buddha had clarified a somewhat less
complex path to liberation but the Buddhists had no means of defence and their
structure was somewhat authoritarian so that when the heads of the priests roled,
there was no one to instruct the followers.
Conversely within Sanatana Dharma, despite the corruption bought about through
patriarchal capitalism, there were very effective armies created to defend the
Dharma because they understood how valuable that was for a great many reasons
which I will not go into here.
By the time the Europeans began arriving, Hindu culture was in a very sad state
with a great deal of corruption and abuse of power which created poverty and
incentivised masses of people to convert to Islam which is eminently portrayed
in some of Tagore's writings.
The sense of 'European Enlightenment' was taken up by the materialistically
educated giving rise to the anti-Hindu Dharma and anti-Brahman movements which
continue to trample over the nation today. When partition took place, most of
the original India had already been badly damaged and even lost within some
sectors of society.
However all is not lost.
Saffronisation
Given the suffering resulting from patriarchal capitalism, corporatism and
materialistic ideologies including Christianity, Islam, communism et cetera,
those Indians with a sense of possibility, those who maintain some kind of
personal sadhana or in other ways for persue wisdom have a knowledge that the
modern world with all its isms and political ideologies in addition to
attempting to destroy the last remnants of Dharma is also destroying life on
planet Earth.
Some only aware of one aspect, few are aware of all aspects and they are far too
numerous to list in full other than to say they are all aberrations of
consciousness hinged on belief in non-existent phenomenon. Unfortunately those
seeking change and a return to sanity are often at odds with each other because
they feel they have too push their own individual bandwagon.
So this is a time for working together. The Modi government is clearly the best
thing that has happened to India in modern history therefore everyone needs to
wholeheartedly support the government and collectively lobby the government to
take sensible steps to do more towards environmental conservation, terminating
the funding for the so-called minority religions and not only putting temple
assets back into local control, but correcting the narrative of history and
teaching the basic elements of spirituality in schools.
Before some of that can happen, there needs to be a clarification or a
simplification of what Dharma is and this is a subject I have given a deal of
thought, see some of my other writing. But it is going to take many generations
for this restorative process to play out, so this work is for justice, social
and political equity.
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Index
Navigating Indian History
The First Universities
Saffronisation
Saving India
Hindu Rashtra
Hindu Nationalism
Kashmir
Trees in Hindu Culture
The Sati Myth
A Chronology of Hindu History
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