Vivekananda’s Speech – comments, part 2
Mary Hicks Ajit, you and Baba have touched upon the opacity and misunderstanding that can occur when names are given. You’ve rightly praised Vivekananda for opening “the enormous and historic gateway he gave for the healing wisdom of “the Perennial Tradition” (a term … coined by turn-of-the-century admirers of the Indic tradition whereas “Sanatan Dharma” for me is connected nowadays with Hindu fanaticism.”
My understanding of ‘Sanatana Dharma’ is that it’s what practitioners call their path, perhaps not far in meaning from the “Perennial Tradition.” A link with fanaticism? Perhaps I’ve missed something. Could someone shed some light on Sanatana Dharma?
Graham Ajit Bond @Mary. I think “Santana Dharma’ is a term often used by practitioners whose vision is of a “return to Vedic dharma” (which often implies stricter adherence to scripturally-ordained dharma or “laws”.) I fully believe there is an “eternal” Indic vision that stems from, but overflows the boundaries of the Vedic tradition and is of vital importance to the contemporary world (eg. Vivekananda’s speech), and many Indic practitioners would use the term in this looser way. However, for a “traditional Hindu”, santana dharma is connected with right action and laws based on a revealed scripture. Because I would not want to force a traditional Hindu to give up their own “pure” idea of what that is, I have suggested the more mystic, Western, philosophical term to refer to my own much looser views. In using the (perhaps too strong!) term “fanatical Hinduism” I’m referring to a similar kind of fundamentalist vision that a “fanatical Christian” has of a return to a strict interpretation of “Bible dharma.” I’m sorry if I offended, as you know how committed I am to the Indic tradition. And my interpretation of the wider question that Baba Rampuri began commenting on (via Vivekananda) is “Who speaks for “Hinduism”?” – which, as you know, was the topic addressed by the American Academy of Religion when Douglas Brooks. John S. Hawley, Arvind Sharma and others presented their historic papers. AAR Journal, Dec 2000, Vol 68 issue 4.
Baba Rampuri I could (and might) speak volumes on this. We have, indeed, touched one of the raw nerves of modern civilization, here, that give us our Osama bin Ladens, and our sorry state of affairs on this planet relating to the “Other” – other races, religions, cultures, and genders. We easily see in our reading of history, that in the 19th century, the (mainly) European powers had their ships and armies and administrations all over the world in the form of their colonies. What is less visible is that at the same time, the most massive “mapping exercise” in the history of man matured to the point of not only representing the natural world, counting species and measuring nature, but mapping people. This is the only means of success for Empire, representing It’s subjects, who they are, what they do, what they believe, their history, and their knowledge. Then they are true Imperial subjects. The Imperium creates the categories based on what It establishes as the human “normal” state, and measures differences from there. The Academy performs this function, originally supplied with data by missionaries.
The idea is to tame the apparent chaos, sanitize a culture so that it may used according to the wishes of the Imperium. When a colonized culture reacts to that and attempts to regain its own personality, it is branded as deviant.
Within just over 100 years, I’ll use the establishment of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, and Vivekananda’s speech as the 2 markers, Britain constructed an India that bore very little resemblance to the real thing. But this constructed India fit very well into the colonial narrative, thank you, about the moral requirement of Enlightened Englishmen to help their poor brown brothers ruled by a greedy elite of self serving priests.
You see, they constructed a religion where none existed before. Religion, as we recognize it in our current discourse, consists of a deity, be it God, or Jesus, of Mohammed, or Allah, or Buddha, or Jehovah. A text – the Bible, the Koran, the Dhammapada, the Torah. And a doctrine which may be extracted from the text – the story, the laws, what you must believe in to be of that religion.
But in India, there were 330 million Gods, there were 11 million texts, and at least that many doctrines. For Goddess sake, there were 800 languages, and about that number of castes, as well, each with their own traditions.
The word “Hindu” comes from the Persian equivalent of the Indian, “Sindhu, meaning (for the Persians) people who live on the other side of the Indus River.
When the suffix -ism is added, what happens? It denotes some kind of belief – The Doctrine. So, think about it, we can fairly quickly define what one basically believes to be a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, a Buddhist, a Satanist, but what is it that one must believe to be a Hindu, we cannot forget its new appendage, -ism.
Don’t waste your time. For any belief or doctrine you come up with, I will show you 1000 bona fide Hindus who don’t believe it or follow it.
Hinduism is a construction. Vivekananda knew this. But he also knew that religion being politics in reality, it was also a valuable tool for him to use to create a unity in India that was otherwise not possible considering that people were in to so many different things, practices, & beliefs.
There was no hierarchy of Knowledge. Knowledge was spread throughout all the 800 some odd castes, and the countless tribes, in all the local languages, and within certain intellectual elites who became known as Brahmins.
The sum total of all the knowledge of the world by man, through all the different means and ways of connecting, not imagining, with that Knowledge in all its diversity, was called the Sanatan Dharma. Not information about the world, but the Knowledge of the World Herself. What we think of as Nature. Mother Nature.
Most, if not all, the Yogi lineages go back to Guru Dattatreya. Baba Muktananda’s as well. He is often pictured as being accompanied by 4 dogs, and anyone will tell you that those 4 dogs are the 4 Vedas. Are we insulting the vedas here? Comparing them to dogs? Are we establishing a dichotomy between a priesthood and a Yoga Tradition? No. The Vedas are held in the highest esteem by the followers of Dattatreya. In the same way that your dog follows you around, obeys you (hopefully), and is your companion, so the Vedas follow the Enlightened Man, not the other way around. The Text of the Sanatan Dharma is written on the surface of the world for those who may read it! Text is subservient to Speech. The doctrine is the operation of nature, upon which illumined ones make commentary. And the deities are all the personalities of nature.
This is not theory. This is what these people have been doing for 1000’s of years.
OK, Graham talks about “practitioners” and a return to “vedic dharma.”
If, as an American, you pay any taxes, sales tax, income tax, and have any form of identification as an American, does that make you a “practitioner” of American-ism? If you rise when the national anthem is sung?
I hardly ever heard “Hinduism” used in rural India until maybe the last 15-20 years. The expression has always been “Sanatan Dharma.” Among Yoga Tradition, to this day, it’s still Sanatan Dharma. This is the way traditional Indians and many rural Indians think of Spirituality. The Spiritual Path – The Sanatan Dharma.
“Return to Vedic…” sounds very political to me, and also misrepresented. The vast majority of those who use the word are not interested in returning to anything, but invoking prosperity out of the Earth in the best possible way. More cows, sons, and money, is what is one most “practitioners'” minds, not ideals and ideology. They want and need something that works. If it’s Blessings, then so be it.
There is no “vedic whatever…” to return to. It’s a construction, a make believe Disneyland built in the 19th century.
I know very well priests and yogis who until today are in full performance of their traditional duties and paths, and pass their tradition and culture down through their disciples.
This idea of “scripturally ordained dharma or laws” is a perfect example of the construction. Which scriptures? Laws of Manu? Don’t be absurd. In the 19th century, less than 1% of the population had ever even heard of the Laws of Manu, let alone knowing what they really were. But the Laws of Manu were a God send for the Academics, a handle with which they could say, “See, this is the Book of Law.” Sadly, Sir William Jones at the end of the 18th century, when attempting to use the very same Laws of Manu in writing the Civil and Criminal Codes for Britsh India discovered the text to be irrelevant, and, in the text itself, it reminds the hearer, or now, reader of the text, that local custom and tradition always trumps universal.
There is no such thing as one text or source of “scripturally ordained dharma or laws” – there are millions of different ones, each suiting a particular context.
But this is very inconvenient when trying to represent a culture.
As many of you are yogis, devotees, thinkers, consciousness expanders, or just plain curious, I would suggest to start thinking about who is and has been informing you about these things. And if what I am saying has any truth in it, it means that this may be a good time to think over what you know about this knowledge that is originating in India, coming from that very same culture I am describing as being “constructed,” at least in the way that most of you have access to it.
How does The “Same” know the “Other?”
I’ll go on, if you like.
Goddess bless you all,
Baba
