Insightful newsletter of Drishtikone - Issue #5
Today, let us take a look at the Spiritual aspects and path to seek the truth. Not “my truth” or “your truth”. But existential truth.
vilifying the guru and the bhakt
Admitting that we need help is not an admission of incapability. It is an understanding that one is on an uncharted path, where the myriad ways can keep you busy for long but you are in a hurry to get your place. To have the urge to step on this uncharted path in itself is a rare thing for most humans.
That is where Gurus in India have come in. Someone, because of intensity and Sadhana, realized his/her conscious being. Its bliss and beauty is not something to hide or trivialize. It is a state that the person can’t help sharing. That urge to share makes one a Guru.
But Gurus are being vilified in India because a generation brought up on Ayn Rand feels individual, however incapable, is supreme. Aren’t these attacks on Guru, and on path of Bhakti - the derogatory ways of how bhakts are referred to - not an attack on the dharmic ways itself? It is an attack on a complete way of life that Dharma represents!
Breaking Dharma: Vilification of Bhakt, Bhakti and Guru - Drishtikone
Over the last few years, the left (and the their ideological allies, the Congress and its bedfellows the regional so-called secular parties) - in order to spite their political rivals, the BJP - have used a word pejoratively - “Bhakt”.
There is a way this is being done. By focusing on the few who are unscrupulous and projecting that to all. Making the exceptions seem like the rule.
Without any context of the thousands of pastors, bishops, maulanas who are constantly being indicted for rapes and murders, we suddenly are made to believe as if the unscrupulous can only enter one area. Yes, many people tend to trust and believe even the fake people. But that trust, however naive it may seem is not a weakness. It is the strength of this civilization. It has the ability to hold someone or something higher than ones self and revere it.
In India, bhakti is what has created the Spiritual ecosystem.
Think of it, Jesus gave just a handful of sermons and was killed for that. Mansoor al Hallaj simply uttered “Anal Haq” (I am the Truth) or Aham Brahmasmi and was tortured for years and then killed for saying what every Sage has said in India and treated with reverence.
So, we need to ask the question - Why is it that Nanak and Buddha have been revered while Mansoors have been killed? You see, we need to realize that India is like the Silicon Valley of Spirituality. We experiment in spirituality indiscriminately. We may have many Nirmal Babas, but if we can produce just one Buddha or a Nanak, and not persecute them, then that naivete is all worth it! How many cultures can boast of that? Read on.
handpicked world teacher rejects his congregation
In the beginning of the 20th century, when theosophists - led by Annie Besant - were struggling to get a grasp on spiritual ways, they came up with the idea of World Teachers. J. Krishnamurti was one they identified to be the next one.
At age 24, he rejected the order created for him as the World Teacher and went on his own solitary path. Here Sadhguru talks about JK and his work.
Sadhguru on Krishnamurti – His work and his life
hinduphobia - what is at stake?
A culture that was inclusive is at stake.
Which has in itself to incubate and grow beings like Nanak and Buddha. A society that can allow critique and reformat process to happen because it comes from the right authority.
What is happening, nevertheless, is something different. Strawman arguments are being erected which are inherently derogatory. All that is being done to legitimize abuse and to demolish this very structure. Prof Juluri writes this amazingly well researched article. A must read!
This isn’t the first time that it is happening. There is a playbook and it has been used before. For a context, here are two quotes that were spoken by two people in the same year - 532 AD.
What does the first quote remind you of? Isn’t it a mirror of एकम् सत् विप्रा बहुधा वदन्ति?
Which thought and mindset survived in Europe, finally? And Why?
Did humanity get enhanced or diminished due to complete annihilation of the pagans?
tearing apart of hypatia
Here is the story of Hypatia - one of the greatest mathematician of her time.
Many different versions of this story have been played again and again. In the Americas, the Australia-NZ regions, Asia, India and more recently in Kashmir.
The Murder of Hypatia: How Christian Fanatics tore apart the Greatest Mathematician of her time
Hypatia was perhaps the greatest mathematician of her time in Alexandria, a city with great lineage. She was murdered by Christian fanatics most brutally!
By Desh
lede and the nutgraf - making sense of daily clutter
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