Re: Congress Politics : Communalism North East
The following is a summary of Rajiv Malhotra's latest book "Being Different"
I have written the summary –
chapter wise and every chapter –
concept wise, often by linking different portions of the book into concepts.
Introduction
The basic idea of this book is to look at the west (comprising of America and Europe) through the dharmic framework. This, in my view, is a challenging task in itself due to the lack of scholarship in this area. As the author himself acknowledges –
"I am simply using the dharmic perspective to reverse the analytical gaze which normally goes from West to East and unconsciously privileges the former".
Chapter 1 – The audacity of difference
This chapter explains how India is different from the west and how this difference is often ignored and underestimated. The author notes "at the level of popular culture, India and the west may meet as equals, but at the deeper levels, where the core assumptions of a civilization reside, the playing field is tilted."
Globalization: The author notes that "globalization is often framed in terms and structures that emerged under western domination of the world in the past 500 years and these in turn are founded on the beliefs that emerged from the unique historical and religious experience of the people of European origin". This is an incisive analysis because west's "interaction" with the rest of the world began under adverse conditions in Europe. [1]
Along with these conditions, the religious conditioning of the western mind played a pivotal role in motivating the early maritime navigators [2]. During the colonial era, the west had to depend on "globalization" for its survival [3]. Even after the colonial era, the west continues to impose its own version of globalization on the world as is evident from the terms of trade with several countries [4]. Also, the author himself shows how "
cultural appropriation gives a false impression of equalization" by illustrating that "
modeling schools in India teach girls how to walk , talk and employ the body language of western women because the west has defined the standard of beauty for all women."
Also, the author contends that there are fundamental differences between the Judeo-Christian religions and the dharmic religions. However, these are never discussed openly due to "
Difference anxiety" – defined here as the resistance to address differences between religions/cultures. This leads to the illusion of "
sameness of all religions/cultures" which is used by the west in unforeseen ways.
i.
On the religious front, it is used to infiltrate the other's faith and carry out mass religious conversions as "
the Christian project is seen as a god sanctioned franchise to bring about religious homogeneity in the world".
ii.
On the cultural front, it is used to make the other culture feel inferior. As a result, "
an Indian is likely to feel anxious about eating with his hands in a western gathering than a westerner would feel in using silverware at a traditional Indian gathering".
The author explains how the Indian perception of globalization is different from the Eurocentric view – "
being different need not mean being isolationist. Japan has preserved its distinct cultural norms and identity while remaining a major global economy".
Chapter 2 – Yoga : freedom from history
In this chapter, the author uses the term 'history-centrism' to refer to the fundamental assumption of historical revelation in the Abrahamic religions which is contrasted with the term 'embodied knowing' to refer to the practice of self- evolution in the dharmic traditions.
Historical Revelation: The author acutely observes that "the bedrock of Judeo-Christian traditions is the historical event when god intervenes from without (outside) in order for human beings to discern the truth. This leads to an obsession with compiling and studying the historical details of such interventions." As a result, "organized religion becomes a sort of history club which aims to arrive at the 'right' interpretation of prophetic teachings and instructions. Any resistance to this sheer unreasonableness has been known to bring draconian consequences." We know that the adverse reactions of deviating from religious books are detailed by several critics of Islam and Christianity. [5] and [6]. Also, the followers of Judeo-christian religions believe that their books contain the truth and there is no other way to obtain the truth than to read these scriptures. Hence, large scholarship centers including Alexandria in pre-christian Europe [7] and Taxila/Nalanda universities in pre-islamic india [8] have been destroyed ruthlessly.
One will rarely find a Christian who proclaims to be wise when he has not read the Bible. Similarly, one will rarely find a Muslim who declares that he is knowledgeable when he has not read the Quran.
However, according to the dharmic traditions – "Man is not born into original sin. He is endowed with the potential for achieving in this very life, the state of sat-chit-ananda – blissful knowledge of, and unity with god – anyone may explore and discover autonomously the meaning of our existence." The author quotes Sri Aurobindo "The veda, which I first began to read long afterwards in Pondicherry rather confirmed what experiences I already had than was any guide to my sadhana." Therefore, the author explains that "Even if all historical records were lost, historical memory erased, and every holy site destroyed, the ultimate truth could be recovered by ordinary humans through spiritual practices."
The author explains how obsession with historicity of religious gods is waste of time because their historical importance is insignificant compared to their spiritual importance. Sri Aurobindo is further quoted "if the Christ lives within our spiritual being, it would matter little whether or not a son of Mary physically lived and suffered and died in Judea."
3.
History and Myth: The author observes that "myth is viewed in the west as the opposite of truth. (For the western mind) the term myth conjures up images of magical gods, spirits etc. which may be considered interesting, but they are not reliable accounts of the truth."
Even a letter to Christian congregations in the New Testament asserts that "we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of His majesty". Hence it is quite understandable why "westerners view history and myth to be mutually exclusive".
On the contrary, the dharmic perception of History – Itihasa- is not a mere sequence of chronological events, but rather it combines factual events and myths – which "use fiction to convey the truth" – and thereby have a larger symbolic importance than mere events. For example "Lord Ram and Krishna are embodiments of bhavas(attitudes) and their historical significance is superseded by the values they convey."
4.
Time: Western and dharmic perspectives of time are also entirely different. While the dharmic sense of time is "cyclical", the author states that in the Judeo-Christian framework "time and space had a beginning and are linear, which affects all history writing. The literal events in the biblical religions include a cataclysmic and violent end of the world known as End Times. History this not only has a beginning but also a defined endpoint when Christ will judge all nations."
5.
Inner Sciences: The dharmic perspective involves "adhyatma-vidya" or first person empiricism, while the western perspective lacks any techniques for the evolution of mind. Allan Wallace is quoted "the untrained mind which is prone to alternating agitation and dullness, is an unreliable and inadequate instrument for observing anything. To transform it into a suitable instrument for scientific exploration, the stability and vividness of the attention must be developed to a high degree." According to this parameter, many intellectuals who have influenced much of the scholarship and politics of the modern/medieval west may be considered immature when viewed in a dharmic society. For example, Lenin launched his communist party more out of a desire to avenge his personal "condition", than with a desire to bring about social change.[9]. Karl Marx fluctuated from affluence to abject poverty, so much so that only four out of his seven children survived to adulthood.[10] Mohammed was an epileptic and believed that his fits were divine interventions [11].
Chapter 3 – Integral Unity and Synthetic Unity
In this chapter, the author defines
Integral unity "which means that ultimately only the whole exists; the parts that make up the whole have but a relative existence."
Whereas
Synthetic unity "starts with parts that exist separately from one another, for example, in classical physics the cosmos is viewed as an assemblage of separate elementary particles. The problem then becomes how to make them cohere by outside forces (rather than seeking a coherence that is inherent)."
Later, the author uses the term
bandhu to explain "the interlinking among the various faces of the reality, such as sounds, numbers, colours and ideas, and this interlinking is bandhu. All the arts and sciences are interrelated and may be seen as manifold ways in which human nature expresses itself." [12]
2.
Freedom: The concept of "freedom" is beautifully expressed by the author in both the dharmic and the western framework. The reason for such difference in perceptions is also explained.
The dharmic perception of "freedom" is explained in terms of the following categories:-
i. Freedom to learn from within oneself.
ii. Freedom from conditioning and karma.
iii. Freedom from history and institutional authority.
iv. Freedom to choose a personal path (svadharma).
v. Freedom of choice of deity (ishta-devata).
The western perception of "freedom" is explained in the following manner:-
i. "Much of the western thinking presupposes an inherent tension between self and other at both the individual and collective levels. Such tension breeds a deep rooted anxiety about the way things are and the feeling that some external change is needed."
ii. "Hence, the western ego ferociously asserts itself with futile and dangerous attempts to manipulate the external world. The stronger the ego grows, the more anxious it becomes about what it does not possess, its very nature being to remain ever discontent."
iii. "The western idea of freedom has been defined by looking externally for a remedy for dukkha."
This explains why the west is always looking to "expand its empire" and why the erstwhile colonial powers had such pride in their "possessions". It also shows that "the west has been driven not by freedom but by the mandates of its self-image which require infinite expansion in a finite world. This is neither sustainable, nor scalable to include all humanity." [13]
The reasons for this widely different perception of "freedom" by westerners and Hindus may be attributed to the fundamental differences between Christianity and Hinduism. "Original sin gave Christians the notion of individuality that is stained by sin and hence lacking freedom. The solution, a free gift of grace, is deferred until the individual attains the beatific vision in heaven. Alternatively, in the second coming of Christ in the end times, those saved by Jesus will attain it collectively. In either case, freedom can never be fully present, so anxiety persists."
On the contrary, "real freedom in the Hindu and Buddhist sense is only attainable in the present moment as a result of inner work, but this notion was often lost sight in the west as it chased an illusory freedom lost in the past and projected into the future."
3. Influence of Christianity: It is important to understand the impact of Christianity on all spheres of life, not only during the dark ages, but also on later movements in the history of the west. In the same vein, the author describes five major 'synthetic' movements in the history of the west – starting from the emergence of Rome which established Christianity as a state religion and ending with the colonialist expansion – during which Christianity provided the moral justification.
While discussing the period of enlightenment, the author makes some profound observations on secularism which spawned the conflict between science and religion:-
i. "Descartes found himself caught in the crossfire between Galileo and the church. In 1633, he had to withdraw from publishing a book because it supported Copernicus's theory."
The dichotomy faced by Descartes is brilliantly expressed "Descartes the scientist believed in the machine model of the body operating under the laws of physics, but Descartes the devout catholic believed that the soul was free to obey or disobey god's commandments and face the consequences on the Day of Judgment."
Thus, a compromise was reached between these two irreconcilable views.
"He sought to resolve the conflict by formulating a mind/body dualism, according to which the body operates on material laws, whereas the soul and mind are entirely different substrates which operate as per the church doctrines."
"Thus the domains of science and the church were each defined in such a way that there was no overlap and hence no conflict."
However, this sham of secularism was so superficial that it becomes apparent to any keen observer.
"The enlightenment and subsequent modernist movements sought to throw off the dogma of Christianity in favour of a secular state, but here again the internal divisions "¦"¦ created instability and confusion. For the scientific revolution was not free of the old history centrism (inherent in Christianity) and the ego projection."
ii. The author reiterates the same point in chapter 6 by saying that "This conflict ridden science/religion substrate is illustrated by the curious mixture of secularism with biblical myth or superstition in the works of many famous western thinkers – both in science and in philosophy. This aspect of their work is often excluded in secular discussions."
"Francis bacon – considered the prophet of modern science sought a return to the state of Adam before the fall, a state of pure and sinless act with nature and knowledge of her powers"¦"¦ a progress back to Adam."
"Isaac newton was a fervent believer in the millennium and spent much of his time interpreting biblical philosophy."
"In Thomas hobbes' leviathan, the bible is cited 657 times and there is a similar trend in his other major political works."
The list of such examples – whose pretense of secularism was so shallow – is endless.
"Even Marxism, while attacking western religion, implicitly borrowed its underlying structure and grand narratives."
Bertrand Russell writes "The communist party – in the Marxist scheme – corresponds to the biblical church, the revolution to the second coming and the communist commonwealth to the millennium."
iii. The superficiality of this "schism" between science and religion becomes more apparent when deal with the period of colonialism.
"At the same time, both the sacred and the secular participated in the colonization, for although antithetical on the surface, both emerged from a religious and cosmological substrate in which strains of historical revelation and the forward march of science were mixed together."
Chapter 4 – Order and chaos
1.In this chapter, the author discusses how dharma is flexible with chaos whereas westerners feel uncomfortable and scared in a "disorderly" situation.
2.
Decentralization: Sri Aurobindo is quoted "Unity we must create, but not necessarily uniformity." He adds that "nature can afford the luxury of infinite differentiation since there is always the secure basis that the underlying immutability of the eternal always remains unaffected."
The author cites a brilliant example "India's kumbha mela amply demonstrates that diversity can be self-organized and not anarchic, even on a very large scale. There is no central organizing body, no 'event manager' to send out invites, nobody in charge to promote it, no centralized registration system to get admitted. Yet it the world's largest gathering of people from all strata.".
3.
The dialectic nature of western discourse: The author quotes directly from the bible "let there be light/ and there was light."(1:3) It further says "and god saw that light was good." (1:4).
Hence, "god establishes the binary categories of light and dark. Genesis then offers a slew of opposites: above and below; sea and dry land; sun and moon; good and evil, etc."
"The mutually exclusive categories of believer/heathen, true religion/false religion, deity/idol, history/myth etc.. are similar in that the first option in each pair is absolutely and exclusively valid, whereas the second option is absolutely dangerous. Not only is it negative, but it must be completely eradicated to restore order."
It is further explained that "The drastic either/or choices characteristic of western thinking mirror the exclusivism of the Abrahamic faiths, stretching back to the first of the Ten Commandments: 'Thou shall have no other gods before me'."
Roddam Narasimha is cited to articulate this point "The history of western science is shot through with the idea of theories and models and of fraud. Galileo, Newton, Mendel, Millikan, Ptolemy and many others were accused of fraud"¦. This can be traced to the faith in two-valued logic, namely the idea that answers have to be yes or no; models have to be true or false: there are no other options."
On the contrary, "Dharma deals pragmatically with behavior in particular circumstances rather than universal moral principles. Krishna deviates from the accepted norms when required to achieve the overall good of humanity. He suggests killing Drona, Karna and Duryodhana by means that would be unjust under normal circumstances."
The author later quotes Lannoy "Indian inclusiveness operates at a deeper level than the polarities of good and evil. In Indian ethics, good and evil are always relative, and a precise definition of intrinsically good or bad deeds is avoidable."
4. Finally, the author gives a brilliant analogy of the difference between India and the west in terms of "
dharmic forest and judeo-christian desert".
"Desert people crave greenery so much that it is their sacred colour (as in Islam). The oasis – a small life sustaining forest in the midst – is their destination. All their notions of eternal paradise are forests. But the converse is never true: forest cultures do not crave deserts. Forest-dwelling civilizations did not turn into world conquerors looking for alternative pastures; they found contentment at home."
The author further elaborates "The forest functions well as a metaphor for context-based cultures, revealing why people living in dharmic cultures are more comfortable with cognitive complexity. Of course, those who love the desert believe it can inspire awe and worship. Still, for many, it is easy to see the desert as a place of extremes – deep cold or burning heat, hunger or food, water or sand."
Chapter 5 – Non-translatable Sanskrit versus digestion
In this chapter, the author primarily asserts that "holding on to Sanskrit terms and thereby preserving the complete range of their meanings becomes a way of resisting colonization."
Sanskrit: He goes on to explain the discovery of Sanskrit from "root sounds and vibrations" and how this beautiful language is highly logical and connected with spiritual evolution of man. No wonder, it is touted as the "language of artificial intelligence by NASA scientists." [14]
Mistranslation of Sanskrit: He then goes on to list several non- translatable categories like vedas, which should not be confused with their common English translations, because then the whole meaning gets changed.
One very important category, that is commonly mistranslated, is "dharma ≠religion or law".
i. "The word 'dharma' has multiple meanings depending on the context in which it is used – including, but not limited to – conduct, duty, right, justice, virtue, morality, religion, religious merit, good work according to a rule etc.."
ii. "Dharma has no equivalent in the western lexicon."
iii. "Dharma provides the principles for the harmonious fulfillment of all aspects of life – namely, the acquisition of wealth and power (artha), fulfillment of desires (kama) and liberation (moksha)."
iv. "Religion is only a subset of dharma's range of meanings. Religion applies only to human beings and not to the entire cosmos; there is no religion of electrons, monkeys, plants and galaxies, whereas all of them have their dharma."
v. In a later chapter, the author mentions the adverse consequences of this mistranslation "The western idea of no religion in the public square has been interpreted by many Indians as no dharma in the public square. Secularized Indians have failed to appreciate that a society lacking dharma would be dangerously ambivalent towards ethical conduct.
The result of importing secularism into a dharmic society has thus been disastrous in many ways." [15]. A very interesting table is given in page 301 – it is quite hilarious when read from the dharmic perspective.
Chapter 6 – Contesting western universalism
1.In this chapter, the author states "the profound assumption" of the west that "the shape and direction of world history are leading to a single western goal – be it salvation or scientific secular progress."
2.
Cultural Appropriation: Germany is cited as a case study in "western digestion and synthesis".
"The French – as the inheritors of the renaissance – the center of European high culture , leaving the Germans without a similar narrative. In fact, textbooks across Europe at this time depicted Germans as the barbarians who had destroyed first the Roman Empire and then the high culture of Europe in France."
"India became a major source from which Germans began to construct their own identity." But "this romantic attraction for India and for the Sanskrit classical era in particular, was always self-serving."
For example, "Schlegel tried to separate Indian religion from Sanskrit texts in order to appropriate selectively the non-religious aspects of Sanskrit civilization into the German Christian identity. The romance for India gradually diminished, and Schlegel and other Germans began to see India as a primitive society with many evils."
3.
Friedrich Hegel: Hegel's myth of the west is cited as an example of western hegemony over world history.
"Hegel's world spirit is a synthetic unity encompassing all humanity. It privileges the west and those who do not fit into his scheme are not a part of history."
"Hegel dismisses Native Americans as 'obviously unintelligent' and speaks of them as 'unenlightened children' distinguished only by 'inferiority in all respects'. He also proclaims that India 'has no history'"
4. Finally, the author states that common responses to the challenge of western universalism – including secularism, postcolonial deconstruction and difference anxiety – have themselves been inadequate so far, and they have "been re-exported back to India in problematic forms."
Conclusion : Purva paksha and the way forward
1.In this final chapter, the author states that we must revive the old tradition of '
purva paksha' in order to discern the enemy and save our civilization.
2.Five "rules of engagement for effective purva paksha
" are explained :-
i. Level playing field where every agreement is mutually decided.
ii. The only intention must be to pursue the truth.
iii. No 'win-win' type of outcome should be forced upon.
iv. A preliminary mastery of the 'ego' through the serious practice of adhyatma vidya.
v. Thorough understanding of the opponent's traditions and theology.
3. "
Anticipated western responses" are listed, in which the author eloquently sums up the anticipated reactions from the west, if such a 'purva paksha' were to be held.
i.
Fundamentalist push-back: "significant numbers from these western religions will reject the premise and value of purva paksha", because "for such believers, respectful engagement with dharma is tantamount to dealing with the devil."
ii.
Open minded within the limits of history-centrism: "while some of them would be interested in it, a good many others would be unwilling to compromise the history-centrism and exclusivism which they hold to be central to their own religion."
iii.
: "a much smaller group of practitioners would be willing to call into question the core beliefs of the west.
"A subset would want to explore whether western notions at risk could be reformulated in the light of dharma.
"The further subset willing to travel the farthest consists of those who wish to advocate a wholesale translation of the essential spirituality of Judaism/Christianity into the dharmic paradigm. These seekers are willing to accept Jesus on par with other Hindu avatars." However, since these seekers "have not addressed their own cultural assumptions, there may be a tendency to settle for an abstract 'perennial philosophy' or else make a 'U-Turn' back to their former beliefs."
iv. "Rare is the western seeker who is able to follow through on his or her quest without such a volte-face. Rarer still is the one who is able to forge a completely new and individual path of spiritual achievement."
4. The author concludes by citing Gandhi as an example of someone who saw the inter civilisational encounter as the "kurukshetra where he performed his sva-dharma.
Observations of an Unconditioned Mind | My World View
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