Friday, March 04, 2016

Dharma under the lens of legitimate social causes

With regards to your second point, I would say that please wait for the full series to appear--you will see why I closed the first part as such. With regard to the modern vedantins, these are not mere vedantins--they are yogis. And in my understanding of the dharmic tradition, the yogis are the best representatives of the tradition.

I do not think that the modern yogis are averse to "karma" and I do not think that the ancient yogis always and necessarily prescribed "karma." The necessity of "karma" ceases after a point in time when the being is fully involved in the divine but it can continue with the performance of "karma" as well. The difficulty with and the beauty of the dharma traditions is that they cannot be put in any form of binary or either/or. There is a tremendous flexibility with respect to how one approaches the divine. In this particular context, it can be with or without "karma" and if I understand the fundamentals of the dharma traditions, this is how it must have been in the ancient times as well. 

From what I can project, there was "karma" for all and sundry living within the confines of the society--guided by varnashrama and the stage of purushartha one was in--and when one stepped outside the confines of the society through sanyassa, the necessity of karma ceased. In addition, all Vedic karmas as explained by Sri Aurobindo in the "Secret of the Vedas" is that they had esoteric meaning attached to them. Once one reached the stage where one could dabble in the esoteric aspects of dharmic spirituality, the performance of karma was not binding.

Its a very nice article, Shri Kundan Singh. And the participation of the author of the article adds to the sheen. In the current era of Bourgeois exploiting the proliteriat, the ideology of left in this regard has relevance. The sort of inhuman conditions in which the labour is expected to work in factories, malls et al et al could not be explained in words.

In as much as the left remains in the political and intellectual arena to fight for the rights of labour, it is ok. But left does not have this as their exclusive agenda. They come with a heavy baggage of many intellectual nonsense which has to be rejected. And I hope your article has done justice in this regard clearly identifying their deception, ideas of fragmentation, their penchant for violence either explicit or implicit........ you called a spade a spade.

But whether we like it or not, the entire eco system of the country is sort of infected by this virus. The judiciary, intelligentsia, academia, arts, politics......... you name any social arena....... there they are....... the virus is omnipresent. The forces of Hindutva, perhaps I hope should have underestimated the might of this goliath and that speaks the problems / lack of strategy they face while facing this monster.

The article is nice vis.a.vis visualising the left monster. But it does not go to the next step of handling....... how to tame this monster and domesticate this creature as a harmless one.

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And the likes of Mir and Rahim Das........ are they part of the proud heritage of Hindustan? In my considered and informed opinion, yes.

This sufism is an alien cult. Ok. They were bitterly hated by the medieval powers that be which butchered them like they butchered Hindus. Then where do they stand?

I am not knowledgeable enough. May be a learned person like Shri.Kundan Singh may throw more light on this aspect.

From my limited understanding, they are somewhat sort of neither here nor there. But still, I hope they are a sort of bridge between Dharmic Hindu Darshanas and Adharmic mlecha darshanas, if I comprehend the phenomenon properly.

my two cents.

Krishna Kumar ji, Thank you for this post.

In my understanding the dharma tradition will need to take a very nuanced approach to the left. IMHO, taking a contrarian stance against the left may appeal to the base instincts of us humans but if we really want to raise the level of discourse with the left, their concerns with legitimate social causes will have to be incorporated and transcended. The full addressing the Indian left cannot happen in an article series--it is a larger endeavor, which will happen gradually and slowly. Thanks much for appreciating the article.

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