While
I too believe that most part of philosophy and literature of Sanathan Dharma
suffered from uncritical love as well as unloving criticism, the two extremes.
I
welcome such comments like the one you have written to me but unlike the article
you wrote to Hindu this one makes my adrenal work more than my brain. I
would like to point out certain things based on the observations made by you.
Of lately it has become a fashion and favorite past time to cry
foul and/resort to arm chair criticism about everyone who has /is doing
or attempting to do something really positive for spreading some aspects
of a very vast area of philosophy called Sanathan Dharma.
1]
There is no hard and fast rule as far as getting God's grace or enlightenment
is concerned. There are hundreds of examples in Hindu literature. There was
visionary, a drunken, unschooled truck driver who had visions of
spiritual philosophy of Sanathan Dharma several
years back and who went on to teach oriental philosophy .He wrote,
rather dictated, his visions to his girl friend when he was suffering from
cancer which was later on published as a book titled
"Secret Splendor" by Charles-Earnest-Essert available at the Theosophical society LIBRARY wherein he
writes clearly based on his visions that to get god's grace you need not
necessarily be a saint, a moral person, great intellect or even a sane person
as we understand sanity. Besides all these concepts of religion, rituals,
sadhanas are necessary for ordinary mortals, not for enlightened souls .You can read the reviews
of this book in the following link including mine http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Splendor-Charles-Earnest-Essert/dp/1889051136
In fact on the contrary only when we
go beyond the shackles of all these conditioning and presumptions we would be
free to receive and perceive enlightenment. I would like you to read books on
ILLUMINATI and books by many scholars like Rohit Metha's biography of
J.Krsihnamurthy and his works on kundalini, Gopi krishna's vast research on
kunadalini, Woodrof's works on serpent power etc all these people
have done extensive research on the
neuro-physical aspects of Kundalini as well as Tirumular's Tirumandiram and
Pathanjali's yoga suthras [incidentally I was lucky enough to read all these
,of course the translations of the last two] . When you read them you would
know, that those aspects of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's life which you seem
to derogatorily comment on, are either the result of or they were the
cause of enlightenment beyond normal, fallible human intellectual perception
with all its conditioning to which we are all accustomed to and probably the only
perception we know of or capable of knowing.
All those works talk about the
stimulation and /or impact of and on the psychedelic acids in the
brain as a cause or effect of kundalini power. This is the biochemical and
physiological manifestation of kundalini . That’s why if you read Illuminati
you would come across the experiments done with drugs to induce that [please
note I am neither advocating nor admonishing that method] .Many western
scholars including Arthur Koestler, Julian Huxley have also done such experiments.
Intense meditation creates a similar effect; you can know more about this if
you read the wonderful book s of Angarika Govinda on Meditation. As for as the
fallibility of our normal perception I would like you to refer to this entry in
my blog http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/02/real-perception.html
2]
Regarding Aryan invasion theory please read pages 71 and 72 of my book SWAMI VIVEKANANDA MY OBSERVATIONS
The hoax called "Aryan Invasion
Theory
“A
gentle, yet clear brushing off of the cobwebs of the so-called Aryan theory and
all its vicious corollaries is... absolutely necessary, especially for the
South [of India]; and a proper self-respect created by a knowledge of the past
grandeurs of the ancestors of the Aryan race – the great Tamils”. (CW, Vol.4:
Aryans and Tamilians, p.301.)
“[There
has been] speculation whether there was a distinct, separate race called the
Aryas living in Central Asia to the Baltic. [Also as to] so-called types - the
"blonde" and the "brunette". [But] the races were always
mixed. Coming to practical common sense from so-called historical imagination:
the Aryas in their oldest records were in the land between Turkistan and the
Punjab and Northwest Tibet.” (CW, Vol.4: India's Message to the World #13-18,
p.309.)
“The
Americans, the English, the Dutch and the Portuguese got hold of the poor Africans
and made them work hard while they lived; and their children of mixed birth
were born in slavery and kept in that condition for a long period. From that
wonderful example, the mind jumps back several thousand years and fancies that
the same thing happened [in India]; and our archeologist dreams of India being
full of dark-eyed aborigines, and the bright Aryan came from - the Lord knows
where. According to some, they came from Central Asia. There are patriotic
Englishmen who think that the Aryans were all red-haired. Others, according to
their idea, think that they were all black-haired. If the writer happens to be
a black-haired man, the Aryans were all black-haired! Of late, there was an
attempt made to prove that the Aryans lived on the Swiss lakes. I should not be
sorry of they had all been drowned there, theory and all. Some say now that
they lived at the North Pole. Lord bless the Aryans and their habitations! As
for the truth of these theories, there is not one word in our scriptures, not
one, to prove that the Aryan ever came from anywhere outside of India - and in
ancient India was included Afghanistan. There it ends. And the theory that the
shudra castes were all non-Aryans and that they were a multitude, is equally
illogical and equally irrational. It could not have been possible in those days
that a few Aryans settled and lived there with a hundred thousand slaves at
their command. These slaves would have eaten them up, made "chutney"
of them in five minutes. The only explanation is to be found in the
Mahabharata, which says that in the beginning of the Satya Yuga there was one
caste, the brahmins; and then, by difference of occupation, they went on
dividing themselves into different castes, and that is the only true and
rational explanation that has been given. And in the coming Satya Yuga all the
other castes will have to go back to the same condition.”(CW, Vol.3: The Future
of India, pp.292-293)
The
hoax called "Aryan Invasion Theory
“What
your European pundits say about the Aryans' swooping down from some foreign
land, snatching away the lands of the aborigines and settling in India by
exterminating them, is all pure nonsense, foolish talk! Strange that our Indian
scholars, too, say amen to them; and all these monstrous lies are being taught
to our boys! This is very bad indeed. I am an ignoramus myself; I do not
pretend to any scholarship; but with the little that I understand, I strongly
protested against these ideas at the Paris Congress [in 1901]. I have been
talking with the Indian and European savants on the subject, and hope to raise
many objection to this theory in detail, when time permits. And this I say to
you, to our pundits, also: "You are learned men; hunt up your old books
and scriptures, please, and draw your own conclusions." Whenever Europeans
find an opportunity, they exterminate the aborigines and settle down in ease
and comfort on their lands; and therefore they think the Aryans must have done
the same! The Westerners would be considered wretched vagabonds if they lived
in their native homes, depending wholly on their own internal resources; and so
they have to run wildly about the world seeking how they can feed upon the fat
of the land of others by spoliation and slaughter; and therefore they conclude
that the Aryans must have done the same! But where is your proof? Guess-work?
Then keep your fanciful guesses to yourselves! In what Veda, in what Sukta, do
you find that the Aryans came into India from a foreign country? Where do you get
the idea that they slaughtered the wild aborigines? What do you gain by talking
such nonsense?... India has never [exterminated weaker races and settled on
their lands for ever]. The Aryans were kind and generous; and in their hearts,
which were Large and unbounded as the ocean, and in their brains, gifted with
superhuman genius, all these ephemeral and apparently pleasant, but virtually
beastly practices never found a place.”( CW, Vol.5: The East and the West,
pp.534-537)".
3] Who are we to decide what is a normal brain and who or how
should be a GURU.
4] Finally I would like you to know
how and who was Vyasa? How and who was VALMIKI? Were they normal? How was even
Sri Ramana Maharishi? Only people who do not care for so called labels of
normal behavior can even in ordinary matters create an impact.
