Thursday, March 3, 2016

Spirituality that Bharat represents

RW columnists have no other option but to borrow theoretical ammunition from Sri Aurobindo for combating the Left. http://seof.blogspot.in/2016/03/vision-of-sri-aurobindo-where-utopia-of.html …

Though I do not deny that there have been some Sufis directly involved with conversion in India but I have enough knowledge and experience--actually extensive-of listening to Sufi qauwallis to say that there is a substantial chunk of Sufi thought which represents Vedantic non-dualism and extreme bhakti of the dwaita kind. You may not agree with me but by equating Sanatna Dharma only with the known dharmic traditions of Bharat, we not only do harm to the Sanatana Dharma but also to the spirituality that Bharat represents. It is in this context that you would want to know that traditional Islam has persecuted the Sufis quite severely--it considers them heretics.

I do not even deny that many Sufis may have been political and in cahoots with Traditional Islam vis a vis Hindus aka kafirs. However it is also true that some of them have spoken about Union and Oneness with God. The question is whether they have appropriated it from Vedanta for conversion of Hindus or if it was their sheer quest to unite with God that they took to the Vedantic ideal is a matter of perspective and opinion. Given that the cost of the practice of Sufism was death at times, I would rather want to think that it was their preoccupation with complete union with God that they gravitated towards it. 

Were some of them scoundrels? I do not deny it. But I would rather want to highlight the best among them than the scoundrels. This is the power of the land of Bharat. There is no country, no civilization, no tradition in the world that speaks about the oneness of humanity, oneness of humanity with divinity, oneness with everything animate and inanimate. In my humble opinion, Hindus and protector of Hinduism would not want to forget this very core of the very tradition that they are trying to protect otherwise in the very effort to protect it, they may destroy it. But this does not mean that we should not be aware of hostile forces but if we only focus on the hostile and the negative, then we forget the shining citadel, the very core of dharma.

What you say about contemporary Vedanta is extremely simplistic--Contemporary Vedanta is represented through yogis par excellence like Sri Aurobindo, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ramana Maharishi, Devraha Baba, Paramhans Yogananda, and others. None of them have rejected the Vedas, and in fact people like Sri Aurobindo have taken extra pains to explain the esoteric truths behind the Vedas--please see his works like "Secret of the Vedas," and "Hymns to the Mystic Fire." Some of the above may have only focussed on Vedanta but that does not mean that they rejected the Vedas.

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