Indian culture has been from the
beginning and has remained a spiritual, an inward-looking religio-philosophical
culture. Everything else in it has derived from that one central and original
peculiarity or has been in some way dependent on it or subordinate to it; even
external life has been subjected to the inward look of the spirit.
(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 20, The
Renaissance of India, p. 108)
It is
this inward-looking religio-philosophical culture which goes by the name of
Hinduism.
However,
in modern times, both in India and abroad, it is under severe attack and is
often branded as communal, narrow and reactionary.
Let us
therefore take a close look at the true and deeper meaning of Hinduism; we will
then be in a position to make a sound judgment and then follow it up by making
the necessary corrections and remove all the misunderstandings, genuine and
deliberate, that have recently cropped up.
In one of
his letters, Sri Aurobindo writes:
...as for Hindu
culture, it is not such a weak and fluffy thing as to be easily stamped out; it
has lasted through something like 5 millenniums and is going to carry on much
longer and has accumulated quite enough power to survive.
(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 35, Letters on
Himself and the Ashram, p. 208)
From
where does this power to survive emanate? Wherein lies the secret strength that
has enabled it to last so long and is even now considered by many enlightened
persons both in India and abroad as a powerful instrument for the betterment of
human life? To understand this phenomenon of survival, let us cast a quick look
at the history of civilizations and cultures. We see that all civilizations go
through the cycle of birth, growth and death. As a matter of fact, most of the
ancient civilizations have not survived and some have disappeared. This
phenomenon has been explained succinctly by Sri Aurobindo in the following
extract:
“A people, a great
human collectivity, is in fact an organic living being with a collective or
rather—for the word collective is too mechanical to be true to the inner
reality—a common or communal soul, mind and body. The life of the society like
the physical life of the individual human being passes through a cycle of
birth, growth, youth, ripeness and decline, and if this last stage goes far
enough without any arrest of its course towards decadence, it may perish,—even
so all the older peoples and nations except India and China perished,—as a man
dies of old age. But the collective being has too the capacity of renewing
itself, of a recovery and a new cycle. For in each people there is a soul idea
or life idea at work, less mortal than its body, and if this idea is itself
sufficiently powerful, large and force-giving and the people sufficiently
strong, vital and plastic in mind and temperament to combine stability with a
constant enlargement or new application of the power of the soul idea or life
idea in its being, it may pass through many such cycles before it comes to a
final exhaustion. Moreover, the idea is itself only the principle of soul
manifestation of the communal being and each communal soul again a
manifestation and vehicle of the greater eternal spirit that expresses itself
in Time and on earth is seeking, as it were, its own fullness in humanity
through the vicissitudes of the human cycles. A people then which learns to
live consciously not solely in its physical and outward life, not even only in
that and the power of the life idea or soul idea that governs the changes of
its development and is the key to its psychology and temperament, but in the
soul and spirit behind, may not at all exhaust itself, may not end by
disappearance or a dissolution or a fusion into others or have to give place to
a new race and people, but having itself fused into its life many original
smaller societies and attained to its maximum natural growth pass without death
through many renascences. And even if at any time it appears to be on the point
of absolute exhaustion and dissolution, it may recover by the force of the
spirit and begin another and perhaps a more glorious cycle. The history of
India has been that of the life of such a people.”
(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 20, The
Renaissance of India, pp 396-97)
The
Decline of Indian Culture
However, sometime in
the middle of the 19th century, it seemed and was thought by many
historians and observers that India was at the point of dissolution. The
society was steeped in superstition, manacled by primitive customs, and it
seemed that the sense of community had all but vanished. The country was facing
a crisis of immense proportions. The situation was similar to what India faced
in the 14th century.
At that time, the question was the continuity of India’s life – whether her
separate identity in culture, social organization, religion and thought would
be maintained or whether she would be merged in the expanding commonwealth of
Islam. Then, India was saved by the spiritual revival of the 14th and 15th
centuries.
This time the question was different – it was not the continuance of the Hindu
culture. Rather, the problem facing India now was the confrontation of a
superior, expanding and highly dynamic civilization with an old, static and as
it appeared decaying culture. Here was a civilization, which was convinced not
only of its own incomparable greatness, economic strength, and technological
and scientific superiority but was moved by a firm belief that the form of life
it represented was the final one to which all others must conform. Along with
this there was another problem that confronted Indian culture – it was the
relationship of Hinduism with Islam and the problem of their coexistence in the
new circumstances under the domination of a people alien to both. It was at
this critical moment that the Indian renaissance began and this was essentially
due to the manner in which Hinduism reacted to the foreign domination. This
reaction, which first started in Bengal, spread to all other parts of the
country and included all the fields of culture. The sole exception was in the
political field; for, till the end of the nineteenth century, British rule was
accepted as a beneficent development. Raja Rammohan Roy publicly thanked God
for having placed India under the British rule. Prasanna Kumar Tagore declared:
“If we were asked what government we would prefer, English or any other, we
would one and all reply English by all means, even in preference to a Hindu
government”.
Independent India
However
that might be, India recovered its strength and consequently in 1947 India
attained independence and formed its own government. We shall not go into the
political developments that took place since then. Suffice it to say that for
the last 40 years or more, the country has been badly divided between the so
called secularists and those who are called the communalists. This division
which has taken an acute form today and is creating serious political divisions
in the country is not a new phenomenon. It was there right from the beginning
of the twentieth century and was the root cause for the creation of Pakistan.
The
creation of Pakistan has only intensified this unfortunate division within
India. It now manifests itself as the clash between the force of secularism and
the force of pseudo-secularism. This latter force has been branded as communal
and is supposed to be represented by the ideology of Hindutva.
The aim
of this article is to show that this clash is based on a misunderstanding
between these two apparently opposing forces. This misunderstanding is in some
cases based on ignorance and often on deliberate misinformation due to
political reasons.
In this
article we are not concerned with the political aspect of the problem; we shall
try to get to the true meaning of Hinduism and try to dispel the ignorance that
is so rampant in India and abroad. We shall then see that there is no
incompatibility between the forces of secularism and Hinduism; on the contrary
they complement each other. It should then be possible to create a harmonious
and unified political atmosphere in the country.
We have
seen earlier in this article that a
people and culture which learns to live consciously not solely in its physical
and outward life, but in the soul and spirit behind, may not at all
exhaust itself. Another point that must be noted is that India is what it is
today because of Hinduism. As noted earlier, Indian culture is largely Hindu
culture. In the early part of the twentieth century Sri Aurobindo wrote:
Our ideal therefore is an Indian
Nationalism, largely Hindu in its spirit and traditions, because the Hindu made
the land and the people and persists by the greatness of his past, his
civilization and his culture and his invincible virility, in holding it, but
wide enough also to include the Moslem and his culture and traditions and
absorb them into itself.”
(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 8, Karmayogin,
p 305)
This is
the line we must pursue and in order to do that we must first be clear as to
what we mean and understand by Hinduism; we must be able to distinguish the
permanent element in Hindu culture and those elements that need to change. As
Sri Aurobindo wrote in the earlier part of the twentieth century:
“There is behind our imperfect
cultural figures a permanent spirit to which we must cling and which will
remain permanent even hereafter; there are certain fundamental motives or
essential idea-forces which cannot be thrown aside, because they are part of
the vital principle of our being and of the aim of Nature in us, our svadharma.
But these motives, these idea-forces are, whether for nation or for humanity as
a whole, few and simple in their essence and capable of an application always
varying and progressive. The rest belongs to the less internal layers of our
being and must undergo the changing pressure and satisfy the forward-moving
demands of the Time-Spirit. There is this permanent spirit in things and there
is this persistent swadharma or law of our nature; but there is too a less
binding system of laws of successive formulation,—rhythms of the spirit, forms,
turns, habits of the nature, and these endure the mutations of the ages,
yugadharma. The race must obey this double principle of persistence and
mutation or bear the penalty of a decay and deterioration that may attaint even
its living centre.”
(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 20, The
Renaissance of India, pp 86-87)
Let us therefore try
to disengage the fundamentals that make up the permanent spirit of Hinduism;
next we shall try to see the lesser binding system of laws that belong to the
external layers.
The Fundamentals
What
then are the fundamentals of Hinduism? If we are asked, “But after all what is
Hinduism, what does it teach, what are its fundamentals and what does it
practise?” we can answer that it is founded upon a few basic ideas or rather
fundamentals of a highest and widest spiritual experience.
1.
First comes the idea of the One Existence of the Veda to whom sages give
different names, the One without a second of the Upanishads, the Permanent of
the Buddhists, the Absolute of the Illusionists, the supreme God of the Theists
whether it be Vishnu, Shiva, Christ or Allah ,—in a word the Eternal, the
Infinite.
2.
The second characteristic feature of Hinduism is that the highest aim of life
and spiritual experience is to discover this Infinite and enter into some kind
or degree of unity with the Eternal. To arrive at this unity there are many
paths and disciplines.
3.
The third feature is that there are manifold way of man’s approach to the
Eternal and Infinite.
One
can follow this great spiritual aim by one of the thousand paths recognized or
even any new path which branches off from them and you are at the core of the
religion. Thus it respects all religions and approaches to the Highest.
The
next point to note is that Hinduism did not fix a gulf between the highest
supreme Existence and our external and material way of being. It was aware that
there were other psychological planes of consciousness and experience in
between and the truths of these planes were as real and tangible to it as the
outward truths of the material universe.
Each
man approached God at first according to his psychological nature svabhava, adhikara and gradually
increased his capacity for deeper experience. The level of Truth, the plane of
consciousness he could reach was determined by his inner evolutionary stage.
There follows the great variety of religious cults; but these are not imaginary
structures, inventions of priests or poets, but truths of a supraphysical
existence linking the physical world and the supreme consciousness of the
Absolute. And here in the limitations of the cosmos, God manifests himself and
fulfils himself in the world in many ways, but each is the way of the Eternal.
This is the reason why there are so many gods and diverse forms of worship in
the Hindu religion.
We
have here two fundamental principles of Hinduism: the principle of diverse
approaches to the Divine and the principle of graduality, which means that each
man grows according to his nature and stage of development.
The
final idea of strongest consequence at the base of Indian religion is the most
dynamic for the inner spiritual life. It is that while the Supreme or the
Divine can be approached through a universal consciousness, He can be met by
each individual soul in itself, in its own spiritual part, in the heart,
because there is something in it that is intimately one and intimately related
with the one divine Existence.
The
essence of Hinduism is to aim at so growing and so living that we can grow out
of the Ignorance which veils this self-knowledge from our mind and life and
become aware of the Divinity within us.
These things put together are the whole of Hindu religion,
its essential sense and, if any credo is needed, its credo.[1]
Once we
have seen these fundamentals and grasped them clearly, it becomes evident that
Hinduism is wide, tolerant and more important represents the true practice of
secularism. There is really no opposition between true secularism and Hinduism.
The External Layers
We shall
now identify those elements which belong to the less internal layers, and then
see how they can be changed, adapted and even removed where necessary to suit
the new conditions of the modern world and its values. And all this has to be
done without compromising on the fundamental values.
As an
example, let us take the fourfold caste system. There is no doubt that the
caste system as it is practised now is a great obstacle to human progress and
an insult to human values. However, whatever the degradation that has taken
place today, it cannot be denied that it was a fine system in the earlier
times. In the words of Sri Aurobindo:
“it was a well-devised and
necessary scheme in its time; it gave the community the firm and nobly built
stability it needed for the security of its cultural development,—a stability
hardly paralleled in any other culture. And, as interpreted by the Indian
genius, it became a greater thing than a mere outward economic, political and
social mechanism intended to serve the needs and convenience of the collective
life”.
(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 20, The
Renaissance of India, p 172)
And once
more in the words of Sri Aurobindo:
“this profoundly conceived cycle
gave a scheme which kept the full course of the human spirit in its view; it
could be taken advantage of by all according to their actual growth and in its
fullness by those who were sufficiently developed in their present birth to
complete the circle.
On
this first firm and noble basis Indian civilisation grew to its maturity and
became a thing rich, splendid and unique. While it filled the view with the
last mountain prospect of a supreme spiritual elevation, it did not neglect the
life of the levels. It lived between the busy life of the city and village, the
freedom and seclusion of the forest and the last overarching illimitable ether.
(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 20, The
Renaissance of India, pp 175-76)
However,
with the passage of time, this great institution became degraded and lost it
inner meaning. In the words of Sri Aurobindo:
“Apart from all phenomena of
decline or deterioration, we should recognise without any sophistical denial
those things in our creeds of life and social institutions which are in
themselves mistaken and some of them indefensible, things weakening to our
national life, degrading to our civilisation, dishonouring to our culture. A
flagrant example can be found in the treatment of our outcastes. There are
those who would excuse it as an unavoidable error in the circumstances of the
past; there are others who contend that it was the best possible solution then
available. There are still others who would justify it and, with whatever
modifications, prolong it as necessary to our social synthesis. The contention
is highly disputable. The excuse was there, but it is no justification for
continuance. A solution which condemns by segregation one sixth of the nation
to permanent ignominy, continued filth, uncleanliness of the inner and outer
life and a brutal animal existence instead of lifting them out of it is no
solution but rather an acceptance of weakness and a constant wound to the
social body and to its collective spiritual, intellectual, moral and material
welfare. A social synthesis which can only live by making a permanent rule of
the degradation of our fellowmen and countrymen stands condemned and foredoomed
to decay and disturbance. The evil effects may be kept under for a long time
and work only by the subtler unobserved action of the law of Karma; but once
the light of Truth is let in on these dark spots, to perpetuate them is to
maintain a seed of disruption and ruin our chances of eventual survival”.
(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 20, The
Renaissance of India, pp 89-90)
Similarly, we can take the
example of the place of the woman in society. In ancient India during the Vedic
times, man and woman were equal. One example is that there were a large number
of Rishipatnis who had the same stature as the Rishis. But in the course of
time there has been a general degradation. We now have to bring back the old
glory where man and woman will be given their full rights to grow according to
their own inner nature, their swadharma.
We can
apply this principle to many other external rituals of Hinduism. We should
however be careful in tackling these externals of Indian religion. The reason
is that for most human beings, rituals and some form of external worship is
indispensable. This is beautifully explained in the following words of Sri
Aurobindo:
“The highest spirituality indeed
moves in a free and wide air far above that lower stage of seeking which is
governed by religious form and dogma; it does not easily bear their limitations
and, even when it admits, it transcends them; it lives in an experience which
to the formal religious mind is unintelligible. But man does not arrive
immediately at that highest inner elevation and, if it were demanded from him
at once, he would never arrive there. At first he needs lower supports and
stages of ascent; he asks for some scaffolding of dogma, worship, image, sign,
form, symbol, some indulgence and permission of mixed half-natural motive on
which he can stand while he builds up in him the temple of the spirit. Only
when the temple is completed, can the supports be removed, the scaffolding
disappear. The religious culture which now goes by the name of Hinduism not
only fulfilled this purpose, but, unlike certain credal religions, it knew its
purpose. It gave itself no name, because it set itself no sectarian limits; it
claimed no universal adhesion, asserted no sole infallible dogma, set up no
single narrow path or gate of salvation; it was less a creed or cult than a
continuously enlarging tradition of the Godward endeavour of the human spirit.
An immense many-sided many-staged provision for a spiritual self-building and
self-finding, it had some right to speak of itself by the only name it knew,
the eternal religion, sanatana dharma. It is only if we have a just and right
appreciation of this sense and spirit of Indian religion that we can come to an
understanding of the true sense and spirit of Indian culture”.
(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 20, The
Renaissance of India, p 179)
Therefore
while making any changes we must not remove the scaffolding; whatever changes
are made should adjust to the modern values without touching the inner core.
Future of Hinduism
The final
task that Hinduism has to fulfil is to bring spirituality into life itself. If
Hinduism has to fulfil its true role in the renaissance of India, in the
rebirth of the soul of India, it must insist much more finally and integrally
than it has as yet done on its spiritual turn, on the greater and greater
action of the spiritual motive in every sphere of our living. This does not
mean eliminating religion; it simply means graduating from religion into
spirituality.
When one
studies the history of Hinduism, one will note that it has passed through two
complete external stages; while a third has taken its initial steps and is the
destiny of her future.
The early
Vedic was the first stage: then religion took its outward formal stand on the
natural approach of the physical mind of man to the Godhead in the universe,
but the initiates guarded the sacrificial fire of a greater spiritual truth
behind the form.
The
Purano-Tantric was the second stage: then religion took its outward formal
stand on the first deeper approaches of man’s inner mind and life to the Divine
in the universe, but a greater initiation opened the way to a far more intimate
truth and pushed towards an inner living of the spiritual life in all its profundity
and in all the infinite possibilities of an uttermost sublime experience.
There has
been long in preparation a third stage which belongs to the future. This
movement of the Indian spiritual mind has a double impulse. Its will is to call
the community of men, each according to his power to live in the greatest light
of all and found their whole life on some fully revealed power and truth of the
Spirit. But it has had too at times a highest vision which sees the possibility
not only of an ascent towards the Eternal but of a descent of the Divine
Consciousness and a change of human into divine nature. A perception of the
divinity hidden in man has been its crowning force. This is a turn that cannot
be rightly understood in the ideas or language of the European religious
reformer or his imitators. It is not what the purist of the reason or the
purist of the spirit imagines it to be and by that too hasty imagination falls
short in his endeavour. Its index vision is pointed to a truth that exceeds the
human mind and, if at all realised in his members, would turn human life into a
divine super-life. And not until this third largest sweep of the spiritual
evolution has come into its own, can Indian civilization be said to have
discharged its mission, to have spoken its last word and be functus officio,
crowned and complete in its office of mediation between the life of man and the
spirit.
Here is
an extract from the Mother pointing to the direction that India should take:
The division between
"ordinary life and "spiritual" life is an outdated
antiquity...
There is no “spiritual life”! It is still the old idea,
still the old idea of the sage, the sannyasin, the... who represents spiritual
life, while all the others represent ordinary life—and it is not true, it is
not true, it is not true at all.
If
they still need an opposition between two things—for the poor mind doesn’t work
if you don’t give it an opposition— if they need an opposition, let them take
the opposition between Truth and Falsehood, it is a little better; I don’t say
it is perfect, but it is a little better. So, in all things, Falsehood and
Truth are mixed everywhere: in the so-called “spiritual life”, in sannyasins, in
swamis, in those who think they represent the life divine on earth, all that—there
also, there is a mixture of Falsehood and Truth.
It
would be better not to make any division.
(Collected Works of the Mother,
Vol. 12, On Education, pp 401-02)
Finally,
a reminder to the Indian government that
“by following certain tempting directions she
may conceivably become a nation like many others evolving an opulent industry
and commerce, a powerful organisation of social and political life, an immense
military strength, practising power-politics with a high degree of success,
guarding and extending zealously her gains and her interests, dominating even a
large part of the world, but in this apparently magnificent progression
forfeiting its Swadharma, losing its soul. Then ancient India and her
spirit might disappear altogether and we would have only one more nation like
the others and that would be a real gain neither to the world nor to us. It
would be a tragic irony of fate if India were to throw away her
spiritual heritage at the very moment when in the rest of the world there is
more and more a turning towards her for spiritual help and a saving Light. This
must not and will surely not happen; but it cannot be said that the danger is
not there.”
(CWSA, Vol. 36, Autobiographical Notes, pp 503-504)
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