Ruminations on Thinking...

It would perhaps be incorrect to say that in India, there is less or no distinction between the self and the non-self and that in fact the self is subordinated to either the divine or the cycle of karma and births. Or at least it would not be sufficient to say this.
It is generally assumed that the Self, the Ego is stronger in western modes of thinking. But I think that it is possible to suggest that in fact the apparent fuzziness between the self and the non-self in 'Indian' thinking is in fact due to the predominance of the Self. One only needs to look at the way knowledge is acquired and mastered in the Indian framework. [I think there are strong overlaps with some modes of Arabic thinking too, but this needs more thinking]. From classical music and dance, to the knowledge of plants and 'padaarthas' (elements in nature), to even arts of divinition and of Tantra knowledge is acquired not by establishing logical laws of nature, but by such detailed familiarity with that material realm which is being mastered that its secrets, its very intentions and workings become apparent - their nature is known, not their law of nature. In this then is discerned a moving law... But for this, entry is required by a strongly intention-ed Will, perhaps yes, not a Self, but a Will which will achieve this mastery. Surely yes, this process will not leave the person unchanged. And yes perhaps one can then suggest the curious relation between a strong Self and a bending Will or strong Will and bending Self, I don't know.

Secondly, think about rules such as those of Manu which declare that if a woman sleeps with another man when her husband is away for a long period, she is not punishable but is only so if she deliberately cheats on him. Is there not a curious recognition of desire in this, as a valid aspect of the lives of even ordinary people? So the morality related to adultry is not the Victorian one we are used to today.

Of course, it may be correct to ask, how representative Manu was of Indian thinking at a particular time and in fact also what context his writing emerges in - perhaps a period of reconciling more tribal and/or 'pagan'/proto-Hindu sorts of ways with other ideas of reform that were emerging at that time. Surely the views about the Self and the non-self would have varied greatly in the Advaita traditions and those of Manu and the Dharmashatras. So then, would the attitude to desire.

But it is useful again to broadly note that this recognition of desire even in formal documents, does not match the stereotype of the self-denying aspects of even later Hinduism. (though is Manu from later Hinduism or still in conversation with more of the Vedic forms?)

I wonder - Is there an integrated idea of the Self here? how can one be thinking of an individual as a Brahmin or Shudra only (note that adopting children among relatives even today remains quite common but only so within the community - which implies that one is not an individual, but one is also not of the whole society, but of the particular community/family/jaati) and yet also have a profound tradition of separation from community and the social, through systems like Sanyasa or even more mundane instances. Maybe, i make the mistake of trying at the same time to look at lived life and formal injunctions, to older and more recent periods of reform and change in the 'hindu traditions'.

Allowing freedom

Anyhow, I feel that when we talk to people, even and perhaps especially to those whom we consider narrow minded or conservative (its tough perhaps with strongly fundamentalist people) to interview them in ways that create an environment of exploration and pause and the fearless-ness that nothing is judged and so we can together go into a question, a quest. That in fact there is a possibility of a quest of knowledge, of thought and feeling… a manthan of sorts. This itself is a capacity that lies right at hand and is repeatedly lost…  we fill the silences of reflection, when the images/implications of our own words are being reflected back on us, and so we keep stating what we state, with all its contradictions and emptinesses. Surely contradiction is not a problem, but yet a freer person is more integrated, even while we may accept that there are a million ways of being integrated… in all this the challenge I encounter most is keeping my own mouth shut and allowing such spaces to emerge. And also I wonder, the data that emerges from such conversations, is it sociology? Can sociology capture a person in movement, rather than a person revealed? Is sociology interested? We think of sociology as therapeutic, assuming that its content will do the therapy. Perhaps sometimes sociology has to take a backseat to therapy, better still, to ‘lived freedom’. 

Questions Hindus must pose...

As a tradition that I am soaked in "H'm" is something that I like thinking with. Which is not to say that I see as any sort of unified tradition or as an Ism. In the public sphere, it may be treated as one, by some more intense kinds of followers, but that 'as such' is not my interest, though it informs my thinking about H'm.

With this as a sort of starting idiom, I find it wonderful to plunge into all other forms of religious and non religious thought, perhaps in a sense loosing the very category of H'm which perhaps was never there from the beginning!

As against the wonderful tradition of Christianity, which combines effectively with modern reason and science is some of its forms, what is H'm relation and response to modern times. Apart from somewhat simplistic celebrations of seeing all science in ancient Hindu thought?

Of this too is symptomatic of the particular position of Hinduism. As a spiritual tradition that was concerned with direct encounter with truth and reality it does offer another kind of access to objective truth (objective not as 'object' related). in this manner H'm is both contesting and in agreement with science. That discoveries in recent science seem to agree with several eastern knowledges is not incidental surely. But how then can Vedantic forms of H'm work with science and more importantly with democracy, equality, emancipation and justice? Can they at all? In sofar as H'm and even Buddhism to some extent see what happens in the world as a larger working of destiny, cause and effect and the natural ebb and flow of consciousness what form of intervention can they take. How does the image of un-grounded, creative, modern man work with an approach that effaces the social, wordly self? How also does H'm seem to talk quite comfortably with the well-to-do, saying that wealth can co-exist with spiritual life - that those with money can share it and thus spread the fruits of wealth in the world? How is it that Hinduism doesn't seem to propound simple, ethical living? simple living is immediately associated with ascetic withdrawal. there is an acceptance that 'in-the-world' one must lives with the elements, with the gunas, with imperfection, with inequality, war and violence? Why for instance does Krishna see War to be Arjuna's legitimate duty and path to glory? (of course, we know that this is also somewhat rhetorical, one of the many means of convincing used by Krishna; and also when seen allegorically the war can be seen as an inner war. Yet the fact remains). How, when we have different ideas of people at different levels of spiritual development, can we treat all in the same manner?

This is not to deny that there is a strong bhakti tradition etc.. wherein it is clear that spiritual attainment and ability and even propensity at birth has little to do with caste or family background. and in fact this is not just the bhakti tradition but perhaps was always so... Then is it that we just interpreted Hinduism very selectively in modern times? Obviously, social justice was not an explicit concern in earlier Hinduism as far as we know. But perhaps that is the form of the tradition which in one sense IS quite individualistic? those who were interested in spiritual inquiry were always a class of their own. but precisely this, again meant that while in-the-world, one would remain caught in a system of distinction. But yet again, this realm was one of Maya and worldly attachment, which itself without fail will create gunas, difference, dispersion, inequality.

Meanwhile, I wonder, and think that there may be a strong possibility to bring together ideas of strong freedom and moving away from social norms in Hindu liberal thought and modernity that posits not paternalistic, rights based, social justice based liberalism but precisely a post-rights bases concept of universal man. Of course this is a tall idea, and perhaps a bit conceited. Because, i do think that this cannot be done without infusing ethical thinking in Hinduism - something that is mostly in thin supply today. in an unequal world, the rich hindu or the middle class hindu must accept that his wealth mostly does not come without a price to someone else, that he must not simply celebrate merit or hard work without looking into the actual content of his work. without this, the talk of the oneness of all consciousness seems somewhat hollow.

more later...

Meanwhile how does one understand the strong sense of the rasa of life, the image of Shiva who is the highest in the spiritual domain but yet precisely the god of dance, music, is less ritualistic and lives with snakes and sundry spirits and ghosts and in graveyards. At once relating to death and life, to rasa and yet a victorious against kaama. Is not rasa, also indicating that real spiritual understanding does not hold by distinctions, even in-the-world? Shiva Bhaktas - for instance as shown in the recent Mahadev serial are actually simple and ethical even if they may be affluent. of course the recent serial comes in the context of modern ideas of social justice as well as a complex engagement with Christianity and Islam already having occoured historically. So is this a H'm already assimilated with the Others, that some fundamentalists are fighting? and then havent they already lost the battle, because they precious religion is already, beautifully corrupted, assimilated? The magnanimous H'm that is attacked for engulfing the identity of all other religions, by several 'left-liberals', is also utterly infused with other sensibilities...? Can the ultimate assimilator escape this wonderful destiny? In the end as thinkers of H'm we can perhaps only talk of traditions of thought, that abound in this pantheon but not of any Ism that can or must be defended. Perhaps the only Ism that remains then does dissolve into world spirituality that conducts many conversations with science, reason and wit other religions.

Yet maybe some unique traditions, stem from its situated tendencies in the subcontinent. The form of spirituality that emanates from this churning, relates most strongly to what could be called psychological freedom - the ability of self awareness, watching, inquiry, that lays bare the working of the mind and flow of thought. Lays bare in utter simplicity - not through psychological categories but through a falling away of knots and complexity. Accompanied by an openness to love - for the self yes and also a generalised love, best not opposed to rasa (though not necessarily overtly relating to it) this allows a powerful grounding in the ungrounded self... form where the fears that relate to social distinction can slowly reduce. where one can relate to the world as, is commonly said in motivational messages these days, 'being yourself'. Where one behaves with people in a manner that welcomes them without judgement and thus also opens the boundaries that they have reconciled to live with... a free, alive, univeral human (and if fact beyond human too) relation is thus possible. 

The Only Real Education

I spend my day reading and thinking about the meaning of education, about how best are people taught and liberated, can anyone ever teach anyone, is education liberating at all or is it a mere socialisation.

I read theorists who argue that teachers, academics and philosophers present knowledge as obscure and unreachable perpetuating the divide between the knower and the ignorant. I read other thinkers who want to free man, free him from the disciplinary practices that define truths for them and want man to finds other ways out of the truths that enframe him.

This restless energy sends us forth on journeys of emancipation. They are especially restless because now we are told that there is not truth to be found anyway. F celebrates the modern present in which man can invent himself again and again. With Man and not God as the center of this modern time, there are not moral bases to live life. Perhaps there never were. We then must strive to be free, but to what end!

A recent incident threw a very different light on this. In the death of a distant relative, one saw a related kind of pain and journey. At the death of a 92 year old man, his wife, who has been married to him since perhaps her teen years, is completely lost. They were both teachers in the village school, respected, disciplined and decently settled couple who lived all their life in their ancestral village home in Haryana. Their children are elsewhere and visit at intervals. The couple were traditional but close and very much in love and affectionate.

They were a couple typicial to the self-made, disciplined variety of those early 1900s in India. Their children are not like them - they are dissipated, taken to a more consumerist lifestyle. The village around them has changed over the years, overrun by nearby Delhi culture. The two teachers taught all their life. Our lady, was given to lay philosophising and also gave spontaneous talks on the Gita to women of the community. She always spoke a lot and was quite 'forward' for her times. Believing that children should do, marry as they please and study well and develop good minds and thoughts. She still thinks that way. Compelled to speak, perhaps more so now, to fill her immense pain and silence, she talks on. But now the positive and strong words, are mixed with slippages into helpless meaninglessness. The house that was kept in complete order earlier by her husband, as she sat with a recently semi-paralysed body, is now taken over by her children and grandchildren. 'Sacred' places that were not mishandled by others are now helter skelter. She faces a life that is lonlier and will most probably not be on her terms. As the village moves along, although remembering the well-regarded couple, their teachings may have borne little fruit. Perhaps some seeds lie somewhere, slowly waiting their time. But for her, for now, the teaching is turned back on herself.

"I used to give so many discourses and talks. Look now, i must give these teachings to myself now"! she exclaims. The soul in torture speaks of its own pain and its path in such clarity. But the pain remains yet.

Scribbles...

The world of words and ideas, or confessions and sharings, of advices and travel experiences is so proliferated. You can loose yourself in the becoming of others!