Non Fiction Authors From India

"'These protagonists of separatism argue that these 'tribals' worship things like trees, stones and serpents. Therefore they are 'animists' and cannot be called 'Hindus'. Now this is something which only an ignoramus who does not know the ABC of Hinduism will say. (..) Do not the Hindus all over the country worship the tree? Tulasi, bilva, ashwattha are all sacred to the Hindu. (...) The worship of Nâg, the cobra, is prevalent throughout our country. (...) Then, should we term all these devotees and worshippers as 'animists' and declare them as non-Hindus?'"

"Guruji Golwalkar was the second head of the RSS after Hedgewar, who founded the organization in 1925. He was a mild mannered schoolteacher with a philosophical bent of mind. His main work is a Bunch of Thoughts, which is a collection put together from his many talks and articles. In it I found a clear analysis of the social problems of Hinduism and of modern India with both practical and spiritual solutions to the problems. Golwalkar gave a clear critique of culture showing the dangers of materialism, communism and missionary religions and suggested a dharmic alternative based upon Hindu and yogic teachings. The book was like an application of the thought of Vivekananda and Aurobindo to the social sphere. I was also surprised to know that such a deep and flexible approach was branded as fundamentalist by leftists in India."

"In articles of that category, used unquestioningly as source in the majority of introductions to Hindu Nationalism, the targeted Golwalkar book would ... [be] his slim maiden volume, We, Our Nationhood Defined (1939). That attempt at ideological contemplation of the political challenges before Hindu society has earned notoriety because of two overquoted passages... [I] found this common allegation, present in every introductory text on Hindutva, totally wanting.... This oft-quoted passage is irrelevant for the contemporary debates, except to show to what mendaciousness secularists and foreign India-watchers can stoop..."

"Trying to corner an opponent with an unfortunate but peripheral quotation from his own past works is considered as intellectually dishonest and just not sportsmanlike. How radically different is the treatment which the Hindutva leader Guru Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar gets. In his case, his mature writings are quoted only rarely as compared with his first booklet, We... By contrast, the doctrine of Integral Humanism, formulated by BJS ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya in 1965, which is the official ideology of the BJP, and to which every BJP member has to swear allegiance, is not even mentioned in the vast majority of publications on Hindutva... Due to academic and mediatic power equations, so many dirty tricks with which you would never get away in a normal debate, are standard practice in writings and TV documentaries on Hindutva... The impression of his Nazi connection was created by intentionally dishonest methods, essentially by misinforming the readership through selective quoting, and by falsely presenting secondary comment as primary information."

"The single oftest-quoted Hindutva statement in the whole Hindutva-watching literature is definitely the [the one] from Golwalkar's We... Till today, and even in academic publications, it is very common to see the anti-BJP rhetoric built entirely on these few sentences in Golwalkar's pamphlet of more than sixty years ago.... That alleged Golwalkar quotations turn out to be excerpted from the invective of his critics, is symptomatic of Hindutva-watching in general: first-hand information is routinely spurned in favour of hostile second-hand claims made by unscrupled commentators. In most journalistic and academic publications on Hindutva, the number of direct quotations is tiny in comparison with quotations from secondary, hostile sources."

"The image of M.S. Golwalkar (1906-73) has posthumously been narrowed down to just two infelicitous and embarrassing quotations from his first book, one that he himself had repudiated early in his career as RSS leader. If read judiciously and within their context, they are by far not as incriminating as various anti-Hindu polemicists would like to have us believe. In particular, contrary to the common allegation, they do not prove that Golwalkar was a Nazi sympathizer, nor that he had mass murder in mind as the solution for the problems Hindu society experienced with its Muslim and Christian minorities. So, clearly the RSS could defuse the negative-publicity bomb which its enemies claim to have dug up from We, if only it had the intellectual wherewithal to properly analyze the text and then, if this proves to be the right course, to clearly disown specifically what must be disowned. But instead it is satisfied to bury the book, refusing to discuss its contents or even to make it available to readers of Golwalkar's "complete works". Like in decades past, it still prefers to look the other way, intimidated by the total control of the mediatic and intellectual domain by India's anti-Hindu coalition of Islamic, Christian and Marxist polemicists. As so often, it is playing by the rules its enemies have imposed rather than changing the power equation through a sincere intellectual effort. It is a welcome development that Golwalkar's followers finally acknowledge that their Guruji has committed mistakes too. But whatever his faults, shouldn't they resolve that he deserved better than to be censored? Wouldn't they render a better service to his memory as well as to the Hindu cause by subjecting his book to a close and frank reading rather than to the silent treatment?"

"He is denounced as a fascist on the basis of two passages in a single booklet written at the start of his career. By such criteria, most famous people who are quoted as authorities on moral and political matters could be crucified on a handful of less felicitous lines in their complete works. However, this unfair treatment happens to be prevalent and is partly the result of the poor defence Golwalkar's followers have given him in the opinion-making domain. Public figures and social movements have to live in the real world and take the sheer facts of the power equation in the public sphere into account. As long as Golwalkar has not been disentangled from this identification with the worst handful of lines in his repertoire, it is most unwise and self-destructive to be seen glorifying him. ... According to the Times of India's Akshaya Mukul (9 March 2006), "We is considered the basic charter of Sangh". Whether this is yet another Marxist lie or just an instance of the stark ignorance of the present generations of journalists, I don't know, but the claim is at any rate untrue. .... And more importantly for us today, the book hasn't played any such role since at least 1948, when the remaining stock of its fourth print was confiscated during the crackdown on all Hindutva forces after the murder of Mahatma Gandhi. The book was never reprinted after that, so that over 99% of all Sangh activists now alive have never even seen a copy. ... Indeed, it was Golwalkar himself who vetoed any further reprints of We. The late K.R. Malkani and other RSS elders told me that Guruji had mused about the book's "immaturity". ... The quotes are so popular and by now worn out precisely because they are not representative for RSS thought. In my interviews and conversations with hundreds of Sangh leaders and activists, including in confidential settings where they let their guard down, I have never ever heard anyone cite Golwalkar's "race pride" quote nor make any statement to the same effect. If it were representative, then certainly it shouldn't be difficult to find more recent statements to the same effect. To be sure, attempts have been made to find or rather to fabricate such more recent RSS statements, vide the false presentation of a Gujarat textbook issued under Congress rule as a BJP textbook and then claiming, equally falsely, that it discussed Nazism without mentioning the Holocaust. Such attempts do show in passing how the Marxists realize that their single piece of evidence for "Hindu fascism", even if it had been strong in itself, is a bit dated and in need of being supplemented with more recent expressions of the same ideological tendency."

"When Hindu revivalist sources are quoted at all, preference is given to sources or statements which put the movement in a bad light. The most frequently quoted Hindu nationalist publication in the secondary literature is RSS leader Guru Golwalkar's We, our Nationhood Defined, a rambling pamphlet written in 1938, a juvenile mistake which Golwalkar himself withdrew from circulation in 1948, and which the vast majority of living Hindu nationalists has never read. Hindutva-watchers just can't get enough of it: the majority of Golwalkar quotations in scholarly literature is taken from that pamphlet, though he was not the RSS supremo at the time (while his numerous later statements made when he was, are given much less attention) and though he himself later repudiated it."

"Without dynamic conquering spirit, even devotion to a divine cause will be of little avail In this hard world which is an arena for trial of strength with brute forces, mere goodness or noble virtues will not hold the field for a single moment. That is why we find that in spite of all the piety, goodness and devotion to God all through the past thousand years, we were trampled under the feet by foreign aggressors who, though total strangers to goodness and virtue, had a passion for heroic action and organised effort."

"Conversion of Hindus into other religions is dangerous to the security of the nation and the country. It is therefore necessary to put a stop to it. It is by exploitation of poverty, illiteracy and ignorance, offering of inducement and by deceptive tactics that people are converted. It is but right that this unjust activity is prohibited. It is a duty we have to discharge towards protecting our brethren in ignorance and poverty."

"It has been the tragic lesson of the history of many a country in the world that the hostile elements within the country pose a far greater menace to national security than aggressors from outside. Is it true that all pro-Pakistani elements have gone away to Pakistan? It was the Muslims in Hindu majority provinces led by U.P. who provided the spearhead for the movement for Pakistan right from the beginning. And they have remained solidly here even after Partition. In those elections Muslim League had contested making the creation of Pakistan its election plank. The Congress also had set up some Muslim candidates all over the country. But at almost every such place, Muslims voted for the Muslim League candidates and the Muslim candidates of Congress were utterly routed. NWFP was an exception. It only means that all the crores of Muslims who are here even now, had en bloc voted for Pakistan. Have those who remained here changed at least after that? Has their old hostility and murderous mood, which resulted in widespread riots, looting, arson, raping and all sorts of orgies on an unprecedented scale in 1946-47, come to a halt at least now? It would be suicidal to delude ourselves into believing that they have turned patriots overnight after the creation of Pakistan. On the contrary, the Muslim menace has increased a hundred fold by the creation of Pakistan which has become a springboard for all their future aggressive designs on our country."

"[Given the Hindu-tribal continuity, Guru Golwalkar proposed that for the integration of tribals and untouchables, one and the same formula applies:] 'They can be given yajñopavîta (...) They should be given equal rights and footings in the matter of religious rights, in temple worship, in the study of Vedas, and in general, in all our social and religious affairs. This is the only right solution for all the problems of casteism found nowadays in our Hindu society.'"

"Many workers appear to take a delight in blaming others for all ills. Some may put the blame on the political perversities, others on the aggressive activities of the Christians or Muslims and such other faiths. Let our workers keep their minds free from such tendencies and work for our people and our Dharma in the right spirit, lend a helping hand to all our brethren who need help and strive to relieve distress wherever we see it. In this service no distinction should be made between man and man. We have to serve all, be he a Christian or a Muslim or a human being of any other persuasion; for, calamities, distress and misfortunes make no such distinction but afflict all alike. And in serving to relieve the sufferings of man let it not be in a spirit of condescension or mere compassion but as devoted worship of the Lord abiding in the heart of all beings, in the true spirit of our dharma of surrendering our all in the humble service of Him who is Father, Mother, Brother, Friend and Everything to us all. And may our actions succeed in bringing out the Glory and Effulgence of our Sanatana-Eternal - Dharma."

"The Christians committed all sorts of atrocities on the Jews by giving them the label “Killers of Christ”. Hitler is not an exception but a culmination of the 2000-year long oppression of the Jews by the Christians."

"By showing that the Hindus are mere upstarts and squatters on the land (as they themselves are in America, Australia and other places!), they can set up their own claim. For then neither the Hindus nor the Europeans are indigenous and as to who should possess this land becomes merely a matter of superior might. ... No, the European... will never cease duping us into believing that we have no more right to this land than he has."

"(...) in order to confer their lost Nationality upon exiled Jews, the British with the help of the League of Nations began to rehabilitate the old Hebrew country, Palestine, with its long lost children. The Jews had maintained their race, religion, culture and language; and all they wanted was their natural territory to complete their Nationality. The reconstruction of the Hebrew Nation on Palestine is just an affirmation of the fact that Country, Race, Religion, Culture and Language must exist unequivocally together to form the Nation idea."

"The foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no ideas but those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture [...] or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment - not even citizen's rights."

"To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the semitic Races - the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by."

"There is pleasure when a sore is scratched, But to be without sores is more pleasurable still. Just so, there are pleasures in worldly desires, But to be without desires is more pleasurable still."

"Even if you seek to harm an enemy, You should remove your own defects and cultivate good qualities. Through that you will help yourself, And the enemy will be displeased."

""I am not, I will not be. I have not, I will not have." That frightens all the childish And extinguishes fear in the wise."

"Due to having faith one relies on the practices, Due to having wisdom one truly knows. Of these two wisdom is the chief, Faith is its prerequisite."

"If you think you see both Destruction and becoming, Then you see destruction and becoming Through impaired vision."

""I, without grasping will pass beyond sorrow, And I will attain nirvāṇa," one says. Whoever grasps like this Has great grasping."

"No suffering is self-caused. Nothing causes itself. If another is not self-made, How could suffering be caused by another? If suffering were caused by each, Suffering could be caused by both. Not caused by self or by other, How could suffering be uncaused?"

"Dr. Hong [Tao-Tze, master of the qigong menpai Tai Ji Men,] and his dizi had a very painful experience of what the “lack of conscience” is. The lack of conscience of corrupted bureaucrats and officers created the Tai Ji Men case. The great Buddhist sage Nagarjuna (150–250) wrote in his “Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom” that the greatest master is the one capable of “changing poison into medicine.” It is because they experienced the poison of the lack of conscience that Dr. Hong and his dizi were able to administer to the world the medicine of conscience. That we celebrate today the proves that the medicine has been effective."

"If you desire ease, forsake learning. If you desire learning, forsake ease.How can the man at his ease acquire knowledge, And how can the earnest student enjoy ease?"

"Although you may spend your life killing, You will not exhaust all your foes. But if you quell your own anger, your real enemy will be slain."

"The accomplishments of a teacher of ants Are but accomplishments for earning a living. But the study of the termination of earthly incarnation— Why should that not be the accomplishment?"

"To those possessed of breeding, learning, handsome looks, Who have no wisdom, neither discipline, you need not bow. But those who do have these two qualities, Though lacking other virtues, you should revere."

"Even three times a day to offer Three hundred cooking pots of food Does not match a portion of the merit In one instant of love."

"Without hope of reward Provide help to others. Bear suffering alone, And share your pleasures with beggars."

"This whole universe, with all its vastness, grandeur and beauty, is nothing but sheer imagination. In spite of so many discoveries, researches and scientific knowledge, the creation remains a great unsolved riddle."

"CONSCIOUSLY or unconsciously, every living creature seeks one thing. In the lower forms of life and in less advanced human beings, the quest is unconscious; in advanced human beings, it is conscious. The object of the quest is called by many names — happiness, peace, freedom, truth, love, perfection, Self-realisation, God-realisation, union with God. Essentially, it is a search for all of these, but in a special way. Everyone has moments of happiness, glimpses of truth, fleeting experiences of union with God; what they want is to make them permanent. They want to establish an abiding reality in the midst of constant change. It is a natural desire, based fundamentally on a memory, dim or clear as the individual’s evolution may be low or high, of his essential unity with God; for, every living thing is a partial manifestation of God, conditioned only by its lack of knowledge of its own true nature. The whole of evolution, in fact, is an evolution from unconscious divinity to conscious divinity, in which God Himself, essentially eternal and unchangeable, assumes an infinite variety of forms, enjoys an infinite variety of experiences and transcends an infinite variety of self-imposed limitations. Evolution from the standpoint of the Creator is a divine sport, in which the Unconditioned tests the infinitude of His absolute knowledge, power and bliss in the midst of all conditions. But evolution from the standpoint of the creature, with his limited knowledge, limited power, limited capacity for enjoying bliss, is an epic of alternating rest and struggle, joy and sorrow, love and hate, until, in the perfected man, God balances the pairs of opposites and transcends duality. Then creature and Creator recognise themselves as one; changelessness is established in the midst of change, eternity is experienced in the midst of time. God knows Himself as God, unchangeable in essence, infinite in manifestation, ever experiencing the supreme bliss of Self-realisation in continually fresh awareness of Himself by Himself. This realisation must and does take place only in the midst of life, for it is only in the midst of life that limitation can be experienced and transcended, and that subsequent freedom from limitation can be enjoyed."

"The value of material things depends upon the part they play in the life of the spirit. In themselves they are neither good nor bad. They become good or bad according to whether they help or hinder the manifestation of Divinity through matter. Take for example the place of the physical body in the life of the spirit. It is a mistake to set up an antithesis between “flesh” and “spirit.” Such contrast almost inevitably ends in an unqualified condemnation of the body. The body obstructs spiritual fulfillment only if it is pampered as having claims in its own right. Its proper function is rightly understood as ancillary to spiritual purposes. The rider needs a horse if he is to fight a battle, though the horse can become an impediment if it refuses to be completely submissive to his will. In the same way the spirit needs to be clothed in matter if it is to come into full possession of its own possibilities, although the body can at times become a hindrance if it refuses to be compliant with the requirements of the spirit. If the body yields to the claims of the spirit as it should, it is instrumental in bringing down the kingdom of heaven on earth. It becomes a vehicle for the release of divine life, and when it subserves this purpose it might aptly be called the temple of God on earth."

"The essence of spirituality does not consist in a specialised or narrow interest in some imagined part of life, but in a certain enlightened attitude to all the various situations which obtain in life. It covers and includes the whole of life. All the material things of this world can be made subservient to the divine game, and when they are thus subordained they become auxiliary to the self-affirmation of the spirit."

"The life of the spirit is the expression of Infinity and, as such, knows no artificial limits. True spirituality is not to be mistaken for an exclusive enthusiasm for some fad. It is not concerned with any “ism.” When people seek spirituality apart from life, as if it had nothing to do with the material world, their search is futile."

"When once true adjustment between spirit and matter is secured there is no phase of life which cannot be utilised for the expression of divinity. No longer is there any need to run away from everyday life and its tangles. The freedom of the spirit, which is sought by avoiding contact with the world and by going to the caves or mountains, is a negative freedom. When such retirement is temporary and is meant to digest worldly experiences and develop detachment it has its own advantages. It gives breathing time in the race of life. But when such retirement is grounded in fear of the world or lack of confidence in the spirit, it is far from helpful towards the attainment of real freedom. Real freedom is essentially positive and must express itself through unhampered dominion of the spirit over matter. This is the true life of the spirit."

"Meher Baba’s teaching gives no importance to creed, dogma, caste or the performance of religious ceremonies and rites, but does to the UNDERSTANDING of the following seven Realities:"

"When the bubble of ignorance bursts the self realizes its oneness with the indivisible Self. Words that proceed from the Source of Truth have real meaning. But when men speakthese words as their own, the words become meaningless."

"There are no divisions as such, but there is an appearance of separateness because of ignorance. This means that everything is of ignorance and that every one is Ignorance personified."

"Supremacy over others will never cause a man to find a change in himself; the greater his conquests the stronger is his confirmation of what his mind tells him—that there is no God other than his own power. And he remains separated from God, the Absolute Power. But when the same mind tells him that there is something which may be called God, and, further, when it prompts him to search for God that he may see Him face to face, he begins to forget himself and to forgive others for whatever he has suffered from them. And when he has forgiven everyone and has completely forgotten himself, he finds that God has forgiven him everything, and he remembers Who, in reality, he is."

"Whether men soar to outer space or dive to the bottom of the deepest ocean they will find themselves as they are, unchanged, because they will not have forgotten themselves nor remembered to exercise the charity of forgiveness."

"Forgiveness is the best charity. (It is easy to give the poor money and goods when one has plenty, but to forgive is hard; but it is the best thing if one can do it.)"

"The Avatar does not as a rule interfere with the working out of human destinies. He will do so only in times of grave necessity — when He deems it absolutely necessary from His all — encompassing point of view. For a single alteration in the planned and imprinted pattern in which each line and dot is interdependent, means a shaking up and a re-linking of an unending chain of possibilities and events."

"An ordinary physical action of the Avatar releases immense forces in the inner planes and so becomes the starting point for a chain of working, therepercussions and overtones of which are manifest at all levels and are universal in range and effect."

"As a rule each action of an ordinary person is motivated by a solitary aim serving a solitary purpose; it can hit only one target at a time and bring about one specific result. But with the Avatar, He being the Centre of each one, any single action of His on the gross plane brings about a network of diverse results for people and objects everywhere."

"The Avatar draws upon Himself the universal suffering, but He is sustained under the stupendous burden by His Infinite Bliss and His infinite sense of humour. The Avatar is the Axis or Pivot of the universe, the Pin of the grinding-stones of evolution, and so has a responsibility towards everyone and everything."

"These false answers — such as, I am stone, I am bird, I am animal, I am man, I am woman, I am great, I am small — are, in turn, received, tested and discarded until the Question arrives at the right and Final Answer, I AM GOD."

"There is only one question. And once you know the answer to that question there are no more to ask. That one question is the Original Question. And to that Original Question there is only one Final Answer. But between that Question and its Answer there are innumerable false answers."