Hindu Nationalists

"Apollonius of Tyna (born c. 4 AD), the great saint of the Greek world, was a Pythogorian teacher, a great ascetic, a celebate, a vegetarian; he was against every form of cruelty to animals; he protested against gladiatorial shows. He was a great name throughout the Pagan world."

"This new religious cast of mind was forging a new iron-curtain, a far more effective one than a physical one. The new mind that was taking over was incapable of understanding deeper things of the spirit; it understood dogmas and creeds; it dropped the law of karma, the theory of the Self. Antoninus, a neo-Platonist of the 4th century predicted that "a fabulous and formless darkness is about to tyrannize over all that is beautiful on earth" (Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 9.317)."

"When we come to the period of recorded history, we find that India had intimate contacts with Greece which at this time was more a part of Asia than of Europe. Greek religion, philosophy and literature show lively Indian influences. India even at this time was known for its wisdom and many Greek philosophers like Democritus, Anaxarchus and Pyrrho visited India and according to Lucianus, the Goddess of philosophy first descended upon "the Indians, the mightiest nation upon the earth"."

"Pythagoras taught the doctrine of the witness, drashTâ of the Hindus. He said that life is like a gathering at the Olympic Games, where some come to buy and sell, others to play, but the best of them come to look on. This is just like the Upanishads' two birds on a tree, one eating its fruits and the other just looks on. It has reference to the witness self of the Upanishads, the kûTastha of the Gita. In higher Greek religion the doctrine of the life of a spectator holds a high place."

"Pythagoras and Orphic mysteries stand very high in Greek religion and they have family likeness with Hinduism. Lecky in his History of European Morals quotes an old tradition in Greece that Pythagoras had himself come to India and learnt philosophy from the gymnosophists. It seems he believed in an "all-pervading soul" which is at least one important attribute of Hindu âtman. He believed in rebirth or transmigration; he taught and practised harmlessness or non-injury; chastity was the leading virtue of his school of thought; he taught silence; he taught that the end of man is to "become like God". Orphic mysteries taught release (lysis) from all material entanglements, which is close to moksha of the Hindus."

"Hindu thought also exerted a great influence on ancient Greek thought as M.E. Pococke shows in his India in Greece. It is believed that Pythagoras visited Indian and learnt the doctrine of transmigration and many ascetic practices from here. One meets many parallel ideas in the Upanishads and Plato. These similarities are not fortuitous but they emanated from a common deeper vision and life-philosophy. Apollonius the "wise man of Tyana", perhaps the greatest saint of the Hellenistic world, a contemporary of Jesus, visited the wise men of India and was highly satisfied. Later on, he also visited Ethiopia to meet her naked ascetics, who, he believed, had borrowed their spirituality from India. But, as he already suspected, he did not find them worthy pupils of India."

"Apollonius believed that Egypt and Ethiopia derived their wisdom from India, and that the Naked Philosophers of Ethiopia were emigrants from India. He also believed that Pythagoras (about 500 BC) and his sect derived their philosophy from India."

"Tibet preserved as best as it could, what India was no longer in a position to do. For example, 4000 books belonging to the Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit literature were translated into Tibetan language. Today, about 3800 of them are no longer even known in India. They were so completely destroyed. The work of destruction was so complete. Today much of old India is found in neighbouring countries like Tibet and Siam and Cambodia; and India's old past history cannot be reconstructed except with their aid."

"The ancient educational thinking also emphasized the importance of a certain atmosphere in which alone any worthwhile education is possible. First, there must be a complete rapport between the teacher and the taught. "May we study together. May God protect us both. May we never spite each other", that is the prayer of the teacher and the pupil with which several Upanishads open. There must be an atmosphere of serious inquiry, of hankering for truth for its own sake, of affection, deference, service and respect. Hindus believed that without this environment, no higher education is possible."

"India's education had two aims, both organically linked. One was to strengthen our body and mind, our nerves and vitality. If the Indian teaching on this subject is followed faithfully, it ensures full, vigorous, healthy and long life. Similarly, it ensures health and unimpaired senses and a mind with undiminished powers. According to the Hindu Psychology, a man's mind and senses are powers of the soul. Therefore, they should be strengthened, widened, deepened, purified. "May I see and hear clearly and abundantly", is the repeated prayer in the, several Upanishads. Another variant of this prayer is: "May our eyes see the good, our ears hear the good." To see and hear and desire better, purer, finer and deeper is the first aim of Indian education. This means strengthening character, controlling desires and impulses, increasing powers of concentration and will. Not only this opens up our hidden powers, but this is even the basis of any fruitful life at all. If our senses and mind run their unbridled course, uninformed by any higher light, they will lead to self-destruction. But purified in the light of the soul, they become a blessing."

"This aim is formulated with utmost brevity in the famous Gâyatrî Mantra which is daily recited by hundreds of thousands of people all over India. The Mantra prays for arousing, activating, animating and manifesting our mind and understanding. Several Upanishads begin with this prayer: "Make strong my limbs, my speech, my vitals, my eyes, my cars and other senses"."

"In this lecture, Huxley also relates how mysticism acquired a "tolerated position" in Western Christianity by an early "pious fraud". About the sixth century, a Neoplatonic writer, a convert to Christianity, wrote a book on Mystical Theology under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, who was mistaken for one Dionysius who was the first disciple of St. Paul in Athens. Under this mistaken identity, the book was well received. In the ninth century, it was translated by John Scotus Erigena and thereafter it entered into the tradition of the Western Church. It was not until recent times that the fraud was recognized for what it was, but by then it was too late. Huxley says that "in one of the odd, ironical quirks of history, this curious bit of forgery played a very important and very beneficent part in the Western Christian tradition"."

"E. Hermann says that the Neo-Platonic doctrine of via negativa "from Dionysius onwards took an Asiatic rather than a Greek from". She does not explain what its Greek form was and how it differed from its "Asiatic" (Indian) form."

"Huxley realizes his difficulty. He knows that mysticism is not native to Christianity and has been an uneasy implant from outside. In his Grey Eminence, he shows how through "neo-platonism and along with it, at several removes, the most valuable elements of Hindu religion, entered Christianity and became incorporated, as one of a number of oddly heterogeneous elements, into its scheme of thought and devotion"."

"Discussing the problem concretely, he finds that both in its spirit and deeper conceptualization, the Perennial Philosophy is opposed to and is also opposed by the so-called "revealed religions" which make salvation and God's truth dependent on a unique and single revelation in history, dependent on an authorized mediator, and makes it a privilege of a particular church or ummah. Perennial Philosophy recognizes no such historical fatality, no priviledged intermediaries, no surrogates, no authorized proxies. Spiritual life is a lawful process, not a lucky accident or piece of history, a happenstance. Salvation is man's assussured possession, not a chance windfall. God is not a pie in the sky who appeared from nowhere at a particular time and became operative in human affairs; he has been active from the beginning. The great spiritual life resides in the heart and its truths are open to all sincere seekers. Man has known, possessed and lived those truths long before "revealed religions" were heard of."

"He only quotes from Rabia, Bayazid, Abu Sa'id and Rumi who do not properly represent even the sufi silsilas, the mainstream Islamic Sufism."

"Time Must Have A Stop, which belongs to this period, is probably his best novel and certainly the one which, as he himself says, he "most enjoyed doing"."

"Here one may also mention Huxley's idea of modern medicine. He says that it has marvellous antibiotics but absolutely no method for increasing resistance. Similarly, fantastic operations but nothing in the way of teaching people the way of going through life without having to be chopped up. Good for patching up when one is falling apart, but bad for keeping him healthy. And of course it knows nothing of integrated treatment as it knows nothing of integrated life. It knows nothing of the higher and positive consciousness and therefore there is no attempt to help a man to "open himself up to the life force or the Buddha nature"."

"Therefore, he developed an ethical theory which had room both for instincts as well as the intellect. He said that man is not one but multiple; He is not one self, but a colony of selves. He must live all his selves and all his parts, and live them not moderately but fully."

"When Huxley accepted the spiritual view of life, his opposition to monotheism remained and in fact deepened. He could not be reconciled with the Christian God, the Father and a habitual whipping father too - the wholly other. He sees sadism in this God. In Island, a very late work, one of his character says: "Somebody ought to make a historical study of the relations between theology and corporal punishment in childhood. I have a theory that, wherever little boys and girls are systematically flagellated, the victims grow up to think of God as - 'Wholly Other'... A people's theology reflects the state of its children's bottoms. Look at the Hebrews - enthusiastic child-beaters. And so were all good Christians in the Age of Faith.8 Hence Jehovah, hence Original Sin and the infinitely offended Father of Roman and Protestant orthodoxy. Whereas among Buddhists and Hindus education has always been nonviolent. No laceration of little buttocks - therefore Tat tvam asi, thou art That, mind from Mind is not divided." Continuing he mentions Augustine and Martin Luther, as the "two most relentlessly flagellated bottoms in the whole history of Christian thought"; and how their flagellation-theology is carried to its logical conclusion by Calvin and others. "Major premise: God is Wholly Other. Minor premise: man is totally depraved. Conclusion: Do to your children's bottoms what was done to yours, what your Heavenly Father has been doing to the collective bottom of humanity ever since the Fall: whip, whip, whip!""

"European soldiers, traders, missionaries - later on ably assisted by its colonial ideologies and scholars - opened up the East to the influences of the West. But Huxley belonged to that small group of European thinkers and seekers who opened up the West to the influence of the East - a more arduous task and in the long run perhaps more important too. He did not seek this role, it was merely a bye-product of his search for truth. Huxley was one of the finest products of Europe - of a new Europe seeking its old roots, of a Europe no longer satisfied with mere technology and science and rationality but seeking a new dimension of the spirit, a Europe self-critical and in search. He was also a profound student of Europe's various traditions, religious, literary and artistic, and he discusses them with great knowledge, insights, authority and intimacy. In his hands, cultural Europe becomes alive. A critical discussion of Europe by such a sympathetic insider is meant to help, to fecundate; it can do no harm but will only help Europe in its spiritual rediscovery. In opening up to India and China, it would merely be opening up to an ancient tradition which was lost by her but preserved and developed in India and China."

"The fact is that Christian art failed at a deeper level. It failed not in execution but in conception and vision, and this failure was at bottom failure of Christian theology in which mysticism is rudimentary and peripheral. Christian theology has no concept of transcendence, non-attachment, recollectedness, equality (samatâ), liberation (moksha), the vast (bhûmâ) and the infinite (ananta), compassion (kurunâ), of cosmic action emanating from restfulness at the centre; therefore, it felt no call to try to convey them in its art-forms. A deeper iconography needed the support of a deeper theology and vision. This explains why Christian art has no equivalents of Far Eastern Buddhas and Bodhisattvas as Huxley notices. The Eastern tradition was shaped by Hindu religious thinking and sensibility. Hindu art tried to portray the inner man: the Man behind the man, the Eye behind the eye, the Seeing behind the seeing, man's inner prânika or life-currents, the nodal points in his subtle body where the individual meets the cosmic. It portrayed man's inner physiognomy. .... But they portrayed the external man; there was no portrayal of the inner man, the luminous man, the transcendental man."

"In Western thought, the body holds the soul; in Indian thought, the soul holds the body."

"Professor Halbfass follows a scholar's methodology in determining the extent of Indo-Greek contact. He is determined to find a document, some written mention, some journey relating to this contact before he would admit it, but by their very nature such evidences can only be very rare considering the time that has lapsed and the changes that have been wrought. But if Professor Halbfass had followed a more inward method or criterion of looking at Greek literature, he would have easily found plentiful evidence of a living Indo-Greek contact, particularly at the deeper level of the spirit. Both shared a common spiritual approach; both intuited man and his world in the same way; both expressed their spiritual intuition in the language of Gods; both taught âtma-vâda, and the theory of Two Selves and Two Ways; both taught the theory of karma, rebirth and moksha. In fact, the Greece of Pythagoras, Plato and Plotinus has more in common with Hindu India than with Christian Europe."

"For example, Apollonius of Tyna, the great sage of the Greek world who is reputed to have come to India to meet its sages, is mentioned just to be told that his biography by Philostratus is "legendry". There is nothing improbable in a saint of the Greek world visiting India, but even if the biography is legendry, it is known to have been written by 220 AD, and even as a legend it is a good witness and tells us where India stood in the estimation of Greek sages and philosophers of an early date. It tells us that the Pythagoreans of Greece and the Naked Philosophers of Egypt had derived their doctrines from the "Wise men of India"."

"But even if we take the Vedas to be history, we must apply a chosen criterion consistently and not pick and choose according to our convenience. In a Rg verse (7.6.3) which speaks of the foolish, the faithless, the rudely-speaking, the niggardly, of men without belief, sacrifice and worship (nyakritu, grathina, mRdhra-vâc, paNi, aSraddha, avriddha, ayajña), we are also told that "Far, far away has Agni chased those dasyus, and, in the east, has turned the godless westward", a direction which is just the opposite of what the Orientalists have been telling us - not eastward and southward but westward. Why neglect this testimony?"

"In order to qualify for Government grants, Shanti Niketan, the famous institution found by the great Rabindra Nath Tagore, the poet of the soul's Godward aspiration and a great representative of undying India, had to give up its Upanishadic motto: satyam, Sivam, sundaram. These figures represent the deepest and loftiest that spirituality has conceived about man, his aspirations and destiny, his hopes and possibilities. But to the modern secular ears of the present-day rulers, these terms sound communal and antiquated."

"Hinduism is like a great reservoir of water from which many streams take their rise and to which they again repair after passing through many strange and fair lands. It is a great, creative matrix giving birth to many beautiful and living forms. Itself a historical, it has given birth to many sects and branches with interesting, chequered histories. Paying sole allegiance to the Guide within seated in the cave of the heart, it has put forward from time to time many teachers and sages of incomparable power and vision, incarnating the very Gods above and within."

"Hindus temples have been under unprecedented attack for a thousand years. They suffered desecration, destruction, confiscation of their property and iniquitous taxation under the Muslim rulers. Under the British, the more physical methods ceased but fiscal methods were adopted for undermining "heathenism". A large part of the land and properties of the temples were taken away under all kinds of pretexts. After independence, the temples have fared no better. Their properties have not been restored to them and they continue to exist in deepening poverty. In the South where there are still many noble structures left, the temples are under the control of a Government which takes pride in being "secular", and whose secularity is thoroughly anti-Hindu in orientation."

"Some see in this change a triumph of Nehru over Gandhi. They, of course, do not mean Nehru as a person for Nehru was merely a symbol and he represented, in his own way, a typical response, the response of a defeated nation trying to restore its self-respect and self-confidence through self-repudiation and identification with the ways of the victors. The approach was not altogether unjustified at one time. It had its compulsions and it had also a survival value for us. But its increasing influence can mean no good to us."

"A country cannot be defeated politically unless it is defeated culturally. Our alien rulers knew that they could not conquer India without conquering Hinduism - cultural India's name at its deepest and highest, and the principle of its identity, continuity and reawakening. Therefore Hinduism became an object of their special attack. Physical attack was supplemented by ideological attack. They began to interpret for us our history, our religion, our culture and ourselves. We learnt to look at us through their eyes.... The long period created an atmosphere of mental slavery and imitation. It created a class of people Hindu in their names and by birth but anti-Hindu in orientation, sympathy and loyalty. They knew all the bad things and nothing good about Hinduism. Hindu dharma is now being subverted from within. Anti-Hindu Hindus are very important today; they rule the roost; they write our histories, they define our nation; they control the media, the academia, the politics, the higher administration and higher courts. They are now working as clients of those forces who are planning to revive their old Imperialism... During this period our minds became soft. We became escapists; we wanted to avoid conflict at any cost, even conflict and controversy of ideas, even when this controversy was necessary. We developed an escape-route. We called it "synthesis". We said all religions, all scriptures, all prophets preach the same things. It was intellectual surrender, and our enemies saw it that way; they concluded that we are amenable to anything, that we would clutch at any false hope or idea to avoid a struggle, and that we would do nothing to defend ourselves. Therefore, they have become even more aggressive. It also shows that we have lost spiritual discrimination (viveka), and would entertain any falsehood; this is prajñâ-dosha, drishti-dosha, and it cannot be good for our survival in the long run. People first fall into delusion before they fall into misfortune."

"Hindu dharma reverenced women; therefore, it had no difficulty in conceiving Goddesses. Hindus also learnt to give their women the honour they gave to their deities. Hindu lawgivers taught that women must be honoured by their fathers, brothers, husbands and brothers-in-law, who desire their own welfare; that Gods are pleased where women are honoured, but where they are not honoured sacred rites yield no rewards."

"As it saw in the Self all Godly attributes, it saw in Gods the truth and powers of the Self; indeed, it taught that one who worships a God as other than himself becomes his sacrificial animal, his draught-animal. He is driven and ridden by him."

"It prescribes five daily sacrifices, pancha mahayajnas... The first yajna is Self-knowledge and self-study.. This is called bhrama-yajna... Daily reading of scriptures is its external aspect. The second yajna is pitri-yajna, offerting to one's ancestors... The third is deva-yajna, offering to Gods.... Deva-yajna is in reality an offering to our own higher nature, the secret Godhead within us. The fourth is bhutna-yajna, offering made to elements and all creatures... The last offering is called nri-yajna, which is an offering to men... (p. 242 ff)"

"Behind the material, there is also a subtle world which itself emanates from a larger casual world.... In man the three worlds meet. In the ancient language of Hindus, man is a citizen of the three worlds: bhuh, bhuvah, swah. (p. 240)"

"I would also ask you to fulfil in an abundant measure your obligation for the revival of the glory of Hindu culture and civilisation, not from a narrow or bigoted point of view but for strengthening the very root of nationalism in this country. In this great land of ours where twenty-eight crores of Hindus live, the word Hindu sometimes stinks in the nostrils of many a son of India."

"In India also, for century, education imparted through the medium of a foreign language has unduly dominated its academic life and it has now produced a class of men who are unconsciously so denationalised that any far reaching proposal for the recognition of the Indian languages as the vehicle of teaching and examination up to the highest University stage is either ridiculed as impossible or branded as reactionary. But I plead earnestly for the acceptance of this fundamental principle not on account of any blind adherence to things that I claim as my own but out of a firm conviction that the fullest development of the mind of a learner is possible only by this natural approach and also that by this process alone can there be a great revival of the glory and richness of the Indian languages."

"Freedom consists not only in the absence of restraint but also in the presence of opportunity. Liberty is not a single and simple conception. It has four elements – national, political, personal and economic. The man who is fully free is one who lives in a country which is independent; in a state which is democratic; in a society where laws are equal and restrictions at a minimum; in an economic system in which national interests are protected and the citizen has the scope of secure livelihood, an assured comfort and full opportunity to rise by merit."

"India fell mainly because her people were at the critical hour divided and disorganised. Her influence waned when the forces of disintegration, political and social, were at work. If we left our neighbours alone, we revelled in internal strife which ceased for a time when great kings like Asoka and Akbar ruled over the destinies of India – mighty men, who sought to unite the teeming millions of this vast sub-continent by the bond of a common aspiration and a passionate longing for the eternal code of righteous conduct, charity and understanding. A strong and united India fearing no one and loving all , brought messages of peace and goodwill to distracted world. But as soon as the sceptre dropped from their hands, when the grip over the country was loosened through weak and short-sighted successors, when narrow selfishness and mutual jealousy and distrust overpowered our souls, when local feuds and religious strife raised their ugly heads giving rise to social exclusiveness and moral decadence, unity was lost; freedom, man’s priceless treasure, disappeared; the country broke into fragments and relapsed into a state of conflict and struggle."

"It has often been asserted that the polytheistic Hindu failed to establish a spiritual kinship with the monotheistic Muslim who held much that is Indian in scorn and still seeks his spiritual inspiration abroad. How can we say that India ignored the teachings of Islam when we find saints like Nanak and Chaitanya, Namdev and Tukaram, preaching the brotherhood of man and the futility of caste in matters spiritual? Although attempts on Hindu culture and institutions fill the pages of Indian history, how can we assert that Muslims ignored the appeal of Hindu culture when we find Muhammad Jayasi weaving a beautiful romance to illustrate the teachings of Hindu philosophy, when we read the simple devotional hymns of Kabir and Sheikh Farid, who refused to recognise the barriers of caste and creed on the high road to God’s kingdom? “Utter not one disagreeable word,” said Farid, “since the true lord is in all men. Distress no one’s heart for every heart is a precious jewel.” In the same strain did Kabir proclaim, “There is the same God for the Hindu as for the Muslim.” A rejuvenated India found an Akbar to put an end to political chaos and social disharmony and a Shah Jahan to dream a dream in marble the like of which is not to be met in the world."

"‘He knows much better than even myself the life of misery, shame and humiliation which these millions of Hindus in East Bengal are being forced to live. He said in the course of his speech that whatever happens, India will never agree to any discrimination being made in reference to South Africa, whether it is based on race or religion. When people who had their loyalty fixed upon undivided India, who made Indian freedom possible, and today also naturally look to India for protection and help in emergency, are forced to live in an atmosphere of insecurity and misery and humiliation, then, what is India’s policy in respect of them? Are we so weak as to merely watch and appeal?’"

"A nation that fails to take pride in its past achievements or to take inspiration therefrom, can never build up the present or plan for the future. A weak nation can never attain greatness."

"[Nehru once told Mookerjee: "We will crush you!"... He replied:] We will crush this crushing mentality."

"The very system of education which was deemed essential for forging bonds of unbroken alliance with the British power succeeded in unleashing revolutionary ideas and thoughts, which ultimately helped to throw off the yoke of alien rule in India. If we take a dispassionate view of what happened during the last one century, we must acknowledge that this has been an era in which good has been mixed with evil. The contact between the Indian mind and western thought and civilisation did not enslave the soul of India. In every domain of thought, in arts and architecture, in science, in history, philosophy and letters, in social services and in religious thought, great Indians gave their best, maintaining their stamp of originality as well as imbibing and assimilating fruits of western skill and knowledge. Though the number of Indians affected by such spread of knowledge was comparatively small, many of them assumed a much needed political leadership and became the instruments of agitation and mass movements, leading ultimately to the political liberation of their country. The cultural Renaissance preceded and created the silent Revolution."

"What we deplore is not that the gate of western knowledge was thrown open to Indians, but that such knowledge was imported to India at the sacrifice of our own cultural heritage. What was needed was a proper synthesis between the two systems and not neglect, far less destruction, of the Indian base."

"If we are to live and grow as a university, one of whose paramount tasks is to not only leaders of thought and action but also workers dedicated to the service of the nation, we cannot sit idle with philosophic concern and let things drift as they may. So far as we are concerned, it is for us to set our house in order. It is for us, and specially the younger generation, Hindus, Moslems and Christians alike, to combine and resolutely stand for the permanent well-being of our province and to rescue her from the deadly stagnation which now seems to envelop her."

"Whatever work you undertake, do it seriously, thoroughly and well; never leave it half-done or undone, never feel yourself satisfied unless and until you have given it your very best. Cultivate the habits of discipline and toleration. Surrender not the convictions you hold dear but learn to appreciate the points of view of your opponents."

"A criticism with which we have become familiar in this country is that an alarmingly large number of students receiving university education, and the universities are responsible for wastage and unnecessary duplication of teaching arrangements…"

"Generally speaking, an Indian university must regard itself as one of the living organs of national reconstruction. It must discover the best means of blending together both the spiritual and the material aspects of life. It must equip its alumni irrespective of caste, creed or sex, with individual fitness, not for its own sake, not for merely adorning varied occupations and professions, but in order to teach them how to merge their individuality in the common cause of advancing the progress and prosperity of their motherland and upholding the highest traditions of human civilisation."

"That more than 90 per cent of the Indian population should continue to be illiterate even after 175 years of British rule in this country is an intolerable situation which calls for immediate action."