Arogya Ayurvedic Health
Northwood
Christchurch, CANTERBURY
New Zealand
ph: +64 3 359 6015
idl
Defending Brahmanism and Traditionalism
Defending Brahmanism and Traditionalism:
(c) Durgadas, Ved Kovid / Arogya Ayurvedic Health Ltd.
All Rights Reserved.
By Durgadas (Ved Kovid, R.A.P, AYT)
Today we see a plethora of self-proclaimed enlightened masters, websites offering advice about spirituality, healing, New-Age healing practices etc. that have been born from a union of indirect Indic influences via the Romani (Gypsy) of Europe (the true inspiration behind neo-Paganism mixed with historic Soviet and Germanic obsessions with Indo-Aryan traditions in India) and the influx of Indian Gurus, Swamis, Acharyas and other teachers from India in fields of Yoga, Ayurveda, Vedanta etc., but also a counter-culture against Brahmanism by such people posing as "sympathetic", not unlike the rejection of the Jewish religion in the West.
While we may praise the names of those who presented to the West a pasteurised or Christianised form of Hinduism or a concise 'Hinduism of Christian Dummies' and thus echo the names as Paramahansa Yogananda, BKS Iyengar and Srila Prabhupada, western mouths become silenced when names such as Sri Aurobindo, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Chandrasekharendra Saraswati and other more radical and traditional transformers of Hinduism are mentioned - or when the entire life of the likes of Sri Ramana Maharishi with his Brahmanical and Saivite background, his early tapas or austerities and lifestyle before his ashram-years, are mentioned, rather than a few mere quotations or simply bypassing these and going straight to proclaiming him as a "God-Man"!
The status quo has been challenged and superficiality of the West, has been exposed! The common way to refute this in New-Age and pseudo-Hindu circles is to blast the defendant with masses of poorly translations and misconstrued quotations from modern-teachers in the hope of gaining the boon of Traditional silence, so one can contonue proselytising their pseudo-tradtions!
Ironically, while many westerners want to be accepted into the Advaita tradition "beyond caste", the Advaita Shankaracharyas have been the most orthodox in India from preventing distortion of sacred traditions, their rituals etc. of which neo-Vedantins dismiss in their pseudo-scholarship of the Upanishads and others, seen through their Christocentric vision rather than tradition.
The reason Brahmanical traditions remained rigid is to to protect and guard the sacred knowledge of Rishi-paramparas. A good example is how Ayurveda first became distorted when it was taught to the Arab-world and then reached Europe, where it was further pasteurised and redacted according to tenets of Islam and Christianity respectively. The same has occurred under the British-world encountering Ayurveda and Vedic sciences (hence, this New-Age redaction or pseudo-scientific movement isn't the first relating to Vedic-sciences - only the British world's egotism to believe so)!
Originally, Brahmins were the only caste in India. They divided themselves up slowly as various tribes and personalities began to fall victim to pasteurisation and misinterpretation of the shastras. Thus, accordingly first, sattvic (Brahmanism) gave way to rajas (Kshatriyas) and a new vitalism was instilled in them. Even that gave way to further greed and vaishyas, shudras etc. came in. Caste was dictated by one's personal actions and samskaras.
Birth-caste came in only as a desperate measure to ensure protection and retention of sattvic-Brahminical samskaras throughout the ages from birth. Otherwise, say a meat-eating lineage would eventually give rise to a Brahmanical offspring with rajas that would rebel - as occurred with Vritra, Ravana and other Brahmins. Same with other castes.
Samskaras CAN change, but there is a difference between stating all castes are the same and all caste can study the shastras. All CAN become Brahmins but FEW can cultivate the samskaras to - just as FEW have attained the lofty state of Sri Ramana Maharishi. These are one-off rare examples of advanced yogis and Rishis reborn with strong samskaras, not to be confused with the masses where such are not the same.
As an example, Sri Narayana Guru was a dalit (outcaste). But, he was a good vegetarian, studied the sacred shastras, Ayurveda and attained the state of Atmajnana that even Sri Ramana Maharishi acknowledged. Yet, his own dalit (thiyya) followers continue eating meats (often even beef), not studying the shastras and following Vedic tenets and think they, too, can attain his lofty state as equal to a Brahmin! Thus, we cannot superimpose the spiritual samskaras and genetically-altered and retained traditions upon the social structure of the world. There is a difference and a rationale behind it.
A native speaker who picks up Hindi, Tamil or Sanskrit will understand such languages better, due to cultural connotations and underlying themes. But, one learning these from other remote languages will have greater difficulty, due to the samskaras attached to their languages - culturally, spiritually, historically and etymologically as there are massive difference between them. Only "approximations" can be understood by them, unless they undergo special tapas, sadhanas etc. and live within such cultures for literally DECADES to alter their perceptive samskaras and uproot their preconceived notions of speech-language connotations ingrained in their psyche since birth.
If however, a Hindu critiques a westerner for their perception of the Vedas, the Hindus are seen as "dogmatic" in tone. Yet, the West commonly criticises Indians who embrace Christianity and interpret them through a Hindu lens, or try and seek connections between Hinduism and Christianity, as is the Hindu-samskara of correlation and equal-vision over the genetic and cultural predisposition of the West (created by yours truly, Christianity or rather, Constantinism), which requires a strict monotonous outlook alone.
The West for example commonly embraces the pseudo-Pagan and New-Age identity, through which it superimposes its hatred for the Church and also Science when embracing Hindu, Shaman and other Native traditions. However, they become stifled by their own ignorance due to ingrained cultural values or the residue of Christianity in their psyche, since these Hindu and native traditions actually embrace science and have their own complimentary traditions of cosmology, physics and logic as well as symbolic and physical ritualism, rational medical and psychology and psycho-therapy traditions that embrace both science and philosophy and see a unity between these worlds where both can co-exist, rather than having to malign one over the other, as the New-Age fascist or the Scientist wishes. The Language and History major in the West however, wishes commonly to appeal to the masses of Hindus in the garb of a masked Christian missionary, here to educate the poor Hindus about his lack of enthusiasm for his own tradition or knowledge about it - mainly by getting them to ignore traditional commentaries and works by their Gurus.
Of course, the Achilles's Heel of Arts' graduates is that they ignore all recent historical (literal, linguistic and other) developments as well as archaeological that challenge their own superimposed "orthodoxy" of Max Muller and others whose views have been long outdated, their very own methods as valid as pseudo-scientific methods as the polygraph, but continue with them anyway in such a zealously monotonous tone by creating infallible "intellectual Gods" of which they do not allow their minds to challenge or even seek to look beyond the rigidity of! Their entire life-work is usually in debasing traditionalism and Hindu spirituality as "uncivilised" and "un-scholarly", while subtly and unconsciously employing the 'Christian method' of interpretation through the eye of intellectual stagnation! They are like expounders of the Old Church that they will die defending and not embrace any change in laws at all!
Of course, the Achilles's Heel of Arts' graduates is that they ignore all recent historical (literal, linguistic and other) developments as well as archaeological that challenge their own superimposed "orthodoxy" of Max Muller and others whose views have been long outdated, their very own methods as valid as pseudo-scientific methods as the polygraph, but continue with them anyway in such a zealously monotonous tone by creating infallible "intellectual Gods" of which they do not allow their minds to challenge or even seek to look beyond the rigidity of! Their entire life-work is usually in debasing traditionalism and Hindu spirituality as "uncivilised" and "un-scholarly", while subtly and unconsciously employing the 'Christian method' of interpretation through the eye of intellectual stagnation! They are like expounders of the Old Church that they will die defending and not embrace any change in laws at all!
So also, the predisposed samskaras of the New-Age and pseudo-Hindu is likewise. We can thus understand who spiritual introversion as with Rabbinical Judaism and Brahmanical Hinduism and Tantricism actually took place - not as a rigid structure of cultural exclusivism on a dogmatic scale, but in order to protect and keep traditional and authentic, their own traditions, which they have, through the test of time. The Vedic Sanskrit not only exists in India today, but the Vedic mantras and rituals, last redacted well over 5,000 years ago, are still alive and well today as they were chanted several thousands of years back, thanks to this very system we now seek to ridicule and criticise due to our Christian liberality!
Yet, while we engage in this attack of sacred traditions and their retention of knowledge to a few, we wish to forget that only decades ago, the British, European and American cultures still had a distasteful view of Hindus and others as "Heathens" and considered Black people and others such as the Native Americans far lesser humans than themselves! Yet, we ignore such views as these and instead start formulating examples of how the Brahmins were racist ad intolerant - the typical Christian and European society of subversion and of course, projection rather than admission or error!
When so many have studied naught from the sacred traditions and wish to be seen as "experts" in the West, can one blame the Brahmins and others for embracing a kind of elite exclusive regime to protect the teachings to only a few worthy? A good example is that western Ayurveda has been reduced at best to practitioners knowing a little of the Charaka Samhita and Ashtanga Hridaya in English translations, with a few guided Sanskrit translations - but almost next to none have studied all major Ayurvedic Classics in their original Sanskrit as per the traditional commentaries, etymologies etc. to come to a valid conclusion about the very science they commence to expound! Not only that, traditional Yoga requires swadhyaya or self-study, itself preceded by decades of tapas (austerities), to be satisfied only after the mastery of all of the four Vedas, the upavedas (included in this is the entire science of Ayurveda), six systems of Hindu philosophy as well as the vedangas (included is Astrology), their own ancient, classical and traditional shastras, their own respective bhashyas (commentaries) and so on, in the original Sanskrit. A merely perusal of the Yoga Sutras, Bhagavad Gita and a few quotations from the Vedas and Upanishads does NOT constitute this being satisfied traditionally!
Why? As the Hindu system didn't base itself, like the Christian, as being an expert in any one field or anga (limb) of Yoga even, in one-lifetime alone, let alone in a few years or months! No, it required a strict regime relative to diet, austerities, control of one's ojas or vitality (through brahmacharya or celibacy) and developing smarana-shakti or memory. As an example, tradition in the East requires memorising hundreds of texts in the original Sanskrit and recalling them based on memory alone. This cannot occur in the West, due to congenital distortions in diet as also learning methods - hence the traditional culture of Indian methods are undermined through a series of elaborate excuses, misinterpretation of a few individually-selected verses from Hindu texts (ignoring the "head" and "tail" of these verses, which explain otherwise) and so on. Complexity is certainly not the strong point of the western mind, which favours redaction - and such has occurred since the initial violation of asteya (stealing) of the Hebrew Bible and reformatting and reconstituting it in the Roman days into something no longer even recognisable in the eyes of the Jews and then used against them! The exact same is happening right now with pseudo-Vedic scholarship and New-Age distortions of Vedic sciences as Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda, however! It is the whole Roman ideal of borrowing another's sacred traditions, invalidating their traditions by undermining them and creating a redacted and malignant version of it against it's very originators to make one's own "New Dharma" appear much more enlightened and appealing. The new western acharyas thus become the pivotal Christ-feature that one is supposed to look up to, while the Brahmins, Yogis and Rishis, like the Rabbis and Prophets of the Hebrews, are reinvented in a new post-modernist image! And that alone becomes gospel - and a society and doctrine or liberality of the teachings (which allows for further mutation of the original translations, which are discarded and ignored) thus allows for any man and his dog to interpret these based on mere emotion alone.
Alas, I digress....
The over-simplification of religious ethos of which Christianity itself was founded, not simply through Judaic-borrowing but also redacting and re-pasteurising Mithraism (even in the Roman cults before it entered Christianity and dissolved within it) has now come to epitomise Hindu and neo-Vedantic expressions of the same in this sad ironical paradoxical world of neo-Paganism, pseudo-Hinduism and New-Age fascism! Everything is reduced down to selected verses and quotations re-modeled in the limited Germanic tongue of the artificial non-expressive English tongue!
The Brahmins and their own sacred traditions and aspects they sought to uphold have now been replaced by the New-Age movement by simplicity of "simply accept the Saviour - no scriptural study or rituals required" as in Pentecostalism and the expanded and beautiful sacrifices, pujas and tenets of tradition, the expansive sciences and texts are all deleted in favour of "I -can -do -as -I-want-ism", proclaiming, as the faithful preacher does that "Jesus loves you if you accept him alone!" (that's all you need to do, see), that "Aham brahmasmi" (I am Brahman) and "Sarvan khalvidam brahma!" (All is Brahman) - taken as far out of context by superimposing the spiritual upon the social and cultural world (as the West does not differentiate nor understand the subtle difference between their interpretations) - as the Hebrew Bible's interpretation of the term Ha-Satan of the Jews with how it grows an entire personality and doctrine of evil, hatred, atheist and Hades grown up around it in Christianity, appearing to the Jew, a remote concept in his own doctrine!
For these reasons I have always selected few students for advanced study and after much grueling. Even then, they are rejected if they fail to uphold and retain basic knowledge and understanding or exhibit traces of egotism not conducive to the traditional path. Most of all, they must desire not moksha or liberation, but ahankara-mukti or release of their egotism first of which we are all born as the vital instinct in man for defense, but be cautious not to confuse this for knowledge, wisdom, realisation or the ego of becoming a teacher before perfecting the student-stage; the proverbial example of one who should not try and cross the English Channel before first learning (a) how to swim and (b) becoming proficient at an athletic and competitive level after years of practices and strict discipline! And that, in short, is why the Brahmanical traditions remained rigid. They saw the greater problems that would arise if such were not adhered to first and if the vitalistic and emotionalistic beings were not first purified and transformed, but merely ignored or confused for spiritual wisdom and realisation. Cultural or Intellectual Narcissism cannot be confused with Self-realisation, Self-wisdom, Self-insight, nor Traditionalism! That is the key!
Arogya Ayurvedic Health
Northwood
Christchurch, CANTERBURY
New Zealand
ph: +64 3 359 6015
idl