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Shri Malhotra, what are your views on gurus, acharyas, swamis and other leaders of Sampradayic traditions? How do you see their role in the modern world? When you represent Hinduism at various public fora, are you presuming to replace these individuals and institutions with a new mould of spokesperson?

RM: Can anyone presume to “replace” them, ever? I can’t imagine how.

The leaders of Sampradayic lineages and mathas are not merely an integral feature of Hindu Dharma. They are, in themselves, proof of the core competence of our Dharmic traditions. Each enlightened master transmits the distilled wisdom of generations of embodied practice in a particular technique, a specific tradition customized to the community he or she teaches. The very existence of such masters is a testament to the enduring vitality of Dharmic spiritual practice. It is from their inspiration, their teachings, that others in turn are guided on their own paths of personal spiritual discovery.

In my own life, and the task I’ve committed myself to, I continuously derive inspiration from such teachers. In the 1990s, it was the influence of my own guru that inspired me to give up all business activity at the peak of my material success, and devote all my energies to the work I have taken up.

My immersion and devout association with many Sampradayic traditions goes all the way back to my childhood… when I was raised in a prominent Arya Samaj family of Punjab. Early on, I became involved with the Ramakrishna Mission in Delhi, and studied Gita under Swami Chinmayanand. In the 1970s, I was initiated into Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation movement, in which I was active. About 20 years ago, I became an adherent of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living as well.

I’ve also studied with Yogi Amrit Desai, the founder of Kripalu Yoga in the USA, and was certified as a teacher of Yoga Nidra under this tradition. I’ve attended workshops with Swami Nityananda as well. My experience of all these sadhanas, has proved invaluable to me.

Besides having availed of treasured spiritual interactions with living masters, I’ve made it my business to study and imbibe the works of the historical greats: Sri Aurobindo, Ramana Maharshi, Adi Shankara, and many more recent interpreters and thinkers of our tradition. The systematic study of Madhyamika Buddhism has also added to my understanding of Dharma.

There’s no question of my “replacing” any of these exponents of our tradition. Indeed, without the millennia of cumulative wisdom they embody, I might not even have a Dharmic tradition to fight for today.

You appear to have benefited from these relationships a great deal, but have you given back to such spiritual masters in any form? How have you helped them?

RM: I’m continuously engaged with many of them, as part of the work I do. In the process, I try to be of service in whatever form is needed of me.

Swami Dayananda Saraswati, head of the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, is one of the individuals I’ve worked very closely with. On many occasions, he’s asked for my participation in strategic planning and discussion of issues facing Hinduism across the global theater. In 2008, I had the privilege of being centrally involved in the Second Hindu-Jewish Leadership Summit, which he convened. The summit concluded with a historic resolution removing certain critical biases that had long endured about Hinduism… and much of the language that I proposed, as lead scholar, was included in that resolution.

[Interviewer’s Note: See the text of this declaration at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2258129/2nd-Hindu-Jewish-SummitFinal-DeclarationP-1#archive ]

Building on the success of that, I was once again included at the Hindu-Buddhist Summit of 2010 in Cambodia, which aimed to conclude strategic resolutions between our two Dharmic traditions.
I’ve also been blessed with opportunities to be of service to the Chinmaya Mission. When their temple project in New Jersey faced legal hurdles, I actively mobilized supporting voices that were successful in overturning the local biases. Recently, I was invited to speak before three large groups by the Chinmaya Mission at Washington, DC… other centers have sent invitations as well.
I was privileged to have been hosted by Ramakrishna Mission mathas for days together, and to have participated in discussions at the highest level regarding issues of major concern for the future of Dharma. Subsequently, I was honored by their invitation to write an article for a special volume they are producing to celebrate Swami Vivekanand’s 150th anniversary.

Additionally, I’ve shared the dais with leaders like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on many occasions, and availed of private sessions with them to discuss the kinds of issues I raise in my writings. I’m active in the HMEC (Hindu Mandirs Executive Committee), which is doing great work in bringing together the Hindu temples of North America on issues of common concern. I can’t even begin to estimate the number of times I’ve been invited by Hindu temples across the USA, to address their congregations.
I do not cite these instances to emphasize the degree of my personal achievement, but rather out of gratitude that I’ve been able to provide seva at so many levels.

Some have been critical of your statement that our Acharyas should have looked beyond their traditional roles and also studied philosophers such as Hegel and Kant, to refute the West in its own terms. How do you justify such a statement? Do you think that the Acharyas have failed in this role, and therefore are to blame for the intellectual bankruptcy of our Brown Saheb class today?

RM: You say, “look beyond their traditional roles.” In fact, purva-paksha is very much part of the traditional roles our Acharyas have performed for thousands of years! How else do you explain the sublime intellectual vigor of Adi Shankara in studying the diverse theological positions that existed in his day, and traveling the length and breadth of the country to debate the adherents of them all?

What do the Vaisheshika teachings expounded by Kanada, or the Nyaya Sutras of Akshapada Gautama represent? They are the vibrant response of Hindu traditions after having conducted purva-paksha of contemporary Buddhist and Jaina philosophies. This sort of work has been the life-blood of relevance and vitality, pumping through the veins of Dharmic tradition since it began.

I do not “fault” our traditional Acharyas for the emergence of Brown Sahebs at all… far from it. In fact, it is thanks to their efforts that Dharmic traditions endure independently even today, despite the best efforts of Brown Sahebs to aid in their cultural digestion by the West.

It is not a “failure” I’m speaking of here… rather, it is a tragedy, and the result of 800 years of predatory colonialism by brutal foreign agencies. The magnitude of trauma that our society and its institutions experienced from this, is hard to even imagine. Continuous, relentless suppression and frequently realized threats of extermination will eventually drive a society to look inwards to the exclusion of all else… to “keep its head down” so as to appear less threatening to the dominant outsider. But in keeping one’s head down, one’s horizon becomes limited, and one is denied the opportunity for vigorous purva-paksha.

The Macaulayization of our educational system directly produced the Brown Sahebs as its offspring; but that was only one aspect of it. The other aspect was to systematically, viciously delegitimize Dharmic traditions of knowledge by all methods of cultural, economic, and physical violence available to it. So it is hardly a “fault” of our Acharyas that collectively, India’s philosophical perspective turned inwards; rather, it is a credit to them that our traditions survived through such monstrously difficult times.

Yet, the fact remains that the perspective did turn inwards; had the same intellectual vigor of Adi Shankara been applied to a purva-paksha of the West, had we studied and understood the positions of Kant and Hegel and engaged in rigorous, logical refutation using our own traditional hermeneutics, who knows what might have happened! Instead, the Brown Sahebs were given the “legitimacy” of Macaulayite education, and through them, the Western perspectives of Kant and Hegel became universalized.

I do not say all this to put the blame on any of our own people, especially not the enlightened masters who inspire me and whom I engage with regularly in my work. I say it because it needs to be recognized as a tragedy of history… and corrected by us in the present.

So how are you helping present-day Hindu samaj to correct this tragedy? How have you contributed to arming modern exponents of Dharmic tradition, with the instruments to conduct such a “purva paksha” of the West?

RM: I continuously strive towards conducting, and equipping others to conduct, such a purva-paksha. In fact, that’s one of the primary goals of the Infinity Foundation I have established.
For instance, over a ten-year period, we provided grants to a department of the University of Hawaii that researches and teaches Indian philosophy. Among other things, our efforts produced a Sanskrit book that explains modern Western thought to Sanskrit scholars.

That book was written by Professor Arindam Chakrabarti, himself a highly regarded scholar of both Dharmic and Western thought. Professor Chakrabarti used the text in conducting workshops with a number of Sanskrit scholars, at Tirupati University as well as at Varanasi.
The results were astoundingly clear in revealing the immense potential for our traditional scholars to study the Western “other”, and to respond to it with our own system of hermeneutics, our traditional siddhanta. The success of Professor Chakrabarti’s workshops was met with many requests for more such programs to be convened.

More recently, at the World Sanskrit Conference held at Delhi in 2012, I presented my thesis on this issue as addressed in “Being Different”. Again, the responses were very encouraging: multiple invitations from the heads of Sanskrit universities and traditional mathas, requesting further workshops on purva-paksha. Similarly, following a seminar on my work hosted by Banaras Hindu University early this year, the Dean of their Faculty of Arts asked for my help in creating a new center for intercultural studies, aimed specifically at initiating purva-paksha.

Most people would agree that all this indicates a widespread and resolute acceptance of my thesis, by many of today’s Dharmic scholars and spiritual leaders. Among modern Indian intellectuals rooted in Dharmic tradition, a consensus is already forming that it is desirable, indeed necessary, to study Western thought… and to respond using the refined and sophisticated techniques of siddhanta.

Given this, it’s rather curious that a handful of cynics… these “critics” you speak of… appear to be raising “concerns” about my thesis.

What, exactly, are their “concerns” based upon? Are they aware of what purva-paksha is… of its role as a scholarly technique, in our intellectual tradition spanning thousands of years? Do they even realize that India originated critical thinking and debate many centuries before the West conceived of such things?

For that matter, what depth of substantive research have they contributed on this issue… or any other… which qualifies them to make such sweeping pronouncements of dismissal?

Their attitude in this regard betrays a blind adherence to prejudice… something more characteristic of the dogma-based religions of the desert, than of any Dharmic practice.

Some of your critics also claim that you, yourself, are doing a “U-Turn” by engaging with Christians and others through the inter-faith dialogue process. In doing this, aren’t you simply providing Christians with another window to continue their conversion of Hindus, and digestion of Dharmic wisdom?

RM: Let me ask you something. If I were not to engage in the “inter-faith dialogue process”… would it mean that all “inter-faith” dialogue would stop?

No. It would go on. And it would continue on the Western universalist terms that have already privileged the Abrahamic faiths for too long!

I do not create windows for inculturation or contextualization by engaging in inter-faith dialogue. The missionary Abrahamic faiths are continuously engaged in a number of processes to create such windows and exploit them. Dialogue is only one such process… there are many more, including the appropriation of Dharmic traditions without attribution, the denial of mutual respect to other religions, the maintenance of history-centric exclusivity, the adoption of native cultural forms of spiritual expression to disguise the ingress of missionary Christianity. So many things, and they all go on.

I am not contributing to any of these processes by joining in inter-faith dialogue… in fact, I endeavor to bring some honesty to the dialogue, and level the playing field, by pointing these things out!

If someone did not point these things out, we would go on slumbering, and dreaming dreams of “sameness”… thinking that Western universalism was harmless in privileging Judeo-Christian faiths, because in the end all religions are the “same”.

In fact, they are not. In fact, Dharmic faiths are irreconcilably different from Abrahamic faiths in some fundamental ways. It is only when we remain ignorant of the differences, that inter-faith dialogue can become a source of threat to us. When we are informed about the differences, and demand that dialogue must proceed from a position of mutual respect… then, what is the threat? It doesn’t exist, except in the reactionary minds of those who remain hopelessly and persistently colonized.

But doesn’t interfaith dialogue itself provide an opportunity for missionary Christianity to further its agenda by deceitful inculturation? How do you respond to the charge that you’re contributing to this agenda?

RM: I think the question has oversimplified and confused two entirely separate issues.

Inculturation and interfaith engagement exist independently of each other. Of course, we see both phenomena exert themselves in Indian society today.

Among the Hindu elite, the fluffy popularization of the “sameness” myth… the idea that all religions are ultimately the same… has the effect of inculturating Indians in educated circles. This isn’t a consequence of interfaith dialogue, but of a fad created by some of our own writers and thinkers.

Meanwhile, inculturation in villages… where missionaries put on the external trappings of hindu forms of worship, such as aarti, and apply these to Jesus… is entirely unlinked to interfaith discussions.

Conversely, much interfaith dialogue isn’t based on inculturation, and has separate dynamics of its own. So it’s important to recognize, and treat each of these things as an independent issue.
Firstly, let’s look at inculturation, and how I’ve confronted it.

To begin with, my critiques of the “sameness” myth have considerably impacted Indian intellectuals’ appreciation of the dangers inherent in inculturation… of the deceitful claims of “sameness” that are used to confuse and disorient our people. My entire thesis about “difference” focuses on the need to retain awareness that we are NOT the same, so that external predators cannot stealthily digest our traditional wisdom.

Critics of my work don’t seem to have the background required to understand the nature of the “sameness” myth… which, ironically, is being propagated by many of our own teachers and self-appointed spokespersons.

Moreover, I’ve made a deep study of the history, psychology and politics of Westerners who appropriate and digest critical elements of our Dharma, aiming to boost Western identity while depleting our own. This is what I refer to as my U-Turn Theory, and as far as I know it’s the only major study of its kind in existence.

Beyond this, I’ve sought to introduce a whole new vocabulary that deepens our understanding of inculturation. You will find that many terms of this vocabulary, including “sameness”, “being different”, “digestion”, and “u-turn” are now gaining widespread usage, becoming part of the popular idiom among thinking Indians.

Has anyone else, in recent years, conducted this extent of research on the subject… combined with fact-finding at the ground level, with an analytical understanding of both Western and Indian identity? I’m not aware that anyone else has done so, or articulated their findings as effectively.
Secondly, let’s address the subject of my involvement with interfaith dialogue.

Besides the events that are explicitly convened for the purpose of “interfaith dialogue”, there are many other instances of interfaith interaction that are not openly identified as such.

You have discussions on TV or radio involving representatives of various faiths; often, unfortunately, the Hindu participant, who is deeply knowledgeable of dharmic tradtions, in these discussions comes across as ill-prepared to counter the arguments of the other representatives.
You have the United States government making appointments to various bodies, where discussions occur that are very similar to what goes on at “interfaith” events… shouldn’t we aim to better empower the representatives who speak for us there? Or are we better advised to boycott such discussions, so that our place is taken by mala-fide opponents who claim to speak on our behalf?
When I first began to expose the biases of the interfaith movement, I realized that such biases were frequently exercised by designating certain types of individuals for participation in discussions on Hinduism. These included anti-Hindu leftists, Indian or Western Christians, and token “Hindus” who were neither qualified nor confident enough to speak up assertively. I responded with an awareness campaign urging our temples, our community leaders, and our youth to demand a seat at the table for authoritative, knowledgeable voices.

We must realize that interfaith events are not centered on Hinduism, but on religions in general… Muslims, Christians, Jews, and others have many motives of their own to participate in such discussions. Our absence as Hindus will not be enough to kill any interfaith event. The events will simply go on without us, and we will be represented by proxies who are either inadequate or hostile to our purposes.

In any case, the earlier problem has been alleviated somewhat; it has now become more common for Hindus to be invited to such gatherings.

Today, by contrast, we have a new problem. There is a clamoring horde of Hindu spokespersons who present themselves as ambassadors of Dharma, but in fact, end up selling us out. Some of these individuals have genuine intentions. Others are in it for self-aggrandizement, ego-inflation, prestige, or to network for professional or business opportunities.
All too often, our would-be ambassadors are handicapped by lack of training in debate, insufficient expertise in Dharmic scholarship, and minimal familiarity with the issues we face. Most of all, they lack any education in conducting purva-paksha of the Western mindset. All these handicaps have proved very costly to us.

To reverse these handicaps, we must organize workshops and educational programs. We must rigorously train the aspiring ambassadors of Dharma, equip them with the knowledge they need, and arm them to face public forums with confidence, so that they’re unafraid even to go on the offensive when that’s necessary. This has been another major focus of my efforts, as they relate specifically to interfaith engagement.

From your explanations, it appears that the arguments being used by some of your critics… or should I say detractors… are quite spurious. However, they continue to insist that you are against our spiritual leaders, that some of them are against you… why is this?

RM: According to our Dharma, one must draw one’s own conclusions based on the evidence of one’s own experience. Hearsay is no substitute at all.

In this case, the appropriate thing to do is to find out which specific gurus or acharyas, allegedly, are purported to have expressed hostile opinions towards me. Personally, I am unaware of any who have.

As I’ve mentioned before, my collaboration has been requested… and continues to be requested… by so many groups affiliated with a number of different Sampradayic traditions, both in India and in North America. I’m honored by the opportunity to serve them through writing, speaking engagements, discussions on strategy, and so much more. I hardly think that such relationships could be predicated on a basis of hostility… do you?

I don’t claim to understand why some people persist in making these sorts of allegations about me. The allegations themselves are easily identifiable as unfounded, and that’s what matters.

One might examine the relationship of my detractors with the types of individuals and traditional institutions, that they’re trying to portray as being hostile towards me. Do they have a depth of engagement with these institutions, similar to mine? Is their involvement as consistently sought after by these institutions, as mine? If not, then what qualifies them to judge the nature of something that’s clearly outside their own realm of experience? Of course, judgments borne of personal prejudice don’t need to be qualified in this way… but most people wouldn’t consider such judgments to be valid, either.

Do you think that you’re being attacked by some people out of simple jealousy? A few individuals seem particularly obsessive about making these sorts of personal attacks on you. Yet, they seem to lack any personal contributions or achievements in your field of scholarship, that might lend credibility or authority to their attacks. How do you view such attacks: do they reflect a personal grudge, or a psychological issue?

RM: I’m really not interested in reversing the smear. Let such persons do what they will. I shall continue with my work.

Are you ever concerned that such nuisance attacks might adversely impact your work, or your standing with others?

RM: My sva-dharma does not demand that I must compete against anybody for electoral victories, public approval, high-profile appointments, or other contests of popularity. I’m busy enough as a writer and public speaker…busier than ever these days, with all the invitations to various engagements coming in.

It’s hard enough to keep up with the legitimate demands on my time and energy… so these sorts of silly insinuations are hardly worth bothering with! I do not think that the energetic, involved collaborators that I’d welcome would turn away from my work because of such attacks. In fact the number of serious thinkers, groups, and invitations to conduct briefings has kept growing rapidly.

Published: March 29, 2012

December 31^st, 2003.

To: Editors of Ghadar magazine.
CC. Vijay Prashad (Forum of Indian Leftists – FOIL); Sekhar Ramakrihnan, Abha Sur (SINGH Foundation)

From: Rajiv Malhotra

Subject: Request for a dialog with the Indian left.

Dear fellow Indians,

I am delighted to learn that you are planning a special issue of Ghadar to discuss South Asia as a category, and I am interested in participating in your discussion. Since your special issue seems open to debate about fundamental categories, I would like to present some ideas, such as the following, that are part of my personal on-going thought process. Please note that I approach this out of my personal intellectual interest only, that I believe in making models and testing them as working hypotheses, and that I adopt the scientific and business philosophy of improving the models continually based on experience and better data. So there is nothing “final” in these perspectives, and they are more like topics to trigger conversations:

1) LEFT/RIGHT CATEGORIES: I start by asking why “left” and “right” often seem to be positioned as mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories in the case of India, and why various hybrids and entirely new frameworks are not appearing. Liberation Theology, as developed by Catholics in Latin America, is an example of a hybrid. Gandhi’s use of Hinduism combined with contemporary social ideas is an important lead in this direction. In the latest issue of the leftist publication, “In These Times,” there is an article titled, “A Merry Marxy Christmas,” about how several Marxists are going back to Christianity. (See: http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=514_0_4_0_C). I have defined myself as a “non-Hindutva Hindu,” and selectively accept ideas from all “sides” depending on the issue, and changed my mind often. Note that I am not demanding as precondition for dialog that every leftist interlocutor must first prove that they are not interested in Stalinism or Maoism, that they disavow the totalitarian Communist states, that they disavow the Communists’ use of History as a political tool, etc. However, I do wonder why syncretism is not being encouraged by the left as a way forward.

2) HISTORY-CENTRISM: In my essay (posted at: http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/column.asp?cid=303135 ) I have posited that religious conflict stems from historical fixations rather than ahistorical spirituality. When historically unique claims become necessary conditions for a religion’s survival, it gets boxed in. But the Indic notion of the past is more pliable and less literal, and Hinduism (except for certain denominations), Buddhism and Jainism do not DEPEND upon unique historical interventions by God, i.e. they are not History-Centric in the sense defined in my essay. Therefore, to what extent have the Abrahamic notions of God’s unique interventions in History become implicit in the way “history” and “religion” are viewed by secularists today? My thesis suggests that some Hindutva forces seek to turn Hinduism into a history-centric religion along the lines of Abrahamic religions (with Ram = Jesus, and Ayodhya = Jerusalem), when, in fact, it is not. Traditional boundaries between denominations and entire faiths in India were not so rigid or permanent, because they were not constrained by history. Is history-centrism the culprit behind many conflicts? (BTW: I have not been interested in fights to build a temple in Ayodhya.)

3) CONTINUITY/DISCONTINUITY: Given the Abrahamic history-centrisms, change often consisted of destroying the old historical narrative and replacing with a new one. This led to discontinuous “advancements” in the west. Is the category “progressive” limited to discontinuous change, or would you be willing to consider “progress” to include advances that do not erase traditions, but that renegotiate and adapt? Historically, Indians made many advances of this kind of adaptive progress from within. In other words, are pre-modern, modern, and postmodern necessarily sequential, discontinuous, and representative of “stages”, or can there be other kinds of healthy societies, including those where all three coexist in parallel? The reason I ask this is that many Indian leftists seem determined to demand a thorough destruction of the old and rebuilding of an imagined new often guided by a teleology, while essentializing Hindus as perpetrators for all the current problems. On the other hand, when leftists held power for extended periods in certain countries and attempted erasing their past heritage, their success was thin. Once their own teleologically-driven mission ran out of steam, the Russian Orthodox Church, Chinese Buddhism and Taoism, etc. bounced back with a vengeance. What lessons is India’s left learning from this? Was it useful to try to erase the past and to invent a new society? (I experienced first-hand the transitions of the former Soviet Block in the 1990s, because I spent considerable periods of time there.) Furthermore, India’s rapid economic advancement today is coming from free international trade, and not from any discontinuous “progress” thrust upon its people. Does this recent success not invalidate Marx’ view that colonialism was good for India’s modernization, given that we now see proof that free Indians use free trade to modernize themselves much better and faster than under tutelage or hegemony? Is it time to formally revisit Marx’ perspectives on colonialism, especially since he had no hard data on India and relied solely upon colonialist renditions of history? (This issue does not mean that I support globalization wholeheartedly, as my position on it is rather complex and still forming.)

4) FOREIGN INSTITUTIONAL CONTROL: Indians have always been assimilating foreign influences and incorporating them into Indian culture, while at the same time, also exporting Indian culture and thought. But one needs to distinguish between foreign individuals and foreign institutions, as agents of change in India. Syrian Christians came as individuals and not as official representatives of some Syrian king, and settled happily in Indian society without foreign allegiance. But Portuguese Christianity came centuries later as soldiers of Portugal’s rulers, in the same manner as the conquistadors went to America to bring glory to Spain through conquest. The two kinds of foreign influence (individual/institutional) are entirely different, as the institutions can be vehicles to project foreign power, but I am unsure if the left has appreciated this. While being critical of commercial MNCs, the left has failed to see Religious Multinationals in the same light – the Vatican’s control over Indian Catholic Churches, the Saudi control over thousands of Indian Madrassas are examples of foreign institutional “influence” that have clear loyalty to foreign nexuses. (Yet there are also millions of Indian Christians and Muslims living happily in their faiths without being under the control of any foreign nexus.) Is the left’s criticism of commercial MNCs, without a comparable criticism of non-commercial foreign MNCs, a contradiction made in the interest of realpolitik and leftists’ institutional careers? In their critiques of foreign MNCs, one should include non-commercial MNCs, such as globalized religions, Ford Foundation, various European foundations, etc., that use money and symbolic power to drive Indians’ intellectual discourse top-down.

5) REVISING HISTORY: I do not support amending history for political purposes. For instance, I consider both Aryan migration-into-India and the opposite (migration out-of-India) to be too simplistic, and neither is provable with existing data. Neither is central to my primary areas of interest. Nor am I concerned about establishing the age of the Mahabharata, for instance. However, historiography is about researching for fresh data that often results in radical new rethinking. Recent examples include: (i) blacks have changed the way Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are depicted in American history; (ii) Latin Americans have changed the depictions of Christopher Columbus and reinterpreted 1492 as “conquest” rather than “discovery;” (iii) Scott Levi’s new book challenges the common view that the Silk Road and India’s trade with Central Asia died in the 15th century, by showing that it was thriving until the 19th century; (iv) Subalternists are revising the history of India’s underclass; and (v) Gail Omvedt’s book is rewriting the history of Indian Buddhism. One can make a very long list of “revisions” supported by many mainstream History Departments around the world. On the other hand, Western History contains many false philosophical reconstructions: Christianity was truly a discontinuity against Platonic ideas, and the two remain mutually contradictory today, no matter how much the western thinkers would like to pretend otherwise. Pedagogic summaries of western traditions help maintain a myth of a smooth continuum of constant accretion of positive developments. Hence, one must distinguish between rewriting history that is based on solid scholarship from rewriting history mainly to serve political goals. Are leftists willing to accept that there may well be legitimate revisions of (Indian and non-Indian) history by non-leftists, in ways that contradict the “sequence of history” mandated by leftist ideology, and that these could be based on solid non-politically driven scholarship? Or are Indian leftists’ minds closed on history, in which case historiography should be replaced by reading library books and applying the trendy “literary theories” received from western Ivy Leagues? If history is simply to be treated as “text,” should History Departments get folded into English Departments under the care of “theorists”?

6) ELITISM: Are the left’s criticisms of the elitist Brahmins’ control over Sanskrit (and hence over discourse and culture) also applicable to: (a) the equivalent role of the elites well versed in Persian language during the Mughal period; (b) the dependence of today’s Indian Muslims on what the elite Arabic-knowing ulema say about both sacred and mundane matters, with little local freedom or autonomy in matters of interpretation; (c) the elitism in the Christian Churches in matters of interpretation; (d) the hegemony of Russian language in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that Russians were a minority in most states in the federation; (e) the dominance of Mandarin in China, that is systematically erasing the ethnicity of Tibetans and Muslims in Xingjian province (see: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/DI05Ad03.html ); (f) the way Ivy League Literary Theory has today become the yard-stick to determine who gets certified and licensed to speak with adhikara (authority) in prestigious secular circles; and (g) the role of English language in general, including the way Call Centers are breeding a new kind of elitism in India? I would like to meet Indian leftists who are seriously working against elitism that runs across the board.

7) INDIAN SCIENCE: I do not approve that traditional Indian science should be labeled as “Vedic Science.” Yet there is considerable unacknowledged history of Indian science based on physical hard evidence – in metallurgy, civil engineering, medicine, mathematics, etc. This history is not dependent on the texts of any religion. What is your stand on Indian scientific history that was not religion based? Does it throw a hammer at the Marxist Grand Narrative, according to which traditional Indian society must be shown to be feudalistic and pre-scientific, so as to qualify India for the Communist revolution? In other words, what if Indian society simply did not fit either Capitalist or Feudalist models – what would that do to the linear “progression” required by Communist theory? Is it to avoid this dilemma that Marxists have refused to consider the compelling evidence of science and technology in traditional India – and thereby inadvertently strengthened the Eurocentrism prevailing in the history of science curricula?

8) ANTI-INDIA: What is the left’s concept on India as a nation state? Without compromising their ideals, are Indian leftists open to question their uncritical loyalty to western idioms and politics, and to their stances against Indian nationhood? After all, one does not find them questioning the nationhood of any western nation, not even those in the making, such as Czech, Slovakia, Bosnia, or Slovenia. Nor do they deploy “sub-nationalism” to challenge the concept of United States of Europe or of China. However, they appear to use such concepts as self-determination and the other more popular weapon of neo-imperialism i.e., ‘human rights,’ as tools to de-legitimize the state of India. The newly released very patriotic movie, LOC Kargil, has many Indian Muslim actors and the dialog was written by a prominent Indian Muslim. How does the Indian left explain its opposition to the Kargil war when Indian Muslim leaders supported it? I hope to discuss whether leftist ideals of social fairness are just as achievable in a unified strong India, instead of a fragmented and divided India which seems so attractive to the Indian left. Does unilateral universalism (and/or breakup into sub-nations) on the part of India continue to make sense to Indian leftists, especially in the face of many powerful nations having trajectories to enhance their hegemonies and neo-colonialism?

9) YOGA: What do Indian leftists think of re-introducing yoga into Indian education (from where it remains banished on the grounds of being “anti-secular”), considering that 18 million Americans spend an estimated $27 billion annually to learn and practice yoga? I know many progressive desis who still consider yoga/meditation to be part of the Evil Brahmin Conspiracy to oppress the masses and to keep them poor through superstition. Yet, when I explain this “progressive” Indian view to my American friends, they cannot help laughing at the absurdity of it. (Yoga Journal did a recent survey of Indian-American progressives’ attitudes on yoga.) On the other hand, I understand the left’s dilemma that if yoga/meditation were legitimized in India’s intellectual circles and education, it would open the door for better awareness of the philosophy behind it, and ultimately, the appreciation of Sanskrit texts. I would like to know what leftists think of the compelling mainstream western scientific evidence of meditation’s benefits, and of the use of Indic epistemology by western neuro-phenomenologists and Christian theologians in developing what is popularly being called the Emerging Worldview. Are leftists remaining on the wrong side of science, health care and philosophical trends?

10) INDIAN CLASSICS: A good liberal arts education in the west is usually built on a solid foundation of the Western Classics (combining Greek, Roman and Judeo-Christian), because these texts are said to equip a young mind not only to understand the past of his/her great civilization, but also as tools to be applied to deal with intellectual problems of today. On the other hand, Indian leftists seem to continue the Macaulay trend of despising the Indian Classics. It is true that certain stanzas of the Manusmriti and of many other texts contain ideas that run counter to contemporary human rights. But, by that token, Socrates had slaves, and Plato wrote some horrible things promoting atrocities; and yet teachers simply ignore those specific portions without expelling the entire Western Classics canon. John Stuart Mill, regarded as the founder of modern liberalism, worked his entire life for the British East India Company, helping them subvert human rights of the colonies. Hegel rationalized genocide against the Native Americans and slavery of the blacks. Yet, these and many others like them comprise the backbone of what is taught by liberal-minded westerners. Why is there this double-standard against Indian Classics? Furthermore, why could the Puranas not be seen as serving a combination of (i) western narratives such as Homer, Dante, Viking sagas, Germanic tales of the Nibelungs, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and (ii) postmodernist myths such as Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, many of which were, in fact, inspired by Joseph Campbell’s work on Indian Classics?

My overall thrust is that achieving social equity and justice requires a scientific understanding of cultural and political formations, based on objective empirical observations, rather than sweeping generalizations (subsequently postulated as theories) coming out of 19th century European experiences. Ashutosh Varshney is rare in having based his theories on empirical data and not on regurgitating old materials.

Would there be any interest on your part in having open discussions/debates on such topics? I do not believe in the finality of knowledge; so whatever I know now is not necessarily representative of the views that I held in the past, and is not likely to remain unchanged in the future. This gives me freedom to think creatively, especially since I am not interested in defending any institutional structures (including left/right type of dichotomies) and nor do I have any followership to protect. Being new to the humanities field is counterbalanced by being less constrained.

It is likely and hopeful that we already agree on many issues listed above. Some issues might even be misunderstandings on my part as to what your position is. These serve merely as a starting point to get a sincere conversation going.

Finally, I request that in case you agree to a samvad, that it be carried out in the spirit of the purva-paksha tradition of debate, i.e. to discover the truth, and not to “win” or to turn this into inter-personal ad hominems. I have made a sincere attempt in this letter to articulate issues and my doubts, and I hope to dialog in order to advance my own thinking.

I look forward to hearing from you. Happy Holidays and regards,

Rajiv Malhotra

Occasionally, a small group of evangelists — well-dressed and well-groomed young men and women from a local church — walks around my neighborhood ringing doorbells to spread Christianity. I always like to invite them in, offer them chai and engage in a relaxed conversation. Even though I went to a Catholic school and know the proselytizing game well, I pretend I’m the naive immigrant eager to ask basic questions. After a few minutes of small talk, one of them usually breaks open the topic by asking, “Have you been saved?”

I try to look surprised, and respond by saying, “I was never condemned to begin with!” My young, charming guests usually get thrown off. They expect me to claim that I have already been saved, and their training has equipped them with the rhetorical skills to assert that their ability to save me is superior to my present faith. I usually find them taken by surprise by my posture that I do not need to be saved in the first place.

Christian salvation is a solution to the problem of Eternal Damnation caused by Original Sin. But that problem does not exist within the dharma traditions. Imagine someone asking you if you have been pardoned from your prison sentence, and you respond by saying that you were never condemned for any crime and, hence, such a question is absurd. The implication here is that for a dharmic person to say he has been saved would imply that he accepts Christianity’s fundamental tenet that every human is born a sinner and remains so until he surrenders himself to Jesus Christ. Even when the church acknowledges other faiths as having merit, no other path can substitute for Jesus when it comes to being saved.

The closest the dharmic traditions come to salvation are the concepts of moksha in Hinduism and nirvana in Buddhism, both of which can be loosely translated as “liberation.” But there are crucial differences between dharmic liberation and Christian salvation.

Receiving assurance of salvation is the key moment in the spiritual life of most Christians. It comes as a gift of grace and its source lies outside the individual. It does not come as a result strictly of merit, spiritual practice, prayer, or asceticism. Although these may be helpful in its attainment, and even necessary in many denominations, they are not sufficient in and of themselves. That’s because the potential to achieve salvation is not innate in us.

In Jewish and Christian traditions, death is the consequence of sin. The freedom of the soul in Christianity entails, in the End of Time, the freedom of the body as well: There will be a resurrection of the dead in a “glorified” physical form, and the boundary between heaven and earth will be erased or made permeable. For most people, the full realization of this salvation can come only after death.
Dharmic liberation, on the other hand, can be achieved here and now in this very body and in this very world. Moksha is similar to salvation insofar as it is concerned with freedom from human bondage; but the nature of this bondage is quite different. Moksha really refers to living in a state of freedom from ignorance, pre-conditioning and karmic “baggage.” According to the Bhagavad Gita, the state where one is desire-less, ego-less and beyond the drives of human nature is the first major milestone; it opens the door to further evolution and eventual liberation in the fullest sense.

Salvation, on the other hand, does not entail expanded awareness or consciousness, esoteric/mystical knowledge, or physical practices (though these may attend it). Nor is it necessarily derived from complete renunciation, as is the case in Buddhist nirvana. It can be experienced only by surrendering to the will of God, and God here is specifically the God of the Bible.

There is yet another state described in Sanskrit which has no equivalent in Christianity. One who has attained moksha may choose to remain in the world and continue to do spiritual work — that is, free from past actions (i.e., karmic bondage) and yet active in the world. This person is called jivanmukta. He (or she) can, at will, either turn away from the world or turn toward it and deal with it without being touched or limited by it. The Buddhist equivalent of a jivanmukta is a bodhisattva.

The New Testament calls this “being in the world, but not of it.” There is an opening here for a potential development of a Christian jivanmukta, and St. Paul says several things about himself that would indicate he had at least tasted this state, as had other Christian saints. But the important thing is that there is no word for it in biblical metaphysics; that’s because the state was not examined, understood, or cultivated through systematic techniques. The words “saint” and “prophet” do not suffice, nor even does “mystic.” When Christians experienced such a state, it was not as a result of following a yoga-like systematic process; neither was it seen as bringing salvation. Hence such a person would still be, according to the Vatican document Dominus Jesus, “in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of the means of salvation.”

As the evangelists leave my home, I always hope our conversation has challenged their assumptions about the people they are preaching to, and that perhaps they will re-examine the idea that all people outside of their church are in a state of spiritual deficiency. But until they do, I will continue to welcome them into my living room, offer them chai and share with them the good news that there is no such thing as Original Sin. We are all originally divine.

Published: April 29, 2011

Rajiv Malhotra

In computer science, the binary system with only two values (0 and 1) is sufficient to represent immense complexity—including pictures, videos, multimedia, and in fact, everything we can sense or conceptualize. Therefore, the expansion Two  Many is easy for us to understand: If two entities exist, we can understand how an infinite set of entities can be constructed out of them. ¬Such is the power of two.
However, suppose we start with one entity, then how do we get two entities out of it? In Vedanta terms, the issue is to understand how Advaita  Dvaita comes about. In other words, how does multiplicity arise if the fundamental reality is One, and what is their relationship with each other? This has been the central debate in Vedanta among its various schools, the main ones being organized as Advaita, VishishtAdvaita, and Dvaita.
The Veda-s say that reality consists of paramarthika-sat and vyavaharika-sat, the absolute and the relative realms, respectively. The key issue has been the relationship between them. If paramarthika is the absolute reality, then what is vyavaharika, how does it relate to paramarthika, and why does vyavaharika exist at all?

Confusion about Vyavaharika

There are popular interpretations of Advaita claiming that only paramarthika is real and vyavaharika is an illusion; they translate Adi Shankara’s word mithya to describe vyavaharika, as illusion, or falsehood. The proponents of this interpretation commonly say things like: The world is an illusion. Two-ness is an illusion in this view, because only paramarthika is real while vyavaharika is false. On the other hand, the VishishtAdvaita school maintains that the one absolute Brahman includes multiplicity; this is also called qualified nondualism. The Dvaita school holds that there are two realities with their own respective essences, but that one is absolute, and the other is dependent on it. Being dependent makes it relative but does not negate its existence. In other words, both are real, though one has higher status as independent of the other.
The smile on a face is real but cannot exist independently of the face. However, the face exists even without the smile. One cannot say the smile is an illusion just because it is temporary and dependent on the face for its existence. Another analogy used is of the blue lotus: Its blueness is a property of the lotus and depends on the lotus’ existence, while the lotus can exist without necessarily being blue.
This discussion on the nature of two-ness has been center-stage in Indian philosophical discourse for many centuries. My intention here is not to try to resolve this old debate. Rather, as an Advaitin, I find far too many confused and muddled teachers professing the illusory nature of vyavaharika because they are unable to explain mithya any other way, and because this gives them a convenient escape from having to address the hard questions of our empirical world.
I will divert briefly to tell a story that led me to investigate what I have called the sameness syndrome and its confusion among many of our spiritual teachers. This investigation led me to write the book, Being Different.
It was sometime in the early 90s that in a visit to Bangalore I was introduced to a young swami. I was told that as an IIT graduate who had recently joined a famous ashram as an acharya, he would be the type of intelligent, scientific, and logical person who would understand the issues I was working on, and that we ought to collaborate. I was hopeful for a productive meeting at the hotel I was staying at. When he arrived, we had barely introduced ourselves, and he started pointing out at a sign in the hotel and said, “See that sign Om there, I don’t believe in the Om sign because there should also be a Cross and a Crescent since they are all same.” I explained that difference is a key attribute of the cosmos, and that collapsing it into homogeneity was not only fake but also disrespectful of others.
We thus started out on a wrong foot and the more I discussed with him, the more I realized that he was confused with the common misconception that everything is the same and that anything that shows difference is a problem. So, I decided to respond to him in kind and I asked him why he wanted to wear the saffron robe and why not just jeans, why call himself Swami XYZ-ananda and not Reverend Joe Smith or Imam XYZ. I asked him why he follows a certain diet and lifestyle if everything is the same, or everything is illusory.
I find the kind of arguments he offered to be escapist because they are unable to distinguish between vyavaharika and paramarthika. Such proponents chant shloka-s of the paramarthika, but do it in the vyavaharika context, which shows that they do not understand the relationship. I started telling the swami that the shastra-s and the Vedic lifestyle requires understanding the importance of differences in the vyavaharika realm, which is where are we are situated. I offered the following examples:

• The theory of the guna-s – sattva, rajas and tamas – is applicable in the vyavaharika realm; the paramarthika realm is beyond the guna-s. One must become knowledgeable of this and live accordingly, and not negate the very basic teachings of our tradition.
• The science of Ayurveda, with the dosha-s of vata, pitta and kapha, is in the vyavaharika realm; only in the paramarthika realm there are no dosha-s and the issues we typically deal with in the world do not apply there. Escaping from difference is tantamount to negating Ayurveda.
• The Varnashrama system – the 4 varna-s and the 4 ashrama-s combined into a 4×4 matrix of 16 combinations – that structures our conduct, lifestyle, optimization of do-s and don’t-s, are all in the vyavaharika realm. In the paramarthika or transcendent realm, one does not have these context and there is no need to follow the dharma sastra-s.
• In fact, all the teachings in the Bhagavad-Gita, everything about karma and dharma, would be voided if one were to ignore the very existence of differences.

The Blunder of Sameness

The entire Dharmashastras are contextual and based on differences. The whole world of karma is dualistic – there is a difference between right and wrong. There is causation along with freedom of the individual to choose at each moment: We live in the world of causation if we are in the vyavaharika. There are those who do not want to deal with the complexity of the vyavaharika realm and hope to escape out of responsibilities, paradoxes, and challenges rather than facing them. This is escapism and world-negating and not what the Dharma teaches.

The entire Mahabharata is about Dharma v/s Adharma. If everything were the same because everyone is Bhagavan, and if everyone’s actions are good and right because it is Bhagavan doing them, then why would Sri Krishna ask Arjuna to fight? Why would Sri Rama have to fight Ravana if everything were the same and Ravana was also ultimately the same essence as Sri Rama, and if in the end it does not matter because everything is mithya? There would then be no message in Itihasa, and all our teachings would be dismissible as humbug.

The purushartha-s of kama, artha and dharma involve living in the world of contextual differences that shift from one situation to the next. Yoga’s ethics of yama and niyama are also dualistic – that is the nature of vyavaharika. The very idea of tapasya is vyavaharika. If everything is the same as everything else, why bother with tapasya and yajna?
The swami got especially upset when I asked him the pragmatic but profound question: What is the reason to distinguish between eating prasad and the waste material he flushes down the toilet? This was a genuine question that an Advaitin should be able to address. After all, there could not any essentially right or wrong thing to eat since fundamentally everything is the same, made of same elementary particles, and ultimately only consciousness. He angrily walked out of the meeting.

That swami’s way of thinking is a common confusion among a vast majority of Vedantins I have met, including many gurus. This has always been a profoundly serious problem for me. They do not feel comfortable criticizing or negating anything or anyone. But such negation is important, for it is not criticism driven by personalities and ego, but by important and empowering interpretations of our major works for the followers. If negation were not important, there would be no Ramayana or Mahabharata required as all persons and their actions would be considered fine.
Our tradition is based on logical arguments and debates. Adi Shankara himself was so rigorous in negating and falsifying the opponent. If there is no such thing as falsity, i.e., no such thing as a false statement, then the whole tradition of purva-paksha would be rendered futile.
The argument for not accepting differences, for not wanting to falsify, is a recipe for Dharmic catastrophe. It would confuse our population about the importance of taking action, leading to further loss of kshatriyata. This is what I feel is so wrong with today’s teachings of Vedanta by some teachers.

The Importance of Differences

The cosmos is built on diversity. Every kshana – moment in time – is distinct and no two moments are the same because there is constant flux. Within any species, no two individuals are identical. The entire plant kingdom has immense diversity; be it oak trees or roses, each has multiple varieties and sub-varieties. Diversity is the basis of the cosmos and all manifestation of the One is built on this principle. If one proposes that something is wrong with diversity, then one is saying the universe is fundamentally flawed.

The central idea should not be that homogeneity creates harmony but, harmony exists only with diversity. Harmony with diversity also means the need for mutual respect; one does not have to agree with everything the other person says.
People say that truth is one, hence we must accept whatever someone says. This is nonsense: There is a difference between truth and truth-claims. For the same patient (whose condition is the one truth), different doctors could have different truth-claims about the diagnosis. Likewise, different religions assert different truth-claims about the nature of fundamental reality. Any religious tradition, including our own, any ideological position, makes truth-claims. Such claims are subject to falsification and that has always been an important pursuit by intellectuals. We debate each other’s truth-claims.

This is seen all the time among scientists, mathematicians, doctors – they look at evidence, test them, and propose counter positions. Adi Shankara and others after him, were vociferous debaters about the truth-claims of other schools of thought, even though the truth of ultimate reality is one. But I find many Advaitins unfortunately backing out of such engagements by using escapist arguments when religious differences making conflicting truth-claims.

Strangely, many acharya-s find it easy to disagree with rival Vedanta schools but are uncomfortable disagreeing with other non-Vedic religious claims such as those in Christianity and Islam. My sense is that as bookworms they have learned the old debates from Shankara’s time, hence able to parrot them, but have not done enough purva-paksha of Abrahamic religions and cannot debate them well.
We are born in vyavaharika-sat and the path is lived here. The importance given to this realm as our ground for action is seen in the Upanishads–Brahman is embodied in the vyavaharika-sat. This profound life affirming outlook requires us to understand the nature of multiplicity, complexity, and diversity.
The manifested world consists of the principle of causation. Every action is a karma that produces some effect; and no effect happens by itself without a corresponding cause. Understanding this karmic principle of causation is needed to be able to live a Dharmic life. The way to transcend from the vyavaharika into the paramarthika realm is not achieved by pretending that the former is an illusion; the path requires one to go through vyavaharika and not escape from it by running away.
The frequent advice given by Advaitins to Kill the Mind as the way to achieve moksha is commonly misunderstood because it suggests one could use anesthesia to become unconscious and achieve moksha. This is ridiculous because the real meaning of such teachings is to achieve a state of conscious existence beyond causation. The ordinary mental state is imprisoned in causation, and this must be transcended. One’s thoughts are usually being caused by previous thoughts; hence, there is a thought parade. The ego claims ownership of all action including mental action, which creates karma and causes a reaction; this is the realm of causation.
Transcendence is a state beyond mental discursiveness. There are many techniques taught by our sages where one can live within the vyavaharika and becomes less and less subject to causation until one is functioning bodily but not causing any karmic reactions; only the effects of previous causes continue. There are prescribed paths which do not involve denying the vyavaharika circumstances one is born into.

Differentiating between Bipolar and Bifocal

Most students of Vedanta I know slip down the slope of what I consider two contradictory modes of living – the ashram mode and mundane life mode. When these individuals are in the ashram, they speak of lofty paramarthika concepts but the moment they drive out of the ashram, they switch to the pragmatic mode dealing with the daily issues of the ego-centered world. I see this duplicity in many who claim to be following the path of Advaita. This leads to my differentiation between the bipolar and bifocal modes of cognition.

Bipolar is when one is fluctuating between two modes alternatively: from mode A to mode B and back to A and then again B. Mode A is one’s dualistic life and mode B is the brief moments of meditation or in an ashram immersed in talks of nondualism. Switching between A and B is what I call as bipolar; it is a type of time-division multiplexing, where one is shifting back and forth between the two. Unfortunately, this does not solve the Advaitin’s predicament. When the going gets tough in the vyavaharika realm— i.e., in mode A—one escapes into the paramarthika realm, mode B, and once the problem is solved, one is back to “enjoy life” in mode A.

The second way of cognizing is what I call the bifocal way, i.e., one sees both realities at once. One does not escape out of one mode to another but recognizes both simultaneously. In other words, one consciously sees Bhagavan in the vyavaharika scenario, and performs driven by the truth of the paramarthika realm. One consciously recognizes all the nama-rupa as Bhagavan’s manifestation. One knows the Absolute, while dealing with the relative world of actions and causation. One sees Bhagavan as the other person performing his role (whether he is self-aware of being Bhagavan or not), while also being fully aware of oneself as Bhagwan’s role in the context. This is being bifocal, i.e., there is one part of my cognitive lens that is paramarthika and always fixed on it, and simultaneously superimposed on it I enact in the vyavaharika realm as the theatre of action.

To understand this, consider the following analogy: Suppose an actor A performs a role as a character B. On stage he pretends to be B, but all the while he also knows that he is actually A. Similarly, I am fixed in my absolute essence as sat-chit-ananda performing as an individual in this body; I engage and enact in the vyavaharika realm and simultaneously I am aware that others are also the same paramarthika essence performing different roles in the vyavaharika realm. This interaction between various roles is what the Bhagavad Gita calls the interaction between various guna-s, which are manifestations of the same Ultimate essence. We must understand dualism in this way and live this kind of bifocal life.

Nididhyasana

I would like to conclude by discussing Adi Shankara’s teaching of three stages of practice – shravanam, mananam and nididhyasanam:

• shravanam refers to receiving knowledge from the Vedic canon and understanding it with fidelity to the meaning of the concepts. Receptivity with an open mind is shravanam.
• Mananam refers to the churning, debating, arguing, and deep thinking on the subject and is an important part of our learning tradition. In both these, it is important to not let emotions distort the process of acquiring knowledge.
• Nididhyasanam is the transformation that follows both shravanam and mananam. Nididhyasanam is not something which can be done i.e., there is no effort on the part of individual will, because anything one does always produces an effect and keeps one in the world of causation. One cannot perform something to achieve transcendence from causation; one is already inherently transcendent. There is an absence of the I (ego) in focusing upon the object of contemplation. There is no doing of yoga and meditation for this.

Nididhyasanam is a doerless mode of spontaneous happening, and the practices are mere preparatory to lead to the non-doing. The paths are necessary but not sufficient because in the final stage one must let go of all paths.

For instance, there are special mantra-s for replacing the discursiveness of the mind, and then the mantra-s themselves dissolve. Such a mantra leads to emptiness and pure consciousness without content. This is a way of doing something to lead to non-doing. Another way I was taught by my guru is to engage with every person with the bifocal lens, i.e., to know that the interaction is with Bhagavan manifested as that person: You are Bhagavan, just like I am Bhagavan. This practice, which is an act of doing, wakes up automatically a new cognition, and this transformation cannot be caused or predicted and is a spontaneous cognitive shift. Nothing changes externally – the vyavaharika world is very much a part of reality, but one is no longer bound by its causation.

This is why I chose the topic of two-ness for this article rather than one-ness which is so common. I want to discuss what Advaita is not, and not merely parrot what it is. I do not come across conferences organized on two-ness by Advaitins, because most people are fixated on one-ness and this results in the same points being discussed again and again. In order to progress, it is important for Advaitins to discuss two-ness and the world of karma and dharma, and how this is related to the Absolute one-ness. Why and how has the One become the Two? Is there a genuine

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¹ Adi Shankara’s Vivekachudamani, verse 364 refers to nididhyasanam as being a hundred thousand times superior to mananam and mananam itself being a hundred times better than shravanam. Current translation used is Vivekachudamana of Sri Sankaracharya translated by Sami Madhavananda, 1921. The Advaita Ashram. Almora. Pp 161

change or is it illusory? Is multiplicity built into the unity or something new brought in from elsewhere?

The junction between the one-ness and the two-ness defines how we function and this needs to become the crux of the conversations of Advaitins. Since two-ness is the platform to realize one-ness, inquiry by Advaitins into the major yogic paths – karma, jnana, bhakti – through focus on two-ness can hold immense value for today’s pursuits. One-ness is the goal of all these three major paths, but none of them, as seen in their major works, such as the Bhagavad Gita for karma yoga, the Upanishads for the jnana yoga, and various stuti-s for bhakti yoga, call for world negation. Relooking and potentially recasting two-ness and the need for the bifocal lens in today’s context, in each of these paths is important for Advaitins now more than ever. I hope this article provokes the Advaitins to these important conversations instead of discussing only the already known theories of one-ness.