THE WESTERNIZED SIDE OF MY BACKGROUND:

Since this matter keeps getting raised by some very narrow-minded Hindus in the middle of any and every kind of column, here is what I have to say:

My upbringing in my family, education, professional circles, and social circles have been and shall remain a combination of Indian and Western influences. I deny neither, and I am glad to have the gift of both. I synthesize them into a coherent worldview that I am happy with.

This is consistent with the globalization era and the reality of my educational (=Western) and spiritual (=Indian) experiences that are a part of me. So it’s also a pragmatic matter of accepting what is a given.

To complicate matters for the narrow-minded people here, I have worshipped in every major religion in the world, have dear friends in each, have read their spiritual books, and have had numerous brainstorms with theologians in each in the spirit of learning. Furthermore, I intend to continue these practices.

My sadhana is adhyatmika-centric and is neither history-centric nor ritual-centric. However, I respect both and harmonize themes into my views while focusing my sadhana on adhyatmika. I learned much from Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh sources and practices. I was also influenced as a child by a Sufi. I have gained a lot from some Christian mystics whom I came in contact with years ago.

We have an ancient Indian tradition of engaging the ‘other’ using a technique called purva-paksha. You must first study the other’s viewpoint very seriously and become an expert. Only then can you debate against it.

But today, I cannot find swamis who know the Western ‘other’ well enough to do purva-paksha of Western thought. This is why their followers are lost, confused about identity, and unable to effectively respond to the dominant culture. In the past, in India, the ‘other’ would have been Buddhist, Jaina, Nyaya, Mimamsika, Vedantin, etc., and each had to be studied, but today, the ‘other’ is typically Western-dominated culture that must be studied.

To understand Western thought, one must master its three branches: Christianity, Enlightenment, and Post-Enlightenment. Most Hindu preachers admit that their education did not include any of these. (Some do it as a matter of great pride.) So they lack a purva-paksha of the ‘other’ that matters so much in today’s global culture. Hence, by the methods of our tradition, they are unqualified to be able to debate in the mainstream, and they are the blind leading their followers – the result is today’s catastrophes facing Hindus.

On the other hand, the West has invested serious resources in studying Indian culture and thought rather than ignoring it. RISA is merely one example that proves my point. This started with the Jesuit College about 500 years ago, which translated Sanskrit works into Latin (including many in science/mathematics still not declassified by the Vatican). Later, it became more sophisticated Indology in the 19th century: EVERY major European university had Sanskrit text studies as a large department. Today, this is done not by the British Empire but mainly by the US Government, the churches, and various US private foundations funded by MNCs’ wealth. Today’s South Asian Studies replaces colonial Indology as the West’s purva-paksha of Indian thought and culture.

This means the West has extracted knowledge from Indic sources and developed sophisticated positions about us. In many cases, the most qualified scholar available at a university about some Indian text or tradition is a Westerner. That most swamis and their followers do not even know this shows how out of touch they are with the world.

So, rather than attacking me for my background, one might also see in it a rare ability to do purva-paksha of the West from the Indian perspective: I have invested most of my time since the mid-1990s in studying all three strains of Western thought from works of serious thinkers. Rather than being a handicap, I can debate the ‘other’ with authority and confidence.

Just as a team needs specialists of many kinds and not all members with the same speciality, the Indian Enlightenment Project needs both the St. Stephens graduate and the DAV graduate, not either/or. So why is Platonist so insecure with a sense of inferiority complex? Is it his lack of knowledge of his own tradition that makes him fear that the winds of Western influences will sweep him off?

Furthermore, how is his mentality different from that of fundamentalist Islamists? His comments are evidence that Hindu fundamentalism does exist as a serious menace today.

What this narrow mentality has produced is 800 Hindu temples in North America at a cost of about $2 billion, but lacking in intellectual content in most of them. They come across to the NRI youth as voodoo centers, doing some exotic ritual with no meaning. The pandits are ill-trained for 21st-century discourse; many cannot communicate for nuts. Any sincere visitor who wants to appreciate Hinduism would be well advised to stay away from them and instead spend quality time with someone knowledgeable in discussions first. Hindu temples have failed to project Hindu culture to mainstream society. Proof: in all these controversies we have been engaged in here on Sulekha, the temple-wallahs are lost, disinterested, and ignorant. They have failed to educate our own youth in ways that would equip them to face the issues with confidence and not to run from Hindu identity as being shameful.

They have failed because of the mentality exemplified by Platonist and others like him.

Many swamis told me point-blank that they are disinterested in teaching about the sociopolitical realm as they find it irrelevant or even un-Hindu-like. While I respect that (especially since my sadhana is adhyatmika), I point out to them that Krishna’s teachings were in the kshetra (i.e. theater) and not in the clouds. The Avatar enters the theater of mundane life to teach how to live in the mundane kshetra.

So today’s teachings must be for today’s kshetra, which happens to be Western-dominated. Krishna starts with a SWOT analysis (SWOT means Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) of both sides of the war, when he explains to Arjuna the capabilities of each of the main participants. This is called competitive analysis, an example of knowing the kshetra – a very practical thing. No swami has yet been able to give a rejoinder to me that would show teachings to live in the modern kshetra (based on purva-paksha) to be improper or un-Hindu.

So far, I have made two points for being a successful Hindu today: follow the West’s purva-paksha and teach/practice according to the modern kshetra.

My next question is: Should we go back in time and try to recreate it, or should we advance into the future? Unfortunately, most Hindus and anti-Hindus don’t understand our tradition in this regard. It is falsely viewed that these are mutually exclusive options, namely, that one must be either an orthodox living in Vedic times or a “progressive” person who has rejected the past.

Abrahamic religions are based on discontinuous changes, each caused by a new prophetic revelation that overruled the past. Thus, they had to reject prior knowledge. Hence, they had this mutually exclusive choice-making forced upon them. Indian secularists brought this idea into India, and most orthodox Hindus (lacking in the proper purva-paksha of the West) simply accepted this way of thinking. So we have fights between Indian orthodoxy and progressives. Both are wrong.

Indian traditions give you a combination: Change is not discontinuous, but the new gets assimilated into the framework already in place. Notice how the internet, computers, satellites, etc, are being assimilated into Hindu culture. Notice how orthodox all this threatens Islam, and hence all its clashes with modernity. Hinduism is not anti-modernity. There was never a Shankaracharya who denounced scientific inquiry or progress, and hence, the 200 years of wars between medieval Christianity and science were simply unnecessary in India.

Sampradaya is a river that flows. It is neither a static pond (fixed in the past) nor a waterfall with discontinuities (“progressives’ idea of advancement). It is the same as the past (in terms of overall categories) and new (in terms of content).

Western religion fixed its followers in the past until a new prophet came to give them new instructions. Western science gave the people ongoing change without referencing their past. So even today, they are busy reconciling “science and religion,” whereas Indian culture never had this problem to begin with.

This is all because of the difference between history-centric religions and a-historical (Sanatana) dharma.

So I ask the reader, which is better for Hinduism’s future: my Indian-Western combined background rooted in an Indian framework, or a Platonist’s DAV-only education that makes him what I would call a Hindu fundamentalist?

Since he simply refused to leave our column thread about a completely unrelated topic and demanded that we deal with me and my “Stephens College background,” let us deal with his issues here. Why did he not post his position on a weblog and refer those interested to its URL so that the main thread would not get hijacked? What does this tell us about such a person’s intellect and intentions?

Also, he adopted the screen name “Platonist”, which is hardly Hindu. Should we go on his case unrelentingly, that he is unqualified to speak for Indian traditions, because he suffers from an inferiority complex and has adopted Western identities?

Each of us must play the hand as dealt to us, and neither try to undo the past (but focus on presently available choices) nor try to live someone else’s hand.

I have a heart condition, asthma since childhood, and various other conditions and must live accordingly. I had certain family circumstances and a certain sequence of experiences in my past. I must understand what is suitable for me to do today, based on my SWOT analysis of myself. So if my parents sent me to a certain school/college and Platonist went to a different kind, we must each live today based on what’s best for each individual. This personalized dharma is called sva-dharma and is more sophisticated than the notion of standardized “commandments” for everyone.

Dharma is based on Vedic “rta” (patterns of reality) and cannot be translated as “law” (which is based on an external law-maker that is absent in authorless Vedas).

St Stephens College is part of my sanskara, as DAV is part of Platonist’s. The question is how well each of us lives today by our personalized sanskara and doing our best for the common good.

JFK said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” What has Platonist done for his culture, which he says is so dear to him? Why does he not worry about that, rather than being obsessed with what I should or should not do? He is not my wife or parent, so why is he nitpicking about me?

If he were Donald Trump, he could be saying, “You’re fired!” and then he would simply move on to read other authors instead of me. That would be good for me. On the other hand, if I were Donald Trump, I would tell him, “You’re fired!” and tell him to get lost.

The point is that neither lives for the other person. Neither person is in bondage to the other. I left business life permanently in my mid-40s (a very unusual thing to do) to be free and let inspiration drive me. Why would I accept the bondage of so-called “followers” whom I did not select or accept, after having left the bondage of the job-business rat race? If I wanted to be measured/evaluated by others and forced to pursue “commitments” and achieve “goals,” then why would I not do it in some lucrative business instead? Why would I pick a bunch of random individuals on Sulekha who have done little of their own on these causes and yet have massive expectations and even demands of me, and why would I make them the circle to be surrounded with?

I left behind ambitions, including politics, leadership of institutions, and fan clubs. These are forms of bondage. So those who do not find me, my life, or my work unacceptable do not have to hijack serious discussion threads. They merely have to abandon me and my writings. I shall be most grateful to them.

Thanks for this opportunity to explain my side. I hope this will convince snipers to allow me and others to refocus and to quit heckling on matters unrelated to a given column.

Regards,
Rajiv

Published: 2004