Dance of Shiva

Jerry,

Interesting article this week on the Gambling and Baksheesh spirit of Diwali, but I’m afraid you’ve gone overboard with twisting ancient Hindu philosophy to prove your point. Here are some insights for you:

1. Let me quote something from a book in Hindi called ‘Anamdas ka Potha’ that I read a few years back (I’ll write the same in Roman Hindi, and hope you can find someone to translate the same for you if you do not speak Hindi, for my attempt to translate in English is bound to alter the true meaning): "Char purusharth hain - Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha. Inmein pehle teen sadhan hain; antim, sadhya hain. Pehle teen mein Dharma sabse bada hai. Uske anukool reh kar hi Artha ka uparjan karna chahiye. Artha pradhan nahin hai - Dharma ka avirodhi reh kar hi purushartha hai. Dharma ke viruddh jaane par tyajya hai. Kama, Dharma aur Artha ka avirodhi reh kar hi purushartha hai." . Very briefly my attempt at bringing the meaning out in English - Moksha is the purpose. The first three are methods or enablers (if you’ve been to Khajuraho ever, this will come out starkly to you).

So we are spiritual people, and it is best that we remain that way. It is a known fact that if India and China start living the way - the Earth does not have enough to sustain us all. The need of the hour is for us to evolve to the next level of spiritual consciousness, and accumulate wealth (Artha), while ensuring it is on the side of Dharma (so far so good), but keep our eyes/vision on Moksha - or the Oneness of all of us on Earth, including the Mother Earth itself (Think Gaia!). Sony’s new Chariman is showing a way ahead!

2. I have had the good fortune to have spent some intellectually stimulating evenings with Prakash Lal Tandon (the first Indian Chariman of HLL, and one of the leading Economists in India), and during one such evening, I raised a point with him: "Uncle, film producers who produce TV serials and porn or sexually explicit movies claim that ’sex sells’ and this is what people want, so we produce it - what are you thoughts on this?". He said, "The world today has to have a constraint upon personal freedom in the form of social discipline, in order to create social harmony. People have to think not only to think of individuals but of society."

We’re not in the most healthy position that we’re in as a race on Earth. The reason, I believe, has been that we have divorced Spirituality from all walks of life. Please read Spirituality as distinct from Religion (which is a discussion which would need a separate platform for). If life has a purpose, then we’re (us humans) not getting where we probably want to. Would you agree?

The point I am making is that you have contorted Ananda - Bliss - and lowered it to blast crackers - representative of ‘indulgence’ in everything possible.

3. It was Krishna, who advised, Bhima, that ‘extracting from more nature - more than you need will create imbalance on Earth’. Ofcourse, you know he delivered the Gita as well . So while Krishna is about indulgence, the induslgence is of a different kind - not only of the spiritual kind - I’m sure he also meant, Sex, Wealth, Power, Intelligence, Love…but probably above all…"pursuit of bhakti - love - for the Divine".

Wealth is great! It is a positive thingie. Indians seem to ridicule the same - yes I agree. But going the other way and suggesting, what you are - "Noisy crackers are objected to by crackpot environmentalists who see pollution everywhere and deny that life on this planet is about joy and its pursuit" - is not healthy either - as I’m sure when things come from a person in your position - people buy it more.

With power comes greater responsibility - this was the message of Spiderman in the movie.

4. So far as Baksheesh goes…well don’t even mention it these days. It seems the richer people get, the smaller their hearts become. Even I got stuck in one of my family member’s ideas of ‘the appropriate’ amount that ‘these people’ deserve. "These people" are none other than the dhobi, the postman, the car cleaner, the aaya, and the Municipal Corporation appointed sweeper. I think it is sick how we city people are. It is not just my family issue. It is my neighbours, our Resident’s Welfare Association (RWA), and all around the country, if not the world. The attitude to giving something on Diwali is actually not about ’sharing’ but nearly ‘giving by force’, and let me assure you this energy gets across to the people ‘recieving’. I think it lowers te receivers dignity, in most cases - as a result of the rather sick attitude to giving that most people have.

In the end, my take on countering your ideas (I must say I agree with many points - but certainly not the message you are sending out):
- ‘Sharing’ has a different flavour to it - one of giving - as a means for ones own (spiritual, mental, and I believe, even material) growth.
- Pursuing material progress is most certainly an aim all humans must have (including, may I say, Indians), but there has got to be a deep understanding that we are all One; else we will continue to screw up people the world over for our personal and collective (organisational, national; civilisational) selfish benefits.
- India is in a unique and rather envious place, of seeing material progress and yet under spiritual guidance of the numerous spiritual Gurus that we have across the country. I think we are the light of the world, and need to show the world a new way of purusing material progress sustainably for all of humanity, just as we did over and over again a few thousand years earlier, with our most ancient civilisation and some of the deepest human thought the world has seen, and more recently, as shown by Gandhi.

Would love to hear your views on the points I raised. And yes! I’ve hardly ever written to Newspapers, so would be nice if this can get published in some form in Indian Express - in any appropriate column.

Warm Regards,
Rahul Dewan

p.s.: In case you want to see what I do, visit: http://www.srijan.in/fileadmin/user_upload/srijan_introduction.pdf

And more on what I think at: http://danceofshiva.blogsome.com/; http://blogs.srijan.in/rahul

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/11546.html -  a fantastic story of a sort of a farmer co-operative without the bureaucratic hassles of a co-operative - famers are using a 2002 amendment in the Companies Act to their advantage and formed a Pvt Ltd company run co-operatively, replete with Directors, CEO, others to their advantage - and are loving owning a company.

I’ve written to the journalist wo wrote this story to help us get in touch with the NGOs which helped these farmers come together and manage the leagal maze. We’d like to setup something similar in Delhi, starting with Microfinance operations for the community of people living on the fringe of our urban society - helps at homes, car cleaners, chowkidars, aayahs, others.

Till a few years back, when I first started about getting organic food in my house, through an organisation called Navdanya, I was laughed at. They said it was another one of my raidcal and over idealistic, and ofcourse silly and unneccessary (creating an issue out of nothing) ideas.

Today, on a lazy Sunday, I went shopping in the Vasant Kunj market, and noticed that Fab India, Navdanya and Ki to Health, were selling organic goods in the same market. Mostly, all the goods were certified by international organic certification authorities. 

The most exciting thing, however, was that Uttaranchal, has its own brand by the name Panchvati, and was selling Dals, Atta, Honey, Squashs, etc. Uttaranchal has been declared an Organic state, and this was bound to happen.

I casually asked the salesman at Ki to Health, whether people actually bought organic stuff (ofcourse if three stores are selling them, people ought to be buying it all), and he said "oh, ofcourse", which was actually quite comforting to me.

The Organic Food movement is catching on; middle class people are paying extra money, in an extremely price conscious market, to get some crap (read "chemical food") out of their lives.

Another very good thing happenning is that there are more and more products which one sees these days coming from farmer/worker co-operatives. This is a very healthy sign.

More initiatives and brands on the way, I am sure. Will Srijan Foundation be able to make a positive impact in this area, by creating farmer co-operatives throughout the country, and leveraging its business acumen and possibly a new brand, in marketing these nationally and internationally? Dreaming of this future reality now…

Just got back after seeing a play organised by Vikram Sarabhai Foundation titled "Dear Bapu". The play was an exchange of letters between Gandhi and Nehru, during their 20 years of association in India’s Freedom movement.

I’ve disliked Gandhi, as I belong to the rather radical school of thought that we had the partition because of him, Pakistan was able to attack India in 1948 and lead to the Kashmir problem because of the Rs.20 Crore that he insisted we give to Pakistan, and a whole lot of similar issues such as the support for Khilafat movement, etc. I had somewhat read (as a kid) Nathu Ram Godse’s book of his testimony in court during his trial for assasinating Gandhi, and just like most kids have had this fascination for revolutionaries (I was brought up on Bruce Lee ).

hmmm… strange… I was writing this to praise Gandhi, but while writing some of the political blunders mentioned above, I became "present" once again, to crazy things that Gandhi did.

Anyhow. The play has left a nothing less than "profound" impact on my thinking, and what I have always thought of this man called Gandhi.

The more I  carefully heard the actors act out the conversations between Nehru and Gandhi, the more it dawned on me, that this man, was born a century earlier; very difficult to be comprehend in times of capitalistic fervour, where "money is power", and development and progressiveness of a civilisation/society is measured by the size of cars and the height of multistoreyed buildings.

At Centre for Science of Environment, New Delhi, I had read something which I will never forget in my lifetime - "Frugality is Indian tradition. Modernity sees Frugality as Poverty".

Gandhi lived this! He wanted the whole of India to live frugally - just on the basic material needs, required for minimalistic survival.

The issue of India living as slaves was raised by Nehru (and also by most of my family during a discussion on the play over dinner), if we lived in technological backwardness. However, the key here was that Gandhi wanted India to lead and set an example for the world, that it is possible to live frugally, and live well; and indeed it is the only way to "live progressively".

India getting invaded was not on his mind, I guess, as he had just played a HUGE role in throwing out one of the most powerful empire from his land. 

I am certain that India had no choice but to move in the direction of technological progress, but we forgot the small basic cultural and socio-economic values of our villages. We forgot that in the zeal to build Dams, IITs and Industries, we must even more focus on Spiritual values, Water harvesting through village ponds, primary education through village schools, and focus on local resources (forests, land and water).

India is in a mess, because we did no listen to Gandhi. He said he could not imagine that Mussalmans were not an integral part of India and were a separate nation; he disagreed with the word Independence and wanted to replace that with Poorna Swaraj which had a much deeper connotation to him, than the term’s English equivalent.

I read in Life Positive magazine recently that there are communities getting formed the world over, which are heralding the coming of the "new age".

It says "Their lifestyles usually include more than one of the following elements: intentional community, living by what one loves, ecological lifestyles, living simply, natural health and living, organic of natural farming, healing the earth, right livelihood, a personal spiritual practice, self organisation, alternative and local economic and social-support systems, multi-culture and diversity groups which cut across boundaries of belief, faith religion, nationality and race…..What is common to all of them is a dissillusionment with modern society with its materialistic, fragmentary and conflict-ridden systems, its artifice and exploitation of nature. They are also bound by a search for a more holistic and simpler way of life that is ecologically sound, meaningful and spiritually resonant."

Gandhi, it seems, was looking to create such a Commune in our world.

Gandhi believed, and wrote to Nehru, that he was acting as puppet of the Divine, and acted as he recieved instructions/inspiration. While Nehru was completely at a loss to understand why he would bring up references to God, during his advise to the Congress on resolutions, etc., I completely resonate with Gandhi on this one.

We’ve kept Spirituality out of Politics for far too long for our own good. Why only politics, we’ve kept it out of our medicine, our childbirth practices, our social fabric, agriculture, business and industry, education and food.

Nutan Pandit’s childbirth classes recently, were a revelation and a relief as she was reaching out with the same, shall I call it "Gandhian values" (or Spiritual values or even, traditional Indian values).

Fritjof Capra in his book "Uncommon Wisdom" talks about his discussion with one of leading researchers on Cancer - Dr. Simonton - learns how a person facing a stressful life situation or a crisis, responds  with several options, and among other things, develops Cancer or catatonic schizophrenia (but not both). Dr. Simonton then adds that apart from these two unhealthy ways to "escape" from a crisis, can also have a third kind of escape route - the one into social pathologies - violent and reckless behaviour, crime, drug abuse. He goes on to say, "If there is reduction in illness but at the same time it is an offset by an increasing crime rate, we haven’t done anything to improve the health of society".

The discusssion continues - "…If the escape into physical illness is blocked by medical intervention, the person might choose to escape into crime or into insanity". "That’s right", Simonton concluded, "and that is a much mor meaningful way of looking at health than from the narrow medical point of view. The question of whether medicine then has been successful becomes very interesting….If you are able to reduce physical illness but at the same time this increases mental illness or crime, what the hell have you done?".

Dr. R. D. Laing, one of the leading Psychiatrists the world has seen, during a disucssion on insanity, said to him, "..insanity is a sane response to an insane society."

Homoeopathy treats the person’s mind, and belongs to the holistic system of medicine, where a change is brought about in the thought process of a person. You could consider is "energy-medicine", and I would not shy away from equating the same with Ayurveda on the one hand, and with Pranic healing and Reiki on the other, while also not forgetting to equate it to Psychotherapy (in its non-Freudian form).

Gandhi wanted to create an "alternate world", and I guess his errors in judgement on Pakistan and his "supposed" minority appeasement must be seen with his idealistic world view. I say "supposed", as in his alternate idealistic world view, there should have been equality and no mistreatment for any community, including within Hinduism. Even the criticism attributed to him of giving separate status to backward classes, and thus further dissociating them from the society, by calling them "harijan", I suggest must be seen from his alternate world view.

The play was a revelation! This is the first time I have been able to articulate and bring together and put in a logical manner, my conversations with people and books, over the years. I hope this is just the beginning.

God bless Dr. Kamala Choudhury, a Gandhian, who concieved this play, and made it possible.

See if you’d like to sign this. I am completely for giving equal opportunities to all people in India, but not through reservations. The Congress govt is a bunch of assholes, and while they have (deliberately?) not ensured quality primary/middle/high school education for all people in India in 55 years of being in power, which would make the economically and socially neglected people become competent and stand with their heads held high as equals among everyone, they choose to brush away all their shit under the carpet by coming up with such disintegrating (for our society, and nation) schemes such as these.

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http://www.petitiononline.com/reservat/petition.html