TRIBAL COSMOLOGY – A Dissident Stream in Spirituality
Fr. Dr. George Joseph Thenadikulam SJ
The tribal societies of India have a proud possession of a great and unique tradition and culture. As the carriers of the early civilization there is a very close similarity in the ways and visions of their life. The remarkable relation of Human being with God, Fellow being and Nature and the mutual interdependence prevailing among them can be considered as the basic foundation their philosophical vision of Universe. ‘Nothing alone exits but only as a sequence of the other and we the humans are one and all creatures is one’. This vision paves for the basis of tribal life.
Tribals believe that this universe/cosmos is the creation of God and all are part of the divine force. Since the universe is divine and holy. This belief leads them to be generous and fraternal people. A close examination of myths, festivals and folklore, one can really fathom the depth of their awareness of ad insight into the Cosmos.
The origin myth of Oraons
Oraons live in the Chotanagapur region in Jharkand , Orissa, Chatisgrah. Oraons origin myth has three parts: 1) the origin of the Universe 2) the fall and punishment 3) the deliverance from the fall.
God, ‘Dharmes’ created earth from water. He took the assistance of silly creatures like earth-worm, crab, tortoise and kingfisher. It was earth – worm that brought soil from beneath the ocean. From the soil he created the flora and fauna, the animal kingdom and humans. He provided for them and cared them lavishly. All were equal in front of God.
Slowly the evil-doers popped up. It grew to un assumable quantity and God had no other choice than to shower the rain of fire on earth, resulting the destruction of all living beings. One pair of human being (boy and girl) saved from the wrath of God by taking shelter in a crab’s burrow. As a result of the loss of life on earth the offering to God came to an end and God became hungry. On his way to hunt for food his hounds found the hiding pair in the burrow. God took care of them, taught them the lessons of agriculture. He also taught them the ‘danda kata’ pooja which would serve as a defense from enemies and famine. From this pair originated the Oraons tribe.
From this myth we could comprehend some of the cosmic vision of this tribe.
1. God’s creation of earth could be fulfilled only with the assistance of silly creatures like earth-worm and crab. This gives us a message that every one is important in the creation work and they all do have a role to play.
2. There exist good and evil in the universe. Good deeds lead to welfare and evil one to destruction. The tribe believes in and expects divine intervention when ever necessary.
3. The Oraon community intend to eliminate the evil forces through the ‘danda katta’ pooja . This point to the need of religious rituals in life.
4. All the tribal festivals are connected with agriculture and nature. They celebrate life. On each occasion the ‘pahan’ (poojari) reminds the people of the myth of origin.
5. Each festival is a community celebration. They give importance to society than individuals. The fraternal attitude and feeling remains in them.
Tribal spirituality
Spirituality is a way of seeing, a way of feeling and a way of relating to the reality: the Nature, the Human and the Divine. It is an attitude and a relationship between these three principles. According to Indian tradition there are two inner faculties of perception: manh (mind) and budhi (intellect). Manh objectifies everything and analyze reality. Budhi enters into reality becoming one with the perceiving subject. Manah operates with subject-object polarity (I-THOU). Budhi transcends this polarity. Tribal spirituality comes in the second category. There is no subject-object polarity; no sacred-secular division. All are one and life is a continuum. For tribal culture is a web of relationship: A vision of cosmotheandirc unity. It is the core aspect of tribal spirituality.
In 1854 the Seattle tribal Chief wrote a letter to the president of USA. It is an eye-opener to the so called civilized society on the matters of tribal world view and spirituality. “How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do no own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how ca you buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. … .We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the body heat of the pony and man- all belong to the same family.
This we know. The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know; all things are connected like the blood which unites one family. …” (J Mattam,ed. 1998) . It is the tribal vision of life and spirituality; A spirituality which upholds cosmic family spirit. We can name it as Earth spirituality.
Features of tribal spirituality
1. Nature friendly
2. Community centered
3. Celebration of life and love
4. Absence of sacred-secular division
5. It is a spirituality of struggle and resistance; a struggle for survival, a struggle for identity. Eg. Plachimada, Muthanga, Chengara,…
6. It is the spirituality of the masses; people on the periphery
The main stream society holds a negative notion about tribal religion and spirituality. They consider it as one of animistic, pantheistic and superstitious in nature. It is a wrong understanding of tribal religion and spirituality. The researcher’s experience, observations and understanding of tribal spirituality proves the contrary. It is a dissident stream in spirituality which is very much holistic, biological and humane. The main stream society needs a new vision and openness to understand the rationality of tribal spirituality.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
THE CONCEPT OF SPIRITUAL DISSENT:a critical note
A.V.G.Warrier:
The theme note started with the phrase “spiritual dissent”, but somewhere downstream we find ourselves drifting to the idea “dissident spirituality”. For me the superposition of the two is what, I feel, is the source of confusion.
When spirituality is the cause of dissent we have spiritual dissent. Spirituality is the cause and dissent is the effect. This dissent is the discarding of the several hypotheses we come across while searching for the universals. The spirit of this dissent is embedded in the neti neti approach where one keeps dissociating from the imminent things while searching for perfect immanence.
Dissident spirituality could mean something quite different. Here dissident is someone who has decided to strike out a path that differs from the mainstream. The dissent could be for any reason. It may or may not be on account of spirituality. When dissent is not on account of spirituality, the spirituality of a dissident could vary widely from each other and from those sticking to the mainstream. Anybody who flouts the norms could get himself branded as a dissident. A dissident could also very well be a very non-spiritual person. Ali Baba who decided to live in the caves with his band of forty thieves could also qualify himself to be dissident. So where is the common thread in the variety of spiritualities of the innumerable dissidents that is worthy of serious exploration!? Even though the small band pursuing spiritual dissent also is a subset of the domain of dissidents, it is unproductive to club them with the rest for any analysis.
A classical example of spiritual dissent is Prahlada. By all worldly standards his dad Hiranyakashipu was a fantastic man. People burn midnight oil and write entrance examinations to emulate him. But his standards were not good enough for his son. Prahlada felt, and advocated, that the recipe for true prosperity and happiness is something that transcends material wealth. For Hiranyakashipu his son was a horrendous fundamentalist. He tried his best to suppress Prahlada by all means available to him. But the grace of the higher spirit made Prahlada immune to all attempts to destroy him.
In the final encounter Prahlada imparts to his father the wisdom of looking for the higher spirit in all mundane phenomena that appears to be grossly different from each other. The energy released by this revelation was so great that it consumed the ego of Hiranyakashipu and liberated him from his shell.
The lore of Hindu religion is full of such examples of spiritual dissent. It is quite possible that it is so in the case of other religions too. The picture of Christ driving away the potbellied priests is not very different from that of a serene Buddha revolting against gross ritual practices. And was Muhammad very different? Or for that matter Moses? Perhaps the spirit of Nachiketas lived through all of them.
In all these cases the dissent was from the corruptions of established practices. We run into problems when we focus on the dissent of the follower of a particular path from the followers of other paths or from the mainstream and arbitrarily assign spirituality with every instance of dissent. It is quite possible that in many cases the inability to conform to mainstream could be the result of inadequate development of spirituality. Focusing on avenues of dissidence and trying to look for the spirituality associated with them may not yield any useful results. When that exercise is used for making comparisons between them it could even be harmful. And when all differences start being equated with dissidence it could become totally absurd. Take for instance the possibility of male chauvinists and feminists arguing with each other over male spirituality and female spirituality. This possibility exists not only for men and women but for all complementary pairs. Playing on dissents generally yield to vertical divisions that compartmentalize the thinking process.
Spiritual dissent is a vehicle for the descent of spirituality. Kathopanishad talked about the descent of spirituality. “Rain that falls on a peak of subtleness flows down the slopes of the mountain. Like this the different paths of dharma are to be seen. Each person may follow a different stream. Pure water, when it is poured into a clean vessel, remains pure without contamination. Likewise a muni who knows the unity of the source of all dharmas becomes the seat of effulgence”. In recent past Aurobindo talked about the imminence of the descent of spirituality. More recently a team of German engineers brought down the spirit of enterprise exploiting the explosive developments in Information Technology to create paradigm shifts in the field of business management.
The relevant thing for society is spiritual dissent and the accompanying descent of spirituality. When Budhdha, Mohammed or Christ made a departure from the corruptions of their respective mainstreams they were operating in domains not affected by others. The question of how he can accommodate the followers of Mohammed or Christ never pestered Buddha. And same was the case with the others. The remaining together of many streams of spiritual practices in close proximity is a recent phenomenon brought into being by the growth of technology that closed distances and speeded up events. What ought to be the parameters for descent of spirituality or spiritual dissent in the modern scenario? How can a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or a follower of any other stream of spirituality be made to feel enriched and enhanced by the others in the neighborhood instead of being threatened by their presence?
This is not an easy question. The divisive powers are very strong and keep dictating what is progressive, what is retrogressive, what is just, what is unjust and so on and so forth. They even hijack the paths created by well-intentioned social reformers and palm off their agendas disguised in the respectability of the old departed souls. The collective intellect is chained to such an extent that one can predict the responses of most of the acknowledged cultural leaders to events. And when we can predict so easily, it means that nothing creative is actually happening. The voices are noises that keep eroding what ever little spirituality is there left in society.
I feel the relevant thing for present day world is to devise means to keep the divisive powers at bay. Just as the management scientists had caused the descent of spirituality to the field of management, perhaps, it is the role of philosophers to be instrumental in spiritual evolution of society. And I believe they can effectively perform in this role only when they keep the word ‘spiritual’ always in front of the word ‘dissent’. May be they should now be the vanguards of spiritual dissent in a world dominated by the politics of being.
The theme note started with the phrase “spiritual dissent”, but somewhere downstream we find ourselves drifting to the idea “dissident spirituality”. For me the superposition of the two is what, I feel, is the source of confusion.
When spirituality is the cause of dissent we have spiritual dissent. Spirituality is the cause and dissent is the effect. This dissent is the discarding of the several hypotheses we come across while searching for the universals. The spirit of this dissent is embedded in the neti neti approach where one keeps dissociating from the imminent things while searching for perfect immanence.
Dissident spirituality could mean something quite different. Here dissident is someone who has decided to strike out a path that differs from the mainstream. The dissent could be for any reason. It may or may not be on account of spirituality. When dissent is not on account of spirituality, the spirituality of a dissident could vary widely from each other and from those sticking to the mainstream. Anybody who flouts the norms could get himself branded as a dissident. A dissident could also very well be a very non-spiritual person. Ali Baba who decided to live in the caves with his band of forty thieves could also qualify himself to be dissident. So where is the common thread in the variety of spiritualities of the innumerable dissidents that is worthy of serious exploration!? Even though the small band pursuing spiritual dissent also is a subset of the domain of dissidents, it is unproductive to club them with the rest for any analysis.
A classical example of spiritual dissent is Prahlada. By all worldly standards his dad Hiranyakashipu was a fantastic man. People burn midnight oil and write entrance examinations to emulate him. But his standards were not good enough for his son. Prahlada felt, and advocated, that the recipe for true prosperity and happiness is something that transcends material wealth. For Hiranyakashipu his son was a horrendous fundamentalist. He tried his best to suppress Prahlada by all means available to him. But the grace of the higher spirit made Prahlada immune to all attempts to destroy him.
In the final encounter Prahlada imparts to his father the wisdom of looking for the higher spirit in all mundane phenomena that appears to be grossly different from each other. The energy released by this revelation was so great that it consumed the ego of Hiranyakashipu and liberated him from his shell.
The lore of Hindu religion is full of such examples of spiritual dissent. It is quite possible that it is so in the case of other religions too. The picture of Christ driving away the potbellied priests is not very different from that of a serene Buddha revolting against gross ritual practices. And was Muhammad very different? Or for that matter Moses? Perhaps the spirit of Nachiketas lived through all of them.
In all these cases the dissent was from the corruptions of established practices. We run into problems when we focus on the dissent of the follower of a particular path from the followers of other paths or from the mainstream and arbitrarily assign spirituality with every instance of dissent. It is quite possible that in many cases the inability to conform to mainstream could be the result of inadequate development of spirituality. Focusing on avenues of dissidence and trying to look for the spirituality associated with them may not yield any useful results. When that exercise is used for making comparisons between them it could even be harmful. And when all differences start being equated with dissidence it could become totally absurd. Take for instance the possibility of male chauvinists and feminists arguing with each other over male spirituality and female spirituality. This possibility exists not only for men and women but for all complementary pairs. Playing on dissents generally yield to vertical divisions that compartmentalize the thinking process.
Spiritual dissent is a vehicle for the descent of spirituality. Kathopanishad talked about the descent of spirituality. “Rain that falls on a peak of subtleness flows down the slopes of the mountain. Like this the different paths of dharma are to be seen. Each person may follow a different stream. Pure water, when it is poured into a clean vessel, remains pure without contamination. Likewise a muni who knows the unity of the source of all dharmas becomes the seat of effulgence”. In recent past Aurobindo talked about the imminence of the descent of spirituality. More recently a team of German engineers brought down the spirit of enterprise exploiting the explosive developments in Information Technology to create paradigm shifts in the field of business management.
The relevant thing for society is spiritual dissent and the accompanying descent of spirituality. When Budhdha, Mohammed or Christ made a departure from the corruptions of their respective mainstreams they were operating in domains not affected by others. The question of how he can accommodate the followers of Mohammed or Christ never pestered Buddha. And same was the case with the others. The remaining together of many streams of spiritual practices in close proximity is a recent phenomenon brought into being by the growth of technology that closed distances and speeded up events. What ought to be the parameters for descent of spirituality or spiritual dissent in the modern scenario? How can a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or a follower of any other stream of spirituality be made to feel enriched and enhanced by the others in the neighborhood instead of being threatened by their presence?
This is not an easy question. The divisive powers are very strong and keep dictating what is progressive, what is retrogressive, what is just, what is unjust and so on and so forth. They even hijack the paths created by well-intentioned social reformers and palm off their agendas disguised in the respectability of the old departed souls. The collective intellect is chained to such an extent that one can predict the responses of most of the acknowledged cultural leaders to events. And when we can predict so easily, it means that nothing creative is actually happening. The voices are noises that keep eroding what ever little spirituality is there left in society.
I feel the relevant thing for present day world is to devise means to keep the divisive powers at bay. Just as the management scientists had caused the descent of spirituality to the field of management, perhaps, it is the role of philosophers to be instrumental in spiritual evolution of society. And I believe they can effectively perform in this role only when they keep the word ‘spiritual’ always in front of the word ‘dissent’. May be they should now be the vanguards of spiritual dissent in a world dominated by the politics of being.
FURTHER COMMENTS-3
C Radhakrishnan:
The summary provided interesting reading.Dissent should lead to learning as in the Upanishads where the disciple represents dissent. Dissent as an ex-pression of inviolable personal belief is not creative....
The difference between deprecating dissent and discerning dissent is very obvious, I suppose. The former operates on the principle of himsa and the latter on ahimsa. The former leads to moha or ajnana and the latter to enlightenment. Most dissent in the world today belongs to the former kind. Inter-religious, intra-religious, international or internal-national, it is the same. It leads only to friction, hatred and violence.
The summary provided interesting reading.Dissent should lead to learning as in the Upanishads where the disciple represents dissent. Dissent as an ex-pression of inviolable personal belief is not creative....
The difference between deprecating dissent and discerning dissent is very obvious, I suppose. The former operates on the principle of himsa and the latter on ahimsa. The former leads to moha or ajnana and the latter to enlightenment. Most dissent in the world today belongs to the former kind. Inter-religious, intra-religious, international or internal-national, it is the same. It leads only to friction, hatred and violence.
FURTHER COMMENTS-2
Dr. Partha Sarathy Mondel:
The responses are encouraging. Why not organize another in-situ Workshop after the rainy season?....We can think of a traveling workshop. We can ask a few interested people if they can host the workshop at their respective places for two days and if each of them can help organize a visit to a site of dissident spirituality. One of the sites of course you can arrange. Let us try this way and then we can think of other ways.
The responses are encouraging. Why not organize another in-situ Workshop after the rainy season?....We can think of a traveling workshop. We can ask a few interested people if they can host the workshop at their respective places for two days and if each of them can help organize a visit to a site of dissident spirituality. One of the sites of course you can arrange. Let us try this way and then we can think of other ways.
FURTHER COMMENTS-1
Dr.Giorgio De Martino:
My real preoccupations, concerning "dissident spirituality" and technology, are about manipulations and the marketing of spiritual insight - and human relations, obviously. When I suggested, to the group of people that met at Shancaracharia University end of april, about reading the article by Leeb ("Walking by thoughts") I had a specific purpose: going deeply in understanding how much we'll be affected by neurosciences tech, in our researches. I suggested to read the article because, in few years, it will be possible to connect millions of brains throught the Internet (in a trance-like state: ASC - altered states of consciousness), probably even in a "wi-fi" style, not so different from how mobile phones work. Shortly: and if all this will happen, like William Gibson ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson ) wrote, in the mid of the 80s, in his best-seller "Neuromancer", what will happen to our dissident spirituality? What kind of reactions will cause this cyberspace revolution? And our consciousness?
My real preoccupations, concerning "dissident spirituality" and technology, are about manipulations and the marketing of spiritual insight - and human relations, obviously. When I suggested, to the group of people that met at Shancaracharia University end of april, about reading the article by Leeb ("Walking by thoughts") I had a specific purpose: going deeply in understanding how much we'll be affected by neurosciences tech, in our researches. I suggested to read the article because, in few years, it will be possible to connect millions of brains throught the Internet (in a trance-like state: ASC - altered states of consciousness), probably even in a "wi-fi" style, not so different from how mobile phones work. Shortly: and if all this will happen, like William Gibson ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson ) wrote, in the mid of the 80s, in his best-seller "Neuromancer", what will happen to our dissident spirituality? What kind of reactions will cause this cyberspace revolution? And our consciousness?
NOTE FOR THE WORKSHOP DISCUSSION- Dr. M. Gangadharan
A Note on Religion and Dissident Spirituality- Dr. M. Gangadharan
Religions are cultural systems which decide in a general way the life-style of the believers. They are mostly institutionalised and provide support to the individuals of the religious community by inculcating self-confidence in them. Religious spirituality is generally expressed in prayers, pilgrimages and rituals sanctioned by religious texts and priests, or those well versed in the texts and traditions of the religion. Occasionally there will be some new philosophical interpretation of the basic texts of the religion which will expand its intellectual dimentions or re-form its ethical and moral precepts. But the religious orthodoxy built up by almost all religions are able to absorb the new ideas resulting from new interpretations of basic texts and re-formation of ethical and moral precepts. And they soon become part of the religious orthodoxy. The interpretation of vedic texts by Sankaracharya and the incorporation Neo Platonist ideas into Christian theology by Saint Augustine (354 - 430) may be taken as examples of new philosophical views on religious texts becoming part of religious orthodoxy in course of time.
Dissident spirituality is generally an expression of discontent with the orthodoxy of religions. Such discontent has been in India caused by social problems which the orthodoxy of religions failed to confront and solve. I can point out three cases in which dissidence was expressed spiritually and creatively in times of social change:
1. Thunchath Ezhuthachan, the poet of Kerala popularly considered the 'father of Malayalam language', though not literally true, is undoutedly the greatst poet in the language. His time has been variously reckoned by scholars and historians, as there is no clear indication of his time in his works. However, it may be safely assumed on the basis some literary evidence that he lived and wrote in the 16th century. Recent studies on the oceanic trade on the Malabar (Kerala) coast has found this period to be one of vigorous trade in spices. The arrival of the Portuguese on the Malabar coast did disrupt the trade for a short period due the ambition of the Portuguese to establish their monopoly in the trade in spices. But the trade revived soon and by the middle of 16th century the Portuguese had become part of the ongoing trade in spices. This in fact increased the volume of trade and made Malabar, especially regions near important harbours, prosperous. Ponnani, an harbour town to the south of Calicut, was one of the most important harbours in the Kingdom of the Zamorin. Nila (Bharata Puzha), one of the two longest rivers in Kerala, originates from the Western Ghats in the east and joins the Arabian Sea at Ponnani. This increased the value of Ponnani as a centre of oceanic trade in spices, as the spices were mostly grown in the high ranges and the long river provided a means of transporting them to the coast for export by maritime traders. Poonthanam Nambuthiri, a gifted poet of the second half of the 16th century, describes how "They earn lots of money/ Trading in jewels and gold/ In elephants and horses/ And by onstructing ships" . He also laments the moral decadence that accompanied the competition to make more and more money. But Ezhuthachan do not mention the condition of life of his time. Instead he translated the two great epics , 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata', into Malayalam poems of exceptional aesthetic quality with stress on sincere devotion to a God who knows everything and who is just and kind to everyone irrespective of caste and gender,.and who forgives anyone who repents sin committed in ignorance. These translations soon became very popular and began to be read ritually by all literate non-Brahmin communities. Ezhuthachn's works may be considered the creative expression of a kind of dissident spirituality as they did not conform to the dominant Brahmanic ethos which were totally influenced by the ideology of very rigid caste system. The great creative works of 17th and 18th century in Malayalam (by Unnayi Warriar, Kunchan Nambiar and Ramapurath Warriar) by non Brahmins as well as the emergence of art forms like Krishnanattom, Kathakali, Chavittu Natakam, etc., may be considered the consequence of Ezhuthachan's dissidence which opened up learning, literature and arts to non- Brahmins..
2. Mahatma Gandhi who dared to be different in his approach to religion may be considered to have opened up Hiduism through his dissident spirituality.
He declared himself to be a 'Sanathana Hindu'. But he never visited any temple and never cared to perform any of the rituals of orthodox Hinduism in his mature years. He always organised prayer meetings in which he discussed various social, political and spiritual problems. There were also songs at the prayer meetings in which the ideas of all religions were respectfully mentioned. Gandhi also insisted on eradication of untouchability among Hindus and worked for temple entry of all castes which was not allowed by the traditional Hinduism. His dissident practise of Hinduism may be considered as sanctioned by his spirituality. And this had impact on large number of Indians. In fact Hindu orthodoxy was effectively challenged by the transparent humanist position taken by Gandhi. The good relations between various religious and caste communities in India was made possible mainly through the break up of Hindu orthodoxy by Gandhi's spiritual dissidence.
3. Narayana Guru of Kerala (1856 - 1928), born in a family, considered to be of low caste at the time, in the southern part of the Princely State of Travancore received good education in Sanskrit and also training in Yoga from his early years. Though he was a devotee of a local temple for some time later he became an avadhootha and wandered in the hills and forests of southern Travancore. Finally he settled down at Aruvippuram, an hamlet on the banks of Neyyar river. Local people found him to be a wise guru in both religious and temporal matters. As the people who came to visit him increased he consecrated in February 1888 a Siva temple there without any of the traditional rituals related to such cosecration. When Brahmins questioned his authority to consecrate a diety he said it was only the Siva of Ezhavas thereby asserting that even those of the low caste has the right to worship Siva in their own way. He also built an ashrama near the temple and wrote on its wall the following verse:
'This is the model place where everyone
Shall live as brothers
without distinctions of caste or religion'.
This was an announcement in total contradiction of the norms and practices of the caste ridden Hindu society of those times. While living as an avadhuta Narayana Guru had composed a number of poems which explained the essence of advaita philosophy. He maintained that as all creation is the manifestation of the supreme being in various forms there is no fixed identity for anything in the world. His Atmopadesa Satakam' says: 'That which appears as oneself and the other are but the same Spirit that burns from the beginning'. This understanding of advaita was used to establish that there cannot be distinctions of caste or religion between human beings. His spirituality, clearly distinct from the Hindu orthodoxy of the times, was accepted by a large number of ordinary people and he began to be accepted as a Guru of great wisdom. This led to the formation of a society for the maintenance of the temple consecrated by him. This society was later (in 1903) constituted as Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Sanghom (S.N.D.P. Sanghom). Guru was assisted by the Sanghom to travel to all parts of Kerala to speak against meaningless and costly rituals of orthodoxy and to give more attention to learning and productive employment. He vehemently propagated against use of intoxicants which was draining the people of their energy. He advocated simple life dedicated to uplift of the poor and the downtrodden. The Sree Narayana Movement in course of time became very popular and brought about thorough change in life-styles of large number of people. Guru was accepted as the incarnation of a new spirit of humanism. This was the result of the recognition of Guru's dissident spirituality as genuine and humane.
Unfortunately in course of time Guru's teachings were used by some influential persons to create a separate identity for the Ezhava community. This was noticed by Guru in his later years and he even declared that he will have nothing to do with the S.N.D.P. Sanghom's attempts to consider one community to be better than other communities. However, it is a fact that Sree Narayana Movement started the process of community formation in Kerala. The sub-castes in different caste groups collapsed to form one community.
Religions are cultural systems which decide in a general way the life-style of the believers. They are mostly institutionalised and provide support to the individuals of the religious community by inculcating self-confidence in them. Religious spirituality is generally expressed in prayers, pilgrimages and rituals sanctioned by religious texts and priests, or those well versed in the texts and traditions of the religion. Occasionally there will be some new philosophical interpretation of the basic texts of the religion which will expand its intellectual dimentions or re-form its ethical and moral precepts. But the religious orthodoxy built up by almost all religions are able to absorb the new ideas resulting from new interpretations of basic texts and re-formation of ethical and moral precepts. And they soon become part of the religious orthodoxy. The interpretation of vedic texts by Sankaracharya and the incorporation Neo Platonist ideas into Christian theology by Saint Augustine (354 - 430) may be taken as examples of new philosophical views on religious texts becoming part of religious orthodoxy in course of time.
Dissident spirituality is generally an expression of discontent with the orthodoxy of religions. Such discontent has been in India caused by social problems which the orthodoxy of religions failed to confront and solve. I can point out three cases in which dissidence was expressed spiritually and creatively in times of social change:
1. Thunchath Ezhuthachan, the poet of Kerala popularly considered the 'father of Malayalam language', though not literally true, is undoutedly the greatst poet in the language. His time has been variously reckoned by scholars and historians, as there is no clear indication of his time in his works. However, it may be safely assumed on the basis some literary evidence that he lived and wrote in the 16th century. Recent studies on the oceanic trade on the Malabar (Kerala) coast has found this period to be one of vigorous trade in spices. The arrival of the Portuguese on the Malabar coast did disrupt the trade for a short period due the ambition of the Portuguese to establish their monopoly in the trade in spices. But the trade revived soon and by the middle of 16th century the Portuguese had become part of the ongoing trade in spices. This in fact increased the volume of trade and made Malabar, especially regions near important harbours, prosperous. Ponnani, an harbour town to the south of Calicut, was one of the most important harbours in the Kingdom of the Zamorin. Nila (Bharata Puzha), one of the two longest rivers in Kerala, originates from the Western Ghats in the east and joins the Arabian Sea at Ponnani. This increased the value of Ponnani as a centre of oceanic trade in spices, as the spices were mostly grown in the high ranges and the long river provided a means of transporting them to the coast for export by maritime traders. Poonthanam Nambuthiri, a gifted poet of the second half of the 16th century, describes how "They earn lots of money/ Trading in jewels and gold/ In elephants and horses/ And by onstructing ships" . He also laments the moral decadence that accompanied the competition to make more and more money. But Ezhuthachan do not mention the condition of life of his time. Instead he translated the two great epics , 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata', into Malayalam poems of exceptional aesthetic quality with stress on sincere devotion to a God who knows everything and who is just and kind to everyone irrespective of caste and gender,.and who forgives anyone who repents sin committed in ignorance. These translations soon became very popular and began to be read ritually by all literate non-Brahmin communities. Ezhuthachn's works may be considered the creative expression of a kind of dissident spirituality as they did not conform to the dominant Brahmanic ethos which were totally influenced by the ideology of very rigid caste system. The great creative works of 17th and 18th century in Malayalam (by Unnayi Warriar, Kunchan Nambiar and Ramapurath Warriar) by non Brahmins as well as the emergence of art forms like Krishnanattom, Kathakali, Chavittu Natakam, etc., may be considered the consequence of Ezhuthachan's dissidence which opened up learning, literature and arts to non- Brahmins..
2. Mahatma Gandhi who dared to be different in his approach to religion may be considered to have opened up Hiduism through his dissident spirituality.
He declared himself to be a 'Sanathana Hindu'. But he never visited any temple and never cared to perform any of the rituals of orthodox Hinduism in his mature years. He always organised prayer meetings in which he discussed various social, political and spiritual problems. There were also songs at the prayer meetings in which the ideas of all religions were respectfully mentioned. Gandhi also insisted on eradication of untouchability among Hindus and worked for temple entry of all castes which was not allowed by the traditional Hinduism. His dissident practise of Hinduism may be considered as sanctioned by his spirituality. And this had impact on large number of Indians. In fact Hindu orthodoxy was effectively challenged by the transparent humanist position taken by Gandhi. The good relations between various religious and caste communities in India was made possible mainly through the break up of Hindu orthodoxy by Gandhi's spiritual dissidence.
3. Narayana Guru of Kerala (1856 - 1928), born in a family, considered to be of low caste at the time, in the southern part of the Princely State of Travancore received good education in Sanskrit and also training in Yoga from his early years. Though he was a devotee of a local temple for some time later he became an avadhootha and wandered in the hills and forests of southern Travancore. Finally he settled down at Aruvippuram, an hamlet on the banks of Neyyar river. Local people found him to be a wise guru in both religious and temporal matters. As the people who came to visit him increased he consecrated in February 1888 a Siva temple there without any of the traditional rituals related to such cosecration. When Brahmins questioned his authority to consecrate a diety he said it was only the Siva of Ezhavas thereby asserting that even those of the low caste has the right to worship Siva in their own way. He also built an ashrama near the temple and wrote on its wall the following verse:
'This is the model place where everyone
Shall live as brothers
without distinctions of caste or religion'.
This was an announcement in total contradiction of the norms and practices of the caste ridden Hindu society of those times. While living as an avadhuta Narayana Guru had composed a number of poems which explained the essence of advaita philosophy. He maintained that as all creation is the manifestation of the supreme being in various forms there is no fixed identity for anything in the world. His Atmopadesa Satakam' says: 'That which appears as oneself and the other are but the same Spirit that burns from the beginning'. This understanding of advaita was used to establish that there cannot be distinctions of caste or religion between human beings. His spirituality, clearly distinct from the Hindu orthodoxy of the times, was accepted by a large number of ordinary people and he began to be accepted as a Guru of great wisdom. This led to the formation of a society for the maintenance of the temple consecrated by him. This society was later (in 1903) constituted as Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Sanghom (S.N.D.P. Sanghom). Guru was assisted by the Sanghom to travel to all parts of Kerala to speak against meaningless and costly rituals of orthodoxy and to give more attention to learning and productive employment. He vehemently propagated against use of intoxicants which was draining the people of their energy. He advocated simple life dedicated to uplift of the poor and the downtrodden. The Sree Narayana Movement in course of time became very popular and brought about thorough change in life-styles of large number of people. Guru was accepted as the incarnation of a new spirit of humanism. This was the result of the recognition of Guru's dissident spirituality as genuine and humane.
Unfortunately in course of time Guru's teachings were used by some influential persons to create a separate identity for the Ezhava community. This was noticed by Guru in his later years and he even declared that he will have nothing to do with the S.N.D.P. Sanghom's attempts to consider one community to be better than other communities. However, it is a fact that Sree Narayana Movement started the process of community formation in Kerala. The sub-castes in different caste groups collapsed to form one community.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
WORKSHOP PRESENTATION: PRANAB MUKHERJEE
UNBOUND-A PERFORMANCE PROJECT ON MAHATMA GANDHI'S HIND SWARAJ
Jottings on Hind Swaraj and locating a few fault-lines:
It is chilling but true. 100 years after Hind Swaraj's publication it is dangerously relevant. As relevant as ever. More real than reality television. Especially at a time when misplaced ambitions and even more misplaced notions development are so rampant that we have lost our rights-based core. That the undercurrent of constructive dissidence have almost disappeared from our notions of spirituality. He argues that did we ever have one?
When a man rises from sleep, he twists his limbs and is restless. Similarly, although the Partition has caused an awakening, the comatose condition has not yet disappeared. We are still twisting our limbs and are still restless, and just as the state between sleep and awakening is considered to be necessary, so is the present unrest in India be considered a necessary and therefore, a proper state. The knowledge that there is unrest will, it is highly probable, enable us to outgrow it. Rising from sleep, we do not continue in the comatose condition, but according to our abilities, we are soon restored to our senses......Gandhiji in Hind Swaraj
2009: One hundred years of a seminal work. When Hind Swaraj was first published many raised eyebrows. Many believed that here was a pamphlet of anarchy. A century later, Hind Swaraj still answers many questions especially the disturbing one: Who or what makes a role model? For that matter can the state be a role model? Role model in a is never the figurehead it is always an idea. And what matters is not who did what instead who changed what?
It can be a change in the mindset. It can be a change in the way of national, local or even neighbourhood thinking. It can be bringing/introducing/re-introducing changes that make a tangible difference. Yes, the idea is defined by age but not merely the biological age. As Gandhiji says in Hind Swaraj that it is ultimately the soul force, which is the core.
This force has to be defined by the newness of thinking, the ability to dare and to look the odds into the eye. A change-maker can be a theatre director, sportsman, a peacenik, a labourer, a human rights activist, a sportsman, a painter, a lawyer, a bunch of activists or even a group or collective that gives birth to an idea who's time has come or which is far ahead of times. But the change maker has to be in active change and not some passive theoretical change that is chained by academic pedagogy.
Idea is not something you paste on the walls. You do that for heroes or superstars, the landscape of ideas are a little different. So, it is a tragedy that a Bob Marley ends up more being in the T-shirt rather in the protestscape. Any activist wants activism to be cool but with a philosophical core. We mixed up this manufactured aura coolness as being fashionably trendy. The cultural voyeurs that turned the Swaraj into a marketable commodity than as a light in such noxious times. As Gandhiji so rightly puts it in Hind Swaraj:
Swaraj is when we learn to rule ourselves. It is therefore, in the palm of our hands. Do not consider this Swaraj to be just a dream. There is no idea of sitting still. The Swaraj which I wish to picture is that, after we have once realized it, we will endeavour to the end of our life-time to persuade others to act likewise. This Swaraj needs to be experienced, by each one of himself. One drowning man will never save another. Slave ourselves, it might be mere pretension to think, of saving others. Now as you have seen it is not necessary for us to have as our goal the expulsion of the English. If the English become Indianized, we can accommodate them. If they remain in India along with their civilization we have no room for them. It lies with us to bring such state of changes.
Passive resistance is the method of securing rights through personal suffering. It is, the opposite of resistance by arms. If I refuse to do a thing is repugnant to my conscience, I use soul-force. For instance, the government of the day has passed a law which is applicable to me. I do not like it. If I use violence to force the government to repel the law, I am employing what is termed as body-force. I don’t obey the law and accept the penalty for the breech, I use soul-force. It is the sacrifice of self.
Our immediate protestscape is a series of images. Ranging from Manipur to East Timor. >From struggles in Aceh to images of Iraq. From the starkness of Bhopal to lost hope in Golan Heights. The body is used as a tool to look at the images that haunt us. And the praxis, the dialectic that guides us through this choppy images is Gandhiji's lines in Hind Swaraj. That hammers away the fact.
We have to realise that world is not a bunch of celebrities doing some inane populist nonsense and pretending that they are the world. They can be "a" world and not "our" world. Our world is individual, a small core and the collective. The individual contain multitudes, the core contains some specific aspirations and the collective nurses that individual flame of dissent. So ideas are humane-yet-out-of-the-box, dense, multi-directional, multi-faceted and believes in a collage of slogans that enhances humanity and not merely showcases individual aspiration. Aspirations that percolate and churn the cesspool. Let's go back to Gandhiji's prophetic lines in Hind Swaraj:
Everybody admits that self-sacrifice is infinitely superior to the sacrifice of others. Moreover if such a cause is unjust only the person using it suffers. He does not make others suffer for his mistakes. Men have before done many things that they have subsequently found to be wrong. No man can claim that he is absolutely in the right or that a particular thing is wrong because he thinks so, but it is wrong for him so long as that is his deliberate judgment. It is therefore meant that he should not do that which he knows to be wrong and suffer the consequence. This is the key to the use of soul force
So whether we like it or not we have to look at the futility of violence especially the state-sponsored ones. But the path still has painful snapshots that keep confronting us.
This year-2010 is an interesting year in terms of landmarks. Centenary of Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj. Centenary of Sri Aurobindo's Uttarpara Speech. Centenaries of EMS and Nripen Chakraborty-two of the Marxist stalwarts of the sub-continent(at a time when the Official Left-in-power in three states have unleashed their brand of oppression). Completion of the Sixty years of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Completion of Twenty Five years of Bhopal Gas Tragedy and the centenary celebration of International Women's Day.
This year is also completion of centenary of an association that had one of the deepest philosophical churnings of our time between Gandhiji and Leo Tolstoy (infact it was in 1909 when Gandhiji translated in Gujarati, Leo Tolstoy's Letter to Hindoo ). The year also marks the centenary long association of Gandhiji with the visionary architect Herman Kallenbach.
On the voyage from England to South Africa aboard the SS Kildonian Castle, Gandhiji wrote Hind Swaraj in 10-days flat. Interestingly, he wrote almost in a trance sometimes writing with left hand when the right hand was tired. Our idea of producing Hind Swaraj's first ever theatre production is to bring out the essence of a classic that talks about the machines that enslaves us. And also tells us unequivocally the difference between development and sustainable development.
Let' s jump cut to a Gandhiji quote: .....I should be prepared to be killed by an arrow of Bhil than to seek unmanly protection...and it is the same person who also says in Hind Swaraj: I can never subscribe to the statement that every Englishmen is bad. Many Englishmen desire Home Rule for India. That the Englishmen are somewhat more selfish than others is true but that does not prove that every Englishman is bad. We who seek justice shall give justice to others. Sir William does not wish ill to India, --- that should be enough for us. As we proceed, you will see that, if we act justly, India shall sooner be free. You will also see that, if we shun every Englishmen as an enemy, Home Rule will be delayed. But if we are just to them, we shall receive their support in our process towards the goal
Into that realm where braveness become a mindset and not bravado and there is an underlying humanism that constantly runs through the sub-text..... lies our production.
Our at least that is where it should lie.
I do not for one moment believe that my life would have been wasted, had I not received higher or lower education. Nor do I consider that I
necessarily serve because I speak. But I do desire to serve and in endeavouring to fulfil that desire, I make use of the education I have
received. And if I am making good use of it, even then it is not for the millions, but I can use it only for such as you, and this supports
my contention. Both you and I have come under the bane of what is mainly false education. I claim to have become free form its ill
effect, and I am trying to give you the benefit of my experience, and in doing so, I am demonstrating the rottenness of this education
There's this edge. Perched precariously on the cliff you realise that if you tilt a little more you die. If you don't fall you are still convinced still of not living with great relish. It is that state of a queer quasi-adventure where we should locate our Gandhian thoughts. His texts are real.....
the workers in the mills of Bombay have become slaves. the conditions of these women working in these mills is shocking.
when there were no mills, these women's weren't starving.
if the machinery craze grows in our country, it will become an unhappy land
Standing in a no man's land is a strange feeling. On one hand you have your own country and on the other hand you have the populist notion of the other country always described as other. So, i have to prove myself to be an Algerian in Paris, an Eritrean in Ethiopia, Gabonese in Bordeaux, Ivory Coast refugee in Marseilles, an Aceh in Java, memories of the East Turkestan which the Chinese took away from me in 1949, a displaced Tamil in Jaffna, a Tibetan in Dharamshala, a Chakma in Chittagong Hill tracts
I don't know which country I belong to; clinging on to the immediate notions of motherland
I've always been grappling with definition: Who am I?
Am I a minor minority voice in this huge protest industry? A commodity in such multiplex times.....
I can hear a rumbling from the sky ....I don't even know when the acid rain will fall.....my skin is on fire in such toxic times
The shook the British Power received through the partition has never been equalled by any other act. This does not mean that the other injustices done on India are less glaring than those done by the partition. The salt-tax was not a small injustice. We shall see many such things later on. But the people were ready to resist the partition. At that time feelings ran high. The leading Bengali’s were ready to give up their all. They knew their power, and hence the conflagration
The sky today is sombre. There are thunderclouds drifting all over the place. The river has turned toxic. The mountains have lost all their vegetation. Nowadays, I don’t see dreams; nightmares occur to me with unfailing regularity tan that regularity seems to have taken a normal hue. And I seem to ask myself this question, what is nature? What is against the order of nature? Should traditions inspire us or dictate us? Even a straight line is a concentric circle depending on which dimension you look at it from. I don’t want to be a footnote in your historical trashcan or a deleted file in the recycle bin. I am a strange voice. And my strangeness is my normalcy. But your normalcy is your strangeness.
the fact that there are so many men still alive in the world shows that it is based not on the force of arms but on the force of truth or love. therefore, the greatest and most impeachable evidence of the success of this force is to be found in the fact that, in-spite of the war of the worlds, it still lives on. thousands, indeed tens of thousands depend for there existence on a very active working of this force. little quarrels of millions of families in their daily lives disappear before the exercise of this force. hundreds of nation live in peace. History does not and cannot take note of this fact. History is really a record of every interruption of the even working of the force of love or of the soul
I entered a room. There was one cot; one window; one small shaft of light entering from that hint of a window; one man-hole in the centre of the room; one type-writer in which you type with one finger; one television set which telecasts only a blur; one glass half-filled with stale water; one battered plate and one half-lit sun outside, giving suffused sun-rays
Nowadays, it is painful to be displaced. I don’t hear the rain anymore, consistent sounds of air-crafts from the promised land, hovering over my territory. Each broken building is yet another story of broken dolls, broken limbs, and lost tears from lost retina.
What do I do? My notions of music have changed, every time I lift the charcoal and it touches the paper, figures that come out are of noxious fumes, noxious forms…that seem to choke me. Barbed wires, Barbed fences. Lost fractals in lost time
There can be no advantage in suppressing, an eruption; it must its vent. If, therefore, before we can remain at peace we must fight amongst ourselves, it is better that we do so. There is no occasion for a third party to protect the weak. It is this so-called protection which has unnerved us. Such protection can only make the weak weaker. Unless we realize this, we cannot have Home rule
Inside the forest a variety of sounds play themselves out… screech, howl, roar, or even small low intensity tears. What do I do if I am a minority in a Batticaloa. Isn’t it ridiculous, when you use humans as human shield, the very purpose of existence gets denied.
I have one leg and the other one has became redundant when I stepped into a landmine. I am now hobbling with a makeshift wooden crutch from one relief camp to another. Barbed wires around the camp. Food packets with insufficient quantity. Ceylon datelines keep flying by. 1983, 1984, 1987, 2009 .....as I keep turning the pages of every year, I am reduced to being a "clunker." A political footnote of our turbulent times.
I am an internally displaced refugee. Like a football in a soccer match between the state-of the-mind and the mind-of-the-state. My voice is not heard because I seemed to have lost mine.
The English have not taken India, we have given it to them. They are not here because of their strength, but because we keep them. Let us now see whether these propositons can be sustained. They originally came to our country for the purposes of trade. Recall the company Bahadur. Who made it Bahadur? They had not the slightest intention at the time of establishing a kingdom. Who assisted the company's officers? Who was tempted at the sight of their silver? Who bought their goods? As history testifies it was we who did all this. In order to become rich, we welcomed the company's officers with open arms. We assisted them
So, I cannot relax and shrug off the changes around me. I cannot live in a fancytopia. Pretending that these changes do not bother me. I have to re-orient constantly to include the changes in my context.
To sign off in Gandhiji's words: Not so. The proclamation of 1857 was given at end of a revolt, for the purpose of preserving peace. When peace was secured, and people became simple-minded, its full effect was toned down. If I cease stealing for fear of punishment, I would recommence the operation as soon as fear is withdrawn from me. This is almost a universal experience. We have assumed that we can get men to do things by force, and, therefore we use force.
Faultline 2: Hind Swaraj in action..let’s look at the multi-cultural hues in France..let's look at some scribbles from the digital domain
HOW CAN ONE BE MUSLIM IN FRANCE?
The question posed in the title, which hints at Montesquieu's famous query:- "How can one be Persian?" also focuses both on the debate on culture and religion in the French definition of citizenship and secularism, and on the failure of universalisation faced with the double movement of Trans-nationalism and identity. It is illustrated in French political debate and public opinion by a continuous questioning about legacy, allegiance, intrusion from people of Islamic culture and Maghrebian origin. Several times, the allegiance of populations of Islamic culture has been questioned. On the other hand, Islam both as a religion and as a collective identity is now part and parcel of the French political space. How can we manage this entanglement of relationship, playing over nation states, borders and allegiances?
We have to analyse the place of Islam in the French internal and external political order and the role of transnational relations in this new political game. The visibility of Islam in France with its various sociological ways of life, and the transnational mediators, is questioning the French definition of citizenship and the new building of identities around ethnic and- religious belongings.
DIVERSITY LINKED TO HISTORY
It is difficult to give precise figures of the number of Muslims in France because, since the census of 1986, membership to a religious faith is no longer asked for. We can, however, assert that they represent between 3 and 4 million people. In spite of the frequent references to the Islamic community in France, it is far from homogeneous. It is less and less so because of a plurality of cleavages of nationalities, age, sex, trends linked to' various periods of immigration and identification points, even if all these features are not a decisive factor for the degree of homogeneity of a community. Islam in France was brought by five 'waves' of immigration since the First World War. The immigrants included Tunusians, Moroccans and Algerians among others.
Sunnite in its majority, Islam in Franca is dominated by Maghrebians who 'give the tune'. Today, even if "Maghrebian Islam' becomes more and, more a French Islam because of the French nationality of those belonging to the Muslim culture, it gathers many groups: young Franco Maghrebians (one million), Maghrebians of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco (1,412,000 at the census of March 1990), Black Africans (178,000 half of them belonging to Islamic culture), Turks (201,000), French Muslims (harkis, 500,000), Pakistanis and others (50,000), converted French- (50,000).
Polycentric game
If the image of French public opinion is still full of the old image of a population turned towards its region of origin, the reality is very different. Second generation Franco Maghrebians, new migratory waves from Maghreb, are playing with community feelings and identity self-belonging and are building mediation between politics and religion, lower classes and elites, towns and suburbs, 'here' and 'there' in the transnational political field. But in their behaviour, they are mostly characterized by re-centring their attitudes. These processes and changes are also linked 10 institutions and to formal and informal structures. The main role belongs to the freedom of association, granted by the socialist law of October 9, 1981, when foreigners became ruled like the French
And finally while wrapping up....
Let's debate the force, the use brutality and thought control. Twenty years on the scars of Tiananmen are still fresh. At the end of this constant debate, let us change the context and not the pretext. Let us not "Yes" to the co-oerced "Yes" and also at the same time we also have to shout an emphatic "no." Let us not be co-opted by the regime of status quo. Let us still be the change that attempts to change even if it gloriusly fails each time.
The production weaves in a host of fault-lines to create a collage of words, sounds and silences. And debates with Hind Swaraj rather than just perform the lines.
(All the quotation in italics have been taken from Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj. 2009 is the centenary of Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj or the Indian Home Rule)
Jottings on Hind Swaraj and locating a few fault-lines:
It is chilling but true. 100 years after Hind Swaraj's publication it is dangerously relevant. As relevant as ever. More real than reality television. Especially at a time when misplaced ambitions and even more misplaced notions development are so rampant that we have lost our rights-based core. That the undercurrent of constructive dissidence have almost disappeared from our notions of spirituality. He argues that did we ever have one?
When a man rises from sleep, he twists his limbs and is restless. Similarly, although the Partition has caused an awakening, the comatose condition has not yet disappeared. We are still twisting our limbs and are still restless, and just as the state between sleep and awakening is considered to be necessary, so is the present unrest in India be considered a necessary and therefore, a proper state. The knowledge that there is unrest will, it is highly probable, enable us to outgrow it. Rising from sleep, we do not continue in the comatose condition, but according to our abilities, we are soon restored to our senses......Gandhiji in Hind Swaraj
2009: One hundred years of a seminal work. When Hind Swaraj was first published many raised eyebrows. Many believed that here was a pamphlet of anarchy. A century later, Hind Swaraj still answers many questions especially the disturbing one: Who or what makes a role model? For that matter can the state be a role model? Role model in a is never the figurehead it is always an idea. And what matters is not who did what instead who changed what?
It can be a change in the mindset. It can be a change in the way of national, local or even neighbourhood thinking. It can be bringing/introducing/re-introducing changes that make a tangible difference. Yes, the idea is defined by age but not merely the biological age. As Gandhiji says in Hind Swaraj that it is ultimately the soul force, which is the core.
This force has to be defined by the newness of thinking, the ability to dare and to look the odds into the eye. A change-maker can be a theatre director, sportsman, a peacenik, a labourer, a human rights activist, a sportsman, a painter, a lawyer, a bunch of activists or even a group or collective that gives birth to an idea who's time has come or which is far ahead of times. But the change maker has to be in active change and not some passive theoretical change that is chained by academic pedagogy.
Idea is not something you paste on the walls. You do that for heroes or superstars, the landscape of ideas are a little different. So, it is a tragedy that a Bob Marley ends up more being in the T-shirt rather in the protestscape. Any activist wants activism to be cool but with a philosophical core. We mixed up this manufactured aura coolness as being fashionably trendy. The cultural voyeurs that turned the Swaraj into a marketable commodity than as a light in such noxious times. As Gandhiji so rightly puts it in Hind Swaraj:
Swaraj is when we learn to rule ourselves. It is therefore, in the palm of our hands. Do not consider this Swaraj to be just a dream. There is no idea of sitting still. The Swaraj which I wish to picture is that, after we have once realized it, we will endeavour to the end of our life-time to persuade others to act likewise. This Swaraj needs to be experienced, by each one of himself. One drowning man will never save another. Slave ourselves, it might be mere pretension to think, of saving others. Now as you have seen it is not necessary for us to have as our goal the expulsion of the English. If the English become Indianized, we can accommodate them. If they remain in India along with their civilization we have no room for them. It lies with us to bring such state of changes.
Passive resistance is the method of securing rights through personal suffering. It is, the opposite of resistance by arms. If I refuse to do a thing is repugnant to my conscience, I use soul-force. For instance, the government of the day has passed a law which is applicable to me. I do not like it. If I use violence to force the government to repel the law, I am employing what is termed as body-force. I don’t obey the law and accept the penalty for the breech, I use soul-force. It is the sacrifice of self.
Our immediate protestscape is a series of images. Ranging from Manipur to East Timor. >From struggles in Aceh to images of Iraq. From the starkness of Bhopal to lost hope in Golan Heights. The body is used as a tool to look at the images that haunt us. And the praxis, the dialectic that guides us through this choppy images is Gandhiji's lines in Hind Swaraj. That hammers away the fact.
We have to realise that world is not a bunch of celebrities doing some inane populist nonsense and pretending that they are the world. They can be "a" world and not "our" world. Our world is individual, a small core and the collective. The individual contain multitudes, the core contains some specific aspirations and the collective nurses that individual flame of dissent. So ideas are humane-yet-out-of-the-box, dense, multi-directional, multi-faceted and believes in a collage of slogans that enhances humanity and not merely showcases individual aspiration. Aspirations that percolate and churn the cesspool. Let's go back to Gandhiji's prophetic lines in Hind Swaraj:
Everybody admits that self-sacrifice is infinitely superior to the sacrifice of others. Moreover if such a cause is unjust only the person using it suffers. He does not make others suffer for his mistakes. Men have before done many things that they have subsequently found to be wrong. No man can claim that he is absolutely in the right or that a particular thing is wrong because he thinks so, but it is wrong for him so long as that is his deliberate judgment. It is therefore meant that he should not do that which he knows to be wrong and suffer the consequence. This is the key to the use of soul force
So whether we like it or not we have to look at the futility of violence especially the state-sponsored ones. But the path still has painful snapshots that keep confronting us.
This year-2010 is an interesting year in terms of landmarks. Centenary of Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj. Centenary of Sri Aurobindo's Uttarpara Speech. Centenaries of EMS and Nripen Chakraborty-two of the Marxist stalwarts of the sub-continent(at a time when the Official Left-in-power in three states have unleashed their brand of oppression). Completion of the Sixty years of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Completion of Twenty Five years of Bhopal Gas Tragedy and the centenary celebration of International Women's Day.
This year is also completion of centenary of an association that had one of the deepest philosophical churnings of our time between Gandhiji and Leo Tolstoy (infact it was in 1909 when Gandhiji translated in Gujarati, Leo Tolstoy's Letter to Hindoo ). The year also marks the centenary long association of Gandhiji with the visionary architect Herman Kallenbach.
On the voyage from England to South Africa aboard the SS Kildonian Castle, Gandhiji wrote Hind Swaraj in 10-days flat. Interestingly, he wrote almost in a trance sometimes writing with left hand when the right hand was tired. Our idea of producing Hind Swaraj's first ever theatre production is to bring out the essence of a classic that talks about the machines that enslaves us. And also tells us unequivocally the difference between development and sustainable development.
Let' s jump cut to a Gandhiji quote: .....I should be prepared to be killed by an arrow of Bhil than to seek unmanly protection...and it is the same person who also says in Hind Swaraj: I can never subscribe to the statement that every Englishmen is bad. Many Englishmen desire Home Rule for India. That the Englishmen are somewhat more selfish than others is true but that does not prove that every Englishman is bad. We who seek justice shall give justice to others. Sir William does not wish ill to India, --- that should be enough for us. As we proceed, you will see that, if we act justly, India shall sooner be free. You will also see that, if we shun every Englishmen as an enemy, Home Rule will be delayed. But if we are just to them, we shall receive their support in our process towards the goal
Into that realm where braveness become a mindset and not bravado and there is an underlying humanism that constantly runs through the sub-text..... lies our production.
Our at least that is where it should lie.
I do not for one moment believe that my life would have been wasted, had I not received higher or lower education. Nor do I consider that I
necessarily serve because I speak. But I do desire to serve and in endeavouring to fulfil that desire, I make use of the education I have
received. And if I am making good use of it, even then it is not for the millions, but I can use it only for such as you, and this supports
my contention. Both you and I have come under the bane of what is mainly false education. I claim to have become free form its ill
effect, and I am trying to give you the benefit of my experience, and in doing so, I am demonstrating the rottenness of this education
There's this edge. Perched precariously on the cliff you realise that if you tilt a little more you die. If you don't fall you are still convinced still of not living with great relish. It is that state of a queer quasi-adventure where we should locate our Gandhian thoughts. His texts are real.....
the workers in the mills of Bombay have become slaves. the conditions of these women working in these mills is shocking.
when there were no mills, these women's weren't starving.
if the machinery craze grows in our country, it will become an unhappy land
Standing in a no man's land is a strange feeling. On one hand you have your own country and on the other hand you have the populist notion of the other country always described as other. So, i have to prove myself to be an Algerian in Paris, an Eritrean in Ethiopia, Gabonese in Bordeaux, Ivory Coast refugee in Marseilles, an Aceh in Java, memories of the East Turkestan which the Chinese took away from me in 1949, a displaced Tamil in Jaffna, a Tibetan in Dharamshala, a Chakma in Chittagong Hill tracts
I don't know which country I belong to; clinging on to the immediate notions of motherland
I've always been grappling with definition: Who am I?
Am I a minor minority voice in this huge protest industry? A commodity in such multiplex times.....
I can hear a rumbling from the sky ....I don't even know when the acid rain will fall.....my skin is on fire in such toxic times
The shook the British Power received through the partition has never been equalled by any other act. This does not mean that the other injustices done on India are less glaring than those done by the partition. The salt-tax was not a small injustice. We shall see many such things later on. But the people were ready to resist the partition. At that time feelings ran high. The leading Bengali’s were ready to give up their all. They knew their power, and hence the conflagration
The sky today is sombre. There are thunderclouds drifting all over the place. The river has turned toxic. The mountains have lost all their vegetation. Nowadays, I don’t see dreams; nightmares occur to me with unfailing regularity tan that regularity seems to have taken a normal hue. And I seem to ask myself this question, what is nature? What is against the order of nature? Should traditions inspire us or dictate us? Even a straight line is a concentric circle depending on which dimension you look at it from. I don’t want to be a footnote in your historical trashcan or a deleted file in the recycle bin. I am a strange voice. And my strangeness is my normalcy. But your normalcy is your strangeness.
the fact that there are so many men still alive in the world shows that it is based not on the force of arms but on the force of truth or love. therefore, the greatest and most impeachable evidence of the success of this force is to be found in the fact that, in-spite of the war of the worlds, it still lives on. thousands, indeed tens of thousands depend for there existence on a very active working of this force. little quarrels of millions of families in their daily lives disappear before the exercise of this force. hundreds of nation live in peace. History does not and cannot take note of this fact. History is really a record of every interruption of the even working of the force of love or of the soul
I entered a room. There was one cot; one window; one small shaft of light entering from that hint of a window; one man-hole in the centre of the room; one type-writer in which you type with one finger; one television set which telecasts only a blur; one glass half-filled with stale water; one battered plate and one half-lit sun outside, giving suffused sun-rays
Nowadays, it is painful to be displaced. I don’t hear the rain anymore, consistent sounds of air-crafts from the promised land, hovering over my territory. Each broken building is yet another story of broken dolls, broken limbs, and lost tears from lost retina.
What do I do? My notions of music have changed, every time I lift the charcoal and it touches the paper, figures that come out are of noxious fumes, noxious forms…that seem to choke me. Barbed wires, Barbed fences. Lost fractals in lost time
There can be no advantage in suppressing, an eruption; it must its vent. If, therefore, before we can remain at peace we must fight amongst ourselves, it is better that we do so. There is no occasion for a third party to protect the weak. It is this so-called protection which has unnerved us. Such protection can only make the weak weaker. Unless we realize this, we cannot have Home rule
Inside the forest a variety of sounds play themselves out… screech, howl, roar, or even small low intensity tears. What do I do if I am a minority in a Batticaloa. Isn’t it ridiculous, when you use humans as human shield, the very purpose of existence gets denied.
I have one leg and the other one has became redundant when I stepped into a landmine. I am now hobbling with a makeshift wooden crutch from one relief camp to another. Barbed wires around the camp. Food packets with insufficient quantity. Ceylon datelines keep flying by. 1983, 1984, 1987, 2009 .....as I keep turning the pages of every year, I am reduced to being a "clunker." A political footnote of our turbulent times.
I am an internally displaced refugee. Like a football in a soccer match between the state-of the-mind and the mind-of-the-state. My voice is not heard because I seemed to have lost mine.
The English have not taken India, we have given it to them. They are not here because of their strength, but because we keep them. Let us now see whether these propositons can be sustained. They originally came to our country for the purposes of trade. Recall the company Bahadur. Who made it Bahadur? They had not the slightest intention at the time of establishing a kingdom. Who assisted the company's officers? Who was tempted at the sight of their silver? Who bought their goods? As history testifies it was we who did all this. In order to become rich, we welcomed the company's officers with open arms. We assisted them
So, I cannot relax and shrug off the changes around me. I cannot live in a fancytopia. Pretending that these changes do not bother me. I have to re-orient constantly to include the changes in my context.
To sign off in Gandhiji's words: Not so. The proclamation of 1857 was given at end of a revolt, for the purpose of preserving peace. When peace was secured, and people became simple-minded, its full effect was toned down. If I cease stealing for fear of punishment, I would recommence the operation as soon as fear is withdrawn from me. This is almost a universal experience. We have assumed that we can get men to do things by force, and, therefore we use force.
Faultline 2: Hind Swaraj in action..let’s look at the multi-cultural hues in France..let's look at some scribbles from the digital domain
HOW CAN ONE BE MUSLIM IN FRANCE?
The question posed in the title, which hints at Montesquieu's famous query:- "How can one be Persian?" also focuses both on the debate on culture and religion in the French definition of citizenship and secularism, and on the failure of universalisation faced with the double movement of Trans-nationalism and identity. It is illustrated in French political debate and public opinion by a continuous questioning about legacy, allegiance, intrusion from people of Islamic culture and Maghrebian origin. Several times, the allegiance of populations of Islamic culture has been questioned. On the other hand, Islam both as a religion and as a collective identity is now part and parcel of the French political space. How can we manage this entanglement of relationship, playing over nation states, borders and allegiances?
We have to analyse the place of Islam in the French internal and external political order and the role of transnational relations in this new political game. The visibility of Islam in France with its various sociological ways of life, and the transnational mediators, is questioning the French definition of citizenship and the new building of identities around ethnic and- religious belongings.
DIVERSITY LINKED TO HISTORY
It is difficult to give precise figures of the number of Muslims in France because, since the census of 1986, membership to a religious faith is no longer asked for. We can, however, assert that they represent between 3 and 4 million people. In spite of the frequent references to the Islamic community in France, it is far from homogeneous. It is less and less so because of a plurality of cleavages of nationalities, age, sex, trends linked to' various periods of immigration and identification points, even if all these features are not a decisive factor for the degree of homogeneity of a community. Islam in France was brought by five 'waves' of immigration since the First World War. The immigrants included Tunusians, Moroccans and Algerians among others.
Sunnite in its majority, Islam in Franca is dominated by Maghrebians who 'give the tune'. Today, even if "Maghrebian Islam' becomes more and, more a French Islam because of the French nationality of those belonging to the Muslim culture, it gathers many groups: young Franco Maghrebians (one million), Maghrebians of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco (1,412,000 at the census of March 1990), Black Africans (178,000 half of them belonging to Islamic culture), Turks (201,000), French Muslims (harkis, 500,000), Pakistanis and others (50,000), converted French- (50,000).
Polycentric game
If the image of French public opinion is still full of the old image of a population turned towards its region of origin, the reality is very different. Second generation Franco Maghrebians, new migratory waves from Maghreb, are playing with community feelings and identity self-belonging and are building mediation between politics and religion, lower classes and elites, towns and suburbs, 'here' and 'there' in the transnational political field. But in their behaviour, they are mostly characterized by re-centring their attitudes. These processes and changes are also linked 10 institutions and to formal and informal structures. The main role belongs to the freedom of association, granted by the socialist law of October 9, 1981, when foreigners became ruled like the French
And finally while wrapping up....
Let's debate the force, the use brutality and thought control. Twenty years on the scars of Tiananmen are still fresh. At the end of this constant debate, let us change the context and not the pretext. Let us not "Yes" to the co-oerced "Yes" and also at the same time we also have to shout an emphatic "no." Let us not be co-opted by the regime of status quo. Let us still be the change that attempts to change even if it gloriusly fails each time.
The production weaves in a host of fault-lines to create a collage of words, sounds and silences. And debates with Hind Swaraj rather than just perform the lines.
(All the quotation in italics have been taken from Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj. 2009 is the centenary of Gandhiji's Hind Swaraj or the Indian Home Rule)
Monday, May 17, 2010
WORKSHOP PRESENTATION- Dr. P. Madhu
Dissents are rare events. Events surge forth surprisingly while it is not expected. Yet, it was brewing to surge without anyone noticing. Event is the moment in which insignificant and unobserved erupt and transfigure the state of affair.
Dissenting moments are evanescent and hence fast vanishing. They are the truth moments as a subject overcomes an untruth hitherto appeared as if it were truth. They are the moment of truth and the moments of subject as agent simultaneously. The truth of dissenting moments is the untruth dissented. In other words, truth is a break with the untruth- while it is the untruth is taken-for-granted misrecognitions that form the ordinary encyclopedia of knowledges.
Moments of truth are not moments of revelations, rather they are moments of active dissents, confrontations against the untruth taken for granted. However, such a confrontation does not happen until the evental eruptions opens up one to such a dissent, i.e., till one experiences crack with the state of the situation, the existing edifice of science/spirituality/morality - and works upon the ‘fidelity to the crack’.
The truth of the moment of Albert Einstein was the dissent with the then existing notions of time, space and energy. Truth of the moment is the dissent and not what is later consented. Truth is the commencement of a break from the ordinary and the encyclopaedia of knowledges linked to a situation.
Each of the dissents are commencements and not recommencements. Every dissent is a beginning. With consent, the dissent is co-opted and made into well named element in the set of the affairs. Dissents as truth moments that make holes in what is constituted as knowledge contrary to ‘unfolding’ into truth.
Moments of truth and fidelity to the truth cut off one or another untruth- and gradually the network of the untruth- passed on to the future. Truth thus stops time being made by series of untruths. Truth is an interruption on untruth being passed on and on. In other words, a truth is always the undoing of time. Truth is the unwinding of the untruth. Truth is always novel, as it is anti-knowledge. The Novelty begins with dissents.
Untruths are quite there in the set of things recognized as the set of things. Truth on the other hand is not recognizably present in the set of things, rather it is present as the void of the set, the null-set. The void is truth uncounted, unrecognized, unnamed yet to be recognized at the irruption of event by the beings capable of emerging into subjects.
Truth moments are moments in which one or another thick layer of misrecognition (untruth) is melted out due to the heat of the event erupted. These truth moments are moments of dissents in science, history and spirituality….
The history of science, history or spirituality are indeed the series of ruptures or dissents with the situation, however, the rupture is hardly historicized as they are treated as if they were a continuity constituting a historical whole. Series of such ruptures and dissents later presented as if they were continuities in scientific consents. Mutations are thus presented as if they were evolutions.
The spiritual dissents thus experienced at the moments of recognizing the untruth of taken for granted spirituality thus had its eruptions in unknown dissenting spiritualists who could dissent with till then existing untruths of consolidations in the social and historical fields of spiritualities. May be in such rare spiritual moments the dissenting spiritualities centered around the icon of Kali might have emerged.
It could be such a breakaway moments let Chattambi Swamigal and Sri Narayana Guru to recognize the untruth of brahminical social order and its justifying spiritual institutions of consent. Such spiritual dissents of truth moments are quite similar to the dissent experienced with the misrecognitions on space and time by Albert Einstein. The dissent with finity by Georg cantor, dissent with linear regularity in fractal geometry, the collapse of certainty in Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, etc., are indeed dissenting moments of awe similar to the spiritual dissents.
It could be such moments of dissents, the truth moments, could have let Buddha to recognize the fundamental ego-nullity. Also, it could be such an evental eruption let Mahavir to recognize infinite multiplicity and unnamability of everything.
Possibly, at such a truth moment of dissent, what was considered to be the unholiest of all, the human ash could have emerged holiest having place right in the forehead in the Saiva tradition. Among Aghoris the human ash is applied all over their body. Not just applying human ash all over the body, even the eating of rotten human flesh by Aghories could have started as a fidelity such a truth moment. These practices and rituals, which might have been started as the fidelity to the truth moment: the counting of the uncounted, the naming of the unnamed.
However, the fidelity in due course instead of sustaining the spirit of the radical truth moments, could have emerged as instruments of consent, the instruments of untruth- subjectivating subjects depriving their capability to emerge as subjects in fidelity to the crack in the ontology. The fidelity to the truth-moment, where by the unnamable is named, has its danger of unquestioned consent accompanying. The dissent of E=mc2 soon has become consent. Similarly, spiritual truth moments too later become consents losing their rigour, however still they are inbuilt with truth potential to dissent by the merit of their pure multiplicity. Break is always immanent to any situation because a situation is not what it is counted to be.
While dissent marks the truth moment, consent in all its forms are misrecognitions and hence settling of untruth. Dissents are always inbuilt as everything as all that exist are indeed pure multiples, infinitely different from how they are framed and counted. The uncounted and unnamed are unnoticed and thus they have greater potential to erupt uncontained. What is understood as spirituality thus is a multiple, infinitely different from how it is counted and framed and hence the notion is immensely potential to be dissented.
However, dissenting moments are rare. Consent is not rare at all. Always we are found to be sleepwalking into consents after consents. In this sleepwalking there is no truth moments; there is no subject. Every moment of dissent brings forth a till then unnamable thus facilitate them to be nameable, thus consent as the untruth is inbuilt in every dissent too.
Dissenting moments are evanescent and hence fast vanishing. They are the truth moments as a subject overcomes an untruth hitherto appeared as if it were truth. They are the moment of truth and the moments of subject as agent simultaneously. The truth of dissenting moments is the untruth dissented. In other words, truth is a break with the untruth- while it is the untruth is taken-for-granted misrecognitions that form the ordinary encyclopedia of knowledges.
Moments of truth are not moments of revelations, rather they are moments of active dissents, confrontations against the untruth taken for granted. However, such a confrontation does not happen until the evental eruptions opens up one to such a dissent, i.e., till one experiences crack with the state of the situation, the existing edifice of science/spirituality/morality - and works upon the ‘fidelity to the crack’.
The truth of the moment of Albert Einstein was the dissent with the then existing notions of time, space and energy. Truth of the moment is the dissent and not what is later consented. Truth is the commencement of a break from the ordinary and the encyclopaedia of knowledges linked to a situation.
Each of the dissents are commencements and not recommencements. Every dissent is a beginning. With consent, the dissent is co-opted and made into well named element in the set of the affairs. Dissents as truth moments that make holes in what is constituted as knowledge contrary to ‘unfolding’ into truth.
Moments of truth and fidelity to the truth cut off one or another untruth- and gradually the network of the untruth- passed on to the future. Truth thus stops time being made by series of untruths. Truth is an interruption on untruth being passed on and on. In other words, a truth is always the undoing of time. Truth is the unwinding of the untruth. Truth is always novel, as it is anti-knowledge. The Novelty begins with dissents.
Untruths are quite there in the set of things recognized as the set of things. Truth on the other hand is not recognizably present in the set of things, rather it is present as the void of the set, the null-set. The void is truth uncounted, unrecognized, unnamed yet to be recognized at the irruption of event by the beings capable of emerging into subjects.
Truth moments are moments in which one or another thick layer of misrecognition (untruth) is melted out due to the heat of the event erupted. These truth moments are moments of dissents in science, history and spirituality….
The history of science, history or spirituality are indeed the series of ruptures or dissents with the situation, however, the rupture is hardly historicized as they are treated as if they were a continuity constituting a historical whole. Series of such ruptures and dissents later presented as if they were continuities in scientific consents. Mutations are thus presented as if they were evolutions.
The spiritual dissents thus experienced at the moments of recognizing the untruth of taken for granted spirituality thus had its eruptions in unknown dissenting spiritualists who could dissent with till then existing untruths of consolidations in the social and historical fields of spiritualities. May be in such rare spiritual moments the dissenting spiritualities centered around the icon of Kali might have emerged.
It could be such a breakaway moments let Chattambi Swamigal and Sri Narayana Guru to recognize the untruth of brahminical social order and its justifying spiritual institutions of consent. Such spiritual dissents of truth moments are quite similar to the dissent experienced with the misrecognitions on space and time by Albert Einstein. The dissent with finity by Georg cantor, dissent with linear regularity in fractal geometry, the collapse of certainty in Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, etc., are indeed dissenting moments of awe similar to the spiritual dissents.
It could be such moments of dissents, the truth moments, could have let Buddha to recognize the fundamental ego-nullity. Also, it could be such an evental eruption let Mahavir to recognize infinite multiplicity and unnamability of everything.
Possibly, at such a truth moment of dissent, what was considered to be the unholiest of all, the human ash could have emerged holiest having place right in the forehead in the Saiva tradition. Among Aghoris the human ash is applied all over their body. Not just applying human ash all over the body, even the eating of rotten human flesh by Aghories could have started as a fidelity such a truth moment. These practices and rituals, which might have been started as the fidelity to the truth moment: the counting of the uncounted, the naming of the unnamed.
However, the fidelity in due course instead of sustaining the spirit of the radical truth moments, could have emerged as instruments of consent, the instruments of untruth- subjectivating subjects depriving their capability to emerge as subjects in fidelity to the crack in the ontology. The fidelity to the truth-moment, where by the unnamable is named, has its danger of unquestioned consent accompanying. The dissent of E=mc2 soon has become consent. Similarly, spiritual truth moments too later become consents losing their rigour, however still they are inbuilt with truth potential to dissent by the merit of their pure multiplicity. Break is always immanent to any situation because a situation is not what it is counted to be.
While dissent marks the truth moment, consent in all its forms are misrecognitions and hence settling of untruth. Dissents are always inbuilt as everything as all that exist are indeed pure multiples, infinitely different from how they are framed and counted. The uncounted and unnamed are unnoticed and thus they have greater potential to erupt uncontained. What is understood as spirituality thus is a multiple, infinitely different from how it is counted and framed and hence the notion is immensely potential to be dissented.
However, dissenting moments are rare. Consent is not rare at all. Always we are found to be sleepwalking into consents after consents. In this sleepwalking there is no truth moments; there is no subject. Every moment of dissent brings forth a till then unnamable thus facilitate them to be nameable, thus consent as the untruth is inbuilt in every dissent too.
workshop presentation- Maciej Karasinsky
INTEGRATING ANTAGONISTIC PATHS: IS Śrī Vidyā A DISSIDENT STREAM IN KAULA TANTRA?
Maciej Karasinski
Research scholar
Department of Sanskrit
Calicut University
Many early Śākta scriptures claim to belong to so-called Kula or Kaula tradition Abhinavagupta in Tantrāloka (TĀ_1.7) ascribes the origin of this tradition to Macchanda (5c.) who is also declared as the founder of Yoginīkaula school ( a kaula sub-sect). However, in the same chapter (TĀ_1.8) Abhinava recognizes Tryambaka and his daughter as another source of the Kaula revelation. According to Sanderson, the Kula tradition belonged primary to ascetic groups who lived near cremation grounds and performed Tantric rituals similar to those known to the Kāpālikas. On the other hand, Kaula can be called a reformed version of Kula mārga which became suitable for householders.
The term kula can be rendered as community or clan and it refers to family of yoginīs. As stated in many tantras, Yoginīs are closely related to the mothers (mātṛs) - seven or eight embodiments of god's energies.Several inscriptions from Cālukya period describes the Mātṛs as a group (gaṇa) of frightening spirits (ḍakinīs) that can grant supernatural powers if propitiated. It is noteworthy that kula can also mean a body. Thus, Tantras associate kula with the universal body and an adept who is initiated into kula tradition becomes an embodiment of cosmic powers and identifies himself with the mātṛs.
As typical for Tantric traditions, the circumstances of the origin and development of Kaula school is problematic. The scriptures of the tradition trace the source of their sacred teachings to a group of sages who were chosen by a divine in time immemorial. However, the Tantric revelation is frequently contrasted with the primeval Vedic one. In some texts one can find statements suggesting that Kaula Tantrism is more suitable for a new era in which people are not capable of understanding the secrets of the Vedas. Yet other scriptures claim that Vedas contain only partial knowledge suitable for common folk and Tantras were composed for advanced disciples, seeking true knowledge. Tantrāloka ( TĀ_29) downgrades the Vedas and opposes later religious movements which tried to revive the Vedic orthopraxy.
This problematic and ambiguous opposition of Tantric / Vedic orthopraxy is again questioned by those who claim that Tantric ritualism can be deduced from Saubhāgyakāṇḍa of the Atharvaveda. Although there is no strong basis to hold the view that certain practices of Tantra were a direct development from Atharvaveda, some Tantric teologists suggest a continuous evolution of works on magic from Vedic to Tantric times. Madhusudan Kaul, stresses the fact that ceremonies derrived from Vedas were performed side by side with those of Kaula Tantra in Kashmir. Furthermore, they were sometimes intermixed which practice was advocated by a popular notion that Tantras were either imitation or an improvement upon the Vedic rites. This idea was certainly put forward by those philosophers who wanted to strenghten the authority of their sect by reference to Vedas. The best example of this tendency is a curious case of Tantric Śrīvidyā school which was 'de-tantrisized' and 'vedāntized' by scholars like Bhāskararāya who tried to derrive principles of Tripurā worship from Ṛgveda (5.47.4). Similarily, Lakṣmīdhara claims that the source-book for Śrīvidyā philosophy is Taittirīya-āraṇyaka (1.11.54 ; 1.12.32; 1.23.1; 1.32.127). This unfortunate tendency to reconcile Vedic and Tantric mode of worship by producing futile hypothesis of their common origin was followed also by other philosophers.
Controversy of Kaula liturgy
Salvation seen as immersion of the duality in unity is one of the main lessons of Tantric scriptures. The worshipper becomes the deity he worships and his body is transformed into divine one. The deity is equated, by the process of meditation, with cosmic consciousness. Act of identification leads therefore to direct realization of nonduality and evokes in adept a salvatory awareness. The adept attains the main deity which is again identified with the true reality, his personal soul or consciousness which is the prejection of the Mātṛs. In Kaula cult this mental ritual (antar-yāga) was corroborated by external rites (bahir-yāga) with offerings of wine, meat and other substances forbidden by orthodox traditions.
Impure offerings were enjoined in Kaula rites not only as means of transgression of the orthodox customs but because these substances stimulated sensual experience of the worshipper. According to this tradition, the employment of intoxicating substances can result in greater aesthetic experience of transcendental bliss . This spiritual path leads to recognition of ultimate reality which is beyond sight of common people. Above-mentioned practices of so called kaula mārga with meat and wine offerings were however advocated by Brahmins like Abhinavagupta . In the course of time, certain Vedic concepts have been incorporated into Kaula mode of worship and the secret rites which could be considered as anathema for orthodox Brahmins were viewed rather as amplification of earlier tradition and its essence. Kulārlnava tantra (KT.2.10) states that dharma of Kaula tradition was churned from the ocean of Veda with a stick of knowledge. It obviously referrs to the well-known myth about the nectar of immortality(amṛta) which was produced at the churning of the ocean of milk by devas and asuras. In this case, the kuladharma is considered as the essence of sacred knowledge and the ambrosia itself. This wisdom is declared in KT as sacred and to be given only to dedicated disciples.
Śrīvīdyā and Kaula tradition
This early Kaula tradition developed further four lines of transmission:eastern (pūrva), northern (uttara), western (paścima) and southern (dakṣiṇa). The last one is the tradition called Śrīvidyā or Saubhāgyasaṁpradāya. Śrīvidyā is sometimes classified as a secondary variety of the Kaula school and an off-shoot from Kashmirian tradition. Furthermore, in later literature Kaula mārga is divided into two schools, namely: Śrīkula (cult of Tripurasundarī) and Kālīkula (tradition of Kālī).
Śrīvidyā tradition is the cult of the goddess called Lalitā. Śrī or Tripurasundarī in her beningn and motherly form. She is consdiered as an embodiment of the highest Śakti,the supreme, eternal principle of the universe, and her worship includes usage of śrīcakra and pañcadaśi mantra. Śrīvidyā as a later religious movement based on doctrines originated from Kashmir became popular in South India. One of the earliest records of the cult of Tripurasundarī can be found in Tamil work Tirumantiram of Tirumular (7th c C.E). Many other scriptural evidences from different stages of development of this tradition were written in 9th c.in the South as well as in Kashmir . In 13th and 14th c. Śrīvidyā occupied an important place among religious sects of Śākta denomination in many states of India, including Tamilnandu and Bengal . A historical connection with Tantric philosphy of Kashmirian Śaivas can be seen primary in philosophy of Śrīvidyā and the terminology used by authoritative scriptures of this tradition. A famous Śrīvidyā text Yoginihṛdaya (YH) uses terms like prakāśa( manifestation), vimarśa (reasoning), praspandasamvid (vibration of consciousness) in the same way in which they were used by Kashmirian philosophers of Pratyabhijñā school.
It should be noted that a division of Śrīkula was put forward by Lakṣmīdhara who distinguished between Samaya and Kaula ācāra (spiritual discipline) of Śrīvidyā. This notion was upheld by Bhāskararāya who adds that Samayins' mode of worship of śrīcakra is different from the one of Kaulas. Therefore the śrīcakra of Samayācara should be constructed 'upside down' with triangles representing Śiva turned downward. The idea however gained no popularity among contemporary followers of Samaya tradition. The division of Śrīvidyā into samaya and kaula is also significant as it reflects notions of purity and impurity that onced organized mode of worship in Tantric systems of Kashmir. The texts of Śrīvidyā were also in many instances written or commented upon by Kashmirian scholars like Jayaratha or Saubhagānandanātha .
Śrīvidyā as a dissident stream of spirituality within Kaula mārga?
The relation between Śrīvidyā and so-called Kaula tradition needs investigation. While some authors claim the tradition to be a sub-sect of Kula other texts adhere to Lakṣmīdhara idea of samaya / kaula distnictive modes of worship and downgrade the later one. It is vital however to note that Kashmirian commentators of Śrīvidyā texts use the term 'kaula' as a synonim of Tantrism and indicate the values of 'Kaulism' while speaking of their own tradition. For that reason, texts like KT are mentioned as a authoritative guide books by some Śrīvidyā philosophers. Also Jayaratha in his commentary on TĀ equates kula with śaktā tradition in general and calls it nityā (eternal) which in turn can be understood as an indirect referrence to
Śrīvidyā concept of nityā deities of śrīcakra
As we can see, in broader sense the term kaula indicates the basic principles of early Tantras. By the time of Lakṣmīdhara term kula and its derrivates like kaula and kaulikā took on new meaning and began to be associated with anti-brāhmaṇical elements of Tantrism. Thus followers of Lakṣmidhara's line of interpretation stressed inappropriateness of Kaula rites for adepts from higher strata of society. The symbolic usage of 5Ms and other changes in rituals were gradually introduced for that reason. Lakṣmīdhara distinguished also between Pūrvakaula nad Uttarakaula tradition and considered the latter as more radical
Thus, for contemporary Śrīvidyā practitioner the problem whether to be or not to be a kaula is a question of acceptance or rejection certain aspects of liturgy, particularly the pañcamakāras. The rejection brings about however certain dangers like 'neo-vedāntization' of Śrīvidyā or a necessity of editing controvertial parts out of the authoritative scriptures.
Thus for example, in one of the well-known paddhatis of Śrīvidyā Paraśuramakalpasūtra (Parks), the main goddess is named (inter alia) Kaulinī (Parks_3.20) and the kaula mode of worship is evident from the description of rituals. To give an example, the text proclaims that an adept can worship the goddess mentally (internally) in case there are no 5Ms available By saying so text obviously reveals that infamous 5Ms of the Kaulas were usually employed during the rites. This practice is advocated by another statement that impure subastances can be used only for spiritual upliftment not for enjoyment of senses and the adept should not use the ma-pañcakas according to his mere wish or desire. Moreover, Parks instructs adepts to use 5Ms during the śrīcakra pūjā (navāvaraṇa pūjā) and Gaṇapati pūjā. Finally, the last verse of Parks names the guruparamparā of the author and calls him a great teacher of kaulācara.
YH seems also to propagate the kaula mode of worship by proclaiming that knowledge of kaulācara is a conditio sine qua non for Śrīvidyā adept The chapter of YH entitled Mantrasaṁketa deals with 'meanings' (artha) i.e mystic identifications of Śrīvidyā with six wordly entities. Among those arthas text mentions kaulikārtha i.e. secret relation (identity) between śrī cakra (mystic diagram), vidyā (main mantra of the goddess), guru and the personal soul of an acolyte. Then YH continues to identify the goddess in her phonic form (vidyā) with cosmic spheres and the deities of Sanskrit alphabet. The series of identifications necessarily lead to realization of non-duality and are followed by a reflecion upon sounds and mystic meanings of letters. These concepts are clearly based on long-standing tradition of Kashmirian Tantric exegetic literature rendering homage to the goddess in her Mātṛkā - 'Mother of Speech' aspect.
Śrīvidyā in Kaula context
Śrīvidyā can be seen as a religious movement within the Kaula mārga. However in the broad sense kaula can denote any early Tantric tradition thus the interpretation of certain liturgical elements differs from one lineage (paramparā) to another. Obviously, contemporary Śrīvidyā adepts recognize Lakṣmīdhara idea of left-handed (vāmācāra) and right-handed
(dakṣinācāra) Tantra. The left-handed one, defined by the use of impure ritual substances is in turn identified with Kaula mārga. However, the vāmācāra elements can be found in early texts of the Śrīvidyā tradition which are still consideed as authoritative by many adepts of various Śrīvidyā paramparās. Thus, it seems that the acceptance or rejection of theological or ritualistic ideas of the Kaulas is a problem that indeed should be resolved on the basis of authority of preceptorial lines (guru-paṅktis). Therefore, contemporary adepts of Śrīvidyā (a complex, well-standarized religious system of Śaktism) may freely choose between kaula-oriented or samaya-oriented gurus according to their personal disposition. The samaya tradition seems more prevalent in the South India where Vedic ideas are superimposed on kaula mode of conduct . In some instances, the worship of śrīcakra is reformed and ancient scriptures of Śrīvīdya reinterpreted. Thus, contemporary vedāntized tradition can be seen as reformed kaula cult. On the other hand, once Śṛṅgerī is the center of 'de-tantrisized' (as called by Padoux) Śrīvidyā, the modern kaula cult of Tripurasundarī can be considered as sectarian movement within this tradition.
References
KT - Kulārnava Tantra -edited by Arthur Avalon, Delhi 2004
Parks - Paraśuramakalpasūtra- ed. by A. Mahadeva Sastri, Baroda : Central Library 1923
(Gaekwad's Oriental Series, 22), GRETIL analytic text version by Claudia Weber,
YH - Yoginīhṛdaya with setubandha commentary by Bhāskararāi, Varanasi
T• - The Tantrāloka of Abhinavagupta, Edited by R. D. Dwivedi and N. Rastogi, Delhi 1990
BROOKS 2001 - Douglas Brooks, Auspicious Wisdom, 2001
DUPUCHE 2000 - John R. Dupuche, The Kaula ritual, Delhi 2000
GOUDRIAAN 1981 - Teun Goudriaan, Hindu Tantric and Śākta literature in Sanskrit, Wiesbaden 1981
KAUL 1980 - Madhusudan Kaul, introduction to Malinivijnana Tantra, Delhi 1980
KINSLEY 2003 - David Kinsley, Tantric visions of the divine feminine, Delhi 2003
PADOUX 2003 - André Padoux, The Śrīcakra according to the first chapter of the Yoginīhṛdaya, in: Gudrun Buhnemann, Mandalas and Yantras in Hindu tradition, Delhi 2003
PADOUX 1992 André Padoux, Vāc, the concept of the word in selected Hindu tantras, Delhi 1992
RAO 2005 - Ramachandra Rao, The Tantric practices in Śrīvidyā, Delhi 2005
SANDERSON 1995 - Alexis Sanderson, Meaning in Tantric ritual, Paris 1995
SANDERSON 1990 - Alexis Sanderson Purity and Power among Brahmans in Kashmir, Oxford 1990
Törzsök 2007 - Judit Törzsök ,Helping the King, Ministers and Businessmen
- Apropos of a Chapter of the Tantra of Magic Female Spirits (Siddhayogeśvarīmata), in: Cracow Indological Studies 2007
Maciej Karasinski
Research scholar
Department of Sanskrit
Calicut University
Many early Śākta scriptures claim to belong to so-called Kula or Kaula tradition Abhinavagupta in Tantrāloka (TĀ_1.7) ascribes the origin of this tradition to Macchanda (5c.) who is also declared as the founder of Yoginīkaula school ( a kaula sub-sect). However, in the same chapter (TĀ_1.8) Abhinava recognizes Tryambaka and his daughter as another source of the Kaula revelation. According to Sanderson, the Kula tradition belonged primary to ascetic groups who lived near cremation grounds and performed Tantric rituals similar to those known to the Kāpālikas. On the other hand, Kaula can be called a reformed version of Kula mārga which became suitable for householders.
The term kula can be rendered as community or clan and it refers to family of yoginīs. As stated in many tantras, Yoginīs are closely related to the mothers (mātṛs) - seven or eight embodiments of god's energies.Several inscriptions from Cālukya period describes the Mātṛs as a group (gaṇa) of frightening spirits (ḍakinīs) that can grant supernatural powers if propitiated. It is noteworthy that kula can also mean a body. Thus, Tantras associate kula with the universal body and an adept who is initiated into kula tradition becomes an embodiment of cosmic powers and identifies himself with the mātṛs.
As typical for Tantric traditions, the circumstances of the origin and development of Kaula school is problematic. The scriptures of the tradition trace the source of their sacred teachings to a group of sages who were chosen by a divine in time immemorial. However, the Tantric revelation is frequently contrasted with the primeval Vedic one. In some texts one can find statements suggesting that Kaula Tantrism is more suitable for a new era in which people are not capable of understanding the secrets of the Vedas. Yet other scriptures claim that Vedas contain only partial knowledge suitable for common folk and Tantras were composed for advanced disciples, seeking true knowledge. Tantrāloka ( TĀ_29) downgrades the Vedas and opposes later religious movements which tried to revive the Vedic orthopraxy.
This problematic and ambiguous opposition of Tantric / Vedic orthopraxy is again questioned by those who claim that Tantric ritualism can be deduced from Saubhāgyakāṇḍa of the Atharvaveda. Although there is no strong basis to hold the view that certain practices of Tantra were a direct development from Atharvaveda, some Tantric teologists suggest a continuous evolution of works on magic from Vedic to Tantric times. Madhusudan Kaul, stresses the fact that ceremonies derrived from Vedas were performed side by side with those of Kaula Tantra in Kashmir. Furthermore, they were sometimes intermixed which practice was advocated by a popular notion that Tantras were either imitation or an improvement upon the Vedic rites. This idea was certainly put forward by those philosophers who wanted to strenghten the authority of their sect by reference to Vedas. The best example of this tendency is a curious case of Tantric Śrīvidyā school which was 'de-tantrisized' and 'vedāntized' by scholars like Bhāskararāya who tried to derrive principles of Tripurā worship from Ṛgveda (5.47.4). Similarily, Lakṣmīdhara claims that the source-book for Śrīvidyā philosophy is Taittirīya-āraṇyaka (1.11.54 ; 1.12.32; 1.23.1; 1.32.127). This unfortunate tendency to reconcile Vedic and Tantric mode of worship by producing futile hypothesis of their common origin was followed also by other philosophers.
Controversy of Kaula liturgy
Salvation seen as immersion of the duality in unity is one of the main lessons of Tantric scriptures. The worshipper becomes the deity he worships and his body is transformed into divine one. The deity is equated, by the process of meditation, with cosmic consciousness. Act of identification leads therefore to direct realization of nonduality and evokes in adept a salvatory awareness. The adept attains the main deity which is again identified with the true reality, his personal soul or consciousness which is the prejection of the Mātṛs. In Kaula cult this mental ritual (antar-yāga) was corroborated by external rites (bahir-yāga) with offerings of wine, meat and other substances forbidden by orthodox traditions.
Impure offerings were enjoined in Kaula rites not only as means of transgression of the orthodox customs but because these substances stimulated sensual experience of the worshipper. According to this tradition, the employment of intoxicating substances can result in greater aesthetic experience of transcendental bliss . This spiritual path leads to recognition of ultimate reality which is beyond sight of common people. Above-mentioned practices of so called kaula mārga with meat and wine offerings were however advocated by Brahmins like Abhinavagupta . In the course of time, certain Vedic concepts have been incorporated into Kaula mode of worship and the secret rites which could be considered as anathema for orthodox Brahmins were viewed rather as amplification of earlier tradition and its essence. Kulārlnava tantra (KT.2.10) states that dharma of Kaula tradition was churned from the ocean of Veda with a stick of knowledge. It obviously referrs to the well-known myth about the nectar of immortality(amṛta) which was produced at the churning of the ocean of milk by devas and asuras. In this case, the kuladharma is considered as the essence of sacred knowledge and the ambrosia itself. This wisdom is declared in KT as sacred and to be given only to dedicated disciples.
Śrīvīdyā and Kaula tradition
This early Kaula tradition developed further four lines of transmission:eastern (pūrva), northern (uttara), western (paścima) and southern (dakṣiṇa). The last one is the tradition called Śrīvidyā or Saubhāgyasaṁpradāya. Śrīvidyā is sometimes classified as a secondary variety of the Kaula school and an off-shoot from Kashmirian tradition. Furthermore, in later literature Kaula mārga is divided into two schools, namely: Śrīkula (cult of Tripurasundarī) and Kālīkula (tradition of Kālī).
Śrīvidyā tradition is the cult of the goddess called Lalitā. Śrī or Tripurasundarī in her beningn and motherly form. She is consdiered as an embodiment of the highest Śakti,the supreme, eternal principle of the universe, and her worship includes usage of śrīcakra and pañcadaśi mantra. Śrīvidyā as a later religious movement based on doctrines originated from Kashmir became popular in South India. One of the earliest records of the cult of Tripurasundarī can be found in Tamil work Tirumantiram of Tirumular (7th c C.E). Many other scriptural evidences from different stages of development of this tradition were written in 9th c.in the South as well as in Kashmir . In 13th and 14th c. Śrīvidyā occupied an important place among religious sects of Śākta denomination in many states of India, including Tamilnandu and Bengal . A historical connection with Tantric philosphy of Kashmirian Śaivas can be seen primary in philosophy of Śrīvidyā and the terminology used by authoritative scriptures of this tradition. A famous Śrīvidyā text Yoginihṛdaya (YH) uses terms like prakāśa( manifestation), vimarśa (reasoning), praspandasamvid (vibration of consciousness) in the same way in which they were used by Kashmirian philosophers of Pratyabhijñā school.
It should be noted that a division of Śrīkula was put forward by Lakṣmīdhara who distinguished between Samaya and Kaula ācāra (spiritual discipline) of Śrīvidyā. This notion was upheld by Bhāskararāya who adds that Samayins' mode of worship of śrīcakra is different from the one of Kaulas. Therefore the śrīcakra of Samayācara should be constructed 'upside down' with triangles representing Śiva turned downward. The idea however gained no popularity among contemporary followers of Samaya tradition. The division of Śrīvidyā into samaya and kaula is also significant as it reflects notions of purity and impurity that onced organized mode of worship in Tantric systems of Kashmir. The texts of Śrīvidyā were also in many instances written or commented upon by Kashmirian scholars like Jayaratha or Saubhagānandanātha .
Śrīvidyā as a dissident stream of spirituality within Kaula mārga?
The relation between Śrīvidyā and so-called Kaula tradition needs investigation. While some authors claim the tradition to be a sub-sect of Kula other texts adhere to Lakṣmīdhara idea of samaya / kaula distnictive modes of worship and downgrade the later one. It is vital however to note that Kashmirian commentators of Śrīvidyā texts use the term 'kaula' as a synonim of Tantrism and indicate the values of 'Kaulism' while speaking of their own tradition. For that reason, texts like KT are mentioned as a authoritative guide books by some Śrīvidyā philosophers. Also Jayaratha in his commentary on TĀ equates kula with śaktā tradition in general and calls it nityā (eternal) which in turn can be understood as an indirect referrence to
Śrīvidyā concept of nityā deities of śrīcakra
As we can see, in broader sense the term kaula indicates the basic principles of early Tantras. By the time of Lakṣmīdhara term kula and its derrivates like kaula and kaulikā took on new meaning and began to be associated with anti-brāhmaṇical elements of Tantrism. Thus followers of Lakṣmidhara's line of interpretation stressed inappropriateness of Kaula rites for adepts from higher strata of society. The symbolic usage of 5Ms and other changes in rituals were gradually introduced for that reason. Lakṣmīdhara distinguished also between Pūrvakaula nad Uttarakaula tradition and considered the latter as more radical
Thus, for contemporary Śrīvidyā practitioner the problem whether to be or not to be a kaula is a question of acceptance or rejection certain aspects of liturgy, particularly the pañcamakāras. The rejection brings about however certain dangers like 'neo-vedāntization' of Śrīvidyā or a necessity of editing controvertial parts out of the authoritative scriptures.
Thus for example, in one of the well-known paddhatis of Śrīvidyā Paraśuramakalpasūtra (Parks), the main goddess is named (inter alia) Kaulinī (Parks_3.20) and the kaula mode of worship is evident from the description of rituals. To give an example, the text proclaims that an adept can worship the goddess mentally (internally) in case there are no 5Ms available By saying so text obviously reveals that infamous 5Ms of the Kaulas were usually employed during the rites. This practice is advocated by another statement that impure subastances can be used only for spiritual upliftment not for enjoyment of senses and the adept should not use the ma-pañcakas according to his mere wish or desire. Moreover, Parks instructs adepts to use 5Ms during the śrīcakra pūjā (navāvaraṇa pūjā) and Gaṇapati pūjā. Finally, the last verse of Parks names the guruparamparā of the author and calls him a great teacher of kaulācara.
YH seems also to propagate the kaula mode of worship by proclaiming that knowledge of kaulācara is a conditio sine qua non for Śrīvidyā adept The chapter of YH entitled Mantrasaṁketa deals with 'meanings' (artha) i.e mystic identifications of Śrīvidyā with six wordly entities. Among those arthas text mentions kaulikārtha i.e. secret relation (identity) between śrī cakra (mystic diagram), vidyā (main mantra of the goddess), guru and the personal soul of an acolyte. Then YH continues to identify the goddess in her phonic form (vidyā) with cosmic spheres and the deities of Sanskrit alphabet. The series of identifications necessarily lead to realization of non-duality and are followed by a reflecion upon sounds and mystic meanings of letters. These concepts are clearly based on long-standing tradition of Kashmirian Tantric exegetic literature rendering homage to the goddess in her Mātṛkā - 'Mother of Speech' aspect.
Śrīvidyā in Kaula context
Śrīvidyā can be seen as a religious movement within the Kaula mārga. However in the broad sense kaula can denote any early Tantric tradition thus the interpretation of certain liturgical elements differs from one lineage (paramparā) to another. Obviously, contemporary Śrīvidyā adepts recognize Lakṣmīdhara idea of left-handed (vāmācāra) and right-handed
(dakṣinācāra) Tantra. The left-handed one, defined by the use of impure ritual substances is in turn identified with Kaula mārga. However, the vāmācāra elements can be found in early texts of the Śrīvidyā tradition which are still consideed as authoritative by many adepts of various Śrīvidyā paramparās. Thus, it seems that the acceptance or rejection of theological or ritualistic ideas of the Kaulas is a problem that indeed should be resolved on the basis of authority of preceptorial lines (guru-paṅktis). Therefore, contemporary adepts of Śrīvidyā (a complex, well-standarized religious system of Śaktism) may freely choose between kaula-oriented or samaya-oriented gurus according to their personal disposition. The samaya tradition seems more prevalent in the South India where Vedic ideas are superimposed on kaula mode of conduct . In some instances, the worship of śrīcakra is reformed and ancient scriptures of Śrīvīdya reinterpreted. Thus, contemporary vedāntized tradition can be seen as reformed kaula cult. On the other hand, once Śṛṅgerī is the center of 'de-tantrisized' (as called by Padoux) Śrīvidyā, the modern kaula cult of Tripurasundarī can be considered as sectarian movement within this tradition.
References
KT - Kulārnava Tantra -edited by Arthur Avalon, Delhi 2004
Parks - Paraśuramakalpasūtra- ed. by A. Mahadeva Sastri, Baroda : Central Library 1923
(Gaekwad's Oriental Series, 22), GRETIL analytic text version by Claudia Weber,
YH - Yoginīhṛdaya with setubandha commentary by Bhāskararāi, Varanasi
T• - The Tantrāloka of Abhinavagupta, Edited by R. D. Dwivedi and N. Rastogi, Delhi 1990
BROOKS 2001 - Douglas Brooks, Auspicious Wisdom, 2001
DUPUCHE 2000 - John R. Dupuche, The Kaula ritual, Delhi 2000
GOUDRIAAN 1981 - Teun Goudriaan, Hindu Tantric and Śākta literature in Sanskrit, Wiesbaden 1981
KAUL 1980 - Madhusudan Kaul, introduction to Malinivijnana Tantra, Delhi 1980
KINSLEY 2003 - David Kinsley, Tantric visions of the divine feminine, Delhi 2003
PADOUX 2003 - André Padoux, The Śrīcakra according to the first chapter of the Yoginīhṛdaya, in: Gudrun Buhnemann, Mandalas and Yantras in Hindu tradition, Delhi 2003
PADOUX 1992 André Padoux, Vāc, the concept of the word in selected Hindu tantras, Delhi 1992
RAO 2005 - Ramachandra Rao, The Tantric practices in Śrīvidyā, Delhi 2005
SANDERSON 1995 - Alexis Sanderson, Meaning in Tantric ritual, Paris 1995
SANDERSON 1990 - Alexis Sanderson Purity and Power among Brahmans in Kashmir, Oxford 1990
Törzsök 2007 - Judit Törzsök ,Helping the King, Ministers and Businessmen
- Apropos of a Chapter of the Tantra of Magic Female Spirits (Siddhayogeśvarīmata), in: Cracow Indological Studies 2007
workshop presentation- Dr. Ajay Sekhar
The Politics of Spirituality: Dissident Spiritual Practice of Poykayil Appachan and the Shared Legacy of Kerala Renaissance
Dr Ajay Sekher
In India spirituality is a complex and dynamic paradigm with plural dimensions. There are dominant and hegemonic streams of spirituality as well as divergent and counter hegemonic expressions of dissent and resistance based spiritual enquiries. The deviant and de-centered forms of spiritual pursuits that resist and counter the hegemonic worldview, ordering and spiritual canons could be termed as dissident spirituality in this context. Political dissent, resistance/rebellion against hegemony, and cultural difference could be identified as the key elements of this dissident tradition of practical and material spirituality. It is a down to earth spirituality that is ethical and political and an inextricable part of material life and struggles of the people. Foregrounding dissent and emphasizing difference are expressions of the ethical and political dimension of thought and praxes and inevitable part of the democratic way of life.
These political or practical spiritualities across languages and cultures in India have also contributed immensely to our composite culture, secularism and democracy at large in the modern era. In this sense numerous minor streams of counter hegemonic and dissent based indigenous ascetic traditions could be traced from early Vedic period onwards. The Kapila and Charvaka traditions, the Lokayata legacy, Ajivaka sects, Jain and Buddhist traditions and also later Sufi traditions could be identified as a people’s or Bahujan tradition of spiritual dissent and political resistance against the hegemonic Vedic spirituality, as they were attempts to probe the material misery of human life rather than the mystery of gods, and were aimed at the greater common good and welfare of the people (“Bahujana Hitaya, Bahujana Sukhaya”) in Buddha’s own words. In this context the whole history of India could be read as an epistemological, ethical and cultural conflict and struggle between the dominant Vedic or Brahmanical spirituality and the dissident Sramana critiques and Bahujan resistance of the hegemonic spirituality of Hindu imperialism.
This ethical conflict and political struggle are all the more evident and significant in the cultural contexts of Kerala renaissance that changed society, culture and polity in a drastic way in the first half of 20th century. As Buddhism that paved the foundations of egalitarianism and literacy in South India in B C third century itself, which was unfortunately obliterated and erased by the Brahmanic conquest by the seventh or eighth century, Kerala renaissance was also a challenge to caste and Brahmanism. It was also an ethical struggle against caste oppression, exclusion and internal imperialism. The hegemony of caste and Brahmanism was challenged and egalitarian social change was initiated by dissident spiritual leaders like Ayya Vaikundhan and Narayana Guru in late 19th century itself. Both of them used the religious and spiritual traditions as a platform to float radical and subversive democratic ideals.
While Vaikundha Swamy used popular and rustic forms of Vaishnavism and Hindu spirituality to introduce his radical ideas of human equality and brotherhood among the Bahujans of south Travancore (Nanjinad) by establishing an egalitarian sect called Samatva Sangham; Narayana Guru initiated a new secular and democratic practical spirituality encompassing the ethical teachings of all religions and emphasized the importance of the betterment of the human and the social. Both of them questioned caste and priestly mediation in spiritual practice and effected humane and democratic transformations in society. It is also important to note that both the sages came from untouchable Avarna communities in Travancore and attacked caste and Brahmanism through peaceful and ascetic ways.
We see politics and ethics prompting a spiritual revolution or rupture to provide a break in the struggles of the people against the dominant ideology and discourse of caste and Varna here. This radical and subversive spiritual tradition that arose with Vaikundha Swamy in early 19th c. South Kerala was specifically anti caste, spiritually rebellious and counter hegemonic. It also gave rise to skeptics and alternative spiritual explorers like Thaikad Ayyavu who in turn recharged Chattambi Swamikal and Narayana Guru for spiritually strategic and culturally iconic attacks on Brahmanism and its knowledge/power monopolies, hegemonic textuality or semiotics.
The same nexus of political and spiritual could be seen in the spiritual dissent of Poykayil Appachan or Sri Kumara Gurudevan (1879-1939). He was an early 20th century Dalit leader and social reformer of central Travancore who established a spiritual sect of his own called Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha (PRDS) in 1910. As a slave child he learned letters and spread the message of equity and justice among fellow outcastes. He strategically used the Christian façade for spreading the word of salvation and liberation among the excluded. He broke the stereotype of Dalit Christian identity by rationally critiquing the very foundations of the teachings of the church and burning the Bible. But Poykayil Yohannan also strategically and practically used the opportunities opened up by Western missionary intervention and evangelism for the liberation of the people at the bottom. His body of work maintains a practical and critical dialogicity with colonial textuality, modernity and evangelism.
Appachan established serious epistemological and theological debates and dialogues with the mainstream Christian churches. He worked with the Marthoma Church, Brethren Church and Verpatu Sabha. He also came out of these conformist spiritual institutions after expressing dissent and critiquing the social and political inequality that were lingering in them. He identified caste and Brahmanism at the heart of the evangelical discourse and Syrian Christian establishments in Kerala and attacked and critiqued it through his dissident speeches and songs that addressed the spiritual and material margins in society. Preacher Yohannan also used secret meetings and travel-meetings or camouflaged road shows of the untouchables in the wilderness to impart the message of brotherhood and liberty like the African American slaves in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Like Morrison he also reminded his people about the dehumanizing experience of internal imperialism and caste slavery that degenerated and de-spiritualized the people or subaltern classes. He was called Appachan or father by his followers as a spiritual master, guardian and savior amidst the past and present of extreme oppression, violence and all sorts of marginalization.
Appachan used his spiritual movement for the propagation of ethical and micro political ideas and discourses. He effectively materialized the democratic dissolving of various sub caste groups within the Dalit brotherhood of PRDS. Through his songs he addressed the excluded and suppressed subjects in history across the world and time. He effectively utilized the practical dimensions of dissent based spirituality to pursue the art of the possible. In this sense he resembles Dr Ambedkar who radically reinterpreted Neo Buddhism along with his democratic politics of inclusion and representation. Appachan democratically represented the people in Srimulam Prajasabha or the early legislative assembly of Travancore (1921-39).
His spiritual dissident practice was actually a social cover and moral legitimization for his democratic politics of inclusion, reform and representation. Addressing the marginalized and educating them to regain their lost human spirit, rights and social mobility were the real ethical and social agendas behind his spiritual pretext. This strategically liberating and practically social use of spirituality (first from within Christianity and then as an autonomous subaltern spiritual movement) links his life and efforts with that of Ayya Vaikundhan or Narayana Guru. These historic experiences from Kerala renaissance and the pan Indian Buddhist critique of caste Brahmanism reveal that spiritual dissidence is one of the most powerful forces of political activism, social change and cultural politics in Kerala and all across India. The counter hegemonic or specifically anti caste/Brahmanic thrust is a shared lineage and legacy among all the dissident spiritual movements and voices in Kerala renaissance, the Sramana critique and other minor dissident spiritual traditions of India.
Bibliography
Ambedkar, B R. Buddha and his Dhamma. Bombay: S C P, 1957.
Appachan, Poykayil. Unknown Subjects: Songs of Poykayil Appachan. Trans. Ajay Sekher. Kottayam: PRDS, 2008.
Balakrishnan, P K. Jativyavstitiyum Kerala Charithravum. Kottayam: NBS, 1986.
--, ed. Narayana Guru. Thrissur: Kerala Sahitya Akademi, 2000.
Chentharassery, T H P. Poykayil Sri Kumara Gurudevan. Trivandrum: Navodhanam, 1983.
Gopalakrishnan, P K. Keralathinte Samskarika Charithram. Trivandrum: Kerala Bhasha Institute, 2008.
Gramsci, Antonio. Prison Notebooks. Ed. & Trans. Hoare and Smith. New York: International Publishers, 1989.
Jeffrey, Robin. Decline of Nayar Dominance: Society and Politics in Travancore: 1847-1908. New York: Macmillan, 1976.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. London: Vintage, 1997.
Omvedt, Gail. Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste. New Delhi: Sage, 2005.
Swamy, V V, E V Anil and V P Raveendran. Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha Charithrathil Prathyakshapetta Vidham. Kottayam: PRDS, 2009.
Dr Ajay Sekher, Akhila, Gandhinagar P O, Kottayam 8, Kerala, India
+91 9895797798 ajaysekher@gmail.com www.ajaysekher.net
Dr Ajay Sekher
In India spirituality is a complex and dynamic paradigm with plural dimensions. There are dominant and hegemonic streams of spirituality as well as divergent and counter hegemonic expressions of dissent and resistance based spiritual enquiries. The deviant and de-centered forms of spiritual pursuits that resist and counter the hegemonic worldview, ordering and spiritual canons could be termed as dissident spirituality in this context. Political dissent, resistance/rebellion against hegemony, and cultural difference could be identified as the key elements of this dissident tradition of practical and material spirituality. It is a down to earth spirituality that is ethical and political and an inextricable part of material life and struggles of the people. Foregrounding dissent and emphasizing difference are expressions of the ethical and political dimension of thought and praxes and inevitable part of the democratic way of life.
These political or practical spiritualities across languages and cultures in India have also contributed immensely to our composite culture, secularism and democracy at large in the modern era. In this sense numerous minor streams of counter hegemonic and dissent based indigenous ascetic traditions could be traced from early Vedic period onwards. The Kapila and Charvaka traditions, the Lokayata legacy, Ajivaka sects, Jain and Buddhist traditions and also later Sufi traditions could be identified as a people’s or Bahujan tradition of spiritual dissent and political resistance against the hegemonic Vedic spirituality, as they were attempts to probe the material misery of human life rather than the mystery of gods, and were aimed at the greater common good and welfare of the people (“Bahujana Hitaya, Bahujana Sukhaya”) in Buddha’s own words. In this context the whole history of India could be read as an epistemological, ethical and cultural conflict and struggle between the dominant Vedic or Brahmanical spirituality and the dissident Sramana critiques and Bahujan resistance of the hegemonic spirituality of Hindu imperialism.
This ethical conflict and political struggle are all the more evident and significant in the cultural contexts of Kerala renaissance that changed society, culture and polity in a drastic way in the first half of 20th century. As Buddhism that paved the foundations of egalitarianism and literacy in South India in B C third century itself, which was unfortunately obliterated and erased by the Brahmanic conquest by the seventh or eighth century, Kerala renaissance was also a challenge to caste and Brahmanism. It was also an ethical struggle against caste oppression, exclusion and internal imperialism. The hegemony of caste and Brahmanism was challenged and egalitarian social change was initiated by dissident spiritual leaders like Ayya Vaikundhan and Narayana Guru in late 19th century itself. Both of them used the religious and spiritual traditions as a platform to float radical and subversive democratic ideals.
While Vaikundha Swamy used popular and rustic forms of Vaishnavism and Hindu spirituality to introduce his radical ideas of human equality and brotherhood among the Bahujans of south Travancore (Nanjinad) by establishing an egalitarian sect called Samatva Sangham; Narayana Guru initiated a new secular and democratic practical spirituality encompassing the ethical teachings of all religions and emphasized the importance of the betterment of the human and the social. Both of them questioned caste and priestly mediation in spiritual practice and effected humane and democratic transformations in society. It is also important to note that both the sages came from untouchable Avarna communities in Travancore and attacked caste and Brahmanism through peaceful and ascetic ways.
We see politics and ethics prompting a spiritual revolution or rupture to provide a break in the struggles of the people against the dominant ideology and discourse of caste and Varna here. This radical and subversive spiritual tradition that arose with Vaikundha Swamy in early 19th c. South Kerala was specifically anti caste, spiritually rebellious and counter hegemonic. It also gave rise to skeptics and alternative spiritual explorers like Thaikad Ayyavu who in turn recharged Chattambi Swamikal and Narayana Guru for spiritually strategic and culturally iconic attacks on Brahmanism and its knowledge/power monopolies, hegemonic textuality or semiotics.
The same nexus of political and spiritual could be seen in the spiritual dissent of Poykayil Appachan or Sri Kumara Gurudevan (1879-1939). He was an early 20th century Dalit leader and social reformer of central Travancore who established a spiritual sect of his own called Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha (PRDS) in 1910. As a slave child he learned letters and spread the message of equity and justice among fellow outcastes. He strategically used the Christian façade for spreading the word of salvation and liberation among the excluded. He broke the stereotype of Dalit Christian identity by rationally critiquing the very foundations of the teachings of the church and burning the Bible. But Poykayil Yohannan also strategically and practically used the opportunities opened up by Western missionary intervention and evangelism for the liberation of the people at the bottom. His body of work maintains a practical and critical dialogicity with colonial textuality, modernity and evangelism.
Appachan established serious epistemological and theological debates and dialogues with the mainstream Christian churches. He worked with the Marthoma Church, Brethren Church and Verpatu Sabha. He also came out of these conformist spiritual institutions after expressing dissent and critiquing the social and political inequality that were lingering in them. He identified caste and Brahmanism at the heart of the evangelical discourse and Syrian Christian establishments in Kerala and attacked and critiqued it through his dissident speeches and songs that addressed the spiritual and material margins in society. Preacher Yohannan also used secret meetings and travel-meetings or camouflaged road shows of the untouchables in the wilderness to impart the message of brotherhood and liberty like the African American slaves in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Like Morrison he also reminded his people about the dehumanizing experience of internal imperialism and caste slavery that degenerated and de-spiritualized the people or subaltern classes. He was called Appachan or father by his followers as a spiritual master, guardian and savior amidst the past and present of extreme oppression, violence and all sorts of marginalization.
Appachan used his spiritual movement for the propagation of ethical and micro political ideas and discourses. He effectively materialized the democratic dissolving of various sub caste groups within the Dalit brotherhood of PRDS. Through his songs he addressed the excluded and suppressed subjects in history across the world and time. He effectively utilized the practical dimensions of dissent based spirituality to pursue the art of the possible. In this sense he resembles Dr Ambedkar who radically reinterpreted Neo Buddhism along with his democratic politics of inclusion and representation. Appachan democratically represented the people in Srimulam Prajasabha or the early legislative assembly of Travancore (1921-39).
His spiritual dissident practice was actually a social cover and moral legitimization for his democratic politics of inclusion, reform and representation. Addressing the marginalized and educating them to regain their lost human spirit, rights and social mobility were the real ethical and social agendas behind his spiritual pretext. This strategically liberating and practically social use of spirituality (first from within Christianity and then as an autonomous subaltern spiritual movement) links his life and efforts with that of Ayya Vaikundhan or Narayana Guru. These historic experiences from Kerala renaissance and the pan Indian Buddhist critique of caste Brahmanism reveal that spiritual dissidence is one of the most powerful forces of political activism, social change and cultural politics in Kerala and all across India. The counter hegemonic or specifically anti caste/Brahmanic thrust is a shared lineage and legacy among all the dissident spiritual movements and voices in Kerala renaissance, the Sramana critique and other minor dissident spiritual traditions of India.
Bibliography
Ambedkar, B R. Buddha and his Dhamma. Bombay: S C P, 1957.
Appachan, Poykayil. Unknown Subjects: Songs of Poykayil Appachan. Trans. Ajay Sekher. Kottayam: PRDS, 2008.
Balakrishnan, P K. Jativyavstitiyum Kerala Charithravum. Kottayam: NBS, 1986.
--, ed. Narayana Guru. Thrissur: Kerala Sahitya Akademi, 2000.
Chentharassery, T H P. Poykayil Sri Kumara Gurudevan. Trivandrum: Navodhanam, 1983.
Gopalakrishnan, P K. Keralathinte Samskarika Charithram. Trivandrum: Kerala Bhasha Institute, 2008.
Gramsci, Antonio. Prison Notebooks. Ed. & Trans. Hoare and Smith. New York: International Publishers, 1989.
Jeffrey, Robin. Decline of Nayar Dominance: Society and Politics in Travancore: 1847-1908. New York: Macmillan, 1976.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. London: Vintage, 1997.
Omvedt, Gail. Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste. New Delhi: Sage, 2005.
Swamy, V V, E V Anil and V P Raveendran. Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha Charithrathil Prathyakshapetta Vidham. Kottayam: PRDS, 2009.
Dr Ajay Sekher, Akhila, Gandhinagar P O, Kottayam 8, Kerala, India
+91 9895797798 ajaysekher@gmail.com www.ajaysekher.net
Monday, May 10, 2010
comments
1. Paramesh. M:
....Nice to see the feed-back. I know surely your efforts will get rewarded. I am very happy that one of my friends is doing "real contribution" to the field of Philosophy by bridging the gap that always exists between Philosophy and its relevance to practical world "out-there".
I am sure the concerted efforts of the workshop participates will come out big, something like a "vienna circle".
-------------------
2. Dr. Remesh Chandra:
Thanks a lot for sending me your article and comments on spiritual dissent .I was enlightened to go through views and counter views relating this burning problem .I congratulate you for attracting attention of scholars of India and Abroad .
------------
3. Dr. Dilip K. G:
kudos to the esprit de corps...
------------
4. Dr. Marc Lambert:
.........I can read really wonderful remarks; your ability to create a tie between participants. Everybody is asking for more, that is a good sign. Hope I can join in the (next) future....
---------------------
5. Gautam Chakrabarti:
...many thanks for the VERY interesting e-mail: I'm looking forward to reading it all...
-----------------------
6. Alexander Gruber:
i read commments....
we will have to redefine...this techno rational spirituality..ala unabomber type..
Thank you!!!! I have read a part of it and will continue. Splendid idea this workshop because it takes spirituality from is diverging (non-conform, dissenter) side. Of course spirituality is not homogenous. But this would often be demanded by its protagonists. So the workshop filled the contrary side of homogenity. This is good. Have a nice day and dream happy ...
-------------------
7.A.V.G.Warrier:
There seems to be no consensus on the terms spirituality and dissidence/dissent. In any abstract science the definition of terms to avoid ambiguity during transactions is considered vital. And philosophy is indeed a very abstract field.
When there is no consensus on the meaning of terms what results is something like the cacophony of the tower of babel. Everybody talks, but nobody can understand each other. What a funny fellow this God is, to think of such a wonderful solution to deal with the pompousness of men!!!
Why not attempt a common definition for the terms spirituality and dissidence/dissent, as an offshoot of the workshop.
-----------------
....Nice to see the feed-back. I know surely your efforts will get rewarded. I am very happy that one of my friends is doing "real contribution" to the field of Philosophy by bridging the gap that always exists between Philosophy and its relevance to practical world "out-there".
I am sure the concerted efforts of the workshop participates will come out big, something like a "vienna circle".
-------------------
2. Dr. Remesh Chandra:
Thanks a lot for sending me your article and comments on spiritual dissent .I was enlightened to go through views and counter views relating this burning problem .I congratulate you for attracting attention of scholars of India and Abroad .
------------
3. Dr. Dilip K. G:
kudos to the esprit de corps...
------------
4. Dr. Marc Lambert:
.........I can read really wonderful remarks; your ability to create a tie between participants. Everybody is asking for more, that is a good sign. Hope I can join in the (next) future....
---------------------
5. Gautam Chakrabarti:
...many thanks for the VERY interesting e-mail: I'm looking forward to reading it all...
-----------------------
6. Alexander Gruber:
i read commments....
we will have to redefine...this techno rational spirituality..ala unabomber type..
Thank you!!!! I have read a part of it and will continue. Splendid idea this workshop because it takes spirituality from is diverging (non-conform, dissenter) side. Of course spirituality is not homogenous. But this would often be demanded by its protagonists. So the workshop filled the contrary side of homogenity. This is good. Have a nice day and dream happy ...
-------------------
7.A.V.G.Warrier:
There seems to be no consensus on the terms spirituality and dissidence/dissent. In any abstract science the definition of terms to avoid ambiguity during transactions is considered vital. And philosophy is indeed a very abstract field.
When there is no consensus on the meaning of terms what results is something like the cacophony of the tower of babel. Everybody talks, but nobody can understand each other. What a funny fellow this God is, to think of such a wonderful solution to deal with the pompousness of men!!!
Why not attempt a common definition for the terms spirituality and dissidence/dissent, as an offshoot of the workshop.
-----------------
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Alexander Gruber-comment on theme-note
Dissenter Commentary Mails
Alexander Gruber
Thank you for this interesting essay. I think a dissenter is someone derivating from and being in opposition to the mainstream. And someone having a derivating opinion in the mainstream is just critizising the mainstream or is critical within the mainstream. A dissenter is in turn always critical of the mainstream, but even more he is opposing, protesting against it. What the mainstream is, is just relative to about which society or institution is the talk of. I guess the topic should be treated much as exposition of the terms. This should be separated from the topic of spirituality in especial. First the terms, the sociological terms: dissenter, critizist, protestant and the like need to be clarified, befor turning to spirituality at all. I would seperate the two topics (of these terms and spirituality).
To put it together, I am a dissenter in my opinion on spirituality, because my spirituality is that of dreams, far off from the mainstream of either religious (I mean traditional religious) spirituality or from spirituality as contemplation. OK truth playes a role in my spirituality too, well this is the single point, where my spirituality meets the mainstream. I hope this explanation is helpful.
Well this is an issue, which can make the brain neurons smoke.
Have a nice day and dream something fine - Alex
Just one more idea. I wrote an essay short time ago, with the title (translated): "Thoughts of a Dissenter" and I wanted to say I am opposing the mainstream in Germany. But when I say that the essay you sent to me is just dealing with a question of minor importance, I am critcal in this debate of ours (this mainstream). But I am no dissenter in this debate, because I enjoyed to think about it and I have no problems with the rest of the discours. And I am critical on feminism, but not a dissenter to feminism, as I am afiliate to it. This is how I try to clarify my thought to you.
Thank you - nice day and happy dreams - Alex
Now to turn to the social sphere of spiritual traditions. In some traditions a criticist is allways a dissenter, because they do not allow for critizism at all within their mainstream. Many ideologies are like this.
Then another sociological term is this of a sect. A sect according to Karl Marx is an organization, defining itself by the differences to the working class, not emphaszising what they have in common with the working class. And a French Marxist explained to me, a sect is an organization, which has really lost the contact to the working class.
To apply it to my own convictions, I don't want my dreams culture to be a sect. I am emphazising, what I have in common political with the interests of the working class, but I add my dreams culture spirituality as an advancement.
The difference between being a dissenter and a critizist is sometimes floating, Just depending on the reception of an opinion.
And what is with an anti-X, for example an antiracist (as I am for example). Is an anti-racist a dissenter to racism? Yes I would say so, even as it seems a little weak an expression. And anti-racist is not only dissenting with the mainstream of racism, but he is opposing racism at all. There is no word for this really. It is missing in sociology. Just to express being an anti-X by some word.
Ok nice issue this exposition. I think the author of the essay, you sent to me is just entangled in these conceptual problems, carrying them out on the back of the topic of spirituality, spinning arround in intellectual circles arround these difficulties.
Have a nice day and dream something fine - Alex
So we have to define and distinguish („clare et distincte“ as Descartes demands) the related terms in the same field: critizist, dissenter, sceptizist,
outsider, anti-x, sectarian. All belonging to one sociological field. This is the first step.
And then the second step is to apply these definitions to spirituality.
This is a structualist approach (scientific structuralism), because I first define the terms structually and this means independent of any application (using applications only as examples to illustrate the theory) and then I look for the intended modells concerning spirituality.
Sorry it is all a lttle scattered over my mails. I am just sitting here in the night thinking and drinking coffee and smoking a cigarett and making jokes with our computer specialist. Somone threw a false coin in our beer atomaton and we are making jokes on it.
I have explained him the essay you sent to me and my answers and at the same time going on to think.
Have a nice day - Alex
I have forgotten the term non-conformist. A non-conformist is no dissenter, but someone, who has essantially the same ideology as the mainstream, but he is not conform - that is not aggreeing with the mainstream. Non-conformism is often the result of critizism. But as critizism is not necessary a continual state of opposition, non-conformism is permanent. Have a nice day - if you like I will copy you my little writings and statements together to one essay for you and for the author - Alex
In the third step you can proove your theory fruitful by connecting it to historical questions and taking up a wider view as only the terms. You can connect it to the question of violence of religions and hiostorical struggles between ideologies and to class struggle. This is a good scientific layout for the work dealing with the topic of the essay. This includes to introduce the term dissident. A dissident is someone persecuted by some ideology or religion or other belive for either his critizism or dissence or anti-x position whatsoever. Thus the view is widened from the sociological fild of concepts for intellectual oppositin to that of manifest social behaviour on intellectual opposition.
I hope you are not angry because of this rag rug (patchwork) I sent you. Just my ideas are comming one by one.
Nice day - Alex
Habermas and secularism...Is secularism totally outdated in Western europe?
.....I have forgotten the term non-conformist. A non-conformist is no dissenter, but someone, who has essantially the same ideology as the mainstream, but he is not conform - that is not aggreeing with the mainstream. Non-conformism is often the result of critizism. But as critizism is not necessary a continual state of opposition, non-conformism is permanent. Have a nice day - if you like I will copy you my little writings and statements together to one essay for you and for the author - Alex
Alexander Gruber
Thank you for this interesting essay. I think a dissenter is someone derivating from and being in opposition to the mainstream. And someone having a derivating opinion in the mainstream is just critizising the mainstream or is critical within the mainstream. A dissenter is in turn always critical of the mainstream, but even more he is opposing, protesting against it. What the mainstream is, is just relative to about which society or institution is the talk of. I guess the topic should be treated much as exposition of the terms. This should be separated from the topic of spirituality in especial. First the terms, the sociological terms: dissenter, critizist, protestant and the like need to be clarified, befor turning to spirituality at all. I would seperate the two topics (of these terms and spirituality).
To put it together, I am a dissenter in my opinion on spirituality, because my spirituality is that of dreams, far off from the mainstream of either religious (I mean traditional religious) spirituality or from spirituality as contemplation. OK truth playes a role in my spirituality too, well this is the single point, where my spirituality meets the mainstream. I hope this explanation is helpful.
Well this is an issue, which can make the brain neurons smoke.
Have a nice day and dream something fine - Alex
Just one more idea. I wrote an essay short time ago, with the title (translated): "Thoughts of a Dissenter" and I wanted to say I am opposing the mainstream in Germany. But when I say that the essay you sent to me is just dealing with a question of minor importance, I am critcal in this debate of ours (this mainstream). But I am no dissenter in this debate, because I enjoyed to think about it and I have no problems with the rest of the discours. And I am critical on feminism, but not a dissenter to feminism, as I am afiliate to it. This is how I try to clarify my thought to you.
Thank you - nice day and happy dreams - Alex
Now to turn to the social sphere of spiritual traditions. In some traditions a criticist is allways a dissenter, because they do not allow for critizism at all within their mainstream. Many ideologies are like this.
Then another sociological term is this of a sect. A sect according to Karl Marx is an organization, defining itself by the differences to the working class, not emphaszising what they have in common with the working class. And a French Marxist explained to me, a sect is an organization, which has really lost the contact to the working class.
To apply it to my own convictions, I don't want my dreams culture to be a sect. I am emphazising, what I have in common political with the interests of the working class, but I add my dreams culture spirituality as an advancement.
The difference between being a dissenter and a critizist is sometimes floating, Just depending on the reception of an opinion.
And what is with an anti-X, for example an antiracist (as I am for example). Is an anti-racist a dissenter to racism? Yes I would say so, even as it seems a little weak an expression. And anti-racist is not only dissenting with the mainstream of racism, but he is opposing racism at all. There is no word for this really. It is missing in sociology. Just to express being an anti-X by some word.
Ok nice issue this exposition. I think the author of the essay, you sent to me is just entangled in these conceptual problems, carrying them out on the back of the topic of spirituality, spinning arround in intellectual circles arround these difficulties.
Have a nice day and dream something fine - Alex
So we have to define and distinguish („clare et distincte“ as Descartes demands) the related terms in the same field: critizist, dissenter, sceptizist,
outsider, anti-x, sectarian. All belonging to one sociological field. This is the first step.
And then the second step is to apply these definitions to spirituality.
This is a structualist approach (scientific structuralism), because I first define the terms structually and this means independent of any application (using applications only as examples to illustrate the theory) and then I look for the intended modells concerning spirituality.
Sorry it is all a lttle scattered over my mails. I am just sitting here in the night thinking and drinking coffee and smoking a cigarett and making jokes with our computer specialist. Somone threw a false coin in our beer atomaton and we are making jokes on it.
I have explained him the essay you sent to me and my answers and at the same time going on to think.
Have a nice day - Alex
I have forgotten the term non-conformist. A non-conformist is no dissenter, but someone, who has essantially the same ideology as the mainstream, but he is not conform - that is not aggreeing with the mainstream. Non-conformism is often the result of critizism. But as critizism is not necessary a continual state of opposition, non-conformism is permanent. Have a nice day - if you like I will copy you my little writings and statements together to one essay for you and for the author - Alex
In the third step you can proove your theory fruitful by connecting it to historical questions and taking up a wider view as only the terms. You can connect it to the question of violence of religions and hiostorical struggles between ideologies and to class struggle. This is a good scientific layout for the work dealing with the topic of the essay. This includes to introduce the term dissident. A dissident is someone persecuted by some ideology or religion or other belive for either his critizism or dissence or anti-x position whatsoever. Thus the view is widened from the sociological fild of concepts for intellectual oppositin to that of manifest social behaviour on intellectual opposition.
I hope you are not angry because of this rag rug (patchwork) I sent you. Just my ideas are comming one by one.
Nice day - Alex
Habermas and secularism...Is secularism totally outdated in Western europe?
.....I have forgotten the term non-conformist. A non-conformist is no dissenter, but someone, who has essantially the same ideology as the mainstream, but he is not conform - that is not aggreeing with the mainstream. Non-conformism is often the result of critizism. But as critizism is not necessary a continual state of opposition, non-conformism is permanent. Have a nice day - if you like I will copy you my little writings and statements together to one essay for you and for the author - Alex
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Copy of the Workshop Schedule
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP PROGRAMME
This workshop aims to explore the nature and different aspects of spiritual dissent. It is an open ended and collective exploration on dissident spirituality. The present exploration has been taking place at various levels for the last three years. The internet workshop (spiriutaldissent.blogspot.com) involving a number of scholars/practitioners from different corners of the world has revealed the complexity and diverse angles of the phenomenon of spiritual dissent. They have aroused a need for serious attention towards the issue instead of going for any hasty conclusion and judgment. This demands a silent, intimate, and informal mode of interaction. The presentations are meant for initiating intensive and elaborate discussion. Following are some of the topics, which would be presented by way of initiating the discussion:
Dr. Anantha Kumar Giri: Practical Spirituality and the calling of compassion and confrontation.
Dr.Partha Sarathi Mondal: Implications of the study of spiritual dissent.
Dr. P. Madhu: Conceptual Difficulties involved in the notion of ‘dissident spirituality’
Swami Vinaya Chaitnya: Spirituality of dropouts.
Dr. Ajay Sekhar: The politics of spirituality. The dissident spiritual practice of Poykayil Appachan and the shared legacy of Kerala Renaissance.
Dr. M. Gangadharan: Dissident streams of spirituality in the History of Kerala.
Parnab Mukherjee: Unbound-a performance project on Mahatma Gandhi's Hind Swaraj.
Dr. Jose George: Theatricality of spiritual performance.
Dr. Giorgio De Martino: Spirituality of Alternative Consciousness.
Maciej Kara Sinski: Integrating antagonistic Paths- Is Sri Vidya a dissident stream in Kaula Tantra?
Fr. Dr. George Joseph: Tribal cosmology- A dissident stream in spirituality.
Jeevanasi: Spirituality as everyday commitment.
Other participants:
A Mohankumar, Dr. S. Raju, Dr. V Dinesan, Dr. Iswar Dost, Sumanta Chakraborty,Dr. Rati Saxena, Laura Silvestri, Dr. Linda, Adi, Dr. K. J. Gsper, Dr. T. V. Madhu, Swami Sat Swarup, Dr. Vinod Chandran, …….
This workshop aims to explore the nature and different aspects of spiritual dissent. It is an open ended and collective exploration on dissident spirituality. The present exploration has been taking place at various levels for the last three years. The internet workshop (spiriutaldissent.blogspot.com) involving a number of scholars/practitioners from different corners of the world has revealed the complexity and diverse angles of the phenomenon of spiritual dissent. They have aroused a need for serious attention towards the issue instead of going for any hasty conclusion and judgment. This demands a silent, intimate, and informal mode of interaction. The presentations are meant for initiating intensive and elaborate discussion. Following are some of the topics, which would be presented by way of initiating the discussion:
Dr. Anantha Kumar Giri: Practical Spirituality and the calling of compassion and confrontation.
Dr.Partha Sarathi Mondal: Implications of the study of spiritual dissent.
Dr. P. Madhu: Conceptual Difficulties involved in the notion of ‘dissident spirituality’
Swami Vinaya Chaitnya: Spirituality of dropouts.
Dr. Ajay Sekhar: The politics of spirituality. The dissident spiritual practice of Poykayil Appachan and the shared legacy of Kerala Renaissance.
Dr. M. Gangadharan: Dissident streams of spirituality in the History of Kerala.
Parnab Mukherjee: Unbound-a performance project on Mahatma Gandhi's Hind Swaraj.
Dr. Jose George: Theatricality of spiritual performance.
Dr. Giorgio De Martino: Spirituality of Alternative Consciousness.
Maciej Kara Sinski: Integrating antagonistic Paths- Is Sri Vidya a dissident stream in Kaula Tantra?
Fr. Dr. George Joseph: Tribal cosmology- A dissident stream in spirituality.
Jeevanasi: Spirituality as everyday commitment.
Other participants:
A Mohankumar, Dr. S. Raju, Dr. V Dinesan, Dr. Iswar Dost, Sumanta Chakraborty,Dr. Rati Saxena, Laura Silvestri, Dr. Linda, Adi, Dr. K. J. Gsper, Dr. T. V. Madhu, Swami Sat Swarup, Dr. Vinod Chandran, …….
sharing of workshop experience
DISSIDENT STREAMS IN SPIRITUALITY
Sharing of workshop experience:
[workshop was held on 28-29 April 2010]
From the Co-ordinator:
Dear all,
We appreciate your attentive and inspiring presence in the workshop. The cordial and spirited engagement with the questions on the nature and various dimensions of spiritual dissent has enabled the participants to get a workable clarity. We are glad to see that the process of collective exploration has revealed much further the complexity and diversity of the phenomenon of dissident spirituality. We hope it would generate more interactions and understanding, if the workshop has succeeded in inspiring reflections of any kind. Indeed it would be a great reward for us if you could be critical about the failures and lacunas of deliberations. We also look forward to have a sustained interaction on the ideas transpired so far.
With much thanks and regards.
----------------------------------
1. Dr. Ananta Kamar Giri:
It was enriching being together, and it was a deeply learning experience. As it brought in an unexpected and spontaneous way kindred many souls open to be together and learn a little bit.
----------------------------
2.Dr. Partha Sarathy Mondel:
In this age of organized academic and the consequent seminars and conferences, it is almost become impossible to get in touch with people. In this sense the workshop was outstanding success. It has enabled the participants to contemplate and then respond so that each participant was actually able to touch the core of the other. Therefore, the next workshop should be a week-long affair where the possibility of touching each other gets amplified several times more. The only thing is, in order to be ‘limited’ to the broad theme of the workshop, let there be fewer people (20-25) rather than narrower explorations. Another suggestion is that there can be an intensive opportunity for the participants to get in touch with several varieties of dissident spiritualities in practice. This would require fieldwork for few days, and a class-room contemplation session for a couple of days. Perhaps, the selection of the sites of the dissident spiritualities can be decided in consultation with the participants. What is being proposed in an in-situ workshop. The sites of dissident spirituality can be selected not only from ‘religious situations’ but also from social and political contexts. If in a sense spirituality is recognized through inspiration, then the workshop can also help the participant to get in touch with examples of inspiration in the social and political field.
------------------------
3. Fr. Dr. K. J. Gasper:
Innovative as well as developing themes and narrations were highlighted in the workshop. The focus on multiplicity was obvious in discussions. Various approaches on the notion of dissident spirituality were exposed. The attempts were there to disrupt the very monolithic conception of the notion of spirituality were the chief concern of the workshop. Though the highlight of it was on dissident streams of spirituality, as a whole it failed to conceive the main stream spirituality itself as dissident in nature. There were no major concerns in this issue in the workshop. I hope this aspect would be taken care of in the oncoming discussions related to this workshop.
------------------------------------
4.Dr. V. Dinesan:
The workshop was an intellectually stimulating experience. The theoretical and empirical engagement with the concept of dissident provided new ways to think on ruptures/discontinuities on the one hand and social (spiritual is social for me) imagination, on the other. The discussion on event and stream re-invoked my interest in redefining event/situation analysis that Manchester School of Anthropologist had originally developed. I am looking forward for a follow-up workshop with further intensity.
-------------
5. Dr. Jenny Reppai:
The topic of the workshop 'dissident streams in spirituality' itself encompases a wide range of issues in its purview. After the detailed deliberations undertaken during the two days, it has given 1. more than enough food for thought, 2. though it was an informal one, each one of the participants took it in a serious manner and deliberated upon the subject at great length, 3. it has not only inspired but also motivated everyone due to its thought provoking approach. one is bout to recall Dr. Johnson's words 'hetrogenious ideas yoked together'.
------------------
6. Dr. Giorgio De Martino:
The workshop at Sankaracharya University has been a surprise, to me. A discovery, I would say, many word and worlds crossing together, ideas, way of thinking, probably the next time, as suggested, by Partha Sarathy. some more time to share doubts, ideas, suggestions...creativity, may be inventing some field-work? A lot of information, I have to think about, having a little more time to calm the mind after so many suggestions, could improve the discussions? I appreciate the performance, a lot, a living body speaking dissenting about how much we can be obliged to embody politics, sometimes without being able to react? But at last we have sung and also danced. You know: when I stopped to go at the university, about 1984, in Milan, one of the reasons was that I felt the place without life, almost. And I didn't know that in that desert I was lucky: a nice psychology professor, Fulvio Scaparro, probably seeing my passion for knowledge, asked me to prepare some material for his lessons, besides this, my family, looked at me as a lazy student, as I was studying (with good results even if not so fast...), dancing, photographing, writing articles, working with a famous ballet editor etc., but no real success and money. At the University, in Milan, I was sad, when dancing, I was alive: I danced, first. The choice had an high cost, but if, after all this years, I have been so lucky to meet you, in the far India, it was not so a bad choice...
The workshop evoked me a lot of memories (I am 53, but being from a journalist's family, I was swimming inside information and mass media system from early childhood) of an almost disappeared past where people (the 60s and 70s) was not as cyber-lost-souls in the Internet (a very good idea, the problem is the bad way could be used...like TV), but living flesh interacting with life. In fact, the suggestion about more time to interact, may be with some living experience, the time to rethink about official and personal communication, letting ideas spread and sprout...
I am discovering India, the real one, as the imaginary India, from Italy and/or France has been an icon for a long time. Exemple: trying to have look at the Theyyam has been amazing, as it helped me to see the "Incredible India!" suggested by advertising newspapers (the supermarket society don't need deep reflections, it needs only job-and-buy: don't think buybuybuy and be happy, no other problems!..... Bye-bye! Brain! Oh, yes, I know that in the future the parents will buy the logic software for the good education of their sons, then the microchip we'll be injected in the blood through nano-technologies...oh, yes, you'll be able - the poor people - to buy the microchip with credit or leasing, yes...don't worry) ...selling the postcard of the ancient "ritual", forgetting the impulsion that made it alive. Not only tribal traditions are disappearing, but a lot of knowledge, with a lot of tricks made by villain, as suggested the 12 of April, in Paris, during a conference about "the perverted effects" of the politics of the list about "disappearing heritage" of humanity (UNESCO & Co.). I have the feeling that, during the workshop, we were "helping-and-saving" something important,may be, first, ourselves? Was it a workshop, also, on ..."connecting souls"?
Also: getting in touch with the Kalarippayat in Kannur and travelling with Laura to see Gurukkals, was amazing for my understanding of some local body-mind movements....Being at the workshop in Kalady has been an opening-mind experience and a meeting with thinking people that has not forgotten the body and the forest, I believe.
Thanks and new suggestions and ideas after my travel to Europe...
PS: I am not so joking when describing the science-fiction situation of the children with the microchip pushed into the nose and interacting with the brain, as I will send you some material, the next future!
---------------------
7. Dr. Maya S:
Though I could particiapte only in the last session of the workshop (unfortunately), I found it thought provoking. I find my usage of 'thought-provoking' itself as contradicting while talking about spirituality.! It is amazing to think about the role of thought(contemplation and provokation) in understanding the dissident spirituality streams.Spirituality is nowadays used in different ways, during the social discourse. I think one can be spiritual in many different ways at different points of time and space. Of course, one can be spiritual not only in religious spaces/rituals but in social spaces/activities also. I can see these points are really very well raised in the discussions in the workshop. But I found the women`s experiences as missing in the whole enterprise. That`s why I tried to talk about the topic of women`s spirituality as a response to the wonderful presentation (last one)by the scholar from united states. As she said, It is true that women in India have a long way to go ( even to 'be' (become?)social or spiritual). The disjunction between social and spiritual have been in question under recent feminist theorization too. But the methods of being spiritual still remains a confusing strategy. I dont think women should go back to religion and worship patterns ( though only considering godesses), to become spiritual. I was wondering why some feminists in SFO-USA are very keen about worshipping Durga/Kali etc. to exercise women`s spirituality. May be women in India can take that way to be spiritaul as a protest /strategy. Otherwise they have to satisfy themselves by cooking and cleaning as spiritual experiences! (if they dont,the society in India would consolidate that it is the only spirituality attainment for women.!) They can never dare to announce that they find spirituality in writing/reading/partying/cheering up etc! And in terms of body too, Indian women have to be conscious about what they are doing. Otherwise the men-folks would make them conscious by their comments.I dont think the women in India can that easily be spiritual through freedom to do yoga,marshal arts,massage or even sex! So women`s spirituality in India would either be in asrams/sanyasam or be strategical in kitchen/bedroom! ( I have heard some women saying this). So that strategical spirituality women hold, is mental. It might not have much to do with body, I think. Because ,body is not free as mind (mind can have unrevealed expressions/postures) for Indian women.
I`m sorry for writing a long note like this after participating only in the last session. But I would like to share this as supportive response to the same last presentation I mentioned above. There were not much women particiaption in the workshop and also I felt myself appropriated even by sitting for a half day and trying to speak out! I couldnt say this much there, because some male-scholars intervened blocking my dialogue with the paper presenter ! this happens in almost every non-feminist seminars, when feminists start speaking !
--------------------
8. Swami. Vinaya Chaitanya:
First of all, I must thank ...for the wonderful hospitality and openness of your home which paved the way for the success of the workshop, by having key persons meet and share ideas even before the actual workshop; of course for your hard work on the net through out the last months; but all of it has resulted in what I'd say was the best of these workshops we have had through the last few years.
The responses and the promptness with which they are coming also speak of how inspiring it has been.
Partha's suggestion of a longer, living-in workshop is very much in my vision of follow-up too. Especially as we saw how productive the non-formal, dinner and after-dinner sessions have been and it is important to have that kind of relaxed time together when a lot of communication and personal bonding happens which is immediately reflected in the enhanced quality of the sessions after the first night's dinner; and that philosophers could sing and dance as well as talk deep philosophy is a very encouraging sign, I really thank all of us for our presence and interest and look forward to deeper exchanges.
----------------
9. Dr. P. Madhu.
The workshop on ‘dissenting streams of spirituality’ helped me to think on the nature of dissent, consent and their social expressions. Whatsoever could be the amorphous or mystic character of spirituality its social manifestation has consents, dissents and parallels. The more amorphous a field is the less its internal contradictions are discussed. This workshop served as a starting point to capture the politics of spirituality.
The conduct of such a workshop with minimal funding of Rs.50000/- is really laudable. The workshop was unusually blessed with serious participants who were really conversing. However, owing to shortage of time the workshop could not generate any substantial dialogue, yet what is achieved is deserves applauds.
The performance on the first day was quite wonderful. Seriously taken, the play helps one to resist the consents one is otherwise thrown into.
-----------------
10. Dr Ajay Sekher
It was an open and democratic arena for intimate interaction and co-learning. It is important that we document and publish the papers at least. If shortage of funds prevent us from doing it in print we must do it in net.
----------------------
11. Laura Selvestri:
I arrived in Paris two days ago and I have already been taken by the frenetic rythms of this town. Moreover, it is really cold, what a change from the 35 °C of Kerala!
This notwithstanding, the experience of the workshop is still with me.
I agree with the proposal of a longer meeting and of a practical experience. What frequently happens is that, while talking, one forgets real experience, bodily experience, especially this might happens during intellectual work.
And yes, I think the people that were there, males and females, could be able to engage themselves in a courageous discussion that includes women's experiences, spiritualities and bodies. I know it might be difficult and may be painful, but it is a core issue for spirituality and, for the first time since I was in Kerala, during the workshop I had the impression of being among people that could find the sincerity, respect, self-questioning, and courage to face such issues that are often avoided.
So, thank you again for the invitation that generated such an important experience and occasion for learning.
I also thank all the participants to the workshop for their warm welcome that made me feel comfortable even though I was totally a new-comer.
Special thanks to the ladies that speak aloud. Hearing them was a lesson for me.
----------------
12.Dr.Ishwar Dost:
It was a wonderful experience. Really such kind of frank, open, receptive and stimulating discussions are rare in now-a-days academic world, which is formal, bureaucratised, ruthless and career-driven. At the same time, this experience of thinking-together was different to obedient, conformist atmosphere of certain divinity-seeking or holy or didactic engagements. This experience suggests that the quest in the form of an honest and open dialogue has its own dimension of spirituality, which not only stimulates thought but also touches the inner core of being. I endorse the view of Dr. Parthsarthi that it may be a longer affair. I was much impressed with the high quality of informal (at the time of dinner, lunch and afterwards) discussions and the enthusiasm of senior and erudite persons to hear and respond patiently arguments, dissents of all participants.
---------------------
13. Dr. Giorgio De Martino:
...hello all: as I suggested during the workshop, there are - in my opinion - so many needs to rethink, share and expand a lot of ideas about "dissident spirituality". As possible I will write more about received suggestions and sharing concepts, at the moment I just can send you an article and a link http://bci.tugraz.at/leeb/ , telling a story connnected with the article you will receive. In october-november 2005 I was talking with a friend, who, now, is about 80 years old, Giovanni degli Antoni http://www.nova-multimedia.it/gda.html . Degli Antoni is considered the dean of the first generation of cybernetiks scientist, in Italy...2500 students have been with him for a Master and/or a PhD.
I told him I was preoccupied, reading the article by Robert Leeb and collegues I am sending you, as the consequences of those researches, could be too much similar to the "1984" orwellian style. I added, also, that it was quite curious to see that, when during the 60s and 70s the so-called "parapsychology" was presented as a quackery, thereafter, as the argument became good-for-business, suddendly a lot of unhortodox researches, became ok. Giovanni looked at me smiling and telling me "you are prehistoric!"... He told me not to be really preoccupied about the researches you can read on the article I am sending you attached, but more about the fact that the half organic/half artificial brain his students - in the laboratory of Crema, near Milan (Italy) - had some difficulties educating the unusual "object". He was, in the meantime, quite worried about the probably dark future of humans.
Read the article...!
----------------------
14.Sadique P.K:
thanks for having a such a serious academic debate on a different and often neglected(but genuine)issues from the modern secular normative discourses.[the absence of discussion on dissident streams in Islam tadition was conspicous] a debate on Islamic spiritual movements such as Sanussi movment,Khadiriyya groups and Shiites political spirituality ..etc.] could be taken up the future gatherings. from these streams we get diffrent meanings and explanations for the often misunderstood concepts such as Jihad,kafir and sharia..etc.for example when we go throgh the work of Sheikh Saindheen Maqdumes' Tuhfathul mujahidheen (written in Arabic to urge Muslims to support Samorins of Calicut) it use this terms in a very diffrent meaning .often these sufis and saints tried to go beyond the unitary experince of spirituality and tried to connect the mystic experinces with the earth and time.
-----------------------------
Sharing of workshop experience:
[workshop was held on 28-29 April 2010]
From the Co-ordinator:
Dear all,
We appreciate your attentive and inspiring presence in the workshop. The cordial and spirited engagement with the questions on the nature and various dimensions of spiritual dissent has enabled the participants to get a workable clarity. We are glad to see that the process of collective exploration has revealed much further the complexity and diversity of the phenomenon of dissident spirituality. We hope it would generate more interactions and understanding, if the workshop has succeeded in inspiring reflections of any kind. Indeed it would be a great reward for us if you could be critical about the failures and lacunas of deliberations. We also look forward to have a sustained interaction on the ideas transpired so far.
With much thanks and regards.
----------------------------------
1. Dr. Ananta Kamar Giri:
It was enriching being together, and it was a deeply learning experience. As it brought in an unexpected and spontaneous way kindred many souls open to be together and learn a little bit.
----------------------------
2.Dr. Partha Sarathy Mondel:
In this age of organized academic and the consequent seminars and conferences, it is almost become impossible to get in touch with people. In this sense the workshop was outstanding success. It has enabled the participants to contemplate and then respond so that each participant was actually able to touch the core of the other. Therefore, the next workshop should be a week-long affair where the possibility of touching each other gets amplified several times more. The only thing is, in order to be ‘limited’ to the broad theme of the workshop, let there be fewer people (20-25) rather than narrower explorations. Another suggestion is that there can be an intensive opportunity for the participants to get in touch with several varieties of dissident spiritualities in practice. This would require fieldwork for few days, and a class-room contemplation session for a couple of days. Perhaps, the selection of the sites of the dissident spiritualities can be decided in consultation with the participants. What is being proposed in an in-situ workshop. The sites of dissident spirituality can be selected not only from ‘religious situations’ but also from social and political contexts. If in a sense spirituality is recognized through inspiration, then the workshop can also help the participant to get in touch with examples of inspiration in the social and political field.
------------------------
3. Fr. Dr. K. J. Gasper:
Innovative as well as developing themes and narrations were highlighted in the workshop. The focus on multiplicity was obvious in discussions. Various approaches on the notion of dissident spirituality were exposed. The attempts were there to disrupt the very monolithic conception of the notion of spirituality were the chief concern of the workshop. Though the highlight of it was on dissident streams of spirituality, as a whole it failed to conceive the main stream spirituality itself as dissident in nature. There were no major concerns in this issue in the workshop. I hope this aspect would be taken care of in the oncoming discussions related to this workshop.
------------------------------------
4.Dr. V. Dinesan:
The workshop was an intellectually stimulating experience. The theoretical and empirical engagement with the concept of dissident provided new ways to think on ruptures/discontinuities on the one hand and social (spiritual is social for me) imagination, on the other. The discussion on event and stream re-invoked my interest in redefining event/situation analysis that Manchester School of Anthropologist had originally developed. I am looking forward for a follow-up workshop with further intensity.
-------------
5. Dr. Jenny Reppai:
The topic of the workshop 'dissident streams in spirituality' itself encompases a wide range of issues in its purview. After the detailed deliberations undertaken during the two days, it has given 1. more than enough food for thought, 2. though it was an informal one, each one of the participants took it in a serious manner and deliberated upon the subject at great length, 3. it has not only inspired but also motivated everyone due to its thought provoking approach. one is bout to recall Dr. Johnson's words 'hetrogenious ideas yoked together'.
------------------
6. Dr. Giorgio De Martino:
The workshop at Sankaracharya University has been a surprise, to me. A discovery, I would say, many word and worlds crossing together, ideas, way of thinking, probably the next time, as suggested, by Partha Sarathy. some more time to share doubts, ideas, suggestions...creativity, may be inventing some field-work? A lot of information, I have to think about, having a little more time to calm the mind after so many suggestions, could improve the discussions? I appreciate the performance, a lot, a living body speaking dissenting about how much we can be obliged to embody politics, sometimes without being able to react? But at last we have sung and also danced. You know: when I stopped to go at the university, about 1984, in Milan, one of the reasons was that I felt the place without life, almost. And I didn't know that in that desert I was lucky: a nice psychology professor, Fulvio Scaparro, probably seeing my passion for knowledge, asked me to prepare some material for his lessons, besides this, my family, looked at me as a lazy student, as I was studying (with good results even if not so fast...), dancing, photographing, writing articles, working with a famous ballet editor etc., but no real success and money. At the University, in Milan, I was sad, when dancing, I was alive: I danced, first. The choice had an high cost, but if, after all this years, I have been so lucky to meet you, in the far India, it was not so a bad choice...
The workshop evoked me a lot of memories (I am 53, but being from a journalist's family, I was swimming inside information and mass media system from early childhood) of an almost disappeared past where people (the 60s and 70s) was not as cyber-lost-souls in the Internet (a very good idea, the problem is the bad way could be used...like TV), but living flesh interacting with life. In fact, the suggestion about more time to interact, may be with some living experience, the time to rethink about official and personal communication, letting ideas spread and sprout...
I am discovering India, the real one, as the imaginary India, from Italy and/or France has been an icon for a long time. Exemple: trying to have look at the Theyyam has been amazing, as it helped me to see the "Incredible India!" suggested by advertising newspapers (the supermarket society don't need deep reflections, it needs only job-and-buy: don't think buybuybuy and be happy, no other problems!..... Bye-bye! Brain! Oh, yes, I know that in the future the parents will buy the logic software for the good education of their sons, then the microchip we'll be injected in the blood through nano-technologies...oh, yes, you'll be able - the poor people - to buy the microchip with credit or leasing, yes...don't worry) ...selling the postcard of the ancient "ritual", forgetting the impulsion that made it alive. Not only tribal traditions are disappearing, but a lot of knowledge, with a lot of tricks made by villain, as suggested the 12 of April, in Paris, during a conference about "the perverted effects" of the politics of the list about "disappearing heritage" of humanity (UNESCO & Co.). I have the feeling that, during the workshop, we were "helping-and-saving" something important,may be, first, ourselves? Was it a workshop, also, on ..."connecting souls"?
Also: getting in touch with the Kalarippayat in Kannur and travelling with Laura to see Gurukkals, was amazing for my understanding of some local body-mind movements....Being at the workshop in Kalady has been an opening-mind experience and a meeting with thinking people that has not forgotten the body and the forest, I believe.
Thanks and new suggestions and ideas after my travel to Europe...
PS: I am not so joking when describing the science-fiction situation of the children with the microchip pushed into the nose and interacting with the brain, as I will send you some material, the next future!
---------------------
7. Dr. Maya S:
Though I could particiapte only in the last session of the workshop (unfortunately), I found it thought provoking. I find my usage of 'thought-provoking' itself as contradicting while talking about spirituality.! It is amazing to think about the role of thought(contemplation and provokation) in understanding the dissident spirituality streams.Spirituality is nowadays used in different ways, during the social discourse. I think one can be spiritual in many different ways at different points of time and space. Of course, one can be spiritual not only in religious spaces/rituals but in social spaces/activities also. I can see these points are really very well raised in the discussions in the workshop. But I found the women`s experiences as missing in the whole enterprise. That`s why I tried to talk about the topic of women`s spirituality as a response to the wonderful presentation (last one)by the scholar from united states. As she said, It is true that women in India have a long way to go ( even to 'be' (become?)social or spiritual). The disjunction between social and spiritual have been in question under recent feminist theorization too. But the methods of being spiritual still remains a confusing strategy. I dont think women should go back to religion and worship patterns ( though only considering godesses), to become spiritual. I was wondering why some feminists in SFO-USA are very keen about worshipping Durga/Kali etc. to exercise women`s spirituality. May be women in India can take that way to be spiritaul as a protest /strategy. Otherwise they have to satisfy themselves by cooking and cleaning as spiritual experiences! (if they dont,the society in India would consolidate that it is the only spirituality attainment for women.!) They can never dare to announce that they find spirituality in writing/reading/partying/cheering up etc! And in terms of body too, Indian women have to be conscious about what they are doing. Otherwise the men-folks would make them conscious by their comments.I dont think the women in India can that easily be spiritual through freedom to do yoga,marshal arts,massage or even sex! So women`s spirituality in India would either be in asrams/sanyasam or be strategical in kitchen/bedroom! ( I have heard some women saying this). So that strategical spirituality women hold, is mental. It might not have much to do with body, I think. Because ,body is not free as mind (mind can have unrevealed expressions/postures) for Indian women.
I`m sorry for writing a long note like this after participating only in the last session. But I would like to share this as supportive response to the same last presentation I mentioned above. There were not much women particiaption in the workshop and also I felt myself appropriated even by sitting for a half day and trying to speak out! I couldnt say this much there, because some male-scholars intervened blocking my dialogue with the paper presenter ! this happens in almost every non-feminist seminars, when feminists start speaking !
--------------------
8. Swami. Vinaya Chaitanya:
First of all, I must thank ...for the wonderful hospitality and openness of your home which paved the way for the success of the workshop, by having key persons meet and share ideas even before the actual workshop; of course for your hard work on the net through out the last months; but all of it has resulted in what I'd say was the best of these workshops we have had through the last few years.
The responses and the promptness with which they are coming also speak of how inspiring it has been.
Partha's suggestion of a longer, living-in workshop is very much in my vision of follow-up too. Especially as we saw how productive the non-formal, dinner and after-dinner sessions have been and it is important to have that kind of relaxed time together when a lot of communication and personal bonding happens which is immediately reflected in the enhanced quality of the sessions after the first night's dinner; and that philosophers could sing and dance as well as talk deep philosophy is a very encouraging sign, I really thank all of us for our presence and interest and look forward to deeper exchanges.
----------------
9. Dr. P. Madhu.
The workshop on ‘dissenting streams of spirituality’ helped me to think on the nature of dissent, consent and their social expressions. Whatsoever could be the amorphous or mystic character of spirituality its social manifestation has consents, dissents and parallels. The more amorphous a field is the less its internal contradictions are discussed. This workshop served as a starting point to capture the politics of spirituality.
The conduct of such a workshop with minimal funding of Rs.50000/- is really laudable. The workshop was unusually blessed with serious participants who were really conversing. However, owing to shortage of time the workshop could not generate any substantial dialogue, yet what is achieved is deserves applauds.
The performance on the first day was quite wonderful. Seriously taken, the play helps one to resist the consents one is otherwise thrown into.
-----------------
10. Dr Ajay Sekher
It was an open and democratic arena for intimate interaction and co-learning. It is important that we document and publish the papers at least. If shortage of funds prevent us from doing it in print we must do it in net.
----------------------
11. Laura Selvestri:
I arrived in Paris two days ago and I have already been taken by the frenetic rythms of this town. Moreover, it is really cold, what a change from the 35 °C of Kerala!
This notwithstanding, the experience of the workshop is still with me.
I agree with the proposal of a longer meeting and of a practical experience. What frequently happens is that, while talking, one forgets real experience, bodily experience, especially this might happens during intellectual work.
And yes, I think the people that were there, males and females, could be able to engage themselves in a courageous discussion that includes women's experiences, spiritualities and bodies. I know it might be difficult and may be painful, but it is a core issue for spirituality and, for the first time since I was in Kerala, during the workshop I had the impression of being among people that could find the sincerity, respect, self-questioning, and courage to face such issues that are often avoided.
So, thank you again for the invitation that generated such an important experience and occasion for learning.
I also thank all the participants to the workshop for their warm welcome that made me feel comfortable even though I was totally a new-comer.
Special thanks to the ladies that speak aloud. Hearing them was a lesson for me.
----------------
12.Dr.Ishwar Dost:
It was a wonderful experience. Really such kind of frank, open, receptive and stimulating discussions are rare in now-a-days academic world, which is formal, bureaucratised, ruthless and career-driven. At the same time, this experience of thinking-together was different to obedient, conformist atmosphere of certain divinity-seeking or holy or didactic engagements. This experience suggests that the quest in the form of an honest and open dialogue has its own dimension of spirituality, which not only stimulates thought but also touches the inner core of being. I endorse the view of Dr. Parthsarthi that it may be a longer affair. I was much impressed with the high quality of informal (at the time of dinner, lunch and afterwards) discussions and the enthusiasm of senior and erudite persons to hear and respond patiently arguments, dissents of all participants.
---------------------
13. Dr. Giorgio De Martino:
...hello all: as I suggested during the workshop, there are - in my opinion - so many needs to rethink, share and expand a lot of ideas about "dissident spirituality". As possible I will write more about received suggestions and sharing concepts, at the moment I just can send you an article and a link http://bci.tugraz.at/leeb/ , telling a story connnected with the article you will receive. In october-november 2005 I was talking with a friend, who, now, is about 80 years old, Giovanni degli Antoni http://www.nova-multimedia.it/gda.html . Degli Antoni is considered the dean of the first generation of cybernetiks scientist, in Italy...2500 students have been with him for a Master and/or a PhD.
I told him I was preoccupied, reading the article by Robert Leeb and collegues I am sending you, as the consequences of those researches, could be too much similar to the "1984" orwellian style. I added, also, that it was quite curious to see that, when during the 60s and 70s the so-called "parapsychology" was presented as a quackery, thereafter, as the argument became good-for-business, suddendly a lot of unhortodox researches, became ok. Giovanni looked at me smiling and telling me "you are prehistoric!"... He told me not to be really preoccupied about the researches you can read on the article I am sending you attached, but more about the fact that the half organic/half artificial brain his students - in the laboratory of Crema, near Milan (Italy) - had some difficulties educating the unusual "object". He was, in the meantime, quite worried about the probably dark future of humans.
Read the article...!
----------------------
14.Sadique P.K:
thanks for having a such a serious academic debate on a different and often neglected(but genuine)issues from the modern secular normative discourses.[the absence of discussion on dissident streams in Islam tadition was conspicous] a debate on Islamic spiritual movements such as Sanussi movment,Khadiriyya groups and Shiites political spirituality ..etc.] could be taken up the future gatherings. from these streams we get diffrent meanings and explanations for the often misunderstood concepts such as Jihad,kafir and sharia..etc.for example when we go throgh the work of Sheikh Saindheen Maqdumes' Tuhfathul mujahidheen (written in Arabic to urge Muslims to support Samorins of Calicut) it use this terms in a very diffrent meaning .often these sufis and saints tried to go beyond the unitary experince of spirituality and tried to connect the mystic experinces with the earth and time.
-----------------------------
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