By Kollengode S Venkataraman Written in October 2006
Indians often learn about their own history through the writings of Europeans during their colonial rule over India between the 18th and 20th centuries. Consequently, Indians themselves look at India through European lenses. Even to buttress arguments on history and culture, Indians need to quote the works of European writers, many of whom had their own missionary biases and colonial axes to grind.
Nowhere has this damaged more than in matters of faith and spirituality. This has resulted in a common “understanding” that Hindus are polytheists, image worshippers (polite expressions), idolators (derisive term), or even worse, pagans and heathens, whose “souls” need to be “saved” through conversion by persuasion, incentives, or, if necessary, by force.
This is because, with rare exceptions, even college-educated Indians are not known to critically examine writers coming from different cultural and religious backgrounds, whose goals were economic exploitation, political domination, and religious conversion.
While the world knows about the Bhagavad Gita as a work that conveys the essence of Hindu thought, there are other less-known shorter Gitas no less sublime than the famous Gita. I had not heard of these till I read Mananam, published by the Chinmaya Mission West.
Among these shorter works on transcendental and intuitive spirituality is the Avadhoota Gita. Avadhootas are mendicants living beyond the concepts of merits and sins. Like the Sufis in Islam who came centuries later, a true avadhoota doesn’t proclaim himself to be an avadhoota. Jyotirmanayananda in Mananam writes on the Avadhootas:
“Avadhoota Dattatreya’s uncompromising, nonindividualistic view of the Absolute is most beautifully expressed in the following verse:”
त्वद्यात्रया व्यापकता हता ते| ध्यानेन चेतःपरता हता ते ।|
स्तुत्या मया वाक्परता हता ते| क्षमस्व नित्यं त्रिविधापराधान् ||
tvad yaatrayaa vyaapakataa hataa te| dhyaanena chetah parataa hataa te ||
stutyaa mayaa vaakya parataa hataa te | kshamasva mama trividaa aparaadhaan ||
Translation:
By going on pilgrimages, I killed Your omnipresence.
By meditating on Your form, I killed Your transcendental nature.
And by singing hymns, I killed Your nature of being beyond words.
Forgive me for these three transgressions.
So long as people have religious beliefs, there will be objects of veneration, be they the books themselves (the Torah, Bible, or Koran) and other relics or symbols. So, how can one say that veneration of one kind is OK, but not the other? Besides, all true religions remind us that these objects of veneration are only ladders for believers to look beyond.
Yoga Vashistham is another work that would shatter ideas that many of us have about fate. Here is a sample: “In this world, whatever is gained is gained by self-effort… … What is called fate is fictitious……There is no power greater than the right action at the present moment… One who says, ‘Fate is directing me to do this’ is dumb and the goddess of fortune would abandon him.” END