Rajiv Malhotra on Challenging 'Neo-Hinduism' (Indra's Net)

• published: 26 Jul 2015
• views: 415

Transcript (First 6 minutes): I always wanted to speak here, because when I grew up the primary influence, spiritual influence was from Swami Ranganathan of Shri RamaKrishna Mission (head of Delhi). So, I have looked at Swami Vivekananda's complete works and referred to all my life. My latest book is actually entirely a 'defence of Swami Vivekananda'. The challenge for me, is that, I am giving a response to certain issue that the people(critics) have raised, but unfortunately for me most of Vivekananda followers and Scholars do not even know of the issue. So, its like asking Doctor telling a patient that I know how to solve the disease and the patient says I do not even know what disease you are talking about. So, I have double challenge. First I have to explain what the problem is? Why its so serious? and then What is my response. Now, lot of you who are tuned into the Media, and those who are reading books are aware that there is a lot of 'Indian Left' critic of Hinduism and of Swami Vivekananda, that this is 'Oppressive', it is 'Hegemonic', it is something 'artificial', something 'new', made by 'British', it is al about construction and full of problems. But, very rarely I come across somebody who has gone further and tried to find out, from where this idea originate, what was the argument, because 'Indian Left' and the 'Media' who parrot this, really do not have the scholarship to come up with it, they are not very well read in Sanskrit or Philosophy or Vivekananda. But they are just parroting and cranking out something they have heard somewhere else. Now, I have spent the last 14 months researching this issue and then I wrote a response to this thesis. I was at a conference of American academy of religion in November 2012, they were discussing my previous book 'Being Different', where I was talking of Philosophical difference between Dharma Civilization and Western Civilization. Intellectually, what are the premises, categories, terms, Metaphysics of one and how they differ from other. Lot of issues like nature of Time, Sanskrit Non-Translatable (Sharaddha, Atman, Shruti, Smriti). West do not have idea of Shruti and Smriti(Shruti-Smriti difference do not exist in West), as west has this notion of 'Prophets', who speaks and thats final and close. So, the whole idea that Shruti is re-discovered for each age and Smriti is man made text and interpretations, which goes on indefinitely and mapped on. If you say Vedas are 'Prophetic'. Its Not! The idea of Prophets is not present in our faith (Prophet is not same as Rishi). A Prophet is not somebody who has a higher stage of Conciousness, so Shri RamaKrishna cannot be called as Prophet because he did not say that God speaking to me and told me this to tell you. Prophet is a messenger and he doesn't have to have any qualification. Abrahmic scholars will tell you that Prophet will be whoever the God has chosen to please convey my message. He is simply a messenger. That's it! So, the whole idea of higher state of conciousness is not required in Abrahmic faiths. Where as in our traditions, everyone can achieve Rishi state, becasue everyone is sat-Chit-Ananda, which is NOT true of Abrahmic Prophets. So, our Spiritual exemplars are not the same as Prophets.