You have loaded the post with too many points.
I will try to answer you in the shortest way possible.
All the new philosophical systems from the Mahabharta times were mostly products of Social, economical and political (SPE) revolutions. India had many influences from foreign lands - greeks, hans, persians etc. Every single day, Krishna (and earlier other vaidika kings) was threatened with armies and rebels . There are many kinds of rebels - one with a reasonable/unreasonable cause (SPE) or one without an intuitive cause (those women rights, kauravas's war alike can be ignored, they meet their own ends). There were many social rebels Sankhyas/Buddhist-Jains (Ambedhkar etc. who are o.k. but are challenged) by Advaita. Whereas ChArvAkas (futile cause) hedonists and periyar like will naturally go extinct.
The Vedas/Srutis had all the various kinds of ideas, but coherent. There were srutis to proclaim 'Aham eva Brahma', 'Ekameva Advitiyam',(Upa) 'Aham Atma sarva bhutasya stitah:'(Gita). All these only insist on Only Brahmam and inherently meant to look within self. The Advaitins or Nigunis took these and emphasised and expanded on this one. Selecting One kind over the
other kinds of srutis that explain variety (individuality for jiva/matter) and the dependence of Jiva/matter on Brahman/Ishwara, is called
'Selective Emphasis' not 'Invention'!
Kabir wanted to take diksha from Ramanad (fell at his feet near ganges) and was graced so. Even Ramanand, though a Rama devotee, initiated by one devacharya (south indian) seemed to be influenced by nirguni saints. Kabir had many songs on the glory of Acharya/Guru, and emphasized on 'Rama Nama' or Sankeertan. Kabir's doha '
Kabir Ram ratan mukh kotri, parakh aage khol, koi ai milega gahki le go mahega mol'. Ram is a precious Jewel, open it in front of devotees or nice people, but keep silence in the company of uninterested and not waste effort.
'Kabir sadhu sang prapti, likhia hoi lilat, mukti padarat paie, thak na awgat ghat'
Association of gurus is possible,only if you are fated so. With such association mukti is obtained without obstruction/karma on the other shore. [May be the KABIR you are idolizing is a different one!]
Among the bhakti poets, some remained orthodox like Tualsidas, Chaitanya, Vallabha/Madhava of south. As the nature of that period was of Muslim/Hindu conflict, he had to voice against the islamic ritualistic worship than realization, and hinduism had to come in the band-wagon. But, there are also views, that some poets (nirgunis) have penned and included in his name (due to his popularity). And Kabir's influence must have been a base for Sikhism.
During Mughal conquest, all the temples were squandered, the kings were gone, there was no patron for the artisans who either were converted or branded as prostitutes (acc. to moor religion). Thus, ended up the real sudras. And there were few rich left, and bhakti and external-rituals were discouraged to promote charity rather than religion. Plus, these sants were introduced to promote hindusim and prevent conversion to Islam. So, they fused kind of nirgnua idea favourable to Islam, and calling all names of god (Allah/Ram/Siva) as equal. Like Sankara had to bring in all savities/tantric wild-saivites(kabalikAs) etc. and come up with idea of Nirguna/Saguna. This is how modern hinduism was shaped. They didn't have much threat from British, except for slavery, and after learning the greatness of Sankrit works, british got humbled.
All Sant Mat (Matam of Saints) eulogized in the Sikh Granth as Sant Bani, were all rebels, but with reasonable humanitarian cause, and some ethical/moral cause while promoting spirituality. But they dont become
authority! And when we are in a better state without any threat, why not attempt to follow the right way of spiritual knowledge?
Bhagat Bani
Sant Mat
Kabir's Poems
Who Invented Hinduism - David Lorenson
Govindaji,
I wrote that I would not like to continue this dialogue. But your elaborate post and those of S/Shri Suraju, Palindrome, etc., makes me think that I should clarify my position, just once again.
Shri Zebra (Narayanan) has raised a valid point in regard to your above post and I will be keenly watching the further course which that takes.
To my limited understanding your efforts in the above post seems to be that Kabir was a disciple of Swami Ramananda, though Kabir was of a low (but not untouchable?) caste. But even in the case of Sant Ra(v)i Das, who was a Chamar by birth and hence an untouchable, the legend has it that Ramananda was RaiDas's guru. Hence, I feel there is some need to be circumspect in taking all these hagiographic and legendary stories for which we have no other evidence.
That said, I did not deny that Kabir did not sing in praise of Rama or other idolised divinities, but, to me at least, his importance lies in his advocacy of non-idolatry. That he did tell the common folk that "God is within each one of you and try to find Him out if you can", is a great step and whether he did so out of compulsion to toe the islamic line for fear of the rulers etc., is not relevant to us today, I think. If we have to take such a view in the case of Kabir and reject it for that reason, we may not be able to exempt any of our other respected philosophers too because, barring Adi Shankara perhaps, all others lived in times when Islam had made its presence felt in some part or the other of this sub-continent ever since the first half of the 9th. century, I think.
Dear Shri raju,
I am of the view that we cannot "perceive" the God within us by either crushing/squeezing (as in the case of sesamum seed and the oil in it) or by friction (like the fire in the AraNi stones). But we can perceive the God manifesting as the myriad life forms all around us. If we have a really "sAtvika" nature we will see this God (or God's manifestation in myriad life forms, including forms like venomous serpents and plants/ fruits which may be fatal to a human) as auspicious attributes; but here we must be open to suggestions, to borrow Shri Prasad's phrase and agree that
जातस्य हि ध्रुवो म्य्त्युः ध्रुवं जन्म मृतस्य च ।
तस्मादपरिहार्यः।
अविनाशि तु तद्विद्धि यॆनसर्वमिदं ततम् ।
विनाशमव्ययस्यास्य न कश्चित्कर्तुमर्हति ॥
(jātasya hi dhruvo mytyuḥ dhruvaṃ janma mṛtasya ca |
tasmādaparihāryaḥ|
avināśi tu tadviddhi yenasarvamidaṃ tatam |
vināśamavyayasyāsya na kaścitkartumarhati ||)
Hence, even those fatal and venomous items will go to make the complete "avināśi", imho.
But I differ from the long-held belief coming down from the most revered Acharyas that it is possible for a living human to know, perceive or experience this avināśi. To that extent I am at variance or you may say, at loggerheads, with advaita; whether it is possible for a human being in its state after death (a state about which no human knows) to experience this avināśi is a point which, I think, humans may never be able to find out.
This being the truth, imagining the avināśi as kalyanagunarnavam is just as good or as bad as imagining it as the most fierce form possible like Kali or Rudra or the most attractive male form viz., Krishna or any other; but the truth is beyond human understanding and perception or experience. What Kabir says is that तेरा साई तुझ् में है, तू जाग् सकै तो जाग । (terā sāī tujh meṃ hai, tū jāg sakai to jāg |)= your sayee is within you wake up if you can. sāī I believe has come out of the vernacularization of the sanskrit word sākṣī, the permanent witness, but I have no proof for this.
The vedas, as most people are aware. contain what are known as bheda śrutis (which state that the God is different from Man, to put it very simply) as also the abheda śrutis (which postulate that the God is the one which also resides in Man). We may not be able to arrive at the actual causes/reasons for such opposing views being found mostly in the ṛgveda, but the Upanishads depict God mostly as one and the same as Man, i.e., the unity of the jīvātmā and the paramātmā. Some thinkers were more influenced by the latter, unity aspect while some others were convinced of the former view; but all those thinkers (Acharyas) had necessarily to work within the boundaries set by the vedas and upanishads.
World and scientific thinking has progressed by leaps and bounds, since the days of the Acharyas and we now have very many abstract concepts in the scientific area. I, therefore, consider God, the paramātmā, as a Force field which manifests as life forms, speaking from the point of view of an ordinary person. May be the very same Force field also causes all the rest of the universe as we perceive and experience them. But this is all a timed show; the moment one's Karmas dictate that the present show is over, death arrives inexorably, and in some other cases, death happens when the physical body is no longer able to sustain the functioning of this Field through it and manifest symptoms of life.
The unexpired Karmas cause yet another birth and yet another life and so on and on, ad infinitum. This chain can theoretically be stopped by experiencing out all Karmas up-to-date but not adding any more Karma, not even an iota of it. This is as difficult a task as fitting the Procrustean bed. Hence Moksha or liberation is a mirage of an idea, a reward in the imaginary realm promised by our Hindu religion generally so that the elite as well as the lay people will continue to stick on to the priesthood, despite whatever their life experiences be. That is the reason why we have yet to see anyone who has really attained Moksha.
Advaita stipulates brahmajnāna as the single precondition for moksha but I believe that such brahmajnāna is also an impossibility since the "knower cannot be known" as the saying goes. But intellectually, we can get some concept about the brahman just as we have some idea about the universal gravitational field for example. It is this knower, described as aṇoraṇīyān mahato mahīyān, which is sāī of Kabir, according to me.
Having clarified my position, I know fully well that you may well have enough and more arguments to rebut each and every observation of mine from the VA standpoint. I am fully satisfied with my line of thinking and, at the end of the day, none of us knows whence we come from and where we proceed to, not even who we are; so Ithink it matters little as to what faith system we subscribe to while we are here in this short sojourn. My attempt is just to go on record that there is yet another faith system possible. That's all.
