Enhancing Brāhmaṇatva Should be Everyone's Goal

Brāhmaṇatva (Brahminhood, the quality or state of being a brāhmaṇa) is the goal of human evolution. Swami Ranganathananda wrote: "Evolution is human development from tamas to rajas, and from rajas to sattva. The man or woman who is all sattva is a remarkable type of person, who is highly evolved and manifesting the divine within. That is the goal of human evolution. How to produce more and more of such people in a society? Every member of society is given this goal, and he or she should try to reach it, or at least direct one’s life in that direction. Move on at your own pace, but do go towards that direction. That direction is to be a sāttvika person, without any hatred or violence, and ever loving and kind. When such persons are there in a society, there will be no need for even the police, not even for a political state, and much less need for laws and regulations, because here are persons who are self-disciplined and have realized their spiritual oneness with all others. That society is the most advanced which has the largest number of such people, who are sāttvika and spiritual and evolved, and who have manifested the divine within. Such a person is called a brāhmaṇa... The earliest definition of the word brāhmaṇa occurs in the four-thousand-year-old Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (3.8.10): ‘One, O Gārgī, who departs from this world without knowing this Imperishable (Reality), is miserable, a kṛpaṇaḥ. But one, O Gārgī, who departs from this world after knowing this Imperishable (Reality) is a brāhmaṇa'... In the great Buddhist book, The Dhammapada, there is a whole chapter, the last chapter, chapter 26, named Brāhmaṇa Vaggo, in praise and appreciation of the brāhmaṇa ideal" ('Universal message of the Bhagavad Gita', Vol 1, Pages 37-38).

One of the oldest Upanishads and one of the ten major Upanishads, the Chāndogya Upanishad (4.4.5), clearly demonstrates that brāhmaṇatva depends on one's qualities and not birth. Dhammapada (26.11) says: "One does not become a brāhmaṇa by one's matted hair, or by lineage, or by birth. He is a brāhmaṇa, in whom there is truth, dharma, and purity.”

Swami Vivekananda said: "Brahminhood is the ideal of humanity.., as wonderfully put forward by Shankarâchârya at the beginning of his commentary on the Gitâ, where he speaks about the reason for Krishna's coming as a preacher for the preservation of Brahminhood, of Brahminness. That was the great end. This Brahmin, the man of God, he who has known Brahman, the ideal man, the perfect man, must remain; he must not go" (Complete Works, Vol 3, Pages 293-294). Brāhmaṇatva or oneness with all beings is the fundamental yardstick of evolution.

Level of brāhmaṇatva or oneness can be used to categorize people world-over into four varṇas — brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, and śūdra — in descending order of brāhmaṇatva. Varṇa is a spiritual (and not social) categorization based on one's guṇas and karma (Bhagavad-Gita, 4.13), and not based on birth. The brāhmaṇatva of a son or daughter need not be high just because the father's or mother's brāhmaṇatva is high (this can be empirically studied).

Unlike varṇa, the jāti system is a social (and not religious or spiritual) categorization, and is largely based on birth, though it may have originated as communities based on kula (clan) or gotra (lineage), or vocation. India’s jātis represent a complex, flexible and fluid system. The huge number of jātis comprise a social rather than a religious mechanism, for religious conversion does not nullify them, and they exist even for those not doing pūja of iśṭa (or worship of God). For one who is high on brāhmaṇatva or oneness, all social categorizations like jāti, kula, gotra, and vocation become irrelevant, as shown by several saints. 

'Caste', as is known now, was introduced in India in the 19th century by the European colonizers. 'Caste' is a colonialist construct. The word ‘caste’ comes from the Portuguese word casta (which means lineage). 'Caste' in India was created by the British colonizers by merging varṇa, jāti, kula, gotra, and vocation, and making it illogically rigid and absolutely hereditary (for e.g., son of a weaver is a weaver even if he does not do weaving). Brahmin is a varṇa and not a jāti, but was created as a 'caste' by the colonizers. The colonizers created a hereditary and rigid 'caste' system and enforced it using the census. Most people were not aware of the 'caste' they were supposed to belong to, but were squeezed into the 'caste' system by the British colonizers in the Indian Census of 1881. The rigid hereditary 'caste' system created by the colonizers continues in India even after she regained her physical independence in 1947.

Swami Vivekananda said: "Our solution of the caste question is not degrading those who are already high up, is not running amuck through food and drink, is not jumping out of our own limits in order to have more enjoyment, but it comes... by our attaining spirituality, and by our becoming the ideal Brahmin. There is a law laid on each one of you... The command is the same to you all, that you must make progress without stopping, and that from the highest man to the lowest.., every one... has to try and become the ideal Brahmin. This... idea is applicable... over the whole world. Such is our ideal of caste as meant for raising all humanity slowly and gently towards the realisation of that great ideal of the spiritual man who is non-resisting, calm, steady, worshipful, pure, and meditative. In that ideal there is God" (Complete Works, Vol 3, Page 198). 

Check Your Level of Intolerance

 Intolerance continuum can be seen as comprising four discrete levels, and can be measured on a 4-point scale:

0 = Acceptance

1 = Tolerance

2 = Intolerance

3 = Conversion 

Let us take the example of the way of cooking and eating potato. Let us assume that your way of consuming potato is different from mine. 

(0) If I wholeheartedly and fully believe that your way of consuming is as good for you as my way is for me, that is acceptance.

On the contrary, if I believe that my way of consuming is better than your way for you also, there are three possibilities:

(1) If I am willing to put up with your way, that is tolerance. There is an incongruence of belief with attitude and behavior.

(2) If I am mentally unwilling to put up with your way but do nothing, that is the attitude of intolerance. There is an incongruence between attitude and behavior.

(3) If I induce or force you to change your way, that is conversion.

The last three may have a strong causal relationship with each other. Tolerance may give way to intolerance, when attitude changes to fall in line with the belief that my way of consuming is better than your way for you also. Intolerance is characterized by cognitive dissonance, and may give way to conversion, when behavior falls in line with attitude. Thus, any positive score on intolerance (i.e., when acceptance is not there) has a self-accelerating property.

Swami Vivekananda said: "So-called toleration is often blasphemy, and I do not believe in it. I believe in acceptance. Why should I tolerate? Toleration means that I think that you are wrong and I am just allowing you to live. Is it not a blasphemy to think that you and I are allowing others to live?" (Complete Works, Volume 2, Page 374)

If we average our intolerance towards the various aspects of a person, and if we average our intolerance towards the various people, we can get our intolerance score.

Sri Ramakrishna gave an excellent argument for acceptance: "God Himself has provided different forms of worship. He who is the Lord of the Universe has arranged all these forms to suit different men in different stages of knowledge... The mother cooks different dishes to suit the stomachs of her different children. Suppose she has five children. If there is a fish to cook, she prepares various dishes from it — pilau, pickled fish, fried fish, and so on — to suit their different tastes and powers of digestion" (Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Page 5).

Acceptance as a fundamental aspect of the Indian worldview was established during the Sarasvati-Indus civilization, and was proclaimed famously in Ṛg-Veda 1.164.46 ("He who exists is one; the sages call Him variously"), before 3000 BCE.

Swami Vivekananda elaborated: One of the greatest sages that was ever born found out in India even at that distant time, which history cannot reach, and into whose gloom even tradition itself dares not peep — in that distant time the sage arose and declared, — "He who exists is one; the sages call Him variously." This is one of the most memorable sentences that was ever uttered, one of the grandest truths that was ever discovered. And this truth has been the very backbone of India's national existence. For throughout the vistas of the centuries of India's national life, this one idea comes down, gaining in volume and in fullness till it has permeated the whole of India's national existence, till it has mingled in Indians' blood, and has become one with them. Indians live that grand truth in every vein, and India has become the glorious land of religious acceptance. This is one very great principle that the world is waiting to learn from India... The world is waiting for this grand idea of universal acceptance. It will be a great acquisition to civilization. Nay, no civilization can long exist unless this idea enters into it. No civilization can grow unless fanatics, bloodshed, and brutality stop. No civilization can begin to lift up its head until we look charitably upon one another; and the first step towards that much-needed charity is to look charitably and kindly upon the religious convictions of others. Nay more, to understand that not only should we be charitable, but positively helpful to each other, however different our religious ideas and convictions may be (Complete Works, Volume 3, Pages 186-188).

How Indian History Became Falsehood

Writing ancient history is like solving a jigsaw puzzle with many missing pieces. The most crucial piece in ancient Indian history is the Sarasvati river. Rig Veda Samhita has several references to a fully flowing Sarasvati river (between the Sutlej and the Yamuna), that reached the ocean. Existing evidence clearly shows that drying up of the river started around 3000 BCE. So, the Rig Vedic or Sarasvati civilization must have flourished before 3000 BCE. 

Danino's (2010) "The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati"  provides compelling evidence showing several common features of the Rig Vedic or Sarasvati civilization that flourished before 3000 BCE, and the later Harappan or Indus Valley civilization that flourished around 2500 BCE. The commonalities between the two substantiate that they should actually be referred to as one civilization, the Sarasvati-Indus civilization.

Lal's (2002) "Ancient India" explains how Sarasvati civilization was deleted and how Indian history was deliberately converted into falsehood, on account of three reasons :

1. Max Muller was a true Christian who believed in the Bible. He looked upon the creation given in the Genesis as simply historical, and that nothing existed before then. "Lacking any firm basis of his own and rejecting every Indian evidence, he arbitrarily dated" (page 10) the earliest Rig Veda Samhita to be of 1500 BCE, within the safe limits of Bishop Usher's creation date of 23 Oct 4004 BCE and the Great Flood of 2350 BCE. However, he eventually accepted that he was merely speculating, and explicitly stated that "whether the Vedic hymns were composed 1000, 1500 or 2000 or 3000 B.C., no power on earth will ever determine" (page 83). But, by then, the damage was successfully done.

2. There was strong motivation to "counter all the writing that were projecting India's past in terms of great civilization and Indian philosophy and thoughts indicating great antiquity for the origins of universe and human beings" (pages 10-11). Indian civilization is the oldest surviving civilization, and contributions of the Indian civilization to the world are immense. However, the Christian missionaries magnified India's flaws and portrayed the most developed nation as backward, to prepare the ground for evangelical activity.

3. Another factor which contributed to the distortion of Indian history was the British interests in India. India was the richest and most developed nation on earth. But, the British interpretations of Indian history served to denigrate Indian character and achievements, and justify the colonization of India. Successfully looting India was accelerated by creating all possible divisions in Indian society and creating animosity between the various groups. The fictitious Aryan migration theory (that Aryans of the Rig Vedic civilization invaded India around 1500 BCE) was created to achieve this goal. 

Isn't it shocking how the history of a nation can be distorted and falsified to suit one man's personal beliefs, to facilitate Christian missionary activity, and to help some people loot that nation more effectively? 

This resulted in the false narrative that pitted the Dravidians of the Harappan or Indus Valley civilization of 2500 BCE, against the Aryans of the Rig Vedic civilization who were baselessly claimed to have invaded India around 1500 BCE. Thus one integrated Sarasvati-Indus civilization was broken into two disparate civilizations to suit the divisive goals of Britishers. Knapp's (2012) "Advancements of Ancient India’s Vedic Culture: The Planet’s Earliest Civilization and How it Influenced the World" provides an excellent summary of the fictitious Aryan migration theory. The Aryan migration theory has been the foundation for all breaking-India forces till now. Max Muller, the creator of the Aryan invasion theory, later disowned it, but by then the falsehood was strongly established.

Many people have the unscientific habit of questioning new beliefs without questioning current beliefs. Even a new belief that has much more evidence backing it than the current belief has, will be simply resisted. So, when a powerful coalition of people establishes a narrative, it becomes nearly impossible to change or even question that narrative. Such is the fate of Indian history. Falsehood continues.

What is India's Core, Like Existence-in-Water is to Fish?

What is India's core, like existence-in-water is to fish, that which defines her identity among nations?

Knowledge consists of two parts. Studying the world as an object is the first half of knowledge. We use the word 'thing' to refer to an object in this world. Chairs, tables, trees, plants, the sun, the moon, the stars, etc., are all things. This is physical science or the knowledge of sensory data, objective data brought by the senses from the world outside. This is called materialism, vyavahārika, or lower knowledge (Ranganathananda, 2005).

When we study objects in physical science, what about the subject, the one that studies, the observer that observes? Turning our searchlight in that direction is the second half of knowledge. What is this human being as the subject, as the knower? A new tool is needed to probe into this field, using subjective datum from subjective experience, since one cannot know the knower. This cannot be studied objectively like studying the world of objects. This is also a science, a study of That which impinges upon us at the sensory level coming from beyond that level. This is called self-inquiry, spirituality, paramārthika, or higher knowledge. Swami Ranganathananda (2005) provides a compelling argument about how the latest scientific discoveries have made it grossly inadequate and unscientific to confine oneself to only the lower knowledge.

India has specialized in this investigation into the self, the subject. The higher knowledge is the core feature of India. Nowhere else in the world has such a systematic investigation into the self or subject been done. Experts on Indian thought and culture hold that investigation of the internal world is the distinguishing aspect of India. Self-inquiry sets India apart from other nations in the world.

Radhakrishnan ("Indian philosophy: Vol 1" p. 28) wrote: The philosophic attempt to determine the nature of reality may start either with the thinking self or the objects of thought. In India, the interest is in the self of man. Where the vision is turned outward, the rush of fleeting events engages the mind. In India, "know the self," sums up the law and the prophets. Within man is the spirit that is the centre of everything.

Swami Vivekananda (Complete Works Vol 3: 108-109) said: “Everyone born into this world has a bent, a direction towards which he must go, through which he must live, and what is true of the individual is equally true of the race. Each race, similarly, has a peculiar bent, each race has a peculiar raison d'être, each race has a peculiar mission to fulfil in the life of the world... Political greatness or military power is never the mission of our race; it never was, and, mark my words, it never will be. But there has been the other mission given to us, which is to conserve, to preserve, to accumulate, as it were, into a dynamo, all the spiritual energy of the race, and that concentrated energy is to pour forth in a deluge on the world whenever circumstances are propitious. Let the Persian or the Greek, the Roman, the Arab, or the Englishman march his battalions, conquer the world, and link the different nations together, and the philosophy and spirituality of India is ever ready to flow along the new-made channels into the veins of the nations of the world... India's gift to the world is the light spiritual.”

Radhakrishnan ("Indian philosophy: Vol 1" p. 23) wrote: Each nation has its own characteristic mentality, its particular intellectual bent. In all the fleeting centuries of history, in all the vicissitudes through which India has passed, a certain marked identity is visible. She has held fast to certain psychological traits which constitute her special heritage, and they will be the characteristic mark of the Indian people so long as they are privileged to have a separate existence.

Dasgupta ("A history of Indian philosophy: Vol 1" page viii) wrote: "It is not in the history of foreign invasions, in the rise of independent kingdoms at different times, in the empires of this or that great monarch that the unity of India is to be sought. It is essentially one of spiritual aspirations and obedience to the law of the spirit, which were regarded as superior to everything else, and it has outlived all the political changes through which India passed."

Swami Vivekananda (Complete Works Vol 3: 288-289) said: "When the life-blood is strong and pure, no disease germ can live in that body. Our life-blood is spirituality. If it flows clear, if it flows strong and pure and vigorous, everything is right; political, social, any other material defects, even the poverty of the land, will all be cured if that blood is pure... That is the life of our race and that must be strengthened. You have withstood the shocks of centuries simply because you took great care of it, you sacrificed everything else for it... That is the national mind, that is the national life-current. Follow it and it leads to glory. Give it up and you die; death will be the only result, annihilation the only effect, the moment you step beyond that life-current."

Inquiry into the self or subject is for India like existence-in-water is for fish. Can one understand fish if its existence-in-water is excluded, if it is treated like an animal on land, and studied?