An unexpected six month tour in the British Empire and other moments in history
[For the record. This is a stub that never saw completion, which will explain its incoherent character. As people following this blog will have observed, there has been a rather long silence over the past few months. There are numerous reasons for it, and some are explained herein. On the whole, I have come to the conclusion that this was all a kind of preparation for my visit to Canada from May 29 to Sept. 9. More about that later.]
Recently I saw an article on a left-leaning blog criticizing the "apologists" for Western culture and civilization, in particular Steven Pinker and his "Enlightenment Now." Jordan Peterson, to whom I have also written about favorably once or twice is also a part of this group that is now being called the "New Optimists." Even in the face of the current crises that threaten the human world, I consider myself an optimist, an "old optimist" of the spiritual sort.
I have been watching a lot of YouTube lately, engaged in what I have heard called "binge watching," British television especially. It is all a rather strange paradox in view of my good fortune at being in Vrindavan and the the way I had been thinking in terms of the identity sadhana.
I hadn't been writing on the blog partly because of other preoccupations, but also in part because of a bewilderment about this development. Like any addiction, it saps one of creativity in the short run, though in creative people, it is like a hibernation in tamo-guna that gestates the next illuminations. It is frankly embarrassing and the tendency for me is to worry about it, as it has been functioning as an addiction, which leads to guilt about a lack of self-control. On the other hand, in a strange kind of acquiescence to God's will, I have mostly been ignoring these admonishments from my conscience. The acquiescence to God's will is based on its inscrutability.
As my concentration on other activities deteriorated, I often wondered when this particular side trip would come to an end, when whatever lesson this education in the world via YouTube can be considered complete.
No doubt, it was present in my subconscious that I would have to go back to Canada this summer for a new visa. My other returns to the West after long stays in India have always been accompanied by a re-acclimatization through gorging on TV. Now, by the miracles of modern communications, one can have access to a huge library of films and TV programs going back to the earliest days.
This sudden detour into the virtual West also followed on from the work I was and [still am] doing on Bhaktivinoda Thakur's life. With Krishnadas's help, I had just reached the end of revising the translation and doing a bit of basic historical research into names and places and had come to writing the introduction, which was supposed to be something that could be jotted off in a couple of hours. But all progress suddenly came to a halt, At the same time I stopped posting on the blog. Other than the Sanskrit course at Jiva, I was spending most of my time in the English-language world of global media.
Evidently the block I was having with the introduction was stirring up something a lot deeper than could be dealt with by writing a few broad, socially appropriate bromides. Basically, I did not know what I was doing and simply went on observing the entertainments of the Anglosphere. If I wrote down anything at all, it was only with great strain. But I also lost interest in continuing to read Bhaktivinoda's work. The work seems to be going on in the underworld only.
In the beginning, I was catching up on the history of the Raj, but in a way it was all a reintroduction to the deep strands of my own Britishness, as I was born a post-WWII child growing up in London before the family moved to Canada when I was seven. My being born a British Subject seemed to open up a line of contact between me and Bhaktivinoda Thakur, across the centuries. He was, after all, a child of the Raj, one of the those who had made the Empire great by "agreeing to be governed."
This was one of the subjects I had found curious about the Thakur. How could he convert to Vaishnavism, after having been such an Anglophile, such a lover of European literature, science, philosophy and religious thought, such an admirer of British efficiency and commitment to "the rule of law," "good governance" and other such progressive Enlightenment ideals that were in good currency in the circles he frequented as a student. It seems he was getting a good dose of "Western civilization" and moreover, considered it to be good. This is especially reflected in his earlier writings in which he talks about thought being progressive and how one should be a seeker of essences rather than carrying the burden of literal belief in the superstructures of mythology and dubious history.
One approach I took in the introduction was to use, as many already have, Macaulay's minute as the starting point. [See this article I wrote about "Oreos."] It was the "Bengal Renaissance" when the influence of European ideas made the maximum impact on the Bengali world. By the time Bhaktivinoda came to his retirement age, however, he had come to a rather different position vis-a-vis the British and "Western civilization." He did not see a Western or Eastern civilization, but one global civilization, whose many strands were like rivers entering the ocean of human perfection in spiritual self-realization.
Recently I saw an article on a left-leaning blog criticizing the "apologists" for Western culture and civilization, in particular Steven Pinker and his "Enlightenment Now." Jordan Peterson, to whom I have also written about favorably once or twice is also a part of this group that is now being called the "New Optimists." Even in the face of the current crises that threaten the human world, I consider myself an optimist, an "old optimist" of the spiritual sort.
I have been watching a lot of YouTube lately, engaged in what I have heard called "binge watching," British television especially. It is all a rather strange paradox in view of my good fortune at being in Vrindavan and the the way I had been thinking in terms of the identity sadhana.
I hadn't been writing on the blog partly because of other preoccupations, but also in part because of a bewilderment about this development. Like any addiction, it saps one of creativity in the short run, though in creative people, it is like a hibernation in tamo-guna that gestates the next illuminations. It is frankly embarrassing and the tendency for me is to worry about it, as it has been functioning as an addiction, which leads to guilt about a lack of self-control. On the other hand, in a strange kind of acquiescence to God's will, I have mostly been ignoring these admonishments from my conscience. The acquiescence to God's will is based on its inscrutability.
As my concentration on other activities deteriorated, I often wondered when this particular side trip would come to an end, when whatever lesson this education in the world via YouTube can be considered complete.
No doubt, it was present in my subconscious that I would have to go back to Canada this summer for a new visa. My other returns to the West after long stays in India have always been accompanied by a re-acclimatization through gorging on TV. Now, by the miracles of modern communications, one can have access to a huge library of films and TV programs going back to the earliest days.
This sudden detour into the virtual West also followed on from the work I was and [still am] doing on Bhaktivinoda Thakur's life. With Krishnadas's help, I had just reached the end of revising the translation and doing a bit of basic historical research into names and places and had come to writing the introduction, which was supposed to be something that could be jotted off in a couple of hours. But all progress suddenly came to a halt, At the same time I stopped posting on the blog. Other than the Sanskrit course at Jiva, I was spending most of my time in the English-language world of global media.
Evidently the block I was having with the introduction was stirring up something a lot deeper than could be dealt with by writing a few broad, socially appropriate bromides. Basically, I did not know what I was doing and simply went on observing the entertainments of the Anglosphere. If I wrote down anything at all, it was only with great strain. But I also lost interest in continuing to read Bhaktivinoda's work. The work seems to be going on in the underworld only.
In the beginning, I was catching up on the history of the Raj, but in a way it was all a reintroduction to the deep strands of my own Britishness, as I was born a post-WWII child growing up in London before the family moved to Canada when I was seven. My being born a British Subject seemed to open up a line of contact between me and Bhaktivinoda Thakur, across the centuries. He was, after all, a child of the Raj, one of the those who had made the Empire great by "agreeing to be governed."
This was one of the subjects I had found curious about the Thakur. How could he convert to Vaishnavism, after having been such an Anglophile, such a lover of European literature, science, philosophy and religious thought, such an admirer of British efficiency and commitment to "the rule of law," "good governance" and other such progressive Enlightenment ideals that were in good currency in the circles he frequented as a student. It seems he was getting a good dose of "Western civilization" and moreover, considered it to be good. This is especially reflected in his earlier writings in which he talks about thought being progressive and how one should be a seeker of essences rather than carrying the burden of literal belief in the superstructures of mythology and dubious history.
One approach I took in the introduction was to use, as many already have, Macaulay's minute as the starting point. [See this article I wrote about "Oreos."] It was the "Bengal Renaissance" when the influence of European ideas made the maximum impact on the Bengali world. By the time Bhaktivinoda came to his retirement age, however, he had come to a rather different position vis-a-vis the British and "Western civilization." He did not see a Western or Eastern civilization, but one global civilization, whose many strands were like rivers entering the ocean of human perfection in spiritual self-realization.
One reason Bhaktivinoda Thakur has become a worthwhile subject of study academically is precisely because he is a part of the narrative of the development of Hindu self-consciousness during the Raj.
[The Journal of Vaishnava Studies (2014) had a complete issue dealing with BVT on the 100th anniversary of his entering nitya-Nabadwip, as well as numerous other articles discussing his role as a "Hindu" (more accurately a Vaishnava convert) dealing with the challenges of modernity.]
Though the British finally left India with an appropriate dramatic destructive flourish, apres nous le deluge and all that, the British Empire was in fact only the first draft of a globalization process that continues inexorably and ever more intensely. Globalization did not leave India with the departure of the British, though Gandhi's resistance persisted for the first couple of decades in the post-Independence period. But now India has pretty much surrendered fully to the tail end of the Zeitgeist. Even the nationalists have decided to construct a national identity rooted in India's unique history in the faith that it will not be submerged, by the seemingly unlimited inter-connectivity and global economic competition, but rather enhanced by it. The current ascendancy of the BJP goes on despite the large segment of the elite globalized society that considers the loss of Indian identity or "genius" as no real loss at all. That is where we are now.
When we first encountered Prabhupada half a century ago, he found a segment of the youth that was already undermined, demoralized, and skeptical about the glorious achievements of Western civilization. He even cited Gandhi's famous line about Western civilization, that it would be a "good idea," and we believed him. On the other hand, his disciples, have our ups and downs, periods of faith and doubt about the superiority of Indian civilization, but at least for a time there Prabhupada had us convinced that it was the epitome of human development. India was a culture that had evolved around the principles of yoga, the idea of spiritual self-realization as the real purpose of human life. India's science and technology, its application of human reason, revolved mostly around explorations of the spiritual potentials of this human body and human culture. India was the land that had been blessed by the appearance of many avatars, saints and rishis. Prabhupada told us that whatever changes had taken place in India, and whatever the deterioration in the ancient traditions, India's spiritual undercurrents still flow there beneath the surface. Nevertheless, an inability to appreciate Indian culture in all its complexity is one reason for the existence of a "Krishna West," where the omnivorous Western culture takes only the essence and discards the rest.
My own presence in India is itself -- like the billions of other life stories in today's world -- a tiny part of the globalizing process. Indeed, when I started Vrindavan Today, it was partly as a recognition of that and recognizing that if Vrindavan were to develop in the global village, it would need to be done an intelligent way that took into account a globalized Hinduism. In other words, there has to be a reverse movement of influence, so that the genius of Hindu and Vaishnava spiritual culture can enhance the experience of human life globally. It was this that Bhaktivinoda Thakur contributed to in his time as much as Vivekananda or Yogananda, and has now arguably outstripped them all.
[Just to share an anecdote here: After I left Iskcon in 1980, I came to live in the old town of Nabadwip, on the other side from Mayapur. I lived in a place called "Judge Bari" because it had been built by a judge from East Bengal for his wife, a devotee of Mahaprabhu. Part of the property had been given over to a temple, which was now inhabited by the owner's mad brother, and a small enclosure that was the home of the brahmins who had served the deity on the estate.
The current owner was Radha Binode Majumdar, who had served the municipality as the chief bureaucrat for many decades. He was a kindly man who spoke good English and was himself an Anglophile. Towards the end of my five years living there, I talk to Radha Binode Babu and he let it be known that he had generously given us -- Madhusudan and me -- free accommodation out of a curiosity to observe some real foreigners up close. I don't know what he had expected, but I think that we disappointed him. I need not list the kinds of foolishness that merited his disappointment. We did not fit his image of the disciplined British ruler that he had perhaps hoped for.
I look at the West with a mixture of admiration and horror.
[The Journal of Vaishnava Studies (2014) had a complete issue dealing with BVT on the 100th anniversary of his entering nitya-Nabadwip, as well as numerous other articles discussing his role as a "Hindu" (more accurately a Vaishnava convert) dealing with the challenges of modernity.]
Though the British finally left India with an appropriate dramatic destructive flourish, apres nous le deluge and all that, the British Empire was in fact only the first draft of a globalization process that continues inexorably and ever more intensely. Globalization did not leave India with the departure of the British, though Gandhi's resistance persisted for the first couple of decades in the post-Independence period. But now India has pretty much surrendered fully to the tail end of the Zeitgeist. Even the nationalists have decided to construct a national identity rooted in India's unique history in the faith that it will not be submerged, by the seemingly unlimited inter-connectivity and global economic competition, but rather enhanced by it. The current ascendancy of the BJP goes on despite the large segment of the elite globalized society that considers the loss of Indian identity or "genius" as no real loss at all. That is where we are now.
When we first encountered Prabhupada half a century ago, he found a segment of the youth that was already undermined, demoralized, and skeptical about the glorious achievements of Western civilization. He even cited Gandhi's famous line about Western civilization, that it would be a "good idea," and we believed him. On the other hand, his disciples, have our ups and downs, periods of faith and doubt about the superiority of Indian civilization, but at least for a time there Prabhupada had us convinced that it was the epitome of human development. India was a culture that had evolved around the principles of yoga, the idea of spiritual self-realization as the real purpose of human life. India's science and technology, its application of human reason, revolved mostly around explorations of the spiritual potentials of this human body and human culture. India was the land that had been blessed by the appearance of many avatars, saints and rishis. Prabhupada told us that whatever changes had taken place in India, and whatever the deterioration in the ancient traditions, India's spiritual undercurrents still flow there beneath the surface. Nevertheless, an inability to appreciate Indian culture in all its complexity is one reason for the existence of a "Krishna West," where the omnivorous Western culture takes only the essence and discards the rest.
My own presence in India is itself -- like the billions of other life stories in today's world -- a tiny part of the globalizing process. Indeed, when I started Vrindavan Today, it was partly as a recognition of that and recognizing that if Vrindavan were to develop in the global village, it would need to be done an intelligent way that took into account a globalized Hinduism. In other words, there has to be a reverse movement of influence, so that the genius of Hindu and Vaishnava spiritual culture can enhance the experience of human life globally. It was this that Bhaktivinoda Thakur contributed to in his time as much as Vivekananda or Yogananda, and has now arguably outstripped them all.
[Just to share an anecdote here: After I left Iskcon in 1980, I came to live in the old town of Nabadwip, on the other side from Mayapur. I lived in a place called "Judge Bari" because it had been built by a judge from East Bengal for his wife, a devotee of Mahaprabhu. Part of the property had been given over to a temple, which was now inhabited by the owner's mad brother, and a small enclosure that was the home of the brahmins who had served the deity on the estate.
The current owner was Radha Binode Majumdar, who had served the municipality as the chief bureaucrat for many decades. He was a kindly man who spoke good English and was himself an Anglophile. Towards the end of my five years living there, I talk to Radha Binode Babu and he let it be known that he had generously given us -- Madhusudan and me -- free accommodation out of a curiosity to observe some real foreigners up close. I don't know what he had expected, but I think that we disappointed him. I need not list the kinds of foolishness that merited his disappointment. We did not fit his image of the disciplined British ruler that he had perhaps hoped for.
I look at the West with a mixture of admiration and horror.
Comments
I find the glimpses of your ubermenshish mind fascinating, but i am a bit shocked about your belief in face reading. I think the belief in the telling nature of how one looks gets fortified by belief in karma. The psychological effects of the belief in karma should be studied by psychologists. For example, people who believe in karma are probably more likely to believe statements like, "he walks with a limp because he has a twisted soul".
Seeing physical appearance as a result of karma provides a justification for judging by the way people look. This way of thinking privileges the past over the future - We may look a certain way due to past karma but our physical body also plays a role in helping us to learn certain lessons (in the present and future), so an unfortunate physical appearance may be fortunate in terms of spiritual development. Also, we are biologically driven to favour certain physical bodies - the drive to physical perfection causes prejudices that are very hard to overcome due to the innate fear of weakness and imperfection.
In the case of modi, it is Thakurji's arrangement, that (for whatever reasons mostly beyond our comprehension) he has a kind of rugged good looks. However, admitting that you would vote for him because he looks honest (although it is obvious to me that you are not being entirely serious when saying this) does not seem befitting of someone with your education.
Another problem with face reading is that it privileges the factors that we can see over the factors we cant see - we cant see a persons past or future so we dont know what lessons they will learn from having a particular physical form; also, we cant see the multitude of factors that go into the melting pot that makes everything happen on this earth - we just call it 'karmo ka phal' which seems somewhat simplistic given that we all have to exist together and can never get out of this karmic mess, except with the help of divine intervention.
jive daya krishna nama, sarva dharma sara.
Yes, I was being a little tongue-in-cheek about Modi. Good faces are rare in Indian politics. I know, I see enough of them in Vrindavan.
My education about face-reading came from my mother. Try this: Take a photo of a person, anyone. Now get a flat edged mirror and place the edge over the middle of the person's face so that you see one half of the face together with its reflection. Now do the same on the other side. Now you have two faces, not one. This will reveal how your subject is two-faced. One side sweet, the other tormented?
"With realisation of what is (the pure refreshing light of the void), all attachment to illusion (the blind loss of consciousness) is broken."
Gorakhbodhá, Verse 23.
Notes
पृच्छा (pṛicchā):
http://www.sanskrita.org/scans/visor.html?scan=645.gif
पृच् (pṛic) See 2:
http://www.sanskrita.org/scans/visor.html?scan=645.gif
छा (cha) See 3:
http://www.sanskrita.org/wiki/index.php?title=chA
माया (māyā'):
http://www.sanskrita.org/scans/visor.html?scan=811.gif
Wisdom, from Proto-Indo-European weyd “to see:”
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/weyd-
मोह (móha):
http://www.sanskrita.org/scans/visor.html?scan=836.gif