India's Priceless Heritage !!!!!!

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India is eternal, everlasting. Though the beginnings of her numerous

civilizations go so far back in time that they are lost in the

twilight of history, she has the gift of perpetual youth. Her

culture is ageless and is as relevant to our twentieth century as it

was to the twentieth century before Christ. Dr Arnold Toynbee, after

surveying the story of the entire human race, observed:

 

"It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western

beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it not to end the

self-destruction of the human race…At this supremely dangerous moment

in human history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian

way-Emperor Ashoka's and Mahatma Gandhi's principle of non-violence

and Sri Ramakrishna's testimony to the harmony of religions. Here we

have an attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human

race to grow together into a single family-and, in the Atomic Age,

this is the only alternative to destroying ourselves."

 

Here, Toynbee echoes the ideal placed before mankind by India's

ancient Rishis-Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam-"The World is One Family."

 

The golden voices of ancient India have come to us down the ages in

unbroken continuity through countless Rishis and Saints-some of them

world famous and some of them nameless. Our culture, which is

primarily concerned with spiritual development, is of special

significance in our age, which is marked by the obsolescence of the

materialistic civilization. In the words of Sri Aurobindo, "India of

the ages is not dead, nor has she spoken her last creative word; she

lives and has still something to do for herself and the human race."

 

Ancient Indians laid the foundations of mathematical and scientific

knowledge. They measured both time and space and mapped out the

heavens. They analyzed the constitution of matter and understood the

nature of the spirit. They conceived and developed the sciences of

logic and grammar and made great advances in fields so divergent as

anatomy and astronomy, philosophy and physics, medicine and

mathematics.

 

There is no doubt that a part of the knowledge of our ancient sages

was derived by the process of intuition. While their knowledge was

intuitive, ours is derivative, imitative and repetitive.

 

It has been my long-standing conviction that India is like a donkey

carrying a sack of gold-the donkey does not know what it is carrying

but is content to go along with the load on its back.

 

The load of gold is the fantastic treasure-in arts, literature,

culture, and some sciences like Ayurvedic medicine-which we have

inherited from the days of the splendour that was India. Adi

Sankaracharya called it "the accumulated treasure of spiritual truths

discovered by the Rishis." Rabindranath Tagore said, "India is

destined to be the teacher of all lands."

 

To Sri Aurobindo, Mother India is not a piece of earth; she is a

Power, a Godhead. He predicted that India will be "the moral leader

of the world" and added:

 

"The Indians must have the firm faith that India must rise and be

great and that everything that happened, every difficulty, ever

reverse must help and further their end…The morning was at hand and

once the light had shown itself, it could never be night again. The

dawn would soon be complete and the sunrise over the horizon.

 

The richness of the Sanskrit language is almost beyond belief. Many

centuries ago that language contained words to describe states of the

conscious, the subconscious and the unconscious mind and a variety of

other concepts, which have been evolved by modern psychology,

psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Further, it has many a word, of

which there is no exact synonym even in the richest modern

languages. That is why some of the most enlightened modern writers

have been driven occasionally to use Sanskrit words when writing in

English. Consider, for example the following passage in Dr. Raynor

Johnson's The Imprisoned Splendour:

 

"To facilitate discussion I propose to call this higher level buddhi

(coming from a Sanskrit word meaning `wisdom'). Buddhi apprehends

Truth directly-fragments of truth only, ofcourse. It offers no

reason for its perceptions, but it makes no mistakes, and this wisdom

is passed through the level of Mind, to be there clothed in

intelligible form."

 

THE SPIRIT: Supreme and Infinite:

 

The most fundamental of all fundamental principles is that a Spirit,

supreme and unchanging, pervades the entire universe and the material

world is merely a manifestation of that Spirit. More than three

thousand years ago, India perceived this principle even more clearly,

and understood its implications even more deeply, than the most

highly civilized nations do today. You may call it a principle or

evolution or consciousness or God.

 

One of the lessons of the Upanishads is that you must regard "the

universe as a thought in the mind of its Creator, thereby reducing

all discussion of material

 

creation to futility." The Upanishads teach that both space and time

are endless or infinite. Modern science completely agrees.

 

BRAHMAN: The All-Pervading Reality:

 

In the entire history of human knowledge, there has been no concept

greater or deeper than the concept of Brahman evolved by ancient

India. There is a unity underlying the entire creation. All parts

are related to and interdependent on one another. Brahman is the

ultimate and all-pervading reality: the inner essence of all things.

Einstein worked for decades on the Unified Theory, an aspect of

Brahman.

 

Emerson was fascinated by the concept of Brahman:

 

"All science is transcendental or else passes away. Botany is now

acquiring the right theory-the avatars of Brahman will presently be

the text-books of natural history."

 

The basic oneness of the universe, which was a part of the mystical

experience of the Indian sages, is one of the most important

revelations of modern physics.

 

The Upanishads had taught the same lesson of the subject and the

object fusing into a unified undifferentiated whole. Greater wisdom

was never compressed into three words than by the Chandogya

Upanishad, which proclaimed the true Self of man as part of the

Infinite Spirit-tat tvam asi: "That Thou Art".

 

Sri Aurobindo speaks about "a subtle change which makes the sight see

in a sort of fourth dimension." The intuition of Indian mystics led

them to understand the multidimensional reality and the space-time

continuum, which is the basis of the modern theory of relativity.

 

Our Purblind Senses:

 

Another of the basic lessons of our culture is that what is perceived

by our eyes and other senses and is comprehended by our brain as

distinct from our spirit, is not even a fraction of the ultimate

reality.

 

One mystical experience can teach you more than a lifetime of

research in a laboratory or of reading in a library. The spirit can

perceive and understand what our imperfect brain and limited senses

never can.

 

All matter is nothing but energy:

 

Dynamism is the great law of the universe. Change and movement occur

eternally, symbolized by Shiva's Dance.

 

To the Rishis the divine play was the evolution of the cosmos through

countless aeons. They understood the staggering scale of the divine

play. Many centuries later the scientific mind still boggles at the

scale of creation, which makes infinity intelligible. The vastest

knowledge of today cannot transcend the buddhi of the Rishis; and

science, in its most advanced stage, is closer to Vedanta than ever

before.

 

The summit of civilization:

 

Some of the most luminous periods in human history are those in which

various civilizations flowered in India.

 

The Upanishads are crammed with thoughts that wander through

eternity. Their message is that there is far more to life than

success, and far more to success than money; and there can be no

higher destiny for man than to be engaged in endless seeking after

endless truth.

 

The countless psychiatric clinics today in Western countries are a

grim reminder that a materialistic civilization can never satisfy the

hunger of the soul. Carl G. Jung observed that during his practice of

over sixty years he had never come across a person who had spiritual

faith and strength and who yet needed the attention of a

psychiatrist. No tranquilizer can enable you to cope with strains

and stresses and tensions as effectively as the boundless reservoir

of the Spirit.

 

Indian dharma emphasized self-restraint. It taught compassion by the

strong towards the weak. It inculcated the value of suppression of

immediate gratification for the more distant, but more rewarding,

goals of national glory and progress.

 

Above all, Indian culture encouraged the cultivation of the

intellect, not as a commodity for sale in the market –place, but for

the inner joy experienced by the questioning mind.

 

The quintessence of Indian Dharma:

 

It would be hard to improve upon the sense of values, which made

ancient India so great. Our old sages judged the greatness of a State

not by the extent of its empire or by the size of its wealth, but by

the degree of righteousness and justice, which marked the public

administration, and the private lives of the citizens. Their

timeless teaching was that man's true progress is to be judged by

moral and spiritual standards, and not by material or physical

standards. Sacrifice was far more important than success; and

renunciation was regarded as the crowning achievement. The citizen

ranked in society, not according to wealth or power, but according to

the standard of learning, virtue and character, which he had

attained. The finest example of that is the well-known story of

Emperor Asoka, a true follower of Buddha, making it an invariable

practice to bow in reverence before Buddhist monks.

 

Dharma dictates that the highest life is the life is service to one's

kind. Swami Vivekananda observed: " The highest truth is this: God

is present in all beings. They are His multiple forms. There is no

other God to seek…The first of all worships is the worship of those

all around us…He alone serves God who serves all other beings."

 

Karma and reincarnation:

 

The law of karma, of which the essence may be described as the law of

moral causation, is one of the most profound contributions to human

thought. The human race will have to evolve over many generations,

probably centuries, before the realization of the full significance

of karma leads to peace and justice on earth.

 

The law of karma postulates that in this world there are no rewards

or punishments; it is simply a case of inevitable consequences. As

you sow, so shall you reap. Sometimes others reap what you have

sown. There is an inter-linking and interconnection all round and at

every level, in time and space. No one lives, or can possibly live,

in isolation. The past is linked to the future, this world to the

next, men to their fellow-men, thoughts to actions, actions to

reactions, the living spirits to the departed ones. The law of karma

governs all.

 

Reincarnation is inter-linked with karma: successive lives afford the

requisite scope in which the law of karma operates.

 

Freedom and tolerance:

 

India has had an unrivalled tradition of religious freedom and

tolerance. That tradition was born of the consciousness that truth

can never be the monopoly of any one sect or creed. The words of the

Rig Veda are world famous:

 

"Let noble thoughts come to us from every side."

 

Ahimsa, peace and non-aggression were the hallmarks of Indian

culture. In her crowded history of over five thousand years during

which she had thrown up vast and puissant empires, India never

practiced military aggression on countries outside her borders.

 

In these days of spiritual illiteracy and poverty of the spirit, it

is necessary to remind ourselves that civilization is an act of the

spirit. Material progress is not to be mistaken for inner progress.

Our ancient heritage is a potent antidote to the current tendency to

standardize souls and seek salvation in herds.

 

Centuries have gone by but the lustre of that heritage remains

undimmed. Invading forced have descended on this country but its

culture has remained indestructible.

 

C. Rajagopalachari observed: "If there is any honesty in India today,

any hospitality, any chastity, any philanthropy, any tenderness to

the dumb creatures, any aversion to evil, any love to do good, it is

due to whatever remains of the old faith and the old culture.

 

The old faith and the old culture referred to by Rajaji are not

merely for Hindus, not merely for India but for the whole world.

Schelling, in his old age, thought the Upanishads was the maturest

wisdom of mankind. Today that wisdom is essential not only for the

rebirth of the Indian nation but also the re-education of the human

race.

 

Extracts from "India's Priceless Heritage"

 

By N.A. Palkhiwala., A Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan Publication.

 

Summarized and Presented by Anand Shankar Pandya.