[world-vedic] Arise, O India Of The Ages

[Guest guest]

Francois Gautier

Arise O India Of The Ages

 

The West has lost the truth. We have lost the Great Sense, the meaning

of our evolution, of why so much suffering, why dying, why getting

born, why this earth, who are we, what is the soul, what is

reincarnation, where is the ultimate truth about the universe... But

India has kept this truth. India has preserved it through seven

millennium of pitfalls, of genocides and attempts at throttling her

Sanatan Dharma.

 

And this will be India's gift to this planet during the next century:

to restore to the world its true sense. to recharge humanity with the

real meaning and spirit of life. India will become the spiritual leader

of the world, as India's Great Sage, Sri Aurobindo, had predicted

nearly a century ago : "It is this religion that I am raising-up before

the world, it is this that I have perfected and developed through the

Rishis, saints, and Avatars, and now it is going forth to do my work

among the nations. I am raising forth this nation to send forth my

word...When therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the

Sanatan Dharma that shall rise, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall be

great. When it is said that India shall expand and extend herself, it

is the Sanatan Dharma that shall expand and extend itself over the

world. It is for the Dharma and by the Dharma that India exists".

(India's Rebirth. p. 46 -Uttara speech)

 

And one is tempted to shout in the ears of all those "secular",

cynical, westernised, Indians of today, the eternal mantra: "Rise up, O

India of the Vedic ages. Thou livest in the hearts of all thy people.

Rise up O Westernised "secular" India, because thou art also the true

India. Realise in your hearts the genius of the country which is yours.

Stop comparing it to a civilisation, which is crumbling and cease

equating it with parameters that are not hers. Wake up to the greatness

of thy country. Not only the past greatness, which thou seekest to

repossess in its music or in its temples, but the greatness that IS,

there, waiting to be grasped again, waiting to be brought down

concretely. Rise up O India, to the greatness that IS in you. Rise up O

true India".

 

Ah, we are coming back again full circle to the wonder that WAS India,

the India of the Vedas and the Upanishad, which A.L. Basham, the

best-selling author of "The Wonder That Was India", criticised as being

militant and politically disunited. But the truth was that they were

united in their diversity, that it was much more democratic and allowed

much more freeplay and freedom, individually and collectively, than the

India of today allows. Let us again reread history, let us look at

India, not through the Western prism, but with the ancient wisdom that

She has bestowed upon us.

 

For indeed, this is one of the most amazing paradoxes of today's world:

here you have a country, India, which rates today as one of the poorest

on this planet, which is disregarded by most Western nations (and many

of its own people), as irrelevant, backward, too bureaucratic - and

lately, as a hotbed of Hindu fundamentalism. Yet, India holds the key

to the world's future. For India is the only nation which still

preserves in the darkness of Her Himalayan caves, on the luminous ghats

of Benares, in the hearts of her countless yogis, or even in the minds

of her ordinary folk, the key to the planetary evolution, its future

and its hope. This knowledge which once roamed the shores of the world

from Egypt to China, is today lost everywhere. Europe has now entered a

turbulent Age; it will take a long time before it unites in spite of

the near uniformity of its races and religions. The West, in its thirst

for materialism, does not know anymore where it stands and has lost

this precious knowledge, which India still holds, alone in the world.

 

The 21st century then, will be the era of the East; this is where the

sun is going to rise again, after centuries of decadence and submission

to Western colonialism; this is where the focus of the world is going

to shift. And as when India used to shine and send forth Her Dharma all

over the Orient: Japan, Thailand, China, Burma, or Cambodia and

influence their civilisations and religions for centuries to come, once

more She will emit Her light and radiate, Queen among nations: "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 peoples.

And that which She must seek now to awake, is not an anglicised

oriental people, docile pupil of the West and doomed to repeat the

cycle of the Occident's success and failure, but still the ancient

immemorial Shakti recovering Her deepest self, lifting Her head higher

towards the supreme source of light and strength and turning to

discover the complete meaning and vaster form of Her Dharma." (Sri

Aurobindo).

 

But for that India has to succeed in her attempt to liberalise her

economy, it has to learn to decentralise the heavy hand of its

Government in Delhi, it has to rewrite its Constitution, which it

adapted blindly from the British, it has to re-indianise her education

methods, reform her political system, which has made a mockery of

democracy… In one word, She has to become a superpower on par with any

European nation. Then, when it will have the respect and the attention

of the West, can Her message of spirituality and the ancient wisdom of

Sanatan Dharma, once again shine forth and bring down a New World to

this beleaguered planet, which is on the brink of self-destruction.