India cannot be studied, at the least one must soak it in, or at best must dissolve. This is the only way. It cannot be studied, western analysis of India is too off the mark, as symptomatic analysis of Bharat will only lead to very grossly misunderstood conclusions of a nation that revels and thrives in a chaos that is organic and exuberant.
This most ancient of nations upon this earth is not built upon a set of principles or beliefs or ambitions of its citizenry. It is a nation of seekers, seeking not wealth or wellbeing, but liberation, not of economic or political kind, but the ultimate liberation.
A Godless but a Devout nation. When I say Godless, we need to understand that this is the only culture that has given humans the freedom not just to make a choice of Gods, but to create the sort of God that you can relate to. When Adi Yogi was asked how many ways to enlightenment, he said only 112 if you are within the realm of your physical system, but if you transcend the physical, then every atom in the universe is a doorway. “Bharat”, as the nation has been known for many millennia, is a complex amalgamation of this variety of spiritual possibilities. If you happen to be at the Maha Kumbh, there was quite a display of this. The best compliment came from none other than Mark Twain, after his visit to India, he said, “So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.”
India is not a study, but a phenomenon of possibilities, though a cauldron of multiple cultural, ethnic, religious and linguistic soup. It is all held together by a single thread of seeking. The tremendous longing has been nurtured into the peoples of the land, the longing to be free. Free from the very process of life and death.
One must not forget that the basis of seeking is that One has realized that One does not know. One does not know the nature of One’s being. Instead of settling for a culturally convenient belief, for a whole populace to have the courage and commitment to seek the truth about themselves.
A nation that was conjured not in the minds of the ambitious, but by the sages, not for profit but in profoundness. Bharat is not to be seen as just another political entity, but as a gateway to the fulfillment of the innermost longings of the human creature. To preserve, protect and nurture the fundamental ethos of Bharat, the legacy of wisdom and unbridled exploration of life is a true gift to the Humanity as a whole. As a generation, this is an important responsibility that we should fulfill. Let not the limitless possibilities that the sages of this land explored and expounded be lost in religious bigotry and senseless simplistic dogmas.
The idea of nation has still not sunk into people’s minds and hearts. We have not done anything focused to build this. Nation building doesn’t just mean building infrastructure, it means building people. Keeping India as one nation is going to be a big challenge when economic prosperity happens because we have still not knitted the country as one. When people are poor they will somehow stick together, but once affluence comes divisions will invariably happen if we do not develop a certain integration of the nation through a cultural ethos.
In India, people speak, eat and even look different every hundred kilometers. So what is it that holds us together as one nation? Essentially it is a cultural and spiritual ethos which has held us together. In the last few decades this cultural fabric is being torn apart. Creating a strong cultural thread which binds all of us irrespective of religion, caste, creed or language is important if we want to move ahead as a nation.
Abt Kumbh Mela:
http://blog.ishafoundation.org/yoga-meditation/history-of-yoga/kumbha-mela-the-greatest-gathering/
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