TRANSFORMING
DEVELOPMENT
Exploring
Approaches to Development from Religious Perspectives
THE
HINDU PERSPECTIVE
by
Chander Khanna
International
Conference –
Soesterberg
,
Netherlands
October
15-17, 2007
I
Opening remarks
1
Honourable
Ineke Bakker, Dr. Margaret Mwaniki, Swami Aksharnanda and
distinguished delegates, I am
privileged to be here at a remarkable setting organised by
the Knowledge Centre for Religion and Development under the
auspices of - OIKOS, Cordaid, ICCO, the Islamic University
Rotterdam, Seva Network Foundation and the Institute of Social
Studies1. I am also very grateful to my
hosts, the Seva Network Foundation, for this opportunity to share
and to learn during the course of this three day conference so
that I may hopefully carry the message back to our colleagues both
in Canada and in India about the initiatives being taken here in
Soesterberg in the second conference of the series2 on
Transforming Development - Looking for New approaches by engaging
Faith Based Organisations.
2
The
2007 annual report of the United Nations on the progress to date
on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), midway between 2000 and
2105, gives mixed reviews with some goals being met and on target
while progress on the others lagging3.
However, despite some success in engaging Faith Based
Organisations in achieving the MDG targets, the full potential and
the intended benefit of this historical partnership is yet to be
realised.
3
We
have come a long way in engaging Faith Based Organisations in a
constructive dialogue at the Global level. In 1893, the then
Archbishop of Canterbury politely declined to attend the
Parliament of World Religions in Chicago on the grounds that, in
his personal view, the Christian faith could not confer equal
status to other lesser religions in a Parliament of Religions. To
be fair, he was not alone, for unbeknownst to him the Sultan of
Turkey and the head Priest of the Shinto Monastery in
Tokyo
echoed similar sentiments against the other two lesser faiths.
According to Dr. Diane Eck, Professor of religions studies at
Harvard, recognising plurality of religious claims as a profoundly
important fact of our world is no betrayal of one’s own faith4.
In 1998 his Holiness George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury,
and James D. Wolfensohn, then President of the World Bank, hosted
the first of three summits (the next two in 2000 and 2002)
inviting leading theologians and leaders of diverse faiths focused
on joint efforts to help attain the Millennium Development Goals5.
These meetings, between the high priests of finance and the high
priests period, were both memorable and inspirational in
that all participants expressed profound commitment to work
together in seeking solutions to poverty and social injustice
within the context of morality, compassion, ethics, human dignity,
and international solidarity -“a turning point for humanity”
as some called it.
4
For the first time in recent history, International
Development Agencies and the official aid organisations in many
Donor countries have made a paradigm shift in their thinking by
acknowledging that Material and Spiritual development are two
sides of the same coin and that one cannot succeed without the
other.
Throughout this phase, very incisive and thoughtful opinions and
policy guidelines have been
enunciated, among others, by the Centre on Migration, Policy and
Society (COMPAS)6, Centre for Development Studies, the World Faith Development
Dialogue and the Civil Society Forum both established by the World
Bank7, as well as
by our co-hosts the Institute of Social Studies8, (I note
Professor Gerry Harr is with us at the conference), and by
individual opinion makers like Katherine Marshall, Richard Marsh,
Lucy Keogh, Gerard Clarke, Wendy Tyndale to mention just a few. 9 Above
all, one has to applaud the initiative of the Dutch people, one of
the World’s highly respected, tolerant, generous and,
progressive societies in having created the Knowledge Centre for
Religion and Development.
5 While there is no
dearth of research material documenting the recent discourse on
the engagement of Faith Based Organisations in transforming
development initiatives, conspicuous by its absence to some extent
is the Hindu perspective due largely to two factors:
i)
The Hindu Aid
recipient population and the actors involved in developmental work
in this sub-group, though large in numbers, are geographically
concentrated in South Asia (primarily in India) and in a few
countries in the Caribbean.
ii)
The
possibility that to the International Development Agencies and
Civil Societies in Donor Countries, equally keen on tapping the
moral resources of the Hindu Faith Based Organisations, Hinduism
itself defies conventional norm of an organised religion, making
it difficult in identifying representative voices within the Hindu
faith community which can speak globally.
It has no founder, no beginning point, no one single prophet,
claims no hierarchical central authority – baffling indeed to a
casual observer used to seeing identifiable Founders, Prophets,
Messiahs, commandments, injunctions (often stern), prohibitions.
There are the deep philosophical speculations of the Upanishads10 and
the Darshanas11 (Schools of Philosophy), inspired by Vedic revelations,
containing some of the most original thoughts in the history of
human thought, which have had deep influence on Pythagoras, Yeats,
Schopenhauer, Aldous Huxley, Xuan Zang, Carl Jung, Einstein,
Schrodinger and Neils Bohr etc. On the other hand, one is
perplexed by the seemingly inextricable caste system and at what
appears to be rampant idol worshipping – Pantheism and
Polytheism run amok. Even though Hinduism is anything but
Polytheistic, as we shall discuss in a minute, a casual observer
nevertheless gets that impression from what he hears and sees.
So before we
focus on what we can learn or adapt from the Hindu perspective in
looking for new approaches to Development, let us briefly review
some of the key aspects of the Hindu religion.
II Hinduism – Some Key Aspects
1
To begin with, there is
no such thing as Hinduism. That being said, I can now sit down.
The
word Hindu was used by the invading armies of Alexander referring
to the people east of the
Indus
River
called Sindhu which the Greeks pronounced as Hindu.
However, for the sake of convenience, we shall continue to refer
to it as such in this presentation.
The correct phrase is Sanatan Dharma where Sanatan means Eternal
and Dharma being that which makes a thing or a being
what it is – thus it is the Dharma of fire to feel hot,
of ice to feel cold. Man, however, being more evolved is faced
with competing Dharmas as a child, as a parent, as a member of his
community, as a human being. In Hindu thought, there is no last
word of a prophet, no one set of rules which fit all people, in
all eras, at all times, in all circumstances. As the Bhagavad
Gita12 asserts, ultimately Man has to decide for himself alone
which of the higher Dharmas to follow in any given situation.13
2 Every culture, in order to flourish, must have certain
dominant central thoughts which can withstand the test of time,
and be independently verifiable in all eras by all people. The
Hindu faith has three dominant themes which have kept this longest
continuing culture alive and vibrant for thousands of years. These
central thoughts are:
a.
Macroscopically,
creation as a whole is animated by an intentionality, an Ultimate
Realty, and at the micro level a reflection of that same
Ultimate Realty animates the individual self.
b. Only
humans have the power of the intellect to academically grasp the
Unity between the individual self (Atman) and the Universal
Self (Param Atman) and the means to experience and to
ultimately transcend that Oneness.
c. Man’s aim should not be to reach Heaven or to avoid Hell, for
both are constructs of the human mind, but the recognition of the
separate existence of the Ultimate Reality (The Supreme Spirit)
from the world of matter and of the soul (individual spirit) from
the body and its senses.
These broad central themes14 accommodate
within them Monism, Dualism, Theism, Deism, Pantheism, Polytheism,
and Agnosticism. In which even Atheism has a place - it simply
means a delay, procrastination, something we are very good at.
To elaborate on these Central thoughts:
3 To speak about the Ultimate Reality is in itself a
paradox. As the Kena Upanishad says, ….if you think
you know well the truth about Ultimate Reality, know that you know
very little, for it is not known to those who think they know it
but to those who know they cannot know it in its entirety.15 One
of the most sublime Hymns of the Rig Veda, the Hymn to Creation16,
speaks of this certitude….. “Before there was Being or
non-being, before Death or Immortality, before Space or even Time,
when Darkness was concealed within Darkness…. who could say when
or why it all came to be... surely the gods would not know for
they are the later creations of man’s imagination... perhaps He
in the highest Heaven would know, but who amongst us can say
with certainty what even He knows.”17 This
is not to suggest disrespect to the Prophets in the more recent
religions, for even amongst some Hindus there is a notion of Deity
itself having descended to Earth - not once but nine times and
still counting.18
4 This Ultimate Reality of a thousand names or of no name
(Deep Silence), One without a Second, is explained by the sages
and the Prophets in many ways from different perspectives.19 In
its unmanifest state, it cannot be defined, described, thought of,
inferred, proved or disproved by logic or debate20 prompting one Vedic Seer to use the power of negation – Neti,
neti, neti...not this, not this21 exhausting
all human attempts at describing the indescribable. For any
description of the Infinite by the finite, including by the
Prophets, the Sages, and the Realised Souls is partial,
incomplete. The Sanskrit word for Religion is Matam which
means opinion. Thus every Prophet expresses his opinion explaining
relationship with Ultimate Reality from his or her viewpoint
relevant to the people of his time. Even as this fullness
is a part of that fullness, and even if this was
three quarters of that, that is still infinite and can
never be reduced by this.22
5
Microscopically,
a reflection of that same intentionality animates the world of
matter like sparks from a fire or a spider and its web.23 Swami
Chinmayananda, in his commentaries on the Upanishads24,
asks us to imagine a wall well lit by sunshine. A magnifying glass
will produce a brighter, more brilliant, reflection on the wall.
That is you and I.
Understood in Quantum terms, wherever the Field is intense,
it gives rise to particle matter. However, the Hindu perspective
points to the entire Creation
from Galaxies, to solar systems, to plants and animals, to
microbial sub-atomic particles to pin-points of energy of
the Quarks being animated by a reflection of the Ultimate
Reality - the well lit wall - with varying shades of intensity
from the non-living to the living.25 Thus
the non-living have consciousness (Chetna, the intelligence
principle) which prevents, for example, clouds of orbiting
electrons, planets, galaxies from collapsing to the center. The
plants and animals with more evolved Chetna exhibit higher
intelligence and finally the still evolving humans at the Apex
possess (though hard to believe at times) the highest
consciousness (Jeeva Atman).26
(SLIDE
of the lit candle on a bright sunny day – metaphor of the
individual and the Universal Self)
6 The deeper Self – understood by some as the personality
– the unity of conscious experience with imagination – offers
a foundation and forms the basis of the Hindu concept of Atman for
which there is no comparable word in the English language - Soul,
Consciousness, Self are all close approximations. Much has been
made by the pedantic arguments about the denial of Atman in
Buddhism. This is not true since Gautama Buddha simply disagreed
with some of the definitions of Atman.
7 The Atman - a silent witness – for it is the body, mind
& intellect which act not the Atman – is that which
cannot be expressed in words for it is that by which words are
expressed. It cannot be explained or even understood by the Mind
for it is that by which the Mind understands in the first place.27
8 Hindu thought gives very high importance to the intellect
- the discerning function of the mind. All lower beings have
varying functions of the mind to feel heat, cold, hunger, thirst,
pleasure and pain etc. but it is the intellect - the finest,
subtlest Evolute of Nature - which is invoked in one of the most
sacred and commonly recited Hindu prayers - the Gayatri
Mantra28 ....
may our (not mine alone) intellect be guided in the right
direction. Recited equally by the rich and the poor, the
Gayatri Mantra does not ask for wellness, wealth, prosperity,
forgiveness, mercy, long life or even Moksha, the primary
aim of the Hindu, release from the endless cycles of
Creation-Evolution-Devolution. Essence to existence back to
Essence.29
9 By way of an illustration, let’s follow the path taken
by a single drop of water as it journeys across the sky and the
lands merging with the oceans from where it originated, and of
which it is a part, in a never ending cycle. Ten years ago I
travelled to
Tibet
to walk around the sacred
Kailash
Mountain
, formed before the rest of the
Himalayas
. Shaped like a pyramid, the 24,000 feet high
Mount
Kailash
, also known as Meru (Center of the Universe), is the watershed of
five major river systems of the Indian sub-continent and can be
circum-ambulated in three days.
(SLIDE
of 24,000 Ft high - Abode of Siva - Mount Kailash made of solid
Granite formed before the rest of the Himalayas)
Early on the second day, one crosses a small stream flowing
West-ward, cutting across the Himalayas, as it merges with other
streams becoming rivers with distinct names and forms ending in
the Arabian Sea as part of the Indus river. By mid-afternoon,
there is another stream flowing
North West
, exiting around the K2 Peak – also joining the Arabian Sea
1,700 KM later. At dusk, one passes yet another stream flowing
South East to become the Brahmaputra ending up in the Bay of
Bengal some 1,500 Km to the East. Same cloud burst. Some drops of
water, by accident of birth, become known as the Indus, others as
Yarlung, Ganges, Sutlej or the
Brahmaputra
River
. Each with its own name and form.30 Just
like the gold of this ring which came into being as part of a
supernova explosion, to become my wedding ring today, part of
someone else’s necklace tomorrow, or to serve as a tooth filling
someday. Names and forms. As the Gita says … that which exists
never ceases to be, that which is not - does not come to Be.31
As for the single drop of water - made up of two atoms of Hydrogen
and one of Oxygen - one cannot touch, taste, smell or even feel it
in its vapour form as a cloud when the electrons are in their
excitable outer orbits. One can do all this when it is in the
liquid state, but not even a bullet can pass through when the same
molecule forms part of solid ice in its frozen state. In its
journey as part of glaciers, lakes, and as pristine rivers which
become polluted with toxins, the H2O, the very essence of our drop
of water, remains H2O and does not become H2 arsenic
or H2 lead.
(SLIDE
of the Hanging Glacier, Waterfall,
Lake
and the River)
It finally joins the seas where it merges with the waters in all
the oceans, no longer a Ganges,
Euphrates
,
Colorado
, or the
Mississippi
. There it may remain merged in the depth of the oceans for
Millennia, or evaporates falling as rain immediately, or may get
locked in as part of an iceberg, or may take on another name and
form as a new river. As do you and I.
This metaphor of the Hindu perspective on re-birth has one caveat -
our drop of water does not carry any impressions of the joys or
the havoc it may have created as part of a
Major
River
.
You and I, on the other hand, carry the impressions, our actions (Karmas),
until these embedded impressions (Sanskaras) are exhausted
like a burnt seed well into the next cycle of creation. This
accounts for perhaps the greatest solace to a Hindu when faced
with calamities - his greatest source of spiritual
strength in the face of adversity.
The Black Hole of Calcutta being called the “City of
Joy
” is no idle play of words.
To sum up:
10 Many million verses, laid out with such precision
and brevity so as not to be lost when committed to memory,
accompanied by detailed commentaries from different perspectives,
passed on from teacher to the student engaged in dialectic.
Amongst this incredible storehouse of scriptural texts, if one had
to choose a text which captures most of the essential points of
the Hindu faith, it would have to be the Bhagavad-Gita. An
incredibly daring creative strategy, according to Krishna
Chaitanya32,
on the part of sage Vyasa
to put in the mouth of historical Krishna, the essence of the
understandings and impressions of the Vedic Seers emerging from
varying stages of Meditation (Samadhi)33 –
akin to the revelations of the burning bush.
11 Reality according to Hindu thought, as also in Quantum
theory, cannot be known with certainty. An important principle is
the ancient concept known as Chatursh Koti
.........It is, it is not; it both is and is not; it
neither is nor is it not.34 All
contradictions are in fact complementary, forming an integral part
of the Whole. For every matter there’s anti-matter, every light
photon and the electron behave both as particles and as formless
waves.35
12 One contradiction in the Hindu society that is in fact
not complementary is the slow pace in rooting out the caste
system, particularly as it affects those deemed at the lowest rung
of the ladder. It’s not good enough to say that it is
constitutionally illegal to discriminate on the basis of caste, or
that members of this sub group whom Gandhiji referred to as Harijans,
children of God, are beginning to hold positions as Heads of
State, ministers, lawmakers, in the judiciary or armed services.
Or that one third of most government jobs are reserved for this
sub-group. Or that caste consciousness is practically non-existent
in urban centres. Not when 70% of the 200 Million Harijans and
tribals live in rural areas. Why should there be even a single
Harijan?
Slavery
came and went, burning of witches and non-conformists on the stake
came and went, deforming little girl’s feet has long since gone,
mutilation of female genitalia is on its way out, but denying
human dignity to fellow human beings is something for which all
thinking Hindus must lower their heads in shame. As part of the
sacred commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, the
custodians of the Hindu Faith must make one last effort, one final
push and take the lead in eliminating the lingering residue of
this historic aberration – the ultimate in Homo Hierarchius.
13 As for idol worshipping, it can be summed up in one
sentence …. It’s NOT that many gods are being worshipped but
that the Hindu devotee values and worships the many-ness
of the one and only Ultimate Reality, which is neither Hindu nor
Muslim nor Christian. In fact the Gita asserts “…whenever,
wherever, whosoever, seeks Me in earnestness, I appear and
strengthen his or her faith from whatever perspective he or she
seeks Me”.36 The Hindu devotee has total freedom to focus on the impersonal
absolute of the Upanishads or a manifest personal deity for whom
he even has complete freedom to postpone his quest.
14 Intentionality is incessantly and immanently at work in
Nature. While the Hindu thought agrees fully with the theory of
Evolution, it is not the evolution of pure chance of Carl Becker,
Bertrand Russell, Darwin and Moned etc. According to the late
Krishna Chiatanya, an example of the most potent and conscious
intentionality in nature is at the terminal of organic, inorganic,
and biological evolution where man appears – after having lived
8.4 Million lives in lesser forms, Man finally arrives as part of
Directed Evolution.
15 In the spirit of opposites, it would be equally correct
to say that Hindu thought concurs with the observation of Bertrand
Russell that, at times, Man behaves as the most irritating species
inflicted by Mother Nature to lord over her creation, or as
Jonathan Swift says in the context of Lilliputians: Man is the
most pernicious race of mischievous vermin which Mother Nature has
ever suffered on her Creation.
We shall next see how Man has earned that reputation. Hindu thought
describes these aberrations in terms of Yugas, cycles,
rhythms both short-term, as swings of the pendulum, as well as of
a very long duration lasting Millions of years.
III
Some Lessons from the Hindu Perspective Related to
Development
In keeping with the theme of the Conference, I have selected four
areas where the Hindu Faith provides an insight into the causes of
extreme poverty and offers practical solutions from the Spiritual
perspective.
1
Hindu
Perspective on Reducing Inter-Religious Conflicts – often the source
of untold misery creating the most marginalised and
disenfranchised people
in our midst.
Despite the genius of the common man throughout the ages to live
harmoniously with people of different faiths, it has been very
easy for the demagogues to inflame, from time to time, the
passions and fury in the name of Religion. In the brief span of
our existence, what havoc we have created in the name of our
faiths, our belief systems. From Jihads, Crusades, to the
Inquisitions. The irrational claimant of the Biblical land, the
fanaticism of the Hindutwa crusader, the relentless Fatwas against
anyone questioning the interpretations of this or that doctrine.
The killing fields of
Cambodia
, the Gulags, the ethnic cleansing of the Third Reich,
Bosnia
,
Rwanda
, and Biafara. The suicide bomber blowing up innocents in the
skyscrapers, air, land and on the high seas. It matters little
whether the supremacy of one’s own doctrine is dreamed up by the
uncivilized Taliban in the caves of
Afghanistan
or by the civilized SS Gestapo eating with forks and knives while
listening to Bach. The list goes on and on. At least it’s
democratic. It transcends all cultures in all eras.
These are examples of people being inflamed by passion rather than
by reason. How easy it is to make people forget basic plurality of
their identities in favour of one dominant identity - my faith, my
belief system, whether dogmatically Muslim, Hindu or Christian.
According to some, Religions would have done a better job had they
accepted human authorship, at least for the historical part. To
the Hindu mind to accept something as the last word, the last
prophet, is one of the greatest blunders of the rational mind.
Fortunately, the converse is also true for the vast majority of
ordinary people of faith, when left alone, do live in harmony.
At the UN Peace Summit in 2000 which adopted the Millennium
Development Goals, a very senior monk of the Indian Swami Order,
Swami Veda Bharati37, made an offering “Unifying Streams in Religion” in which he
traces hundreds of examples of harmonious and unifying streams
that have also existed and continue to exist amongst people of all
faiths. Copies of this booklet, which is being used as a starting
point in conducting further research in documenting and
cataloguing religious harmony, are available at the front desk.
Swami Veda gives a beautiful description of the ancient Hindu
concept of Sarva Tantra Siddhanta.38 Epistemological
approach to harmony - which goes beyond mere acceptance or
tolerance of other view points or belief systems. As explained by
Swami Veda, there are three approaches to acquiring knowledge: i)
the dogmatic path taken by the fundamentalists who view their
particular belief systems as Perfect Squares, ii) the more
egalitarian approach is to view all belief systems as squares
nestled within each other, each satisfying the attributes of a
perfect square except that my square is of
course the outer one. This is an approach taken by most of us in
this room. The third path, the enlightened approach, is to think
in terms of triangles within the Square, with each triangle having
its own internal logic and consistency, each pointing to the same
one Centre.
When Mahatma Gandhi was approached by a grief stricken Hindu family
whose only son was killed by rioting Muslims at the height of the
carnage created by the Partition of India, Gandhiji’s handed
them an orphaned Muslim boy with the plea that the child be raised
as a Muslim – the faith into which he was born, not as a Hindu.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see that starting with Gandhiji’s
birthday, October 2nd,
being celebrated as International Day of Non-Violence, if
Missionaries of all faiths involved in development
work were to comfort those in need in the faith they - the
recipients of the aid - were born into and not in the faith of the
donor.
2 Ascribing
Altruistic Motives to Aid
–
A Paradigm Shift away from
Self-Interest in attaining Prosperity
In answer to the question - Where do I come from? Where do I have
to go? How do I go there? Creation - Destiny - Quest, the Gita
discusses three approaches.
For some it is through the path of Devotion, complete surrender.
For others it is deep Contemplation. For the Man of action not
content with praying in public places of worship and not quite
ready for a life of quiet contemplation, Gita offers a unique
solution – to connect with divinity through Altruistic Action by
doing one’s duty as an offering without entitlement
to the reward of one’s actions.39 Expectation
of success yes – but not the entitlement to a personal reward.
It’s a very original thought which can be better understood by
the following metaphor.
A surgeon performs surgeries. He or she is not elated when the
surgeries are successful. Conversely, if the patients die the
surgeon is not despondent but carries on. He or she is not
indifferent to the fate of the patient, far from it; they keep
abreast of the latest in saving lives. But they are detached from
the success or failure in the execution of their duty – akin to
accepting the element of grace in the final outcome of their
actions.
The philosophy of self-less action (Nishkama Karma)
links with the design itself of creation as partnering with the
Deity for the faithful.
This is a complete denial of the economics of Adam Smith in
his Wealth of Nations in which he declares that
self-interest alone creates prosperity. While this view may well
have served the conditions prevalent just before the Industrial
Revolution, abuses inevitably set in and the pendulum has swung
too far. We all know the disastrous side-effects of pure
self-interest. Naomi Klein in her recent book The Shock
Doctrine40 painstakingly
documents abuses of self-interest in post Tsunami / Katrina relief
efforts and the excitement of global business opportunities in the
aftermath of surgically carried out shock and awe in
Iraq
.
According to the Gita it is not in the true nature of Man
to act with self-interest for pitiable are those who are motivated
by desire for personal gain from the fruits of the action.
3
Secular Angst – being Secular or being Religious is not mutually
exclusive
There is a totally unnecessary disconnect between Secular
governments, Secular civil societies, Secular funding agencies and
Secular donor policies on the one hand, and “non-secular”
Religion on the other. What a monumental waste of energy in the
context of development.
In the Hindu context it is the very deeply religious who
are the most secular.
In
Europe
, a somewhat narrow definition of Secularism as a corollary to the
separation of State and Religion was, until now, a historical
necessity. However, as European societies become increasingly
pluralistic, the definition of Secularism may need some
fine-tuning. Something to learn from the meaning of Secularism as
understood in the Hindu perspective which goes back thousands of
years – neutrality as opposed to outright prohibition against
religious engagement.
Secularism in modern
India
is intended to be strictly neutral in all matters of faith with
symmetry in the State’s treatment of multiple religious
practices. However, as noted by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen41 the
framers of the Indian Constitutions wisely set forth an initial
ameliorating phase, to correct historical social inequities like
the Hindu dominated cast system.
Finally, it’s a mistake to think that as societies become
more “civilised” there is less dependence on religion or that
its influence correspondingly declines. According to Hindu thought
it would be ideal for the two to move in tandem but civilisations,
including all scientific discoveries, by themselves are not at
odds with Religion. According to Amartya Sen,
Huntington
’s Clash of Civilisations is a misnomer, there being no such
thing as a Muslim or a Christian or a Hindu civilisation – clash
of cultures perhaps. Civilisation vs. culture - former being
materialistic, the latter dealing with Spirituality -
civilisations mark the progress of breaking open a coconut with a
rock to a more civilised way of eating the fruit from a can opened
with an electric can-opener and serving the fruit on fine bone
china. To many Colonial rulers, Mahatma Gandhi was an uncivilised Fakir
because he walked around half naked wearing pieces of cloth which
were not even tailored.
Societies, a group of people, can be at the bottom of the
material ladder but be very advanced spiritually. Conversely, a
society can be very highly civilised but low on the scale of
humanistic values - the aberration of the SS Nazis listening to
Bach, Mozart, Beethoven eating with silver cutlery and drinking
the finest wines, yet capable of unspeakable inhumanity.
4
Redefining Development - an alternative understanding of
Development as it relates to the extreme poor – the primary
theme of this Conference.
Having made the commitment to engage Faith Based
Organisations in development, the challenge faced by the Donor
Agencies including institutions like the World Bank is not just
who to deal with but how to contextualise the engagement – and
this will have to be an ongoing process not just limited to the
MDG targets.
Clearly it is not intended to channel development funds
through organised religious institutions most of whom are already
involved in development work, some purely altruistic, others
motivated by the desire to attract more adherents to the faith,
and still others because of affiliation with this or that
political ideology.
Hinduism, being more a way of life, presents a slightly
different challenge. As discussed in my introductory remarks, the
total freedom in connecting with Divinity, does not lend itself to
an institutionalized central hierarchy. Almost every Hindu house
has a special place, even a tiny altar, set aside for worship with
the members of the family often serving as their own lay priest.
The visits to any of the estimated 2.5 Million places of worship
are more to mark anniversaries or are in celebration of
religiously inspired festive events.
The absence of a centralised priestly hierarchy also
presents opportunities for transformation as in the case of
Mahatma Gandhi, though a barrister by training, appealed the most
to his countrymen as a man of religion.
In economic terms, the most cost effective way to harness
the moral energy of the Hindu faith communities is by mobilising
the collective influence of the opinion makers who are from within
the international development community, who speak the language of
economics and finance, who work amongst the very poor and who are
at the same time deeply spiritual.
Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen42 sends
a very profound and powerful message on freedom linked Social
Development. Others like Dr. Kamala Chowdhry43 Co-chair
of the World Bank's Advisory Committee on Environment and
Sustainable Development as well as eminent scientist-cum activist
Dr. Vandana Shiva44 echo
similar thoughts. There are former International civil servants
like Dr. M. S. Swaminathan45, credited
with bringing the Green Revolution to the farmers of
India
and pioneers like Dr. M. L. Dewan46 who embraced
Sustainable Development long before the others and who have
devoted their entire adult lives working selflessly amongst the
disadvantaged in achieving integrated development.
As thinkers, activists, doers speaking the language of the
official development agencies and also possessing very deep
ecumenical spiritual underpinning, it is opinion makers like these
who are potential catalysts of change in engaging the Hindu faith
communities.
In a series of thought provoking essays, Dr. Vandana Shiva,
recipient of Right Livelihood award (alternative Nobel Prize)
presents one of the most coherent alternative understandings of
Development as it relates to the extreme poor.
According to Dr. Shiva47:
In
order to end poverty, we must address the conditions that create
poverty. She emphasises that the poor are not those who were left
behind in the wake of the riches created by the industrial
revolution, but are those who were pushed out and excluded
(my italics) from access to their own wealth and resources.
They are poor because their wealth has been appropriated and
wealth creating capacity destroyed.
The prosperity of the industrial revolution was based on riches
appropriated as a result… of the violent take over of Third
World resources and Third World markets that created wealth in the
North - simultaneously creating poverty in the South.
Here, I would like to add that, in all fairness, the
plundering of resources by the Colonial Rulers (which no one can
or should deny) continues to be matched, if not surpassed, in many
lower income countries by the indigenous, local, home-made rulers
both in scope and viciousness.
Dr. Shiva alludes to two economic myths which facilitate a
separation between.....the growth of affluence and the growth of
poverty. ... with growth being viewed only as growth of capital
and poverty is seen as causing environmental destruction. The
disease is then offered as a cure: growth will solve the problems
of poverty and environmental crisis it has given rise to in the
first place.
According to her, the second myth that separates affluence from
poverty, is the assumption that if you produce what you consume,
you do not produce..... and if you are not part of the free market
economy you are not part of... national accounting that measures
economic growth.
Dr.
Shiva takes exception to the analyses of commentators like Jeffrey
Sachs (Time Cover story March 2005) whose work
supports perpetuation of the above myths contributing to the
mystification of growth and consumerism, since according to her,
they also hide the real processes that create poverty.
She
makes a very compelling case for a distinction between
self-provisioning sustainable lifestyle by choice versus
one that is lived because of forced deprivation - whether
created by Man or by natural causes. According to Dr. Shiva
sustenance economies, which satisfy basic needs through
self-provisioning, may be perceived as poor but do not necessarily
imply a low physical quality of life. She notes that on the
contrary, because sustenance economies contribute to the growth of
nature's economy and the social economy, they ensure a high
quality of life measure in terms of right to food and water,
sustainability of livelihoods, and robust social and cultural
identity and meaning.
Conversely,
a system that creates denial and disease, while accumulating
trillions of dollars of super profits for businesses is a system
for creating poverty for people. When seeds are patented and
peasants will pay $1 trillion in royalties, they will be $1
trillion poorer. Patents on medicines increase costs of AIDS drugs
from $200 to $20,000, and Cancer drugs from $2,400 to $36,000 for
a year's treatment. When water is privatized, and global
corporations make $1 trillion from commoditization of water, the
poor are poorer by $1 trillion.
Finally,
Dr. Shiva reminds us that modern economies and concepts of
development cover only a negligible part of the history of human
interaction with nature. She points out that trade and exchange of
goods and services have always existed in human societies, but
these were subjected to nature's and people's economies. The
elevation of the domain of the market and man-made capital to the
position of the highest organizing principle for societies has led
to the neglect and destruction of the other two organizing
principles - ecology and survival - which maintain and sustain
life in nature and society.
The following
internet blog illustrates the contrast between a self-provisioning
sustenance life style and market driven view of development.
A solitary fisherman, somewhere in a low-income tropical island is
sitting with two fishes in a pail watching the sunset.
A Wall Street
financier lounging nearby in a posh resort is getting irritated by
the minute watching the fisherman’s lack of enterprise. Laying
aside his Blackberry and his blueberries, he approaches the
fisherman asking him why he is not catching more fish, to which
the fisherman replies that he has caught all that he needs – one
for his family and one for his neighbour who is sick.
The Wall-Street financier mutters under his breath, “… this is
typical of third world countries… no enterprise, no
industry…no wonder they are where they are”. He engages the
fisherman in a lesson in free market economy by telling the
fisherman how he could become a lot happier if he were to catch
more fish generating income with which to buy a boat and start a
business.
As the fisherman appears to show interest, the happy capitalist
proceeds to lay out a scenario, how profits from the business
could be ploughed back to invest in plant and equipment to process
fish for export. Of course the fisherman would have to a put in
years of hard work, forego dividends, forget about a personal life
while focussing on exports through export credits arranged from
the Exim Bank which would naturally expect him to buy American
fishing trawlers with the financing thereby benefiting both
economies.
With sound investment banking advice he could acquire one or two
existing distribution networks, through strategically positioned
leverage buy-outs spinning off the unnecessary divisions, to
supply much needed Sushi for the American Mid West cattle ranchers
who have developed a strong taste for everything exotic.
The fisherman would of course have to incorporate his business in
tax havens (not in his own tropical Island though) and set up
holding companies to shield income from withholding taxes but more
importantly to limit his liabilities from Mercury or salmonella
related law suits. With each success, the enterprise would reach
higher goals, getting listed on the stock exchange with an Initial
Public Offering while still retaining control and the Chairmanship
of the conglomerate.
To the fisherman’s question of what he would do after all that
hard work, the Harvard MBA beams with mild indulgence... “why,
don’t you see you could do anything then, you could spend more
time with your family, take a vacation to the beaches of a
tropical island, catch a fish or two, watch the beautiful sun as
it sets in the horizon.” The fisherman nods gently…“you mean
what I am doing already”
SLIDE
of the solitary fisherman
Some Pragmatic Considerations
i.
In his Gita
for the Modern Man, Krishna Chaitanya47,
questions why in today’s affluent world, despite everything
being in abundance (except for the very poor), is the Man of
plenty so unhappy? According to Hindu thought, this is partly
because we - and this includes all of us in this room - grossly
exaggerate our survival needs, something an animal never does. Not
with Being more but having more.
ii.
We multiply
our wants in a cult of consumerism; endlessly satisfying desires
which according to the Gita leads to attachment, in turn leading
to craving. Unfulfilled craving leads to anger and frustration
resulting in delusion. Delusion leads to faulty functioning of
memory which ruins reason from which Man perishes.48
iii.
The Artha
Shastras, a body of Vedic literature dealing with wealth and
prosperity, tell us that Man has the right to subsistence in order
to live and the householder through his means supports others, but
that incessant competitive rivalry in amassing wealth inevitably
leads to conflict.
iv.
The cult of
consumption by the affluent, whether in the North or in the South,
whereby we acquire all that we need as well as that we do not
need, really means war on the very subsistence of the poor, war on
nature and on fellowmen obscuring the Sun, polluting the air and
chewing up great forests. The world may have enough for
everyone’s needs, but certainly not for everyone’s greed.
v.
This is not
to demonise Billionaire entrepreneurs, epitomised by Ayan Rand in
her trilogy Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead and Values of
Selfishness49 as
Spiritual Materialists because of their genius to create.
Creativity, productivity, innovation are all as much a part of
Ritam (Order) as non-materialistic Spiritual quest. In fact the
Isa Vasyo Upanishad reminds us…those who worship materialism
alone are doomed to darkness but those who neglect action to
pursue Spirituality alone are doomed to even greater darkness.50
vi.
Instead of
senselessly curbing production, we must all drastically reduce
senseless consumption by reversing built-in obsolescence, the
use-once-throw-away-buy-another culture creating mountains of
garbage – a legacy of the “civilised” affluent. That less
than 25% of the World’s population wantonly consumes and lays
waste more than 70% of the world’s dwindling resources, creating
ecological holocaust, is the ultimate Human Rights Violation
for which all of us must hang our heads in shame. At least one
Millennium Development Goal, reducing extreme poverty by half, can
not only be achieved but even surpassed, completely, if all of us
were simply to reduce consumption of the non-essentials by a mere
ten percent.
5 Conclusion
I would like to conclude by citing the examples of
India
and
China
- accounting for one third of the World’s population with a
large segment of their citizenry still in deep poverty. Now
embarked on stupendous economic growth, implicitly competing with
each other for the planet’s scarce resources already brought to
near exhaustion by the so called pernicious West.
Will these two nations simply produce more billionaires? Or will
they seize the opportunity to integrate Material and Spiritual
development of not only their own people but extend a helping hand
to the extreme poor of other countries? Will their patronage of
resource rich nations like
Burma
, Biafra and
Sudan
under ruthless dictatorships be motivated by pure self-interest or
will they also lend a helping hand in bringing about a
transformation amongst some of the most disenfranchised fellow
human beings?
Sharing ancient connections going back thousands of years in the
philosophies of pure Sankhya and early Upanishads
transmitted through the Buddhist canon, will these two emerging
giants re-embrace the ethics, the morality and compassion towards
the less fortunate as enunciated by Confucius, Lao Tze (founder of
Taoism), and Gautama Buddha?
May
Soesterberg II continue to light many more candles through
reflection and meaningful dialogues like these.
Thank
you.
Notes
1
Knowledge
Centre for Religion and Development:
http://www.religie-en-ontwikkeling.nl/
Cordaid: http://www.cordaid.nl/
; Oikos: http://www.stichtingoikos.nl/
; Seva Network Foundation: http://www.sevanetwork.net/
; ICCO: http://www.icco.nl/delivery/main/nl/
; Islamic University Rotterdam: http://www.islamicuniversity.nl/en/index.asp
; Institute of Social Studies: http://www.iss.nl/
2
First
Conference - Religion: a source for human rights and development
cooperation, organized by ICCO, Cordaid and ISS in Soesterberg in
September 2005 which launched the
Knowledge
Center
, http://www.icco.nl/documents/pdf/BBO-Rapport-180406_DEF.pdf
3
UN Millennium
Development Goals: www.un.org/millenniumgoals/index.html
.; and the 2007 mid-term report: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/mdg2007.pdf
; Also see World Bank Atlas of Millennium Development Goals: http://devdata.worldbank.org/atlas-mdg/
4
Diane L. Eck,
Encountering God, Beacon Press, 1993
5
K. Marshall
and Marsh, Millennium Challenges for Development and Faith
Institutions, World Bank 2003 for PDF file click
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2006/06/12/000160016_20060612174030/Rendered/PDF/272090REVISED01nstitutions01PUBLIC1.pdf
6
COMPAS:
http://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/
;
7
World Faith
Development Dialogue: http://www.wfdd.org.uk/
; Civil Society Forum: http://www.worldcivilsociety.org/pages/1/en/presfor.htm
;
8
Institute of
Social Studies: http://www.iss.nl/
9
Katherine
Marshall, Faith and Development: Rethinking Development Debates,
the World Bank, 2005; Katherine Marshall and Lucy Keough, Mind,
Heart, and Soul in the Fight against Poverty, The World Bank,
2004. Wendy Tyndale, Faith & Economics in Development: a
bridge across the chasm? Development in Practice 2000. Link to
this article: DOI: 10.1080/09614520052466 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09614520052466; Gerard Clarke, Agents of Transformation? Donors, faith-based
organisations and international development, Third World
Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp 77 – 96, 2007, Routledge, Taylor
& Francis Group. Also, Faith Matters; faith based
organizations, civil societies and international development;
Journal of International Development, 2000; Rev. Professor Richard
Bonney and Asaf Hussein, Faith Communities and the development
Agenda, Report presented to the UK Department for
International Development 2001; D. Narayan et al, Voices of the
poor: Crying Out for Change, World Bank, 2000. An in-depth
study documenting the views and experiences of more than 60,000
men and women from 60 countries.
10
About 300
Upanishads are believed to have been composed, of which only 108
exist today. Some of the more popular commentaries on the 11
principal Upanishads are by:
a.
Swami
Chinmayananda, published by the Central Chinmaya Mission Trust
b.
Dr. S.
Radhakrishnan, The Principal Upanishads,
Oxford
University
Press, 1953
c.
Swami
Prabhavananda The Upanishads (with Frederick Manchester)
1947. Very concise.
d.
Swami
Ranganathananda, The Message of the Upanishads, Bharatiya
Vidya Bhavan, 1971
e.
Commentaries
of Sankracarya translated by Swami Gambhirananda, Advaita Ashram
1979-1995
11
The six
orthodox schools of Philosophy called Darshanas (Visions as per
Plato) of the same Ultimate Reality from different perspectives
are (1) Nyaya: a system of logic, epistemology, forming the basis
of scientific inquiry, (2)Vaisesika, focusing on physical
sciences, (3) Samkhya, the oldest system of philosophy known to
Man dealing with dualistic school that accepts two eternally
present systems Matter and Spirit or Consciousness, (4) Yoga,
practical application of philosophical
and religious life (5) Mimamsa, guidelines for conduct in society
and (6) Vedanta, dealing with Ultimate Reality itself. There are
also six heterodox Schools
which include Buddhism and Jainism. Although not endorsed by any
of the Schools, even the atheism philosophy of eat drink and be
merry finds a place amongst the Schools of Philosophy.
For overall dissertation on the Schools of Philosophy
please see:
a.
Swami
Prabhavananda, The Spiritual Heritage of
India
, Vedanta Press, 1963 Chapters 10-14. Also How to Know God,
The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali (With Christopher Isherwood)
b.
Dr. S.
Radhakrishnan, (Former President of
India
) Indian Philosophy Vol. 2, Chapters I-XI
c.
Dr. Rajmani
Tigunait, Seven Systems of Indian Philosophy,
The Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and
Philosophy of the
U.S.A.
1983
d.
Dr. B. L.
Atriya, The Philosophy of Yoga-Vasistha,
Banaras
Hindu
University
, 1935
12
There are
more than 100 major commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita. Of these
the following deserve special mention because the authors have
used metaphors of the 20th century
AD to explain the concepts enunciated in the 21st century
B.C.
a.
Krishna
Chaitanya recipient of the Critic of Ideas Award and widely
regarded as being closest approximation to India’s Renaissance
Man, The Gita for Modern Man, Clarion Books 1986
b.
Swami
Chinmayananda, The Holy Geeta, Central Chinmaya Trust 1992
c.
Swami
Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, The Song of God: Bhagavad-Gita
with Introduction by Aldous Huxley,
Mentor
Religious Classics 1944.
13
C.
Rajagopalacharya’s commentaries on the epic Ramayana illustrate
the struggle over fourteen years of
the members of the Raguvansh clan, in particular of Lord
Rama – approaching
perfection but not quite there, as he navigates between competing
Dharmas, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan 1968
14
Satyavrata
Siddhantalankar (former Vice Chancellor of Gurukul University),
Heritage of Vedic Culture, D. B. Tarporevala & Sons 1969,
Central Thought of the Vedic Culture pp. 1-17
15
Kenopanishad
II.3
16
Nasadiya
Sukta (Creation Hymn) Rig Veda X.129.1
17
Jean Le Mee, Hymns
from the Rig-Veda, Jonathan Cape Ltd.1975. Beautiful pictorial
commentaries
18
According to
some scholars, there is a curious correspondence between the
evolutionary thread amongst the nine Earthly incarnations of the
Deity (Avataras) codified more than 2000 years before Darwin
enunciated his Theory of Evolution; i) Matsya the Fish of the
primordial waters, ii) Kurma the Tortoise – transition to land,
iii) Varaha the Boar – of the animal kingdom, iv) Narsimha half
man-half beast - bi pedal apes, v) Vamana the Dwarf – transition
to the first hominids vi) Parasurama the intelligent being– Homo
Sapien Sapien, vii) Shri Rama man of perfection – almost, but
not quite, viii) Shri Krisna the Divine man, ix) Buddha the
Enlightened One and x) Kalki yet to come on a horse with wings to
lead into inter-galactic homelands as Kali Yuga (decay from
Entropy) makes life uninhabitable on this planet.
19
Truth is
One; Sages describe it in many ways.
Rig Veda 1.164.46; Atharva Veda 9.10.28; Svetasvatara Upanishad
VI.11 & VI.12; Kathopanishad II.2.12;
20
Mandukya
Upanishad 7. This short Upanishad covers the waking, dream
and the state deep sleep of the unhealthy as well as the healthy
mind.
21
Brhad-aranyaka
Upanishad, II.3.6, III.9.26, IV.4.22, IV.5.15
22
Invocation at
the beginning of the Isavasyopanishad, the only Upanishad which is
directly a part of the Veda, being the 40th chapter
of the Yajur Veda.
23
Brhad-aranyaka
Upanishad II.1.20; Mundaka Upanishad
II.1.1
24
See 10.(i)
above
25
Field in Rig
Veda X.72.4, II.35, X.82; Taittiriya Upanishad II.1.1; Brahma
Sutra II.3.14; Chhandogya Upanishad I.11.5, I.9.1,VII.12.1,
VIII.14.1; Mundaka Upanishad II.1.3; Kathopanishad II.1.7
26
Fritjof
Capra, The Tao of Physics, Harper Collins, 1976. For a more
thorough and comprehensive discussion see Dr. N.C. Panda’s, Maya
in Physics (1991), The Vibrating Universe (1992) which
synthesises the Superstring Theory of the vibration concept of
Advaita Vedanta, Mind & Super Mind Vol. I & II
(1994) all published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
27
Kenopanishad
I.5 to 9
28
Gayatri
Mantra, Yajur
Veda 36.3
29
Dr. Tulsi
Ram, The Original Philosophy of Yoga, Harayana Sahitya
Sansthan, 1989. I am grateful to Dr. Tulsi Ram for his valuable
input in preparing this paper.
30
Chhandogya
Upanishad VI.1.4.6 Nama - Rupa
31
Gita
II.16…. That which exists does not convert to nothing nor does
it come from nothing.
32
Krishna
Chaitanya, The
Gita for Modern Man, Clarion Books 1986
33
Brhadaranyka
Upanishad V.1.1; Isavasyopanishad Invocation
34
Chatursh
Koti,-
Brahma Sutras Sankrabhasyam 1.4.3; Svetasvatara Upanishad 1.9;
further expanded by Gautama Buddha in the Abhidharama component of
Tripitaka
35
S. Weinberg, The
Cosmic Code 1984; M. Capek, Philosophical Impact of
Contemporary Physics,
Princeton
, 1961.
36
Gita 7.21
37
Maha
Mandaleshvara Swami Veda Bharati (Dr. Usharbudh Arya), Unifying
Streams in Religion, An offering on the occasion of the UN
2000 World Peace Summit and its follow up published in 2003 Meditation
The Unifying Stream in Religion. Swami Veda earned his
Doctorate in Philosophy from the
Uterecht
University
and is widely regarded is one of the most authentic living
teachers of Yoga and Meditation. He is best known for his 1,400
commentary on the first two chapters of the Yoga Aphorisms of
Patanjali, God and Yogi in the Lab; Future
Directions of Scientific Research in Meditation 2006. www.swamivedabharati.org
, www.swamiveda.com
, www.bindu.org
. I am grateful to Swami Veda for aiming higher – to earn the
right of being called his student in this lifetime.
38
Ibid. Yoga
Sutras of Patanjali Vol. I – Samadhi-pada, The Himalayan
International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy of the
U.S.A.
1986, pp 23-26.
39
Gita: Chap
III
40
Naomi Klein, The
Shock Doctrine, Alfred A. Knopf 2007.
41
Amartya Sen,
The Argumentative Indian, Penguin Books, 2005. Contains
brilliant critique on Secularism
and its different interpretations, pp. 16-21, pp. 294-316, Amartya
Sen, Development as Freedom and Rationality as Freedom Anchor
Books 2000
42
Ibid
43
Dr. Kamala
Chowdhry, Healing the Earth: Bridging Science &
Spirituality. Dr. Chowdhry, a visiting Professor at Harvard is
a member of UN Secretary-General’s Eminent Persons Advisory
Group for Sustainable Development and Co-chair - Member of the
World Bank's Advisory Committee on Environment and Sustainable
Development;
44
Dr. Vandana
Shiva, Physicist, activist, author, recipient of Right Livelihood
award (Nobel Prize alternative). Leading member of the
International Forum on Globalization; known for her campaigns
against genetic engineering.
45
Professor
M.S. Swaminatahan acclaimed by TIME magazine as one of the twenty
most influential Asians (third after Gandhi and Tagore in
India
), widely regarded for having introduced the Green Revolution in
India
.
46
Dr. M.L.
Dewan; FAO Soil Scientist, Chairman Himalayan Conservation (HIMCON);
Towards Sustainable Society; Perceptions with Foreword by
H.H, Dalai Lama, Clarion Books 1995; Human Values; A Task for
All co-authored with Prof. M.R. Chilana, 1998; Uttaranchal;
Visions and action Programme, co-authored with Dr J. Bahadur
2005, both by Concept Publishing Company 2005. I, along with many
others whose lives have been touched by him, are grateful to Dr.
Dewan for showing us how to live a life in equal measure of Bhakti
Yoga (devotion), Jnyan Yoga ( self-knowledge) and above all, Karma
Yoga (altruistic action).
47
Excerpts from
Dr. Vandana Shiva essay; How To End Poverty: Making Poverty
History And The History Of Poverty *May 11, 2005*
48
See 12.a
above
49
Gita II.62-63
50
Ayn Rand, Atlas
Shrugged Random House 1957; Fountainhead, Harper
Collins 1961; Values of Selfishness Penguin Books 1961
51
Isa Upanishad
I.9
Other
selected bibliography:
52
A.L. Basham, The
Wonder That was India, Sedgwick
& Jackson Ltd. 1954
53
Sri Aurobindo
three Volumes on The Synthesis of Yoga and Indian Philosophy,
Sri Aurobindo ashram Trust 1914-1921
54
Romila Thapar,
A History of
India
, Vol I & II Penguin Books 1966
55
Shri Purohit
Swami Patanjali’s Path to Yoga, Introduction by W. B.
Yeats, Faber & Faber Ltd. 1973
56 James
Horton Woods, The Yoga-System of Patanjali, Harvard Press
1931
57 Amir D.
Aczel, God’s Equation, Solving the riddle of Creation
using Einstein’s “Greatest Blunder”,
Dell Publishing 1999
58
Joseph
Campbell, The Scared Source: Perennial Philosophy of the East,
From Id to Ego in the Orient, From Psychology to Spirituality,
Harper & Row Publishers
59
Catherine
Cornille (Editor), Song Divine: Christian Commentaries on the
Bhagavad Gita, Eerdamans Publishing Limited 2007
60 Sir John Woodroffe, The Serpent Power,
Garland
of Letters. His scholarly work published in over 20 books is
considered by many as one of the most important development in
transmitting the ancient Vedic thought to the Western World.

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