A critical
review of Rajiv Malhotra’s
Being Different – An Indian Challenge to
Western Universalism
By Kalavai
Venkat
“Dharma traditions resemble Silicon
Valley innovation and freedom (whereas) Judeo-Christian religions come across
like controlled, state-supplied, monopolistic products. Like the Soviets who
believed in allowing only one airline, one brand of car, one toothpaste, (…)
most Christians believe in allowing only one approach to religion.”
These are among the closing words of
Being Different. Whereas most westerners and colonized Hindus implicitly assume
that the west is the best and view other cultures from a Christian western
viewpoint, Malhotra takes his readers through an intellectually engaging
journey where he reverses the gaze on the Christian west and evaluates it using
the dhārmic paradigm. Western civilization is an artificial fusion of Judeo-Christian
dogmas and the Greco-Roman thought and as a result is synthetic and
tension-ridden. Even the tensions that characterize the racial relationships in
the west are traceable to the historical colonial conquests that were fueled by
Christianity. Westerners imagine their culture to be universal but in reality
it is aggressive and expansionist, and usurps traits from other cultures in the
same manner as a tiger consumes and destroys its prey. One such example is the
surreptitious incorporation of quotes from the Vedas into the Tamiḷ Bible. The
west violently rejects what it cannot assimilate from other cultures. Liberal
and conservative westerners are products of the same mindset, and their
perceptions of Hindu society are identical.
Sounds like a harsh indictment of the
west? It is. But it is also the outcome of a systematic analysis of the
Christian western culture using the Hindu rational method of pūrva pakṣa. Malhotra
argues that one must look deeper beyond the superficial similarities between religions
and cultures and shows that there are fault-lines that divide the Christian
western and the dhārmic worldviews.
In Judeo-Christian traditions,
revelation is initiated by God, from above, with the individual being a passive
and submissive recipient. This process is highly history-centric, relies upon
authority that is frozen in time, and allows for no direct experience. Dogma
insists that one is born into Original Sin and human existence is sinful unless
one seeks salvation from a historical prophetic tradition. But this salvation
does not transform man into something sublime. God always remains an external
agency and all that salvation means is that one escapes eternal condemnation to
hell. These history-centric beliefs of Judeo-Christian systems also fail
scientific scrutiny.
Dhārmic traditions provide a
refreshing contrast. The individual is free from the guilt complexes that
characterize a Christian. History has no metaphysical significance in dharma. Hindu
narratives, as Śri Aurobindo states, are ever present in nature because one can
experience those out of one’s own efforts. The Hindu initiate is an active
participant in his quest for adhyātma vidya (knowledge of the self). Unlike
Judeo-Christian systems which are fossilized, dhārmic systems dynamically
evolve. As a result, the teachings of a guru are as valid as the words in a
sacred text. Even more importantly, the guru does not merely transmit
historical sayings dogmatically but evokes the initiate’s own experiential
wisdom. This is precisely why one finds welcome diversity in dhārmic
traditions. Most importantly, mökṣa (self-realization) is something one can actively
experience here and now and is not a chimera called heaven a baptized Christian
must be content with chasing post-mortem.
Malhotra aptly points out that none of
the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, or Paul allowed for individual freedom. Instead
they rejected individuality as something stained by Original Sin and even
salvation in Christianity is a collective exercise. This denial of
individuality in the religious realm extends to all walks of western life, and
contrary to what westerners imagine they are not individualistic but highly
institutionalized creatures. On the other hand, dharma frees one from
conditioning, celebrates individualism, and leads one to the blissful state
called satchitānanda. Unless the west rejects the foundational premises of
Christianity as embodied in the Nicene Creed, it is not possible for westerners
to pursue internal quest.
Being Different discusses the absence
of simplistic and artificial duality in dharma vis-à-vis Christian dualism brilliantly.
Dharma traditions avoid artificial divides and Malhotra presents narratives
from fields as diverse as music, neuroscience, and literature to drive home
this crucial difference. For example, in dhārmic traditions, good and evil are
always inter-connected as evident from the Hindu literary narrative of samudra
manthana (churning of the ocean) where there is inter-dependency between poison
and nectar. This is quite the opposite of the Christian dichotomy between good
and evil. As a result, not only does Christianity seek imminent finality in the
End Times but “war against evil” (which of course results in genocides) too
comes easily to Christians. The western mind, as a result of this dualistic
foundation, is bewildered by chaos and seeks artificial order everywhere.
Dharma offers a positive alternative by balancing order and chaos. For example,
Indian Classical music is non-linear and non-normative, and as a result
possesses not only the musical note but also a melodic ecosystem complex called
swara which has no equivalent in Western Classical music. Malhotra’s
observation brings to mind Yehudi Menuhin’s rueful remark in his famous book
Unfinished Journey that the tempered scale in Western Classical music where
each note is adjusted up or down from its true center has corrupted western
ears whereas the perfect fifth set by the tanpura in Indian Classical music is
a criterion for all other intervals and has rendered the Indian ears sensitive to
microtonal variations called ghamaka that westerners cannot comprehend. In an
echo of Malhotra’s remark about Indian individualism vis-à-vis the lack of
individualism in the west, Menuhin too remarks that whereas the Indian musician’s
expressions celebrate his individual quest to unite with the infinite the
western musician accepts loss of freedom for the sake of collectivism.
The unrealistic western obsession with
order not only destroyed the perfect fifth but as Malhotra points out citing
latest studies from neuroscience it also prevents a westerner from seeing
oneself as part of the whole. For example, when shown a photograph, a westerner
observes only the foreground whereas an easterner observes the background as
well in a holistic manner. This ability to see the environment as
inter-connected and a willingness to accept natural chaos enables a Hindu to
self-organize better than westerners and to be less reliant on institutions and
systems. For example, during the Hindu festival of kumbha meḻa 60 million
pilgrims come together and self-organize without any agency coordinating the
effort. One might also add that during disasters such as the terrorist attack
on the Mumbai train system, Indians got back to normalcy within a few hours on
their own whereas after the 9/11 attacks America was brought to a standstill
and only a systemic and institutional galvanizing could return it to normalcy. Malhotra
cautions that the willingness to realistically balance chaos and order does not
mean a lack of accomplishment as evident from the fact that Indians built the
most advanced urban complex of the ancient period, the Sarasvati Sindhu
Civilization. On the other hand, Christian dualism and a lack of ability to balance
order and chaos is a limitation of the human mind.
Another important point that Malhotra
discusses is that dharma is both context-specific and non-contextual.
Baudhāyana, Manu, and other writers always integrated local customs into their
texts but every prescription depended on the context. This is precisely why
numerous texts were written over time. Only a few aspects such as the framework
of dharma remained non-contextual. This allowed dhārmic religions to become
embracing, organic, and ever-progressing. Since dharmaśāstras accord greater
importance to local traditions than to codified law, there was no imposition of
practices from above, and as a result Hindu society experiences natural
harmony. This also allowed local traditions to permeate into and influence
society as evident from the examples of Pūri Jagannātha and Madurai Mῑnākṣi where
tribal and urban Hindu traditions have fused. On the contrary, Christianity
assumes that Semitic codified practices from a bygone era are universal and
enforces them on all people at all times.
In some cases, a few sentences in
Being Different could be edited to be consistent with the analyses and
conclusions of the book. For example, Malhotra argues that in inter-faith
dialog religious tolerance must be replaced with mutual respect and adds that
“respect implies that we consider the other (religion) to be equally legitimate.”
On the surface, this appears to be at odds with the Hindu tradition of pūrva
pakṣa which Malhotra otherwise commendably employs. In pūrva pakṣa, one can
never start with the premise that the other doctrine is respect-worthy or
legitimate. One has to evaluate it without bias, as is the case with scientific
evaluation, and using nyāya, pramāṇa, anumāna, etc, either accept or reject the
doctrine. So, respect and legitimacy is something a religious doctrine earns as
an outcome and not as a precondition. But what Malhotra actually means here
(which he has elaborated in his discussion group and talks) is according mutual
respect to the interlocutor and accepting the legitimate right of the
interlocutor to hold on to a religious belief in private life. It does not mean
that all religions are worthy of respect or that they are true. If anything,
Being Different systematically deconstructs Christianity and makes a case for
how the core Christian doctrines actually prevent self-realization and hence
must be abandoned. The cited sentence could be reworded for better clarity and
to be consistent with the narrative of the section where it appears.
Elsewhere, Malhotra writes that
Constantine seized “the dhārmic message of Jesus and turn(ed) it into a
political weapon.” The context is the discussion where he contrasts archetypes
in dharma and Christianity. Constantine, a subscriber to the Arian ‘heresy,’ indeed
used Christianity for political ends though one could disagree that the message
of Jesus was dhārmic. Critical examination of the Bible by Strauss, Ehrman,
Somers-Elst, etc., has demonstrated that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet and a
paraphrenic, and that his words were irrational, vindictive, and violent; as
Somers-Elst show, more acutely so by the time he authors the Revelation. No
doubt, in subsequent centuries, a few passages resembling Hindu and Buddhist
teachings were incorporated into the Bible, but as Thundy demonstrates, these
were borrowed from the east and were not integral to the message of Jesus.
Importantly, such passages lack a dhārmic context, and never influenced the
Christian mindset which was purely conditioned by an expectation of the
Apocalypse. However, it must be pointed out that Malhotra uses this sentence to
challenge the exclusivist claims of Christianity as evident from his
discussions with Mark Tully. Once a liberal Christian accepts that Jesus was
dhārmic, he has to concede that Jesus was not unique since there have been
numerous dhārmic teachers and paths. In the framework deployed by Being
Different, this stance not only helps separate the co called liberal Christians
from fundamentalists but also negates the foundational claims of Christian
exclusivity.
Being Different implies that “kunḍalinῑ-like
manifestations have occurred sporadically among Christians” even though the
church suppresses such manifestations and condemns the person to mental asylum.
What Malhotra means, as evident from the narrative in that section, is that
while an untrained person could accidentally have some rudimentary form of kunḍalinῑ-like
experience, such experiences not only bewilder that person but are also opposed
and suppressed by society. He does not mean that such manifestations are
integral to Christianity. Laya-krama (process of dissolution), where vāsanas
(tendencies) are permanently annihilated so that one attains a state which is
nirvikāra (changeless) and vaideha-kaivalya (body-less), is a central
methodology to kunḍalinῑ yöga. In all of the reported Christian mystical
experiences there is absolutely none where such states are described. The
so-called Christian mystics are nothing more than hesychasts, and hesychasm
itself is a technique that was borrowed from Buddhism and Hinduism and
incorporated in Alexandrian churches. This is also evident from the crude
manner in which it is incorporated into the Bible where anti-Semitic words are
put into the mouth of Jesus to condemn the synagogue-going Jews and their modes
of prayer (Matthew 6:5-6) and to contrast it with hesychasm. Hesychasm never
matured into anything kunḍalinῑ-like as the church cracked down on hesychasts.
So, hesychasm is not a kunḍalinῑ-like variant within Christianity; it is a
concept borrowed from the east and synthetically imported into early
Alexandrian churches, until it was purged by the mainstream. This is very
similar to how yöga is appropriated as Christian yöga but condemned by the
Vatican. Given the reality of Christian misappropriation of Hindu practices, an
example being how yöga is crudely repackaged as pilates, one feels Malhotra
could rephrase this sentence to be consistent with the message of the section
where it appears.
None of these minor disagreements
diminish the importance of Being Different. Any scholarly writing engages the
reader and is bound to spark an occasional disagreement. The book is of utmost
importance as it reverses the gaze towards the west and evaluates it using the
dhārmic paradigm. It is daring, witty, well-researched, and well-argued. It is
certain to inspire others to stand upon Malhotra’s shoulders and extend the
gaze.
