Can we attain a good discernment of them, and of the value and efficacity of their teachings?
The question, that I will try to face with my limited knowledge and experience, is a paramount one, as indeed India is recognised as one of the most important sources of spirituality in (and probably for) Mankind, with a long history of research and ways of life, and not so much repressed by religious authorities and by uniformity (although Budhism was not accepted and almost expelled from the Indian subcontinent brahmanism, after good discussions between V and X c., as it was not accepting the Vedas neither the atman, or individual spirit), as it has happened with most of the nations subject to the Christian or Islamic religions, sometimes with forcing conversions and proselytizing, if not even killing...
From the oldest records of the Vedas (around 2000 a. C) to the Upanishads (around and from 800 a. C) we find a growing deep search for knowlegde of the truth or reality of the mind, the self, the spirit, God, the Manifestation, creating a deeper understanding and vision of the human being in itself and interconnected through his elements with Nature, in a Macrocosmos, and with a after life and so with a consequent swadharma, or order, call, duties, mission on himself....
Some Upanishads registers important discoveries about the human being and its subtle components and the spiritual realities, and so they have become the basis of many commentaries and also of one of the six philosophical systems, the darshanas: the one called Yoga Vedanta, based on the pratices and theories of Yogis and the philosophy and vision of the best philosophical and religious traditions or paths (marga) developed from the Vedas, as the meaning of Vedanta is "the end of the Vedas" and includes especially the Upanishads (written mostly after the four Vedas) and the teachings of Brahma Sutras, Bhagavad Gita and the philosophers and mystics who had commented them...
What we found there are dialogues of masters and pupils in search of the truth, and a description of the differents elements, layers, levels or bodies of the human being, and how we can proceed in a path of self knowledge and liberation (moksa, kaivalya).
The Bhagavad Gita, is a most important sacred and beautiful book, composed around VIII to IV a.C., as we find in it so valuable views and teachings of the spiritual path, with the different ways to achieve knowledge, love, hability in action, detachment, union with God, etc.
Other important sources and books come from higher beings,the gurus and acharyas, masters that have realized higher levels of knowlege of themselves and of God, living them properly...
Shankara (700-750 c.), Ramanuja (1017-1137), Madhva (1238-1317) and, in the south of India, Tirumular, from the Taimil Saivites, and the 12 Alvars, from the Tamil Vaishnavites, where some of the most realized ones, in the old times, having still in our days their representatives very respected, and having influenciated many philosophers and mystics.
In Medieval epoch we find many famous yogis and mystics, some of them arriving already to a liberation from the chains of exclusivistic religious creeds of realization, some seeing the unity that is beyond the pratices and doctrines of sufism and yoga, all of them stressing the Love to God, and we should speak and know of the life and teachings of Jnanadeva, Namdeva, Ekanatha, Tukarama, Ramadasa, Kabir, Mira, Tulsidas, etc.
In the Moghul dinasty, and especially with Akbar and his grandson Dara Shikoh, appears the idea of the search of the best doctrines for a universal religion, that could be understood and attained from a syntesis of particulars ones, for which Akbar build the Ibadat Kana, where meetings or debates with representatives of different religions happened since 1575. Around 1579 he proclaimed the Din Ilahi, the Religion of God, but only for a few disciples and friends who were a bit more prepared. The merging of the two Oceans, title of a book of Dara Shikoh about indian and islamic spirituality, yoga and sufism, reflects his pioneering universal task (that in a certain way costed his life at the hands of his younger brother, the fanatical Aurangzeb), having achieved for that also the first translation to persian of 50 Upanishads, in 1657, who were then translated by Anquetil-Duperront, in 1795, to latin, reaching European people and philosophers as Hegel, Kant, Schlegel, Schelling and Schopenhauer.
In the XIX century there was a strong ressurgence of Indian nationality and universal spirituality, mixed with modern ideias of science and christianity, when, trying to became free from the fetters of British colonialism, some masters come to the forefront, especially Devendranath Tagore (and, after, his son, Rabindranath, Nobel Prize for Literature, 1913) and Keshab Chandra Sen, the great Brâhmo leader, living and teaching higher morals and doctrines. But it was Paramahansa Ramakrishna (1836-1866), the first one to be recognized by western orientalists and sanskrit specialists as a true yogi master, as, for example, Max Müller has done, with Romain Rolland, Nobel Prize for Litterature in 1915, amplifying the divulgation of his tecahings with a biography. It seems that just before and at beginning of the 1º great War there was some awareness of the need of a more spiritual way of being and living, and help was asked from India and their Sanatana Dharma, their eternal tradition of spiritual values and duties.
After him others masters become known to the West, particulary the disciples of sri Ramakrishna, like swami Vivekananda, who made an impressive speech on the World's Parliament of Religions (an incredible and pioneer meeting, with hundreds of participants, in Chicago, 1893, something impossible or irrelevant in our days, tragically...), swami Parananda and others, reaching until our days, like two monks with whom I have spoken, swami Ritajananda in Paris and swami Ranganathananda in Calcuta. In others lineages of swamis, we should mention Ramalinga Swamigal and Rama Tirtha, as both, with others, have been living examples, and generated discourses and books that were not only influent and commented in India but were also translated in western countries, like the ones of Vivekananda, in Portugal apearing
in the twenties of the XX century.
At that time, in 1927, also Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) liberated himself of the megalomaniac dream of being the new World Teacher, as his theosophical mentors Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater wanted, and begin his career of a lonely psychological guru in the West that would last decades.
Another source of Indian spirituality that become known and available to the West was the one from the teachings and initiations of Paramahamsa Yogananda (1897-1952), a disciple of a valuable lineage of Kriya Yoga masters (his one being Sri Yukteswar Giri), who arrived to New York in 1920 and established after some centers of the Self Realization Fellowship, where meditation, Yoga Vedanta and bhakti (devotion), were kindled.
After them, many indian masters or teachers have become known to the West and we can name Sri Chinmmoy, Sri Satchitananda, Muktananda, Maharishi Maesh Yogi, Guru Maharaji, Swami Vishnudevananda and Rajneesh or Osho, indeed this one the most genial of them. Some of them unfortunately got trapped in misleading ways or less true and
valuable teachings.
On XXI century the Indian masters that attain sucess in the West have become indeed much more comercialized and cosmetic ones. Some of them, although having hundreds and thousands of disciples, are very superficial, some even faking the miracles that have made Sai Baba famous, like taking gold eggs from the stomach or making money and sacred ashes appear from the void, the belly or some occult device...
Yoga has become in the West in modern times, in much of the cases, mostly physical acrobacies, or asanas and pranayamas, or sweet devotion between disciples and masters, and also opressive and exclusivist schools and federations, with very little spiritual realization in the teachers or presidents. Surely there has been also some good Hatha yoga teachers, as Iyengar and others and you will find in the web hundreds...
So if you want to know really about Yoga you must have discernment and not be mislead by the superficial intermediaries that get between you and the true Yoga tradition, your true self and with God's realization, as you will be manipulated to realize mostly the wishes and ambitions of the group, of the guru, of the federation, and you will be under subtle treads of illusion and binding...
So it is better to do yoga and meditation free, or with some teacher that doesn't manipulate you or pretends to be what he is not, something that happens also very much in our days with so much self-proclaimed realized, enlightened, liberated and non-dual beings, seated in their heavens of ashrams or disciples, and smiling to their or in their own self-illusion of spiritual realization.
In India, in the XXI century, the instituition of Gurus is still very much strong, almost everyone has is guru or his ishta devata (personal and intimate God) and so ashrams, pilgrimages, kumbha melas are frequently in a full glow of dynamism.
So where and how can we find some sources of light to understand better the spiritual path, the value of the yoga practices and doctrines?
Well, beyond going to India to some ashram or good teacher or guru, the best is to pratice some inner concentration and meditation and read and know the basic texts: Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Patanjali Yoga Sutras, Narada Bhakti Sutras, the Gospel of Ramakrishna, and then also the lifes and teachings of the most interesting mystics and yogis of all
the times...
From the XX century we can find also some Indian masterswho are of very deep and good quality, and didn't come to the West. We can name some more known, like Sri Aurobindo, Ramana Maharishi (in the last photo), Nisargadath Maharaj, this last two both in the Advaita Vedanta line, Gopi Krishna, Shri Anandamurti (founder of the Ananda Marga), Swami Yogeshwaranand Sraswati (with very deep visions on the subtle levels), Kavi Yogi ShuddhanandaBharati (with whom I lived two months in his ashram in Madras), sri Tathata, etc.
We should also mention the lineage of Vaishnavas, with very ancient roots and coming from Vallabha and Chaintanya in the XVI c., to attain with Swami Prabhupada and his Hare Krishna mouvement, or IKSON, a big impact im many young and alternative people in the 60-80 of the XX century. Many women have been also strong in the bhakti marga, like Sarada Devi, the wife of Ramakrisna (and in the photo), Sri Ananda Moyi, Krishnabai and now Amma.
From christians there has been also some good cases of finding and living the spiritual connections with Indian tradition, as it was the case of Robert da Nobili, in the XVII c., and especially in the XX century of the beneditine monks Henri Le Saux and Jules Monchanin, turned the swami Abhishiktananda, who founded the SatchitAnanda ashram in 1950, in Tamil Nadu. Father Bede Griffiths took their lineage from 1968 and developed, as they have done, a good comparativism and syntesis of hinduism and christianity, mostly by Yoga Vedanta, in valuable books. The following post
card was sent from him to me in 1980, as I was living there one month and had some satsangs and talks with him.
From other acharyas or gurus less known but with much erudition and capacity of comparativism, as they can be called scholars in indology and spirituality, we can name Ananda Coomaraswamy, Sarvepali Radakrishnam, Gopinath Kaviraj and gurudev Ranade, the four with excelent books, specially the last two ones, Gopinath on Advaita and Kashimir Shivaism and Gurudev Ranade on the Mystics, being himself a perfect symbiosis of a scholar in philosophy, a researcher in the teachings of the great mystics and at some time a disciple and then a guru in the lineage of Nimbal, with emphasis in meditation of the name of God, with bhakti, devotion or love, to attain union with the spirit (Atman) and the Divine, Brahman.
I have recently written some articles about Gurudev R. D. Ranade and the books Critical and Constructive Aspects of Prof. R. D. Ranade's Philosophy, by B. R. Kulkarmi, 1974, and Tributes to and Remembrances of Gurudev R. D. Ranade, The Saint of Nimbal, by Rajendra Chauan and Deepak V. Apte, 2020.
From western countries we can name as reliable sources about the Indian spirituality orientalists like E. Burnouf, Louis Renou, Jean Herbert, Lizelle Raymond, Arthur Avalon, Paul Brunton, Sylvie Lysart, Paul Masson Oursel, Theos Bernard, Heinrich Zimmer, Jean Varenne, Tara Michael, Frithjof Schuon and Michel Hulin.
In Portugal we see just a few to recommend: some worksfrom the XIX century of Esteves Pereira and Vasconcelos de Abreu, some articles on Rabindranath Tagore, Gandhi and Indian spirituality from the colaborators of the magazine Seara Nova, like Adeodato Barreto, Tudela de Castro and Luís de Castro Norton de Matos, or Marialva, in the years 20 and 30, and in our days two good translations of António Barahona, one of the Bhagavad Gita, other the Briadh Āraṇyaka Upanishad, my translation of Astavakra Gita, o Cântico da Consciência Suprema, and my translation with Satchitananda Dhar of the Patanjali Yoga Sutras, published with commentaries by Maria, already in a second edition.
In Brasil we could name Hermogenes, Caio de Miranda (master of my first Yoga teacher, prof. António Pedro), Carlos A. Vieira, Huberto Rodhen and Edson Nunes da Silva, these two last ones that I read and had dialogue.
Indeed, from India Yoga, the philosophical darshans and the great immemorial satsanga of gurus and disciples and their fruits are a fabulous treasure for the self-realization and betterment of Mankind, helping her to be linked to its Dharma and to its spiritual and Divine characteristics of Sat Chit Ananda (True being, consciousness and joy) and origin. But each one has to walk in the path of
realization by himself, surely blessed by some guru or master, visible or invisible, in the subtle satsanga of the brotherhood of the gurus, masters.
Om sri Gurabe namah!... Aum Himavat namah!
2 comentários:
parabéns, muito completo!
Graças. Boas inspirações!
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