Awarezen owes much of its spiritual and wisdom heritage to the timeless land of Bharat or what the British colonialists call “India.” Buddhism and Tantra both have roots in Bharat. Chinese Chan, the antecedent of Japanese Zen, has its ancestral origins in Bharat. Our Awarezen Lineage draws from across Buddhist traditions stemming from Bharat including Chan and Vajrayana as well as Indic Tantra.
At this critical juncture of human history, when divisive and conflictual re-colonialist forces seek to re-assert their destructive agendas based on politics of identity and crass populism, there is urgent need for good people of the world, secular and religious alike, from east to west and north to south, to plumb deep into our depths and look high to the heights for collective inspiration and insight to move forward together as one cosmic human society. Bharat has much to offer us on this journey of universal inclusivism.
On this occasion of Bharat’s 78th Independence Day, Sadhguru speaks on the need to move from Bharat to Mahabharat — a civilization of inclusiveness from the inner personal to the universal. Just as forces of absolutism organize themselves to impose their life-negating agenda, so too those who aspire for inclusiveness must organize themselves to invite peace and compassion for all, transcending man-made boundaries and dogmas.
And here is the catch: inclusivism is not an ideology that is itself a form of absolutism. Otherwise, inclusivism is no longer what it is. Rather, inclusivism is like empty space that allows for differences but is by nature not a “thing”that obstructs or impedes. Space is not a thing. Space is freely and naturally not an obstruction of any kind. Space is infinite open expanse.
Absolutism in contrast is none other than the epitome of obstruction itself. Absolutism is heavy concrete and reified obstruction that blocks and blots out everything in its way. Absolutism thus is naturally “not-space.” When absolutism meets space and craves to obliterate space, it will fail miserably for space has no limits of any kind. Virtual emanations of space will simply erode and dissolve the seemingly powerful absolutist block into its original condition of space in any case. For all phenomena are but primordially empty, free, transparent, and luminous space.
In another message, Sadhguru speaks on the mantric significance of the word “Bharat” in his typical postcolonial fashion, encouraging us to observe for ourselves how language makes us who we are (at least relatively) and affects how we feel about who we are. “Bharat” is a mantra.
Similarly, the word “China” means nothing but “中国” reverberates as Middle Kingdom, a central land of our ancestors, my ancestral home — a vast land of diverse terrains and cultures, and the source of wisdom from the Great Dao that has manifested in different traditional streams. “中国” is also a mantra. It vibrates differently from “China.”
May we remember the life energy and vibration of thousands of years of history and wisdom of Bharat and 中国. It is time to shed our western colonized psyches that at best marginalise our heritage and at worst denigrate or seek to decimate it. Let us embody our ancient wisdom heritage and celebrate the positive energy it can infuse into our rapidly decaying and selfishly divided world.
Sadhguru’s message (1) on Bharat’s 78th Independence Day:
https://youtu.be/cH1qoTtivlA?feature=shared
Sadhguru’s message (2) on Bharat’s 78th Independence Day:
https://www.youtube.com/live/9748Jn4IdMA?feature=shared
Jai Mahabharata!
Image credit: Sadhguru.
