Adhikara in something is a real thing. You want to be trained in surgery before you go about cutting people open. But you also cut things open while you’re learning to be a surgeon. They used to dissect frogs not too long ago in class 11th. Because the experience of doing something on a smaller scale teaches you how to manage things at a greater scale later. Pretty obvious, no?
Now imagine a surgeon bursting into one such class, hurling the choicest abuses onto the students for not identifying frog organs, or cutting too deep. He decides to shut down the class because they’re not surgeons and cutting things open without knowing how to put them back together is dangerous business.
This is how so many people look like to me when they almost violently threaten anyone doing something they disagree with based on their birth or the material used or the form worshipped or the philosophy or ritual employed. Sure, you don’t do marriages around a funeral pyre. You don’t use swords to sew clothes, to take a Kabir doha out of context. But you also don’t avoid touching a sword unless you are fully certified. You don’t avoid feelings of love or admiration before you can arrange a marriage for yourself. NOR SHOULD YOU MAKE THISE PROCLAMATIONS FOR OTHERS!
As spiritual people we realise that people have sufferings. Since many lifetimes too. Someone decides after many lifetimes of such suffering, that they will seek the end to such suffering. If you’re heartless enough to be an obstacle for such people achieving basic function because they’re not part of your posse, then your adhikaras, your millions of purashcharanas, none of them have given you the reward that was perhaps the most valuable. Compassion. You’ve had adhikara, and yet you’ve not been able to use it to your advantage. What misery that must be.
Sure, don’t let people conduct entire anushthanas by reading stuff from books. But don’t brand them as heretics fit to be discarded, along with those close to them. Or is the inspiration for grown men with learning and discipline the actions of kindergarten kids threatening to tattle to the teachers because someone sat at their seat or got to their swing in the playground.
“Neha ma’am has said that the blue swing is for class 2 C only”.
Analysing social expectations around companionship
A rishi once bathed in a sacred pond. He scooped up some water in his palms to offer to his ancestors, and discovered a tiny rat. Taking it to be an act of destiny, he carried it to his ashram on the bank, and using his tapa, changed the rat into a girl. He then began rearing her as his own daughter.
Time came when the girl was of age. As is common for Indian fathers, he started thinking about what kind of grooms would be most suitable.
He should be venerated by one and all, and must rule over the world. Looking up, he saw the sun, and he invited the sun god to wed his daughter. The daughter, however, said she wasn’t able to look at him because of his immense glow, and declined the match. The sage then asked if the sun knew someone more powerful than him.
Why yes, the moon. He eclipsed the sun ever so often, and he caused tides in both the seas and the minds of all beings. And so the moon was called and asked to accept the daughter in marriage, but the girl found him too pale and pockmarked.. was there anyone more powerful than him?
Why yes, the cloud! Shining at full might on full moon nights, he would be rendered invisible if occluded by the dark cloud. But he was too big and bulbous, and spoke only in loud rumbles.
The wind was next, who could scatter the biggest cloud into mere wisps. But he was too unstable and hard to catch.
Why then try the mountain that stopped the wind’s flow. But he was too hard and stout.
Finally, the groom was to arrive. The king of the rats was referred who could burrow right into the heart of the biggest mountains without the slightest inconvenience to him. The daughter found herself entirely enamored by him, and consented.
The daughter was returned to her rat form, the marriage conducted, and the sage learnt that upbringing is important, but it does not discount the nature the being is born with.
Similarly would be the case of whether or not one should marry. Consider two dispositions, one where one is either a loner whose purpose in life is devoid of notions of companionship, be it for spiritual reasons or for material aims. The other, one where there is a need for companionship, irrespective of other aims. One’s disposition is perhaps, for most, best judged by oneself alone. Which is perhaps why this fairly intuitive principle hasn’t been seen applied in legislation of social codes. But as a thought experiment, let us analyse what happens when either disposition is forced to act the other way.
Loners being forced into marriages leads to disinterested spouses, who may (appear to?) act selfishly. They don’t care about romances, family obligations, social demands. At best, they become friends with their spouse, at worst, they feel trapped and miserable with them. At best, the spouse learns to keep a distance and carry more than their share of the weight. At worst, the disrespect becomes too much and things are broken.
On the other hand, those who need companionship but are forced to live by themselves feel deprived, wronged, even oppressed by the expectations laid onto them. They have wanted their own sweet home with someone they love, observing festivals together, coming home to a nice meal, getting through tough emotional times together, and yes, carnal pleasure. But forced to live alone due to social expectation or circumstance, they may either become bitter, or put up appearance of normativity while they seek pleasure in hiding, and often in taboo or even illegal ways.
Thus there arises a need for people to look at themselves and their inclinations, and opt for an appropriate path. Unfortunately for the most part, marriage is the default option, and if you’re not suitable for marriage as defined in the veritable shastras, one must opt for staying alone, growing old alone, or perhaps worse, stay in a bad marriage. Clearly, the default is not ideal.
So does one then get rid of social injunctions? That is the harebrained solution professed by iconoclasts. The more sustainable option is to understand what good marriage can do to individuals and what harms it can bring to individual parties, and then have the individuals construct their own social arrangement to take care of their needs should they choose to remain outside of the mould of marriage, and to acknowledge partnership if marriage is not provided for those inclined towards companionship.
A note on companionship
The motives of marriage are many. One may disagree with what dominates over the others, but most will accept that marriage serves as a way for:
1. Establishing a family commitment to enable care for the young, the old, and the weak,
2. Conveying legal and moral rights and duties relating to property and propriety, and
3. Allowing a channel for procreation that provides a stable identity to the offspring.
The dharmik fold often adds a fourth duty to these, which also trumps these in the scriptural sense. This is the function of performing dharma karyas.
Simply put, marriage enables the son to follow the yagyas. One cannot perform many rites without the wife present next to him. One may be inclined to force this into gender neutral terms. But fact is that most of these rites are defined with the man as the performer and the wife as the one which enables the act; unchallengeable in importance, but still largely passive (although certain offerings/ritual acts can only be done by the wife, and thus she isn’t a mere onlooker but very much involved).
The importance given to this fourth function comes from the core of dharma and so it is frowned upon to estrange one’s spouse, or get a divorce. I agrue against that because most marriages today are either just parties or just social obligations, given the largely aritualistic (antiritualistic?) lifestyles of present times. Nobody is doing the nitya naimittika yagyas today, and so their right to conduct those is moot.
If those yagyas have been replaced by more everyday forms of worship such as japa, murti puja etc, which do not require marriage except in some cases, then the question of parting or staying with someone should rest not on whether or not one is provided with a means of their dharmas, but on whether or not the relation between the parties is healthy and conducive to the attainment of those dharmas.
If at the core of marriage lies the enablement of the purusharthas, then clearly a bad marriage prevents the oppressed party in the relationship from their daily duties to their gods, parents, and guests. Conversely, a relationship that enables the attainment of the purusharthas should be treated as an exalted one.
What then should become of injunctions against divorce or even gay marriage, whether scriptural or born of socialised religiosity?
Clearly, they stand void given the lapse of the context they were spelled out in. No, this doesn’t justify taunts of the order “oh your civilisation is dead”, or “go fight with sticks and bows” or whatever. The central premise is that these laws shall enable people to make progress if their correct attitude is imbibed.
A married couple devoted exclusively to their bellies or genitals would get just those two benefits out of the whole exercise of marriage, whether that be when the samskara was first developed or in the present day. If a marriage cannot fulfil its objectives and becomes actually harmful to the parties in it, then divorce stands justified.
The four purusharthas are all important in their own right. Excess of all is equally bad. Excess of artha makes one miserable guarding wealth, tracking loans, keeping the books. Excess of kama makes one an addict. But excess of dharma? One wonders why Ajamila really chased a prostitute.
The tramp before the queen
A tramp is taken pity upon by a queen and brought into her palace to be employed. The minister gives the tramp some short instructions on how to behave before royalty. He is to stand straight, not scratch his bum, and pay full attention to the queen (she is, after all, a queen).
The tramp walks in, and thanks the queen in as courtly a manner as he can. The night outside is freezing, and the queen bestows upon him warm soup and a warm coat. The tramp gets a cozy bed to rest in.
The next morning, the tramp stares out of the window and sees a second minister. The second minister tells the tramp that he needs to learn about the queen and her royal family, how large the kingdom is, and how she runs her kingdom, in order to appreciate her grace in accepting him and allowing him into the royal kitchens and near the treasury.
The tramp doesn’t know. The first minister brought him in that night, and because of his lessons he was not thrown out of the palace at the very first moment. The second minister holds the promise of learning and perhaps higher function. Last night he just wanted some food. As the sun sets, his hunger will again resume. But is he to serve the queen by learning more? Or is he to keep his nose out of it and focus on winning the queen’s good graces by cooking the best food, or growing the best flowers for her hair?
यस्याः पादे हरः भाति त्रिनेत्रम् भानुमत्तथा। यस्याः वक्षः कामधेनुः तामिन्दुमुखीमाश्रयेत्।
भो शक्ति प्रणवाकारे अजिते घोरविक्रमे। घोरापति रक्ष रक्ष लोकानाम् वरदा भव।
Balancing loka and adhyatma
Shiva does tapa in viraha of swAtmAnanda or SatI. kAma stirs around him and the onlooking devas hope he shall engage with the world and relieve them of their troubles. He burns kAma with gyAna and tapa. tapa and gyAna show that the world is transient. Engaging with the transient thus generates only transient pleasure, and is thus not swAtmAnanda.
kAma however is reanimated to bhanda. kAma doesn’t perish, and seeks to disrupt tapa and following of the appointed paths by its sway. The indriyas and the shubha samskAras are thus dethroned and their stations overtaken by bhanda to be used for his fulfilment. The indriyas and shubha samskAras must then purify themselves by offering themselves into the fire of chit, and thus kAmeshwari appears to subdue bhanda. Never quite leaving her chariot (the body), and using the same weapons as kAma, she subdues bhanda. She is Shiva and Shakti united as mUrta swAtmAnanda.
She thus balances tapashcharyA and worldly charyA (for lack of a better word) to lead to swAtmAnanda experience as one lives in the world and partakes in its offerings and responsibilities.
jaganmAtA’s shivatva pradAnam
The ash on Shiva comes from the crematorium. It is a burnt body. I wear a body. The body is burnt through the fire of consciousness of not being the body, of the body being ephemeral. Who sits before jaganmAtA and meditates post such burning of the body is therefore Shiva(ansha). Performing feats in the world he is thus Skanda, performing service to the mother he is thus Gajavaktra.
JaganmAtA is the giver of shraddhA, discipline and other aspects that lead up to the doing of tapa, which eventually leads to the burning of the limitations of consciousness that causes the mind. Thus one approaches amanaska sthiti with practice, and eventually, limitations are burned off.
Dissecting misery
What is it that is causing me to be miserable?
One hears the world is misery, but that doesn’t prevent one from being miserable. Because speaking/listening etc aren’t intuiting.
I cleanse the atma, the vidya, and then the maheshwara tattvas, and by them all the tattvas. Twice a day. Perhaps to remind myself that the atma I am doing shodhana of by means of the vidya is Shiva, who in turn contains the sarva. And yet I seek my beloved elsewhere, outside of me? Many ghats away, at the Ghat of Kalika…
What is it that seeks the other, if all is in me, including the beloved? What is it that despite being told that attachment is misery still yearns for it, and for it to be reciprocated?
If mantra shodhana doesn’t free me from the pain of viraha, what makes me any different from a pashu? Further, what is this force that binds, without prior remembered experience of the joys and trials of being bound? What power is this that finds love in the middle of the pain of not being with the beloved?
The manas is Akashabhairava. The separation is the fire. The agony is the effect. The writhing and the lived reality of it; Maheshwara.
Sakalam HariharAtmakam
Social and political leanings in Indian prides
It is no secret that the pride circle walas are despised by all kinds of positions of the social and political spectrum. The unpalatability of these people and their positions can be justified by the involvement of certain interests in their activities. Some people like those found in certain educational institutions and those professing certain unmAdas often make a prominent display of their positions in these events. Whether or not these agents and their followers justify this disdain and distrust is a question to ask, but this in my opinion is a symptom of the infection that certain ideologies can be equated to.
For what it counts for, I attest that there is a wide scope of political and social belief and leaning in the LGBT community, but the events often are dominated by only one of those leanings. In fact, Mumbai and Pune are the only cities the LGBT pride circle of which can offer a salient alternative representation, and those too were breached early this year with the namesake of an apsara raising sinister and ugly slogans.
The overtake of these spaces by one ideology alone is only a result of a first mover’s advantage. The left have long dominated spaces of social discourse, partly because their ideology is yet to be effected in their opinion and so they are ever zealous to harvest representation and dialogue, much like other similar socio-political communities. But I don’t propose that the raetas, the trade and the nationalists jump to get gay marriage etc arranged or something, though I’ll admit it would be quite interesting to see how that development is perceived across the board.
Anyway, the result of a more-queer-than-thou discourse in the said community makes it only sensible that all kinds of oppression, real or politically conceived, is tabled into one. And if one desires to claim a stake in either community, one must be a votary for all others. What happens if interests conflict is well illustrated by how the kinnar Akhara “Mahamandaleshwara” has been booed for the support to Rama Janmabhumi Mandir.
If you only see one kind of political will represented in pride events, it is because of this very exclusionary nature of this supposed inclusive movement.
The solution then is that the right within the community create its spaces and claim its turf and thus counter the discourse.
Some of that is happening, at an awkward pace, because it is mainly over social media, like when a RW celeb tweets in support, or is actively acknowledged as queer. But the initiative here has been from outside the community.
The tiniest semblance of a hindu-friendly, India-friendly discourse is shut down and the organisers ostracised. Harmless collectives like the LGBT Hindu Satsang, or the Queer Hindu Alliance, are seen with utmost disgust and mocked without the slightest provocation. Despite the near-acrobatic backward-bending appeasement (for lack of a better word) that some in these circles and elsewhere can be prone to. The non-left has learnt their ways now, thankfully, and made its presence felt with the recent controversy over Kashish film fest where they used the clout to counter the ousting of a right leaning organiser of the festival to make them lose the voluntary association of a Bollywood actress that has been a vocal advocate of LGBT rights.
Ultimately, Delhi may be lost to these dangerous elements. But hopefully Maratha-bhumi will show the way, like it has in the past.
Rukmaambuja 