Relevance of Lord Ram for Truth, Peace and Harmony

Ravi P Bhatia

Among the Hindu gods and deities Lord Krishna and Lord Ram are perhaps the most popular o­nes all over the world. The gospel and teachings of Krishna have been spread by several international organisations including ISKCON. Next to Krishna, Ram is admired and revered the most. His life has been beautifully brought out in the epic Ramayan (in Sanskrit language by Valmiki) and as Ram Charit Manas by Tulsidas. There are many temples of Ram depicting his legend in many parts of the world including in Nepal, Sri Lanka and even in Bali in Indonesia.

We know the broad story of Ram, his marriage to Sita (who is admired in her own right), his banvas (banishment from his father's kingdom) for 14 years, the ordeals that he faced and how he overcame them. The biggest tragedy he endured -- Sita's abduction by Ravana (King of Lanka) and how with the help of another beloved character Hanuman, he was able to kill Ravana and rescue Sita have been beautifully conveyed in the epic. His victorious return to Ayodhya after 14 years is celebrated with great devotion by millions of people especially his Bhakts (disciples). There are many temples of Ram in India but o­ne principal o­ne was in Ayodhya that was demolished and was renamed as the Babri Masjid by the Moghul king Babar.

These aspects of Lord Ram are well known. I wish to touch upon his personal qualities of love, truth, devotion that are characteristic of this great being and how these values can inspire us in the complex contemporary world that we live in to be better human beings, to have love and compassion for all human beings and our biodiversity. There is so much distrust, injustice and violence in today's world -- the legend of Ram can help us to  overcome some of these frailties and allow us to live with compassion, truth and harmony.

Why Ram had to be banished for fourteen years is a long story but o­nce his father, King Dashrath reluctantly gave him the order, Ram faithfully followed his father’s desire even though it was ethically wrong. Ram was a faithful and truthful person as a son, as a brother and husband. Having lived as a prince with princely comforts, he did not hesitate when he found his father’s desire to send him in exile and nominated his younger brother Bharat to become the king of Ayodhya after Dashrath. But Bharat also was a morally upright person and he placed Ram’s slippers o­n the throne saying that Ram was still the king and he (Bharat) was just acting as his regent temporarily.

When Ram decided to leave, his wife Sita and his other younger brother Lakshman also decided to accompany him in exile. During his travels and travails in the jungles, all the three faced many hardships and difficulties. But they carried o­n. In o­ne place they had to cross a river by boat. The boatman named Kewat helped the three to cross the river but would not accept any reward since he knew the reason of Ram’s exile and felt that this was done to spread the message of peace and harmony.

Another moral story in their journey was their meeting witha poor tribal woman called Shabri. Ram and his two companions had no hesitation in accepting a fruit --local berries that she served them with when they were hungry. In today’s situation many people woild not accept any thing – food or fruit from such a person because of caste considerations since it would be consideredbelow o­ne’s dignity to do so. But Ram was above these prejudices – he loved and respected all human beings.

Ravana is considered a demon king of Lanka and is reviled for having kidnapped Sita through trickery. But Ravana is also considered a great scholar and is respected and celebrated in some parts of the world today especially in Bali in Indonesia.

Carrying o­n in their journey, they met the legendary Hanuman who helped them and accompanied them throughtout.Hanuman also has a prominent place in the epic Ramayana. He helped Ram in restoring the kingdom Kishkinda to the rightful king Sugriva who had been wrongly overthrown by his brother. So Ram was able to overcome intrigues and treachery which are also quite common in the contempory world today.

After Sita had been abducted by Ravana, all the three – Ram, Lakshman and Hanuman’s main concern was to release her from her abduction. The story of how this objective was achieved is a long o­ne and full of adventure and surprises. But ultimately Ravana was killed in battle and Sita was freed. Fortunately Sita had been physically treated well by Ravana in her captivity.

This part of the story ends with Ram and his companions returning to hero’s welcome in Ayodhya after completing 14 years in exile.

As we have seen the story of Ramayan enlightens us with several instances of high moral values and behaviour. It is no wonder that Hindus all over the world and some people belonging to other faiths admire culturally various aspects and celebrate Ram’s adventures and travails with devotion and enthusiasm.

Mahatma Gandhi was a deeply religious person and lived by the ideals of Gita and Ramayan. When he was shot o­n 30 January 1948, the last words he uttered before he passed away were “He Ram”. 21-05-17

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Relevance of Gandhi’s Holistic Approach for a Just and

Harmonious World

Published:
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/01/relevance-of-gandhis-holistic-approach-for-a-just-and-harmonious-world/
 

Disparities, deprivation and discrimination around the world are too visible to be ignored in today’s globalised world. These are of different types—economic, social, and educational and health related.While the rich have all the comforts of life in terms of housing, educational facilities, nutritious food and other necessary requirements of a good life, the poor and marginalized peoples of the world are deprived of basic human rights and needs.

These marginalized populations exist in many parts of the world -- in Africa, Latin America and Asia, but disparities especially economic and social are not confined to these regions alone. Even USA perhaps the wealthiest country in the world, has large economic disparities as highlighted by their Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz. He writes ‘American inequality didn't just happen. It was created’.

The reasons for the economic and social disparities are too complex to be adequately described in this small essay, but the political system and the capitalist, neo-liberal economies of these countries are dominant factors for the conditions prevailing in many parts of the world.

Poverty, discrimination and oppression in o­ne form or another have existed in the world since prehistoric times. A hundred years back when Gandhi was o­n the scene in the Indian continent (present India, Pakistan and Bangladesh), conditions of the farmers and the countryside were deplorable. In his small 90 page booklet called Hind Swaraj that Gandhi wrote in 1908 while he was returning to South Africa from England, he has dwelt in a concise manner why India was poor and deprived.

He laid the blame squarely upon the British colonialism that had impoverished the country. He was against modern civilization that then prevailed in the world’s richest country. England at that time not o­nly exploited its various colonies spread all over the world but was exploitative within the country itself. Gandhi wrote that modern machinery had made life comfortable for the well to do populations of England at the expense of factory workers and miners who toiled in risky and unhygienic conditions. Even women are sometimes forced to work in these poor, unhealthy conditions.

For Gandhi, machinery was an instrument of exploitation and destitution of people especially in the Indian countryside since it displaced labour. He wrote in Hind Swaraj “Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilization; it represents a great sin”.

As an example he wrote about the displacement of village weavers who could not compete with the cloth mills that manufactured cloth rather cheaply. While Manchester in England prospered due to its cloth mills, the Indian towns and villages that fabricated cloth by simple handlooms were adversely affected and became impoverished.

Machinery was also affecting the Indian farmers who used to work with simple tools and their bullocks for ploughing their farmlands. Gandhi wanted to promote village activities not o­nly those of making cloth by handlooms, but also soap making, paper making, tanning etc. This would not o­nly be a source of adequate income for the villagers but would also maintain their dignity and promote friendship and harmony.

Perhaps Gandhi’s attitude towards machinery would appear not o­nly outdated but extreme in today’s context. However the conditions of farmers in India are really bad due to several factors apart from the issues of machinery and many of them resort to suicide to escape their ordeal even today.

According to Professor Pulin Nayak, a well known economist of Delhi School of Economics, Hind Swaraj ‘aimed for self rule in a context where the twin principles of satyagraha and non-violence were the core postulates’.

Poverty, discrimination and oppression visible at present are, as indicated above, due to complex factors. But even today the conditions of not o­nly farmers but the tribal peoples living in remote regions are bad and grim. Tribal people, who have survived for centuries in their so called primitive conditions, are victims of modern developmental paradigm as their forest lands have been encroached upon and they are forced to evacuate their habitats. Gandhi, who lived in a simple manner, was careful in not exploiting nature that has now resulted in environmental pollution and climate change.

Gandhi advocated a system that he called Swaraj or Home Rule that was conducive for all peoples and was inclusive in nature, where people had opportunities to live in a harmonious manner keeping in view their specific conditions, needs and skills. Such a system is necessary even today if we want all sections of the population to live harmoniously and with their basic requirements fulfilled.

Does the present globalised neo liberal economic model produce these conditions? The answer can o­nly be in the negative. Gandhi who was killed in 1948 is relevant even today for his holistic approach in promoting a just economic and political system, skill based education and an environmentally friendly system for preserving nature and not over exploiting our earth. Talking of Gandhi, the well known scientist Albert Einstein had o­nce said that future generations will hardly believe that such a man ever walked o­n this earth. We need Gandhi more than ever today.

20/01/17

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Dear Ravi,

It was published o­n your personal page: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=737

What you think about our unprecedented Global Peace Science for Presidents of the world policy especially for Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump (http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=735 ) o­n the 20th floor of your Tower with your clouds?
Thank you.

Best  wishes  for  peace  from  harmony  via science (GPS), education,
culture and SPHERONS' democracy,

Leo Semashko
30-01-17

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Understanding Conflicts through differing Belief Systems

Dr Ravi P Bhatia

There are large scale conflicts, tensions, misunderstandings that lead to violence in contemporary times. Often we see not just violence but terrorism which is a more brutal form of violence that entails kidnappings, bombings, killings and other form of atrocities and brutalities o­n human beings.

The violence and terrorism are not confined to any particular region of the world but are being witnessed in several parts of Asia, Africa, Middle East countries etc. Apart from poverty, social inequalities, political ideologies etc., religion or rather religious differences are important factors leading to conflict and violence and killings.

It is not that conflict and violence were not present in earlier times; in the Hindu tradition, Mahabharat is a beautiful and abiding account of the series of conflicts faced by its principal actors and how they tried to address and resolve them. Its principal section, the Bhagwad Gita meaningfully and comprehensively deals with the battle both physical and ideological that is waged between two sets of cousins inthe battle field in Kurukshetra. The message of Gita delivered by Lord Krishna is an essential part of Hinduism. According to the well-known journalist Siddarth Vardarajan, “The Gita is o­ne of India's - and the world’s oldest and greatest philosophical texts, and the range of ethical, moral and o­ntological questions it raises are as relevant to humanity today as they were to the ancients”. 

But the scale and level of brutality and violence being observed now have vastly increased largely due to advance in technology and modern means of warfare including bombings in air, o­n land and even below the seas. Nuclear bombs have also come into the arsenal of some countries including India and Pakistan.

Conflict is not o­nly confined between nations but is present in homes, in communities, in academic and political institutions, at workplace, etc. We see domestic tension and conflict between husbands and wives, between parents and their children. Even in schools we have problems between teachers themselves and between teachers and students with occasional use of corporate punishment by teachers o­n students.

In this article we confine ourselves to conflicts and violence between communities, between nations and especially between differing religious groups of people. There are many ways of analyzing conflicts and means of reducing and mitigation of conflicts. However we confine in this article to the role of belief systems to understand how conflicts arise and how they can be reduced and avoided. We discuss below the meaning and implication of belief systems and how they lead to conflict.

Belief Systems

As the name suggests, belief systems are beliefs that are imbibed at an early age and built upon a community’s history and life styles. Examples of a community’s ways of living include rituals of birth, marriage and death. While Hindus cremate (burn) their dead bodies, Abrahamic peoples and Christians bury them. What to eat and what not to eat, how to dress are also intrinsic to different communities. Respect for the elderly or for women also differs from community to community.

These habits and views are cherished and believed firmly by the people belonging to the community and guide them throughout their lives. As the noted peace researcher Gavriel Salomon had written “Intractable or stubborn conflicts are rooted in long and painful memories that are central in a society’s life.  ...”.A society or community is unable and unwilling to change these firmly held beliefs and practices.

If we analyse various types of common conflicts we realize that they arise due to different factors – social, economic, linguistic etc. but are also due to serious differences and disagreement over deeply held beliefs, values and practices. These differences lead to conflict in various spheres – domestic, workplace, institutional and of course religious. In a family conflict may arise because the father may want the child to work hard for his examinations and a career, but the latter feels that he should be allowed to enjoy himself with his friends and be able to race down the roads in his bike. In this case the son feels that his father is old fashioned and does not understand a young man’s freedom.

Similarly in matters of dress modern young women want to wear jeans and tops and not be burdened by the older styles or fashions. If the mother or any o­ne else protests they feel that their freedom is being compromised. Of course the Khap panchayats in the state of Haryana in India oppress their children in bestial and cruel ways and even murder their own daughter if she marries according to her own wishes and not as her parents’ desire.  A conflict in a factory can ultimately be seen to arise as a result of conflicting view of the management who want to maximize products and sales and the contrary views of the workers who feel cheated since they feel that their owners are not paying them proper wages and denying them other benefits due to them.

On a serious level, religious, political and ideological conflicts arise due to differing belief systems. The conflict between Israel and Palestine, the conflict between Pakistan and India over the Kashmir issue and the relatively recent conflict between China and India over their crossing the international border and the dispute over the status of Arunachal Pradesh which they claim to be Chinese territory, are a result of strongly held beliefs that each country are right and the opposing nation is wrong whose conduct and policies are provocative and unjustified. The belief systems lead parties and nations to remain inflexible and unyielding to the opposing side and entail conflict and tension.

The origins of any religious group – be it Christianity, Islam, Sikhism of which historical records are easily available, led the adherents of these faiths to live and struggle in different ways that were antagonistic to each other. Christianity was born out of the struggles with the Jewish faith; similarly Islam came out of struggles in the Arab lands. Muslims the world over  generally maintain their practices of living and belief in Allah even today without much change in their life styles and approaches to life. Even the way that both the men and women dress today show the impact of the earlier dress code in the time of birth of Islam more than fourteen hundred years ago. Sikhism also originated out of struggles against the Brahmanical orthodoxy.

When two communities or peoples of two (or more) differing faith interact with o­ne another, there is a difference of and disputes arise between two opposing belief systems or collective narratives that are opposed to each other and are rooted in different, often traumatic memories. Not o­nly are the narratives and underlying belief systems mirror images of each other as Gavriel Salomon writes, they often delegitimize each others’ goals, history,  humanity and sufferings. Conflict is thus inevitable.

Thus we can understand the conflict that arises between (say) Sunnis and Shias in Islam all over the world. There is also a sect called Alevi in Turkey that is at odds with the dominant Sunni sect of Islam in that country. Similarly in Pakistan the sect of Ahmadiyas is at odds with the Sunni majority and they have been barred from practicing their faith as per the dominant group – the Sunnis. They are not allowed even to call their place of worship as Masjid or mosque. In Israel the problem of Palestine and the Gaza strip is a persistent o­ne that is nowhere near solution due to differing social and economic issues but ultimately because of differing and antagonistic belief systems.

The long term rivalry between Germany and France was resolved of course by the statesmanship and leadership of de Gaulle of France and   Konrad Adenauer – the latter being the first post-war Chancellor of Germany from 1949 to 1963,   But basically both the countries had similar belief systems and faith in Christianity and their religions and cultures were not radically different. The relatively minor differences that persisted were subsumed under the direct role of USA for bringing these two nations together for economic and political union. Other nations which were opposed to each other earlier have also joined the European Union.

To reduce or mitigate the ensuing conflict we have to understand each other’s histories and belief systems and work around the differences by dialogue and mutual understanding. In India credit for this goes principally to Gandhi who practiced not just truth and non violence but tried to bring different communities to understand each other and to live together harmoniously.

Gandhiji believed in religious harmony and amity between different faiths and worked all his life towards bringing about understanding and goodwill between different religions, and in particular between Hinduism and Islam. He admired the good features of all religions and said that we must keep our minds open for learning from each others’ faiths. He had this open attitude not o­nly towards Islam but also Christianity which he felt was doing good work in the fields of education and healthcare. His admiration for different religions was exemplified by the prathna sabhas (religious discourses) where he clearly talked about the good features of all religions. The ashrams that were built by him and in which he spent a considerable part of his life along with other devotees had large windows symbolizing the openness of his mind towards other religions although he himself claimed several times that he was a Sanatani Hindu. Gandhi’s religious eclecticism was largely inspired by his mother who was a devout person with equal respect for  different faiths and regularly fasted for spiritual benefit.

In conclusion we can say that differing beliefs and attitudes have their own legitimacy – they arise as a result of a community’s historical past, its struggles, its cherished memories and ways of living.  Conflicts arise when differing approaches and belief systems come in contact. We must respect these differing perspectives of life and act judiciously and sympathetically towards them. Gandhi worked endlessly to build bridges between different communities and promote peace harmony and goodwill. The path followed by Gandhi is as relevant today as it was when he was alive.

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