A Bhagavad Gita perspective on India’s 75th Independence Day celebrations

Podcast:

Hare Krishna. India at 75th anniversary celebrations of its independence.
What would be a Bhagavad Gita perspective on this issue? I’ll talk about India’s self-realization. Normally, we use the word self-realization to refer to individuals so that they can understand who they really are, the depths of their identity, the meaning and purpose of their existence. What applies to an individual can also apply to broader units that involve hundreds, thousands and millions of individuals, millions of individuals.
So the Indian independence struggle was not just a political struggle from the 1880s when the struggle in modern times began. It was largely conceived by many of the leaders at those times as a spiritual struggle to regain, to refine the soul of India, the spiritual wisdom, the spiritual culture that was the distinctive feature of India that had attracted not just political invaders from various parts of the world, but also intellectual and spiritual seekers from all over the world. And though many of these spiritual leaders felt that India in its capacity to express its spirituality was being impeded, even choked by the political rule of the British.
And thus, the political education for freedom was a part of a larger spiritual movement for elevating human consciousness. But unfortunately, when India got independence, something tragic happened. It came with the specter, the nightmare of partition.
And that led to an exodus of million, more than a million people of the kind that has never been seen in human history. Religion and religious extremism was blamed by the leaders of India. And yes, that religion did play a role.
The solution turned out to be worse than the problem. The solution at that time was thought to be that India, if it is to progress, if it is to avoid conflicts, because India chose to be a secular country with multiple religious sins in it, it decided to emphasize the secular and in the name of secular reject everything or many most of India’s traditional, cultural, intellectual, and wisdom legacy as religious. And as India adopted socialism and we became aggressively sometimes and most of the times covertly anti-religious, anti-spiritual.
And thus, India became unmoored from its spiritual foundations. Under the dream of a socialist utopia, India just lumbered on, hardly making any substantial progress, even in the material domain, and experiencing a lot of unfortunate spiritual regress. Then India decided to shackle off the yoke of socialism, not because of any spiritual awakening, but because of a rude material joint.
But over a period of time, India’s spiritual legacy could not be denied, it could not be suppressed. While the government chose to try to remove religion from the public sphere, it was very much a part of people’s inner world. And it was not just religious rituals or religious practices, it’s a profound worldview, it’s a way of looking at the world.
And while India was rejecting or neglecting its spiritual legacy, the world was not. Many spiritual leaders from India went to the western part of the world, the more progressive part of the world, materially progressive. And there, it had a significant impact.
Books like the American Veda describe how Indian spirituality entered into the American heartland, the cultural and the intellectual heartland. And from there, it started coming back to India. And the Bhagavad Gita was one such book, which post-independence gained a significant amount of respect and reputation.
It had that reputation, but it continually expanded post-independence and attracted a huge amount of readership. And then, over the last decade or so, India is now both moving forward and turning inward. It is the unique genius of the Bhagavad Gita that it combines these two things.
Arjuna, who was bewildered, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the ethical challenge facing him, was empowered by the wisdom of the Gita to both move inward to the divinity that is present within his own heart, Ma Manusmaram, and outward to do the responsibility that he was expected to do as a warrior. And that inward connection, outward contribution, is the combination that can empower India in a way that can be transformative, that can be a game-changer for India’s place and position in the world. India has made significant strides in providing for material amenities for people in the last few decades.
And India has also had what we could say a spiritual awakening. Rather than being embarrassed about some of the controversial and often maligned practices within the Indian tradition, Indians are now looking for the wealth of wisdom and goodness that is there and sharing it. The Bhagavad Gita is being offered as the best of India, India’s gifts by the Indian leaders to the world leaders who visit India, whom Indian leaders visit.
The Bhagavad Gita is more and more being recognized as a fount of wisdom. And today, India is becoming an increasingly assertive country in the world stage. So, if India is to become self-realized, self-realization means both connecting with our core, connecting with the whole to which we belong and contributing in a mood of service.
So, India’s core is its spirituality. It’s the profound legacy of wisdom that it has for in a very inclusive way, providing user-friendly spirituality, providing everyone a pathway to raise their consciousness from where they are. Krishna’s mood in the Bhagavad Gita can be summarized as from your place at your pace, access divine grace.
And that inclusivism has always characterized India. It is India which is the shelter for the Jews when they were persecuted, for the Christians when they were persecuted by the Roman Empire, for the Parsis when they were persecuted with the expansion of Islam, and even certain sects of Islam when they were persecuted by other sects of Islam. So, this inclusive fabric that has characterized human Indian history comes from the inclusive mood of the Bhagavad Gita.
And this facility to connect with a higher reality and find a higher purpose, whatever be the level of our consciousness, and then act in a mood of service. That is the legacy of the Bhagavad Gita. India is advancing technologically.
India is asserting itself on the geopolitical stage. India has had successful Indians leading many of the world’s major companies. And yet the best of India is still to come.
The best of India is not just all these material contributions. Yes, India had remarkable material advances even in the past. Ayurveda, sophisticated body of knowledge.
Vedic math is being increasingly recognized in the world today. And archaeological findings are discovering more and more evidence of sophisticated civilizations like the Indus Valley civilization. So, India’s past materially had been glorious, and India’s future also can materially be prosperous.
However, for India’s self-realization to be complete, what made India distinct was not just its material prosperity, but its spiritual wealth. Its wealth of wisdom by which every individual could be empowered with meaning and purpose according to their level of consciousness. That every individual could connect with their deepest self and contribute to their highest potential.
This is the call of the Bhagavad Gita. Arise, oh Arjuna, and attain victory. That is a call for every Indian.
That each of us can be, indeed, each of us is a part of a reality far bigger than ourselves. And that higher reality, that divinity, wants us to do glorious things in a mood of service. Not just for our own ego’s gratification, but for the world’s elevation.
And to the extent every Indian can turn towards the wisdom of the Gita and empower yourself with that wisdom. To that extent, India will march forward on its progress towards self-realization and manifest that self-realization through both material prosperity and spiritual prosperity. Sharing its riches with the entire world for raising global human consciousness and thus ushering in a bright era amid these increasingly dark times that the world is facing.
So let us on the 75th anniversary of India’s independence, strive to fulfill the vision for which many Indian spiritual leaders participated in this struggle. It was not just to throw off political shackles of foreigners. It was to rediscover and re-manifest the soul of India, its distinctive spiritual contributions.
Its distinctive contribution of wisdom by which it can become a Vishwaguru. It can become a spiritual guide, a spiritual beacon for the whole world.