| I am obsessed about three related issues currently, though I am not making progress in any of them, being generally bogged down by life. (a) How do India's classical views of reality that mainly stem from its contemplative traditions relate to the modern view of reality that we know from modern science? Are the former just "spiritual" modalities - i.e., "mere" religions - that must give up their claims on having anything useful to say about the nature of reality in the face of superior and more effective theories, or is there something useful that they have to add to the story? I would like to see it investigated by someone who is not dismissive of these traditions, but also bring a rigorous spirit of skeptical enquiry to their investigations. I suspect that this might take a unique kind of investigator: someone (a) who is technically trained in several modern scientific disciplines (since India's metaphysical traditions such as sAmkhya or vedAnta simultaneously straddle psychological, physiological and physical aspects), (b) who has undergone a training in the scriptural traditions that deal with these topics (which will involve a close familiarity with Sanskrit, and possibly the major Buddhist classical languages such as Pali or classical Tibetan), and (c) who undergoes the contemplative training which will systematically induce in the practitioner the first hand experiences of altered states of consciousness without which you cannot make sense of these claims. The core issue that I can surmise so far is fundamentally a divergence in investigation techniques: one uses a first-person, subjective, inward-looking ("antarmukhi") stance at looking our experience, and the other uses a third-person, objective, outward-looking ("bahiurmukhi") stance. One is reality as it is felt at a subtle level, and the other as it is seen at a gross level. Of course, the third-person perspective by now has a vast array of verifiable results in its favor; I can't see many for the first-person perspective. It may seem like a tall order, but it's actually only the equivalent of doing a few post-doctorate level courses over the period of some 20 odd years. Don't expect anyone to pay you for it though; you pretty much have to write off your life. The trick is to both attack and defend by taking opposing poles of views, until you reach the goal. A "manthana" if you will, for those who are familiar with the idea. (b) How would one naturalize the modern scientific and rational tradition in India in an authentic manner? Modernity didn't arise through an organic process of gradual discourse with the classical views in India; it was pretty much imposed on India by its colonial conquerors and later co-opted unreflectingly by an elite class, as a result of which it has a "bolted on" feel. If you look at everything from India's legal system, commercial space, to education and scientific establishments, they use ideas and themes whose origin lay in post-enlightenment Europe. But they don't feel natural enough; vast sections of the society are still trapped in classical ways of thinking. I feel especially tortured when I see teachers cargo-culting scientific and technical education in India. I despair even more when I see a tendency in India to reject some of these ideas - many of which are obviously essential to India's wellbeing - as simply un-Indian. This issue I think is closely tied to issue (a) - Indians must do the legwork of painstakingly resolving the dissonance that exists between classical Indian and modern traditions. We must accept that (just as the west did) if the classical views are wrong, they are wrong, and that's the end of it, but we must also unearth what may be of relevance in them. Simply dismissing them through brute force (ala China's cultural revolution) won't do, since Indians are deeply attached to their classical traditions, and this section will revolt violently. I also don't think that dismissing them outright would be doing justice to our ancestors. I am especially dismayed (and also thrilled!) by the awe inspiring fecundity of the West in the fields of science and technology. What is India's answer to it? Will we forever remain mere consumers of innovation? What will it take to transplant some of that cultural genome into the Indian society so that it takes root? In short, what makes the West tick, and how can India also, tick, perhaps even better? (c) What is a good, rational, and yet authentic "model" for Hinduism that a practicing Hindu should have? A modern day ordinary Hindu is exposed to two different takes on what Hinduism is: a sacred one, and a secular one. For those who are familiar with the issue, I don't need to go into how one's tribalistic affiliations dictate one's bias towards their chosen take on the religion. And yet it seems to me that there is no attempt to find a tasteful resolution between these two acerbic poles. I could go on and on, and my reading isn't as expansive as perhaps it should have been, but all these three areas are from my personal perspective very intertwined, and I wish more Indians would work on it. Most of our issues will be solved if we can make some sort of progress in these. |