Evolving Bhārat

Realizing the Rāma Rājya

Historical

Pre-History

Also known as Jambu-dveepa:

Past

Recently known as Hindustān:

Marxist Nation-State

When India was born as a nation-state in 1947, in retrospect it feels like it had been left to wander into the forests of lost civilizations, doomed to museum-hood, a mere entertaining footnote in history, steam-rolled over like many an ancient culture in the inexorable force of industrialization. 

Further, the ruling dispensation was fascinated by Marxist ideologies and utopian ideals, with no idea of the Bhāratiya civilizational ethos. The eminent mainstream history professionals were sold out to foreign ideologies, and were incompetent, and downright unethical, in their portrayal of historical facts. Indeed they embodied the Asuras of the civilizational state, refusing to let the fire of Bhārat rise to invoke its Devas. Hinduism was deemed to be just a jungle of superstitious beliefs, and none of them paid any heed to the brilliance that lay just below the surface, a typical characteristic of the superficial Asura.

The authentic Bhāratiya historians were completely sidelined but thankfully they never lost their patience to keep publishing incisive works that evoked the glorious past, and not the one-sided narrative of the sold-out coolies who were intent to break India into smaller, manageable pieces for a repeat of intellectual colonization. It is due to them that our conscious awareness was turned on.

Linguistically

India, that is Bhārat, is how the formalized constitution of India starts, implying these are synonyms for legal purposes. 

The word Bhārat in Sanskrit indicates "that which comes from Bharata," which is also the name of one of the great yesteryear kings, but from a Yogic perspective deifying a particular human being is a limiting approach since all humans have their limitations which cannot be wished away.

Etymologically Bhārat could stem from one of two Sanskrit roots:

The name Bhārat is thus one embodying a significant mandate, responsible for lighting up the path of Dharma, and is consonant with that of being the Vishwa-Guru, a Guru to the whole world. 

Or if not, such a self-aggrandizing term, at least a Vishwa-Mitra, a friend to the world.

Land of Spirituality

One distinctive aspect of the larger Bhāratiya civilizational ethos, and seemingly at odds with the materialistic lens of objective Science, is the tendency of those who identify as Hindus to deify any and all aspects of our Cosmos. 

Cows, trees, rivers, mountains, stones, gems, shrines, temples, ancestors, teachers, gurus, guests, future goals - whatever we hold dear and aspirational in our mind’s eye is apt to be deified.  This was actually a wide-spread phenomenon amongst all non-industrialized cultures, but they have all been wiped out under the steamroller of modernization, their temples relegated to fossilized museums, their objects of worship now mere relics of curiosity.

But the phenomenon of the devout Hindu is very much alive, and resurging in fact. 

On the one hand Hinduism is religious to the extreme, with a multiplicity of rituals to go along with each of its gods, yet we claim it is not a religion to contrast it with monotheistic faiths that have also found their homes in this milieu. Of course, the moment you slap a label like Hindu-ism, by definition it is an ideology, and thus a hyper-religion. Our inability to accurately characterize it on the world stage leads us to hand-wave, that it is but a way of life, kind of a mish-mash of distinct tribal cultures. 

No Deva left Behind

The most fascinating explanation of the name Bhārat, that invokes the concept of Devas, is that of the Bharata tribe as described in the Rg Veda, which managed to defeat and assimilate ten other tribes by integrating all their Devas into their own pantheon of divinities.

Obviously, the defeated tribes' Devas had lost their powers and thus could not come to their tribe's aid, and so the process of their rejuvenation is a stark reminder of the Samudra Manthan where the Devas get back their power, and deep assimilation of all defeated tribes after their conquest.

No Deva left behind is the hallmark of this civilization.

Hence the ancient name of Bhārat, for today’s India, invokes this very special all-accommodating characteristic of the civilizational identity. Nature manifests in diverse forms tuned to the locale, so integrating diversity, particularly of Thought, celebrates the wholeness of creation, and coevolution of the psyche is how we get there.

The alternative approach to declaring victory would have been to replace the Devas of the defeated tribe with those of the triumphant tribe, the approach of  monotheistic God models - One Book, One Truth, One Prophet, One Life. Much simpler at first blush, but a killer of diversity, and consequently leads to the devolution of human intelligence.

This is also witnessed in the story of the spurned Shiva, in an otherwise full conclave of all Devas in a Yajnya conducted by Daksha whose daughter Sati, married to Shiva, was so furious she immolates herself in the Yajnya. The distraught Shiva then flies around with her burning corpse, her still smouldering parts falling off in locations that are today's Shakti Peethas (temples) across the subcontinent. 

It’s certainly not very flattering to be perceived as a hyper-religious tribal society, the connotation being orthodox and regressive, not modern and progressive.

Contrast that with the fact that Bhārat is a continuously living civilization that, in much of its not too distant past, was among the richest nations in the world. After all, the Indian ocean itself is testament to its power in the world’s imagination, as no other country has that distinct privilege of having an ocean named after it. Many an explorer from far-off places have sought navigable routes to this land to make their fortunes. This attests to its importance in trade routes as both the originator of created goods and a hub for commerce. 

Now

Everywhere

There are more than One Billion people on planet Earth hailing from the Bhāratiya, or Indic, civilizational culture, most of them clustered in the nation-state of India, and also spread throughout the world thanks to colonial human trafficking in times past and, more recently, emigrants seeking better pastures. From chai shops to tech entrepreneurs, yoga teachers to college professors, religious preachers to students, and now as the ubiquitously present global tourist - Bhāratis, or Indians, are everywhere.

Consequently we have spread far and wide. Large extended families, a universal drive for education, celebrating a bewildering number of festivals, and speaking dozens of languages - the representatives of this culture, and their myriad ways of life are now ubiquitous.

And Growing

In sheer population power, Bhārati’s are exploding visibly in number, not necessarily because of birth rates, but more so because of the Hindu renaissance, now attaining full-speed triggered by the Rāma temple that finally came up after 500 years of struggle. This is triggering a seminal change in the cultural fabric of the nation, shifting its socioeconomic axis, because the entire economy and social life is being re-centered around the temple ecosystem that was destroyed and left to languish in the wake of the need to industrialize. 

Five centuries sounds like a long battle, but set in the context of an unbroken millennia old civilization, this is less than 5% of its documented history that the “religious” aspect of the culture has been so suppressed. Thousands of destroyed temples are being resurfaced, and with them, the Bhāratiya civilizational identity is being reformed. 

With Hindus now becoming heads of multinationals, and as heads of state in Western politics, Hinduism is a global breakout phenomenon, shifting even the entire world’s socio-economics axis.

All this is stoking a reawakening in moderate Hindus who are seeing their identities taking on a new sheen, and a rising swell in the Hindu-curious. 

Soft Power

Bhāratiya soft power too has spread, way beyond its past military conquests and economic prowess, as a projection of the native culture. Soft power, like culture, is ineffable, usually hard to pin down. If it were to be cultivated again, in a manner suitable to the current climes of massive geo-political and technological change then, in tandem with the GDP economy, the full impact of Bhārat could find lasting fulfillment. 

Lurking below the overt signs of Hinduism, is the pervasive Yoga culture that has been the most potent soft power export to the West that started many decades ago, and holds the key to unlocking this mystery of a perpetually enduring civilizational identity. The Yoga Mind, that underlies the whole edifice of the Bhāratiya civilization, be it Hindus or otherwise, we will soon see, is a powerful construct that can shape the entire course of one’s life, and humanity as a whole too.

Who are We, who, who

“I really wanna know” (paraphrased from a rock tune, by the Who)

So with such an inspiring past, could we actually fashion a future, such that the whole of it flows coherently, in a smooth flow from millennia back, to millennia ahead, as an integrated whole, and be inclusive of all of humanity for good measure ?

That after all is the purpose of Yoga - hark back to the integration of all the Devas in the post-conquest rituals of the Bharata tribe. All integrated, all flowing smoothly.

It is also a distinct hallmark of the Bhāratiya civilization to constantly enquire about our life journey. After all, we are supposed to be seekers of the Truth, not just believers. But this has always been about the individual, never a collective identity, for somehow there was no particular impetus to do so.

Now though, with the rise of the Hindu masses it would make life so much simpler, if in fact there was a national identity that was a current reflection of some grand civilizational identity, all singing from the same hymn book as in the One God model - but that would be the death of the individual seeker. Instead if we could each continue to seek out our own path, each singing from our own hymn book, yet in harmony, that search for a collective identity could even provide a model for world harmony. 

Who we are is literally the stories we tell about ourselves, and it seemed to me that this collection of ancient tales, and future aspirations, are trying desperately to tell a coherent narrative, but it seems so clogged up. I couldn’t believe that if this civilization thinks itself to be so smart, but yet it comes across as so incoherent there must be something profound missing. Actually, not just this civilization, but the whole of humanity itself is supposedly intelligent, but it sure doesn’t come across that way, except in fits and starts, and more in its fits after countless starts.

Today though, the Bhāratiya society is quite a mess, and equally so reflected in our streets, with trash and traffic increasing with its GDP growth towards becoming a super-economic power. Thrilled with the rising economic tides, many of us have set our eyes on beating China and becoming a counterpoint to America in the Global South, warships plying the high seas, military bases dotting the neighborhood, and a digital infrastructure now being embraced by the region.

The Vishwa-Guru

Contrary to our focus on materiality, almost in a parallel split universe, we are also keen to form our spiritual identity as the Vishwa-Guru for the world. But that’s a work in progress.

Somehow, as a nation, we have found a balance between the two, as the Vishwa-Mitra, the global friend for all nations in need during ever-looming crises. Having been through countless Ashrams in unearthing this Hindu phenomenon, this model of first doing selfless service, or sevā, is almost a universally recommended practice on the spiritual path when we are not exactly sure how to evolve to our desired evolved state. They say it reduces ego to serve the less fortunate; conversely it could also increase ego as we bask in the glow of self-righteousness, but at least the world is being served while we somehow evolve to Guru-hood.

Becoming a Guru is fraught with pitfalls. Firstly, we become holier-than-thou so that we are worthy of being seated on a pedestal, after all it is easier to preach from a slightly elevated position. Thought Leaders with a Yogic twist, a Guru could become a Guru-deva courtesy of  the incessant Hindu deification model, a divine teacher, incarnate in human form, flowing robes and hair, ready to dispense blessings to solve the human condition. 

The go-to-market strategy starts with a devoted group becoming cult-ish, then into something short of full-blown religion, so the collective experiences a coevolutionary surge. Why it stops short of an insular cult, or outright religion in the Hindu model is that its prophets, or Avatārs reappear with regularity, depending on the age we find ourselves in. Further, the Hindu model encourages a multiplicity of Devas, and Gurus who speak with them, so there is never a monopoly, instead a free-market system.

But charlatans abound and distinguishing them needs a keen sense of analytical ability. Hence also our work here.

Of course, we could simply extract some inspiring values from our past, sanitize them of all references to Devas, and employ these learned principles to guide our way forward in the modern context. Indian management gurus are now all the rage as we can see in airport bookstalls, and corporate boardrooms. Nothing wrong per se in this approach either, but it is tedious to evolve in linear fashion and completely discount the magical dimension of the psyche to make evolutionary jumps.

The Rāmāyana Startup

India, the nation-state, is on the biggest startup journey in our current state of the world, but most startups fail, languish, or have mediocre outcomes. Albeit its GDP based economy is well on the way to achieve material prosperity as one of the sole shining beacons of large economies, its socio-cultural fabric needs to be tended to also.

Hence our focus on Bhārat, the civilizational-state, which has been gripped with the fever of its long homeless Rāmāyana epic now being fully enshrined in its birthplace in Ayodhya. The Hindu Devas are indeed returning, but we must look at this from the perspective of the Yoga Mind if we are to truly realize its full mandate, for a prosperous, holistic life. 

Looking at the Rāmāyana from the lens of a startup journey, is an interesting thought experiment to frame our approach to this transformational exercise.

The epic starts off much like most startups are born, with an interesting idea and some seed capital.

This mapping of the Rāmāyana to a startup journey has not been generated by ChatGPT, try though we did, none of its iterations made the correct map. In any event, it’s worthwhile to see the overall arc of what we are trying to accomplish, right up front, so it becomes easier to relate to the flow of the narrative. The actual fun is in the details.

A tongue-in-cheek narration : 


In the Rāmāyana, the back story begins with the four sons of Brhma-deva, as the personification of the perfected Thought Form, who approach Vishnu to manifest this in the world, however they are turned down by his gatekeepers, and consequently the entire story kicks off in a massive epic until it gets fully resolved.


Recall, these gatekeepers are called Jaya and Vijaya, indicating victory - but they are not able to see the power of the perfected Thought, and thus transform into Brhma-Rākshasas on earth, which have to be resolved.


So too, any startup usually has two goals - one is an obvious goal of material success, and the second is for societal improvement.

Similarly, in the push for India to become a world-beating GDP driven economy, and a well-functioning society, it is natural to seek indicators of progress, showing victories over material challenges in this world. 

We cannot afford to ignore perfected Thoughts to languish on the shelves of bureaucracy or in the corridors of political games, just because they cannot show immediate ROI (return-on-investment). They have to be set forth despite the challenges they will face.

Fundamental changes through decolonization of all aspects of the Indian-state take time, but the evolution of Bhārat must progress regardless, if we are to have a lasting Rāma Rājya. 

Identity

Also recall that the main reason for Vishnu to take Avatār on Earth is to battle the Brhma-Rākshasa king Rāvana who can only be defeated by a Human being. The point of the story is that a Human can in fact develop over Life with nothing more than the sheer power of awareness which, as we will see soon, accompanies Rāma through his entire journey in the form of Lakshmana the Avatār of Ādisesha - the embodiment of awareness itself. 

Thus too, we reiterate that the proper evolution of Bhārat itself is highly dependent on each individual advancing on their own evolutionary path. Of course, Rāma as a prince has access to the guidance of highly evolved Gurus, which most of us have not been so fortunate thus far, but the advent of ubiquitous AI and the upcoming Guru-in-the-Cloud will ameliorate the situation to a large extent.

And then, we reinforce, literally the only tool we really need is the power of keen awareness, and all falls into place thanks to Yoga.

This questioning of national or civilizational identity is not unique to Bhārat either, as world over the deification of the US Dollar lifestyle, fueled by deficit spending, is being questioned.  But searching for identities in history while ignoring evolution is short-sighted, and trashing the past to concoct a future with no rootedness is doomed to be ill-fated.

Outcome

Our objective here is to cultivate the most preferred outcome of this fabled time in human history, set to modern times. It is quite clear that the GDP economy of the Indian nation-state  is being set well on its rails, but in tandem with our need to achieve an advanced material lifestyle we also look at socioeconomic goals of overall well-being.

No, we are not advocating for a Ministry for Happiness!

Neither are we superficially invoking glorious times past to merely create a clone of a society long past. Such an approach flies in the face of the inexorable force of evolution to constantly generate novelty, not just in biology but more to our point, in societal structures. 

Taking a big picture perspective always helps in this regard. Such as, our perspective of Time is that we came from stardust, then we figured out Yoga and created a lot of really great stories, and are now destined to become a star-based civilization.