When Our Ancestors
And Our Past Speaks To Us
I often
get an uncanny feeling, an intuition that our ancestors are watching us from
heaven. They want us to understand what they went through during the thousand
years of slavery and colonialism. That they want us to understand the mistakes
they made, the trust they placed by believing in the Outsiders who did not
follow the Sanatan Dharma and do not want us to do the same.
No, they
don’t want us to turn cynical and bitter remembering all what we lost in the
thousand years. They want us to be pragmatic and live with a new reality which
they perhaps could not follow and develop. They want us to believe and follow
the essence of our civilization but not by over trusting the Outsiders as they
did. They want us to understand the vivisection of our motherland that they
could not prevent based on this notion but want us to know the threats that
loom on the horizon and getting bigger. They want us to prepare for it unlike
they did.
Why do I
get this feeling often, I wonder? I get this feeling when I am near a temple
that I know was destroyed by invaders. I got it while watching the pillars of a
broken temple in Qutab Minar. I got it while watching the temple of Somnath. I
felt it when I was near the Ram Janma Bhumi temple. It felt there in the air,
all around me. It’s as if a voice was telling me that the spirit of Hinduism
and consequently India is invincible, was not destroyed and that every child of
India must hear this voice. That this voice must be written and translated in
every language of India. It must be written in every school textbook so that
our children grow with this voice.
In my
mind the past of India is not a blank slate but something that is trying to
come to life, telling us a reality we have discounted, pushed aside out of
awareness. Locked up in a black box by court historians, it is trying to find
its way in our hearts and trying to teach us many lessons that relate to our
identity as a nation. That this is taking place after a long, long time and if
missed may not take place for a long time again.
The issue
today in front of us is the re-awakening of India. The very soul of my country,
the atman, as I prefer to describe it, taking it from Sanatan Dharma that has
been sleeping must rise from its slumber and take its rightful place, taking us
to that land which Tagore described in his poem.
I believe
that a nation cannot rise without listening to the voice of its ancestors. I
believe they are speaking to us again today and that voice can be heard. Our
ancestors faced a lot, perhaps far more than us. They faced invasions that
destroyed their homes, their places of worship, their educational institutions
were razed to the ground, their books looted and destroyed. They were witness
to the greatest assault on any civilization launched by barbarians. They
faltered in trying to cope with it, they failed too many times but held on with
a resilience and tenacity to give us a civilization that remains the oldest and
one that couldn’t be destroyed by the invaders or the colonialists. It is not a
mean achievement considering a hundred other countries that turned Islamic or
Christian.
Today,
they are telling us that we will survive the present crisis too and it presents
us with an opportunity to rise and undo the mistakes for our past.
I believe
it is time we understand this feeling in our ancestors, accept it and rise to
the occasion.
In my
book ‘The Infidel Next Door’, the protagonist Aditya believes in the
re-generation of his people, his faith and nothing can take that away from him.
This belief, I believe, lies dormant and sleeping in millions of us, ready to
burst out soon, one that will take over us, teach us the glory and heights of
our civilization that it reached and will reach again.
This
Thursday my daughter saw me reading Bhagvad Geeta and asked me why I was
reading it now. The Prime Minister had just finished giving his speech to the
nation. I explained to her that I read it to find answers in the midst of a
crisis and I find my center within this book.
After
listening to me she said, “Do you know I listened to Prime Minister Modi’s
speech too and I noticed there was no trace of any fear or panic in his
address.” Then she asked me, “How was he so calm and composed when other world
leaders are so panicky in their speech?”
I could
only explain, “It is the very essence of Hinduism he was talking about in his
speech. It is when we discover that we are part of the cosmos and not separate
from it, we are indivisible from the Param Brahma, the ultimate reality, this
awareness takes away all fear from within our hearts.”
Years of
meditative practice, self renunciation can build an ascetic personality that
can lead its people out of fear. Going through this crisis under the leadership
of the present Prime Minister will not only induce a new trait in us but also
has the potential to connect to our rich past, establish our roots in Sanatan
Dharma for the world to see and absorb it for themselves.
As I was
saying this an idea crossed my mind. Before me hundreds and thousands of my
ancestors would have read it too and found the strength to carry on in the
midst of darkness and despair like I am doing now. The Bhagvad Geeta is a book
unlike any other. It doesn’t divide or cast people of the world into
categories. It doesn’t tell us that a stern authority is watching us all the
time ready to punish and create guilt. It tells us that we have a cosmic
reality that we are a part of an infinitesimal source of wisdom and energy that
will never be replenished.
The
Janata Curfew to me is symbolic of our civilizational heritage, one that may be
lost in the mists of time or history. Something similar to it has been used by
our ancestors’ time and again to remind themselves to rise from each
catastrophe that fell on us as people. By asking and suggesting we follow it,
the Prime Minister is asking us to continue that legacy, a sign of hope of that
unbroken continuity that defines our identity as people.
The
present crisis will teach us one more time that we, as a resilient civilization,
are not fragile. We have the will and the resilience to rise from the ashes
like we have done a thousand times before in our history.
Rajat
Mitra
Psychologist,
Speaker and Author of ‘The Infidel Next Door’
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