Inventory of faith – Indiafacts

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How do scholars of “guru movements” deny their self-identification as devotees or non-devotees and study their subjects academically? This is an easy question with many answers. Most of them have declared that all gurus are the same, without acknowledging a crucial part of the study: the differences between spiritual leaders and their organizations.

Therefore, it is important to emphasize the harm that scholarly and journalistic work can do if one does not place contemporary guru practice in a larger space where difference is accepted as a valid value for working out what the creative and social structuring of guru belief seeks to explore. In other words, if one does not say that so-and-so is a fraud, one is leading to a toxic positioning.

I have examined the ideas that scholars possess when they critique gurudom by understanding their premises and biases that spark curiosity and critical inquiry in an aspiring academic like me. By placing my self-reflection in tandem with their intellectual dissemination, I contribute to scholarly, journalistic, and devotional perspectives, while acknowledging complicity and devotion that bind my own identity as a devotee of a self-realized Master.

I am a fan of four scholars who have unraveled the layers of complexity that bewitch those interested in explaining the nuances of modernity and tradition in Hindu society. Maya Warrier was a great advocate of trust in academia, writing about how Mata Amritanandamayi’s devotees saw their Master and the implications their practice had for understanding the modern world.

Tulasi Srinivas, whom I respect, is like Maya: both did not regard self-realization as a burden; instead, they chose to see the discourses that constitute the Hindu tradition in transnational contexts in which masters like Sathya Sai and Amma were enmeshed. Their object of inquiry was literally “other,” like Amanda Lucia, a clever creature of scholasticism. Her work has extracted gurus and gurus through different methods that place her in the same group as Maya and Tulasi.

They explicitly state that they are neither for nor against charismatic leaders, choosing instead to recycle work done in the field to arrive at factual and (sometimes) unsubstantiated conclusions. The last teacher who has impressed me is Smriti Srinivas. She does not claim to be a Sai Baba devotee, but her writings reflect the idea that she might be, because she has not used Marxist prisms to generate socio-cultural insights.

My main subjective experience as a devotee of Sharavana Baba has enabled me to process their work and to clarify textual bhakti that forms hagiographies consumed for dharmic purposes. There are secular and sacred views. Both complement each other. But to place oneself between the two is no small task.

Writing for the sacred can be seen as an independent Hindu enterprise because it invariably leads to the glorification of the guru; writing for the secular is neither accepting to be a devotee nor pushing oneself into the unholy nexus between ex-devotees and leftist activists. I am still in the realm of theorizing because my explicit intention as a devotee is to accept divinity while noting the political structures that govern guru governmentality.

Take for example a former RSS worker in Kerala who thought Amma was part of a “spiritual mafia”, while the journalist puts saints like her in the same category as Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri (who are in the business of spirituality and yoga, not avatars). This shows that there are internal divisions within the nation (opposition parties against the BJP) and internal divisions within Hindu spaces (such as an ideologue who gets disillusioned with the “mafia”).

However, the critique of Hindutva as emerging from the land of Bharat is a reckless creation of scholars who have repeatedly argued that anything remotely related to dharma must be seen as a violation of secularism, socialism and social justice. This means that feminists can invoke female gurus, creating a kind of democratic republic where there is a need to address social inequalities through identity politics.

These low-key assertions of “just because they are Hindu, I won’t support them” have taken an ugly turn with the advent of social media. The web has embraced and enabled a cacophony of voices that are adharmic and lead nowhere. There has also been an explosion of content on the internet.

Suddenly Nithyananda, a mad fool, becomes the real Sai Baba who has to justify his innocence in the eyes of the public, and by a repetition of erudition and mediated communication, he in turn occupies a pedestal for which Hindus are blamed. Every other citizen will therefore blame the Hindu for having given birth to Nithyananda, and the manifest illegitimacy of his claim to fame will fall on our shoulders. We become strangers in our own land, while the Pope and the Prophet get away with their halos.

Yet the Pope meets Amma to end slavery. Interfaith dialogue appears as a means to an end, with the goal of a better world. But no one sees it. What we see in the media today is a spectacular explosion of a shared belief system where no one is exempt from the glare of the camera, where the reputations of powerful people are destroyed while our self-realized Masters continue their work and are the subject of caricature and humor.

The field of inner engineering is split by the scholar and journalist who attempt to blaspheme and remove the real workings of their good work from the authentic, genuine Other. That the task of the Master is to keep the world invisible. Experience is given no importance. And “blind faith” alternating with “godmen” and “godwomen” are invoked to support arguments that the Hindu state has fallen into an abyss of fascism and hatred.

How sad! Good Hindus will blame Hindus for not speaking out. That is why when we correct misrepresentations, we are forced into silos of “fascist” and “fanatic”. We are expected to remain silent while Western domination through Christian conversions, communist slogans and heavy academic sophistry reinforces and reshapes our sense of India, its heritage and its innumerable saints.