{"id":223149,"date":"2022-11-07T12:00:33","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=223149"},"modified":"2022-11-03T05:02:13","modified_gmt":"2022-11-03T05:02:13","slug":"patriarchy-in-india-is-beginning-to-crumble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/11\/patriarchy-in-india-is-beginning-to-crumble\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriarchy in India Is Beginning to Crumble"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 Nov 2022 – <\/em>In the Vedic tradition of India the feminine side of creation is given equal importance as the masculine. The Divine Mother, Mahashakti, is revered as the primal creative energy that manifests the deities and the physical universe and then sustains all dynamic activity. When portrayed together, the deity pairs \u2013 Brahma and Sarasvati, Vishnu and Lakshmi, Shiva and Parvati \u2013 are often androgynous and almost identical to show they are fundamentally beyond gender.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, centuries of colonial domination have made Indian society as male dominated as the West is. Fortunately, women in India are now developing a strong feminist movement to change this.<\/p>\n

A sign of this change is a new commentary on The Crest Jewel of Discrimination<\/em>, a major work by Adi Shankaracharya, India\u2019s 8th<\/sup>-century reviver of Vedic knowledge. Spiritual teacher Shiva Rudra Balayogi\u2019s commentary makes this ancient philosophical discourse relevant to us today. It speaks to us more directly than the others because it refutes the gender and caste biases that have accrued with time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Shiva Rudra Balayogi
Photo from: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/SRBYMission<\/p><\/div>\n

He corrects several mistranslations from the Sanskrit. For instance, the second verse lists the qualities necessary to achieve enlightenment, prominent among them Purasattvam<\/em> and Bramanattmana<\/em>. The first is usually translated as \u201cbeing a man\u201d and the second as \u201cbeing a Brahmin\u201d. He convincingly explains that a more accurate translation is \u201ca person who who has a strong body and will to achieve things that can inspire the world\u201d and \u201ca person who has mental purity\u201d. These qualities are possessed by both women and men. Shiva Rudra Balayogi shows us that enlightenment is not the exclusive province of male Brahmins.<\/p>\n

Adi Shankaracharya himself revered Shakti, the female life force, but that was only after a woman saint bested him in a debate on the topic and he had to admit she was right.<\/p>\n

Shiva Rudra Balayogi\u2019s spiritual name also reflects this change. \u201cBala\u201d is one of the names of Goddess Parvati, indicating he incorporates both the masculine and the feminine.<\/p>\n

The Crest Jewel of Discrimination<\/em>, or <\/em>Viveka Choodamani<\/em>, is a concise explication of Advaita Vedanta, the philosophy of unity, nonduality. \u201cDiscrimination\u201d in this context means the ability to distinguish between truth and illusion, between what supports and what hinders our enlightenment.<\/p>\n

Meditation is one of the chief supports. As Shiva Rudra Balayogi writes: \u201cThe mature mind, through prolonged practice of meditation, merges with Brahman, the Ultimate Supreme Truth and attains Realization of the One, undivided Self of Supreme Bliss. \u2026 By this Realization the mind\u2019s illusory imaginations, which come from the darkness of ignorance, are destroyed. One lives in Bliss, free from all imaginations of the mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

This commentary is profoundly written and easy to understand, abstract but never abstruse. It inspires us to seek unity consciousness and points the way to it. For more information<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shiva Rudra Balayogi also offers an easy and effective technique of Vedic meditation, Jangama Dhyana, and the opportunity to meditate with him online and ask him questions<\/a> \u2013 all of it free.<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> William T. Hathaway is a Special Forces combat veteran and an emeritus Fulbright professor of American Studies in Germany. His book<\/em> Radical Peace: People Refusing War<\/a> presents the experiences of war resisters, deserters, and peace activists who are working to change U.S. ‘warrior’ culture. His novel<\/em> Lila, the Revolutionary<\/a><\/strong> is a fable for adults about an eight-year-old girl who sparks a world revolution for social justice.<\/em> Hathaway’s novel of the climate change,<\/em> Wellsprings: A Fable of Consciousness, tells of an old woman and a young man healing nature through techniques of higher consciousness. Chapters are posted HERE<\/a>. His peace novel,<\/em> Summer Snow, is the story of an American soldier falling in love with a Sufi Muslim and learning from her that higher consciousness is more effective than violence. Chapters are posted HERE<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2 Nov 2022 – In the Vedic tradition of India the feminine side of creation is given equal importance as the masculine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":214556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[1509,1547,892,260,759,814,1548,901,1210,878],"class_list":["post-223149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brics","tag-british-colonialism","tag-caste-system","tag-hinduism","tag-history","tag-india","tag-patriarchy","tag-tradition","tag-vedas","tag-women-liberation","tag-women-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}