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- Apr 28, 2019
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Namaste to all readers,
My name is Stephanie Ellison. I am a Sanātani (Hindu) and have been for many years at varying levels. I first became exposed to it when I was studying to be a Natural Hygienist (natural health educator) in Austin, Texas in 1994-95. Over the years, I learned more about Sanātana Dharma (Hinduism) and felt I was coming closer and closer to it, the more I learned about it. Finally, about a year and a half ago, I decided to jump in and do detailed research ABOUT Sanātana Dharma rather than Sanātana Dharma ITSELF. I took this position because I felt it was important to do “White Studies” on myself as a white woman of European stock. I wanted to know how I was going to get tripped up by my biases upon studying Sanātana Dharma scriptures and sacred writings.
In this article, I am writing for several audiences;
1) the alienated Indians who don’t have a strong connection with Sanātana Dharma
2) outsiders in general who don’t quite understand what Sanātana Dharma really is and what the fuss is about
3) and Academia who need to understand what They are doing/allowing to happen. We need to address this within ourselves in order to be able to present a unified front to the rest of the world. One answer to that is known as Rajiv Malhotra.
But first, it must be made clear that what is at stake is HUGE. This is not just about the right to practice Hindu Dharma (as it is often mistranslated to mean only religion1), but also the right to have a civilization entirely based upon Dharma, as in “right action, right thinking,” the four basic occupational divisions of civilization (varṇa), the four goals of life (puruśārtha), and the four stages of life (āśrama), in addition to all the knowledge contained within the sciences, hard (engineering, mathematics, etc.) or soft (spirituality, psychology, etc.).
There are two aspects of this struggle I see. One is the struggle to be able to practice an advanced way of seeing the world and living within it that can benefit all people, and two, the knowledge that is present in Indic civilization, if it is lost, represents having to drop down to what is currently Western civilization’s state of affairs – that of having excellent technological development and skills, but at the expense of Inner Science (Consciousness or Spirituality). This results in a civilization in which artha (prosperity, security, and economic values) and kāma (pleasure, personal values, etc.) are overemphasized at the expense of dharma and spiritual development and exploration.2 Also, because of the Abrahamic religions’ tendencies of exclusion, black-and-white thinking, history-centrism, and geo-centrism,3 there are all these wars, conflicts, riots, and petty fighting in the streets, public affairs, and Academia.
Now, I want to address the alienated Indians who don’t feel a strong connection to Sanātana Dharma. The fact is, Indic civilization of India came up with a very large majority of the knowledge that was evident thousands of years ago, such as mathematics, astronomy, navigation, ship-building, metallurgy, forestry, water conservation, medicine and surgical science, etc. Much of this knowledge was picked up by the invaders and carried out west, until it finally arrived centuries later in western Europe. India is where it got started this time around (how many times and when did this happen in the remote past?). Credit is being taken from your ancestors, and their history is altered to make them appear to be primitive, poor, and superstitious, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Dharma is not all about mata or sampradāya (words for religion); it is much more than that, encompassing the whole of Indic civilization. You could take in pride that Indic people had a history of knowledge, language, civilization, spiritual education, and the ability to balance that as civilized beings with observance of limits within nature instead of destroying it and the people. This is what we need today, to combine technology with spiritual education that could result in a world far beyond our imagination.
As a white American woman, I am indebted to the ability of the people of India in being able to preserve the knowledge and spiritual education in face of the Muslim invaders and the Britishers. As an American, I see very clearly that American civilization is very unbalanced. There is the drive to make lots of money, have all kinds of things, and go on all kinds of sensation-enhancing adventures, as if only these are the ends themselves rather than the means to a higher goal, and this is at the expense of doing what is right. “Wait, how toxic or dangerous is it to make this product or that product? Pollution emissions?” Laws have had to be enacted to address these questions precisely because the persons who own the means of production or the knowledge to make things do not have the people and the environment at heart in decision-making, and that comes from our Western background that is not focused on spiritual education to the level found in Dharmic society. Upon receiving this spiritual knowledge, a person begins to see other less destructive ways of making and using things, and really ask the question of “Do we really need this or that?” In essence, being able to do without so much of what exists today.
Lastly, Academia must make note of this… What happens to dictators and despots eventually… Eventually, people figure out what is going on, and they start to work around you before pushing you into irrelevance. With many more Hindus awake today than ten years ago, you are that much closer to being pushed aside and made to watch the resurgence of Sanātana Dharma as a strong, viable third civilizational option, of Dharmic or Indic civilization.2 Rather than fighting the people you claim to study, please make the effort to simply listen to Sanātanis as collaborators of equal standing, not as “native informants.” Having grown up as a white American woman and having studied enough about Sanātana Dharma to know the difference, I can see where western Indology knowledge doesn’t match the knowledge of insiders. First of all, you don’t know the people you claim to know about. Secondly, you don’t know or speak the languages fluently, and thirdly, you don’t bother to ask the people to help check the accuracy of your translations and perspectives on the subject.4 On top of this, many Hindus and supporters are now aware of the attempts of Christian missionaries, Muslims, Communists, and Western Indology to tear asunder Indic civilization and Dharmic life. For those of you work intentionally to try to defeat Sanātana Dharma and install in place some other substitute, beware; there are consequences, such as being shunned, blacklisted as haters, and having scholarly careers destroyed because people will know about you and what you are up to. Please stop to think about what you are doing and consider the consequences that could come if you are caught and tossed aside. Many regimes in the past fell because they thought they were so strong that nothing could stop them.
What we as Sanātanis are faced with is western hegemony in dissemination of knowledge about Indic civilization and Sanātana Dharma. The way it works is that control is established at the outset by setting clearly the roles of the observer and the observed. In this case, the Indologist is like the anthropologist studying a “primitive people” living with a Traditional Knowledge System, and the observed is exoticized like a jungle native. At best, the native informant is just that; “providing information” without really being understood in the proper perspective, meaning from a Hindu perspective rather than an American perspective trying to come to grips with something as different as Sanātana Dharma. The second thing that is done to control this information is only letting in those who have degrees conferred by said Academics; you have to follow the line of thought and perspectives on the subject before they let you in. Thirdly, people within the ranks are restricted to what is okay to write about/share with other people, and they are dealt with when they step out of line. Fourthly, contact with the media through relationships enables the Indologists to train the media to “massage” the message they want to portray, usually to their advantage. Fifthly, they do not allow emic, or insider views, to be presented and discussed on an equal and collaborative basis, and sixthly, insiders who do try to present such evidence are deemed demonic disruptors or “terrorists,” just for trying get the other side of the story presented, juxtapositioned alongside the Indologists’ story.
My name is Stephanie Ellison. I am a Sanātani (Hindu) and have been for many years at varying levels. I first became exposed to it when I was studying to be a Natural Hygienist (natural health educator) in Austin, Texas in 1994-95. Over the years, I learned more about Sanātana Dharma (Hinduism) and felt I was coming closer and closer to it, the more I learned about it. Finally, about a year and a half ago, I decided to jump in and do detailed research ABOUT Sanātana Dharma rather than Sanātana Dharma ITSELF. I took this position because I felt it was important to do “White Studies” on myself as a white woman of European stock. I wanted to know how I was going to get tripped up by my biases upon studying Sanātana Dharma scriptures and sacred writings.
In this article, I am writing for several audiences;
1) the alienated Indians who don’t have a strong connection with Sanātana Dharma
2) outsiders in general who don’t quite understand what Sanātana Dharma really is and what the fuss is about
3) and Academia who need to understand what They are doing/allowing to happen. We need to address this within ourselves in order to be able to present a unified front to the rest of the world. One answer to that is known as Rajiv Malhotra.
But first, it must be made clear that what is at stake is HUGE. This is not just about the right to practice Hindu Dharma (as it is often mistranslated to mean only religion1), but also the right to have a civilization entirely based upon Dharma, as in “right action, right thinking,” the four basic occupational divisions of civilization (varṇa), the four goals of life (puruśārtha), and the four stages of life (āśrama), in addition to all the knowledge contained within the sciences, hard (engineering, mathematics, etc.) or soft (spirituality, psychology, etc.).
There are two aspects of this struggle I see. One is the struggle to be able to practice an advanced way of seeing the world and living within it that can benefit all people, and two, the knowledge that is present in Indic civilization, if it is lost, represents having to drop down to what is currently Western civilization’s state of affairs – that of having excellent technological development and skills, but at the expense of Inner Science (Consciousness or Spirituality). This results in a civilization in which artha (prosperity, security, and economic values) and kāma (pleasure, personal values, etc.) are overemphasized at the expense of dharma and spiritual development and exploration.2 Also, because of the Abrahamic religions’ tendencies of exclusion, black-and-white thinking, history-centrism, and geo-centrism,3 there are all these wars, conflicts, riots, and petty fighting in the streets, public affairs, and Academia.
Now, I want to address the alienated Indians who don’t feel a strong connection to Sanātana Dharma. The fact is, Indic civilization of India came up with a very large majority of the knowledge that was evident thousands of years ago, such as mathematics, astronomy, navigation, ship-building, metallurgy, forestry, water conservation, medicine and surgical science, etc. Much of this knowledge was picked up by the invaders and carried out west, until it finally arrived centuries later in western Europe. India is where it got started this time around (how many times and when did this happen in the remote past?). Credit is being taken from your ancestors, and their history is altered to make them appear to be primitive, poor, and superstitious, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Dharma is not all about mata or sampradāya (words for religion); it is much more than that, encompassing the whole of Indic civilization. You could take in pride that Indic people had a history of knowledge, language, civilization, spiritual education, and the ability to balance that as civilized beings with observance of limits within nature instead of destroying it and the people. This is what we need today, to combine technology with spiritual education that could result in a world far beyond our imagination.
As a white American woman, I am indebted to the ability of the people of India in being able to preserve the knowledge and spiritual education in face of the Muslim invaders and the Britishers. As an American, I see very clearly that American civilization is very unbalanced. There is the drive to make lots of money, have all kinds of things, and go on all kinds of sensation-enhancing adventures, as if only these are the ends themselves rather than the means to a higher goal, and this is at the expense of doing what is right. “Wait, how toxic or dangerous is it to make this product or that product? Pollution emissions?” Laws have had to be enacted to address these questions precisely because the persons who own the means of production or the knowledge to make things do not have the people and the environment at heart in decision-making, and that comes from our Western background that is not focused on spiritual education to the level found in Dharmic society. Upon receiving this spiritual knowledge, a person begins to see other less destructive ways of making and using things, and really ask the question of “Do we really need this or that?” In essence, being able to do without so much of what exists today.
Lastly, Academia must make note of this… What happens to dictators and despots eventually… Eventually, people figure out what is going on, and they start to work around you before pushing you into irrelevance. With many more Hindus awake today than ten years ago, you are that much closer to being pushed aside and made to watch the resurgence of Sanātana Dharma as a strong, viable third civilizational option, of Dharmic or Indic civilization.2 Rather than fighting the people you claim to study, please make the effort to simply listen to Sanātanis as collaborators of equal standing, not as “native informants.” Having grown up as a white American woman and having studied enough about Sanātana Dharma to know the difference, I can see where western Indology knowledge doesn’t match the knowledge of insiders. First of all, you don’t know the people you claim to know about. Secondly, you don’t know or speak the languages fluently, and thirdly, you don’t bother to ask the people to help check the accuracy of your translations and perspectives on the subject.4 On top of this, many Hindus and supporters are now aware of the attempts of Christian missionaries, Muslims, Communists, and Western Indology to tear asunder Indic civilization and Dharmic life. For those of you work intentionally to try to defeat Sanātana Dharma and install in place some other substitute, beware; there are consequences, such as being shunned, blacklisted as haters, and having scholarly careers destroyed because people will know about you and what you are up to. Please stop to think about what you are doing and consider the consequences that could come if you are caught and tossed aside. Many regimes in the past fell because they thought they were so strong that nothing could stop them.
What we as Sanātanis are faced with is western hegemony in dissemination of knowledge about Indic civilization and Sanātana Dharma. The way it works is that control is established at the outset by setting clearly the roles of the observer and the observed. In this case, the Indologist is like the anthropologist studying a “primitive people” living with a Traditional Knowledge System, and the observed is exoticized like a jungle native. At best, the native informant is just that; “providing information” without really being understood in the proper perspective, meaning from a Hindu perspective rather than an American perspective trying to come to grips with something as different as Sanātana Dharma. The second thing that is done to control this information is only letting in those who have degrees conferred by said Academics; you have to follow the line of thought and perspectives on the subject before they let you in. Thirdly, people within the ranks are restricted to what is okay to write about/share with other people, and they are dealt with when they step out of line. Fourthly, contact with the media through relationships enables the Indologists to train the media to “massage” the message they want to portray, usually to their advantage. Fifthly, they do not allow emic, or insider views, to be presented and discussed on an equal and collaborative basis, and sixthly, insiders who do try to present such evidence are deemed demonic disruptors or “terrorists,” just for trying get the other side of the story presented, juxtapositioned alongside the Indologists’ story.