Indian
spiritual practices and New Age
spirituality ... but also the “false prophets” and
the danger of plagiarism.
I feel it’s important to start by saying that the
content of this letter has no intention of
representing an unsupported polemic in
contradistinction to all that is happening today,
instead, its intention is to search for what is
“good” and “healthy”, to stimulate thoughtful
reflection and to help raise the quality of life at
all levels:material, mental and spiritual. This is
the fruit of my direct experience: I have been
practicing Yoga, Ayurveda and Indian culture and
philosophy for many years and consequently I can
appreciate the concepts of Indian philosophy. This
does not deny the fact that I have never wanted to
renounce the free ability to give judgement. As a
matter of fact, considering this last statement, I
emphasize that the discriminative
ability is a divine gift one should never have to
renounce. I need to establish whether Indian
scientific and spiritual disciplines have managed to
penetrate, rightly or wrongly, in a capillary way
into Europe, to reawaken the hope of realising one’s
own dreams, utopic at times, and at the same time
establishing
bases for various modern movements which in time
become referred to as spiritual. It can be affirmed
that some of us are born with a great need to
nourish the most inferior cosmos within ourselves,
and Indian culture, with its philosophical
interpretations of the manifestation manages to
bring some comfort to a society which has succumbed
to increasingly materialistic wantonness,
dissatisfaction and all kinds of insecurities.
Indian philosophy manages to direct the attention
towards the spiritual substance of
the manifestation and in giving back the dignity it
deserves. That’s what’s needed to make us feel alive,
to awaken our senses as well as our conscience. In
fact I maintain that Indian experience is above all
an experience of conscience. The road which awaits a
researcher of this culture is a classic one: the
same which generally involves oriental meditation.
Above all else, he starts with the state of wake,
which is followed by perception and finally he
learns to live at peace with his
own conscience. But despite all this he must still
reach the top of the mountain in search for a higher
perspective which will allow him to contemplate
Western and Eastern traditions, and become the third
experience containing positive attributes of both.
An experience which can be called “Unity in
Diversity”.
In my opinion the universality of Indian vision is
often misunderstood and it ends with the
introduction of “characters” who are considered or
consider themselves (which is worse) to be Gods. A
thin stream of deceit trickles into this over
exaggerated interpretation and there are many ….
Above all, these “characters” have absolutely
nothing that can be termed “universal”, or to use a
modern word, “democratic”.
Their intention to provide a totalitarian regime is
very questionable. Sometimes I ask myself if we
Westerners, who have completed the long painful
journey towards social conquests in order to free
ourselves from dictators, monarchs and others with
most suggestive malevolent intentions, in search of
a more universal vision we decided to call democracy,
now want to go back.
But in other ways we have chosen to practice a more
ample vision, which can only be given by a multitude
of knowledge, which above all else also appears to
be safer in terms of objective judgement, any yet
today we allow these very few “false prophets” to
decide for others .... in other words, subjugate the
others.
In the past these new charismatic visionaries,
convinced to be in the right (that’s why they are
called visionaries), completed their most “masterful
disasters”. Their best weapon, whether “used in good
or bad faith” has always been plagiarism. No
dictator has ever achieved anything without
“forcing” the minds of others. Thus beware spiritual
or material constraints! Let us consider ourselves
fortunate to be mortal and fallible, endowed with
the benefit of the doubt, armed with humility and
love, in search of a subjective Truth which we know
is difficult to attain because of our human
limitations. It is this very conviction that makes
us prudent, respectful and humble. Just think how
sad the opposite would be: to be shut in a cage made
of false certainties or illusions such as these
“false prophets” who, be it in good faith or not,
have not yet understood that to merely try to
influence or subjugate another person’ mind is
already a disrespectful and violent gesture.
by Amadio Bianchi