Thursday, August 18, 2011

Culture lost

Came across this site when reading on Hindu philosophy, Mimamsa, Chattambi Swamikal et al:

http://malayalamebooks.wordpress.com/

A great ebook collection of spiritual,philosophical thoughts, quite a few that reflect the Kerala culture & life and that has books on Aitihyamala, Advaitha studies etc.

On a related note, its quite sad that a generation has been lost who has no clues to the idealogies, thoughts, philosophies, legends of their ancestors. I think that this 'lost' feeling applies to all other branches including science, mathematics, literature and everything else where the past seems too rich, as we dig deeper into it. Where did we loose all of it?

How do we reset, perhaps starting with the education system such that it builds upon the lost past ?

2 comments:

Binu Gopalakrishna Pillai said...

It is correct that students in current main stream education system don't have any exposure to our ancient system of knowledge. Though a system that generate a refined soul, it will not find place in self centered purely materialistic society when it does not provide way for living hood. In older days also skills for living hood was necessary but that was learned from the ancestors (from a master passing it to next generation).

The architectural and metallurgy expertise was obvious in ancient times but they were learned not from a centralized education system but from the master himself. Any person who is expert in one technology does pass that knowledge to others from himself. Because, why unnecessarily learn the skilled works generally. But generally one should get education from the Gurukul. This is to make him cultured and make him a responsible citizen. This link is missing in so called modern age now.

Regards,
Binu

Binu Gopalakrishna Pillai said...

But Bharath always will have the ability to auto correct the system when one is lacking. I guess this auto correction process is a gift given by the Sanadhana Dharma. Whenever there is a lack of coordination in the system or a danger to the Dharma, it will auto correct itself. This culture had to face challenges from all quarters not only this time but throughout the history. There were so many invaders came in and tried to destroy it. It resisted and corrected automatically through the well designed manifestations. This is the only culture that resisted all the challenges it faced and survived ages. Even the historians do not have any idea when the Indian value system started, may be it dated back to more than 100000 years!

Shakaracharya came here when the Dharma was in big danger. Swami Vivekananda came in when there was a need for others to know about Indian values. Now there are lots of Vivekanandas and Shankaras. So there will NOT be a situation where the Culture will be dead. The system will autocorrect them. Anna Hazarre's movement itself a proof that the young generation in Bharath is very much stick to the Value system. To know about all this phenomena, we need to dive into it and spend more time to learn different school of thoughts with ultimate dedication.

We all know that the largest gathering that takes place on earth is the Kumbha mela. There are lakhs of Sadhus gathering together at a particular time of the year in one place. This is not just a crowd.
There are intellectual and spiritual meetings take place and lots of discussions are happening. Some of the Sanyasins coming out from there caves only for this gathering. But it doesn't mean that they are sitting idle in caves. I read one book "Thapoboomi Utharkhand", which details some of the mysteries that surrounds the Himalayan region. They all are realized souls and involved deeply into different type of school of thoughts. Now, the people going for Sanyasa has increased a lot. Even from Western countries these school of thoughts gathering momentum.

We can take a case study here. Consider Kerala in this case. Kerala was place where this value system faced lots of challenges as we know. Even then there were lots of Yogis/Geniuses generated. Even today that process is going on without any break. I think, the basic energy centers are temples where Bhakthi is the ultimate tool for every devotee.
Bhakthi leads to Wisdom Wisdom leads to Moksha. There are lots of activities happening in temple across Kerala. In Guruvayoor temple premises there are lots of discussions happening about Bhagavatham, Narayaneeyam etc. If one person get to touch with any of this will definitely find their way if they are here for a purpose. There are lots of Bhagavatha Sathrams conducted across Kerala. This is unlike the old Communist Kerala, people are turning towards spirituality.

In Computer terms a computer is just a piece of useless object if software is not loaded. Once OS is loaded there we can install software.
But it does not mean that every user must have a coding skill or must know about assembly language. One need not know about the Vedas and Upanishads, but he will come to contact with so many purana stories from Ramayanam and Bhagavatham. If he is interested in that, he can go further down to analyse the bits and bytes of it.

Regards,
Binu