Gurucharanam
Saranam
ICPR National Seminar on
Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru: Paradigm
shift in Indian Spiritual discourse on Dharma .
Date: 22,23,24 August, 2017 Venue: Santhigiri Spiritual Zone
Auditorium
Context
Wisdom tradition of India is based on
the idea of an underlying unifying spirit unity that sustains the whole and was able to postulate and
maintain that all realms of existence are continuous and
parts of the whole – the physical, the vital, the mental and the spiritual. It
also indicates the philosophical idea that the most
profound explication of Brahman as eternal purity is independent of
matter/ spirit and freedom. Such a tradition has been able to relook human progress and
a humane world characterized by the rediscovery of a new understanding
of spirituality based on human sustainability. Unfortunately, the modern world order has made an extreme
effort in emptying the sacred character of the human subject and
also the cosmos and made it to become profane leading to humanity into an
unprecedented crisis. The shaping of the present rationality within a span of the last
200 years or so was able to bring forth a number of negative phenomena in science, techniques,
art, ideas on development, philosophy, literature and practically in
all spheres of social and cultural life. The criteria of instrumental rationality have found
its wide application in all spheres of human activity: in science, techniques,
economy, organization of collective life, our attitude towards the other. Be that as it may,
it is significant to note that that there has been an upward understanding of the indispensable
role of spirituality in nurturing and nourishing positive attitudes and values among
humans. Nonetheless, the rising wave of religion induced animosity and fundamentalism
all over the world has turned out to be an impregnable challenge that
seems to engulf the whole humanity. It has created across the world intolerance,
hatred and unhealthy
competition causing thereby much disservice to the goal of religion and spirituality.
Despite India having the richest
spiritual philosophies and knowledge systems, social segregation and
superstitious belief systems and practices attributing to religion has done
irreparable damage to the positive social evolution. The gross dichotomy between dharma as
ideal and dharma as praxis in social, political and cultural life of the people
ultimately contributed to foreign enslavement over centuries both mentally and culturally.
Even after seventy years of independence, India has not been able to achieve desired
material progress and social unity. Even today, social segregation suffused
with notions of superiority and inferiority have been attributed to religion
and sustained by religious beliefs, practices and worship systems. Nevertheless,
India’s cultural legacy and religion continue to be the only
unifying force and the ruling idea of ancient Indian thought is
unity in diversity and not uniformity.
Relevance
Several Gurus and Acharyas took
birth in India to restore dharma by eliminating the superstitious
beliefs and practices based on religion and the resultant social segregation which
is otherwise not the culture of this tradition exalted by Vedas and Upanishads.
However, it has been a tragedy to find that these seers could not fulfill their mission and
restore equilibrium by eliminating the basic deviations and distortions that
ever caused social disintegration and made human life vitiated. Moreover, many
of them confused the real meaning of dharma as
constituting the distinctive duties of the four Varnas and the four Ashramas
so that the term Varnashrama dharma has been misconstrued and looked upon as
the Sanatana dharma.
What they have lost sight was dharma as reflective morality. As Brihaspati and
Vyasa put it, one has to depend on rational understanding of the social situation before
coming to a decision regarding what is moral and what is not. Dharma, therefore,
is not merely tradition or custom, but also truth and reason. This dichotomy between
dharma as an ideal and dharma as praxis has ever been an unresolved dilemma
in Indian societies.
It is in this
context that the revelatory spirituality of Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru assumes global
importance. Guru’s teaching is a revelation on the unanswered riddles in
spirituality and religion. During the occasion of Guru’s spiritual fulfillment
in 1973, it was
revealed to him that due to an error occurred to a great Kalantharaguru in the Manu Parampara,
there occurred lapse in Kaladharma or Yuga dharma which was instrumental in getting
arrested the succeeding spiritual progression and social evolution. Thus,
despite the sacrifice of great souls, humanity could not be guided to a vvirtuous life
visualized by great Acharyas. Guru’s teaching signifies the necessity of overcoming the overwhelming
cultural undercurrents of the Error and the Curse for proper spiritual
development and thereby an effective evolution of the society leading to the
development of the country.
Guru’s teaching marks a break with
the existing notions on the ontology of dharma. The revelatory spirituality of
Guru has thus brought to human knowledge for first time in
known spiritual history that the eclipse of dharma and non- observation of
yugadharma had been the singular and the fundamental causation of the lingering
miseries, violence, greed and vices in humans and society. Guru draws attention to the
basic truth that it was because the spiritual and material life of humans were not in
conformity with the dharma of the present yuga, there has been violence, wars, injustice
and absence of peace. It is significant to note that none of the past seers has
made such an observation
regarding the inalienable nexus between Yugadharma and human well being. It is
this position of Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru that makes his teaching
distinctive that calls for a paradigm shift in the existing dharma as
exemplified in the faith, worship and practices of Hinduism.
The Seminar is
purported to focus on the following topics:
1. Sanatana dharma and Yugadharma.
2. Dharma: Spiritual
Progression, Material Fortune and Social Evolution 3. Worship Systems of
Hinduism: Compatibilities and Incompatibilities
4. Yuga Dharma and Social Change:
Metaphysical Assumptions
5. Dharma as the
Ethics of Human Rights 6. Dharma as Legality and Reflective Morality
7. Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru:
Vision and Mission
8. Revelatory Spirituality and
Navajyothisree Karunakara Guru
Contact Conference Coordinator : Dr. Gopinathan Pillai (email: gopikgopi@yahoo.com)
