Sri Narayana Guru: Narayan Guru - Social Revolutionary  

By V G Rao  

Sri Narayana Guru: Narayan Guru - Social Revolutionary  

Religion has nothing to do with the practice of goodness, according to Sri Narayana Guru, who championed the cause of socio-religious equality in 19th century Kerala.

Narayana Guru preached the recondite message of the Vedas and Upanishads in a lucid, uncomplicated style. He advocated a formless, non-dual metaphysics and would advise seekers to meditate by sitting in front of a looking-glass.

According to Hindu belief, the Atman - which is evolved from the Supreme - resides in every living being. It was the latent divinity in man that the Guru wished to awaken by his exhortation.

Though an Advaitin, the Guru was not divorced from the social reality of his time. The Dalits or 'untouchables' were barred entry into temples. Narayana Guru devoted a great portion of his time for Dalit uplift. On one occasion when the upper castes objected to his consecration of an idol of Shiva in a local temple, he silenced them with the plea that it was the Shiva of the Ezhavas, the community he belonged to.

The Vedic view of God as endorsed by the Guru holds that there is only one Reality or Brahmn which, because of maya, allows things in their resplendent variety to emerge. The Guru explains this with the example of a piece of cloth. The cloth is a collection of threads. The threads are a collection of fibres. The fibres in turn are made up of atoms and sub-atomic particles which are not further reducible to tangible items but exist as mere concepts in the human mind or consciousness, called cit in Sanskrit.

The subject and object, the living and the inanimate, the opposite qualities of love and hate or good and evil, all these and more as witnessed in the world are emanations of the Brahmn. The essence of all things is Brahmn, which alone is real. To realise the truth one has to direct the senses inward.

The Guru seconds the Upanishadic claim that nothing can be asserted with surety about the Atman (or Brahmn), which functions beyond the intelligence of man. The emergence of an individual from reality is described in the Chandogya Upanishad as the result of a five-stage sacrifice that begins in the unknown and ends in the physical union of a man and woman to beget the progeny.

Narayana Guru employs the simile of a suspended lamp (known as thukku vilakku in Malayalam) to depict life in his perspective. Life is like a two-tiered lamp with five wicks each, hung by a long chain, which extends below the lower lamp. The chain represents the unknown beginning and the end. In the entire sequence the burning lamps signify momentary life which emerges out of nothingness only to go back into nothingness after its brief earthly sojourn.

Likewise, the idea of rebirth which in conjunction with Karma provides the theoretical underpinning to the Hindu doctrine of fatalism fails to explain why, often, the good suffer and the evil prosper. While shedding light on the soteriological (salvation/deliverance) problem the Guru dismisses rebirth as crucial to understanding karma.

On the other hand, he interprets karma as the creative urge inherent in reality and not action relating to an individual as commonly understood in the traditional sense. Thus God as the doer of all karma obviates the need of temporising, especially in the case of an individual created for the first time and hence devoid of any merits/demerits accrued from the past.

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See also: Sri Narayana Guru, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)