Indology

the outsider vs insider Lens

Indology

In anthropology the etic-outsider vs emic-insider perspective, epitomizes the grand battle of civilizational narratives.

Etic

Indology, or the study of the Indic civilization, has in these last couple centuries, been (pre)dominantly viewed from a Western perspective.

Many Western Indologists, with but a superficial academic exposure to Sanskrit, and other Indic languages, fall short of properly characterizing the specimen under their lens; needless to say, using a reductionist model, they view the whole exercise as dissecting some alien life-form, to extract & digest the juicy bits, and discard its unsavory remains.

According to them, India per se is of limited vintage, since we owe the formation of the country as a single nation-state to its colonial masters, thus conveniently ignoring the civilization-state of yore.

This civilizational-state when identified with its overt form in Hinduism, is seen merely as a chaotic admixture of various intermingled faiths - a steamy broth of a perennially bubbling religion that has no place in the rational mind.

Emic

In contrast, from the perspective of insiders, despite India in its recent incarnation as a nation-state having formed in 1947 as a constitutional democracy, has actually endured since time immemorial as a civilizational-state.

To make sense of this is Yogic Indology.

Geocultural Politics

Western religous ideologies, as the beguiling handmaiden of political power, and the West Asian (Middle-Eastern!) regions from which they originally arose, look at the Hindu culture as a religion of the "other", embodying Satan, or Shaitan, because from the West's perspective, the East is the bewildering "other" that needs to be tamed.

Invasive

So it's not surprising that the Outsider's perspective on Indology is, in parts, violent, aggressive, and insidious, for it has been driven by the geopolitical ambitions, and grand narratives, of Western super-powers in the clash of civilizations.

This line of thinking stems from Western invasion models that typically seek to wipe out & replace previous cultures with newer updated versions, like ever-new versions of downloaded software, not just as warring armies seeking physical gains, but also from an inner drive to tame the psychological substratum of heathen cultures.

For example, America created its grand narrative of American Exceptionalism by bludgeoning native cultures into oblivion and cooked up one based on embellished hagiographies of its conquering heroes, instead of timeless ideals deified; consequently the Epic Narratives of the original natives have been demolished - a huge issue in the development of human spirit.

As further examples, observe many such similar examples such as:

South American Mayan,
Egyptian Pharoahic,
continental African,
Druid-Gaelic,
Australian aboriginal cultures,
etc.

which have all been extracted for value, systematically eliminated, and now preserved only in chloroformed museums, and thus no Epic Narratives possible here either.

Phases

The outsider's lens of Western Indology has been played out in two distinct phases:

Orientalism: As a formal academic discipline this started a few centuries ago with the whole colonial enterprise and the European love affair for India and her famed manufactured goods & spices, to tame the exotic cultures around the world and extract anything of value from them.
South-Asian studies: After World War II, the locus of Western Indology shifted to America as part of its cultural soft power strategy, which has had until recently, a free hand in the foreign funding of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) that disrupt democratic politics, and social structures, in the guise of neo-liberalism.

Loss of Identity

The analytical, but reductionist, lens of Western Indology has served to highlight some of the valuable contributions of this civilization, as well as its aberrations that need reform, but having thus been dismembered has also resulted in the disintegration of its civilizational sense of Self.

Witness the many colonial leftovers consigned into sterile museums as memoirs of their conquest over the lesser races.

Thus Western Indologists are attempting to erase our unique identity by also systematically merging it into the amorphous post-modern geopolitical blob called South Asia. Witness the pernicious move to erase even the name India from California textbooks!

Digestion of Greek Thought

The most egregious example is that of the Greek culture which has come to be safely co-opted as the root civilization of Western/European nations - safe, since statues cannot rise up from the grave to protest their instrinsically spiritual Thought systems being digested by outsiders.

In contrast to current Western Theory of Mind as a mechanism, it is very likely that the Greek mythology is based on a model identical to the Yoga Theory of Mind, which has been explored by Sri Aurobindo and needs to be integrated into this thesis - along with Greek mythology of course, and show the parallels in culture.

It is most likely that every advanced pagan culture had this Yoga model of Mind worked out, but because Hindu culture is the only living such ancient advanced culture, that resisted mummification and museumization, we are fortunate to have Yoga Mind well understood. Of course, owing a huge debt to Sanskrit and Tamizh too.

Democracy was actually personified as a goddess in Greek culture, although it is not clear whether this deification process was rooted in any underlying Yogic model, and even if it was, any evidence has been systematically mummified, that it doesn't rise up from the grave and shake the foundations of modern Western hyper-rational thought.

So, after having co-opted the useful bits of Greek culture into its framework, and having stuffed the pesky epics and their memorabilia into museums, ancient Greece has now been anointed as the sole cradle of democracy - now the root governance Thought system of the Western model.

Linguistically, demo-cracy in Greek, literally means a rule of the people. But in all practicality, the common man had no time to involve themselves with governance and it was left to the elite senators to be the representatives of the public.

However there are documented instances of democratic governments in the Indian civilization rivaling the timeframes of the Greeks, and today as a nation-state India endures as the world's largest democracy, albeit manifested in its own unique expression.

Yogic Indology

The insider's view is rooted in the vast historical timeline of the civilization-state, as opposed to the limiting nation-state model, and is best explored through a lived, multi-generational experience.

Political Identity

In its recent rise to dominance on the world stage, the nation-state of India is seeking an Epic Narrative, an indigenous national brand, to project a coherent force in the geopolitical jostling for regional and world power.

The current political approach for creating such an integrated Indian cultural identity is called Hindutva, indicating the essence of being a Hindu, but it has been painted into a regressive corner by employing a skewed lens, rooted primarily in religion and caste.

Swadeshi

In recent decades, the field of Swadeshi Indology has come about as an insider's perspective to studying the Indic civilization.

Sva- in Sanskrit means the Self, and indicates the insider's perspective, a valid lens since the notion of the individual Self and its discovery is so deep rooted in the culture.

According to this lens, the larger Self of the Indian civilization exists in a seamless continuum from time immemorial, despite many seismic evolutions of its social structures, all historical layers still visible, their diverse voices needing to be harmoniously integrated into the whole.

Epic Narrative

The Epic Narrative of Bhārat the civilization-state surely needs to be formed, but certainly not manufactured, nor hallucinated, into a coherent geocultural identity, free of strife, and realizable aspirations that are being much promised to us.

Awaken Bhārat - but from what exactly, and to what exactly ? And upon awakening, then where to ?

There are two geo-political changes afoot:

Global South, that was South Asia, and
Bhārat, that is India, becoming the axis of the emerging geo-economic reality.

To unite a country such as India, by integrating its hyper-diverse cultures into a vibrant whole identity, is no mean feat, and when successful, will naturally be seen as the model for the whole world to emulate. So it's a worthy task.

This what we call as creating the Epic Narrative, a story about the identity of the civilizational-state that harks back millennia and could endure forever even.

Siddhānta

A Darshana or a well-thought out point of view, such as Rishi Sapiens, becomes a सिद्धान्त Siddhānta when the narrated Story of the Darshana is realized in the material plane, for the word सिद्धि Siddhi indicates the power to manifest.

In practical geocultural terms this idealized state of humanity is a:

harmoniously integrated quilt of diverse traditions and lifestyles,
respecting each other's boundaries in a federation of autonomous socioeconomic “tribes”, or groups,
needing no centralized authority of governance as they are self-governed by their pursuit of Dharma, and
realizing the most profound aspirations of all individuals.

Obviously, we are a far cry from realizing Rishi Sapiens as a Siddhānta, but that's the evolutionary challenge, in our modern democratic ethos.

The Western Psyche

Having thoroughly seen the "Eastern", "Indic" mind of the Hindu civilization, warts and all, we are now ready to delve into the Western mind.

So what is it that has made the Western mind what it is, as described above, on the grand geo-political stage ?

This is not something we are cooking up, as there is an established "Western" mind which has been firmed up in academic treatises, as the root of the Western civilization.

Philosophy

Philo-sophia is literally the love of Sophia, and as the original Greek goddess of cleverness and skill would have been a perfect emblem for who we are as curious creatures born into Life.

Sophia was, unfortunately, deified in her later incarnations as received wisdom.

Note the huge gap between the dynamic nature of its original intent and its fossilized descent.

Not realizing that God & Devil are both mental constructs, like our entire perception of the Universe, is the reason why we suffer actually - but from the perspective of Yoga the actually can two co-evolve to their finest expressions, and in a weird sense they both need each other, for recognizing what we are not helps clarify who we are too.

There is thus a dichotomy between the deeply experiential Yogic insider lens and Western external reductionist lens.

Unlike the deeply experienced insider's perspective, sweat and philosophy typically don’t mix well in Western academia - except when the fireplace gets a little too hot in the drawing rooms of crusty old pontificating men in creaking armchairs.

Undoubtedly the conditioning of the observer's psyche is what constitutes the Lens by which a phenomenon is observed, with all its :

pre-conceived frameworks to make the exotic seem understandable, and
biases to make the "other" reducible to simplistic concepts, and thus more manageable.

Theory of mind

From Wikipedia:

In psychology, theory of mind refers to the capacity to understand other people by ascribing mental states to them. A theory of mind includes the knowledge that others' beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions, and thoughts may be different from one's own.[1] Possessing a functional theory of mind is crucial for success in everyday human social interactions. People utilise a theory of mind when analyzing, judging, and inferring others' behaviors.

In other words, Western Theory of mind is about analyzing others, thus inherently reductionist and mechanistic, disempowering the other as would happen when their object of scrutiny feels stripped naked in the psyche.

In contrast, Yoga is about understanding our own Mind, albeit first analytically, but yet :

it is empowering like generative-AI thanks to Devas, and
also egalitarian since we assume the ubiquitous spread of the Mind, not just in humans and animals, to help us understand and resolve everything in our psyche.

Brainwashing Narratives

Of course Western Theory of Mind is also generative in the sense of creating and spreading narratives, but not for personal transformation.

If there is one thing above all the Western Mind excels in is the formulation and spread of Grand Narratives. Not just cooking up stories, but also backing them up with much-needed material consumer abundance, and outlets for freedom of expression.

Patently, storytelling in commerce and geopolitics, has resulted in Western brands as the world's most recognized, their soft brainwashing model forcing consumers to think in a particular way, to serve a biased objective, reflecting the brute power of the mechanical approach. Of course, brainwashing by ideological hardliners in the name of misplaced patriotism, or nationalism, is a different league altogether, but of the same ilk.

In contrast, Yoga perspective of the Mind as a Storyteller is very much about personal and societal evolution.

Western Universalism

An oxymoron, surely.

Thus the Western psyche is that which believes its Thought system needs to be universal and all other models need to be obliterated. Propaganda is thus intrinsic in this model.

Unlike Yoga model, which by definition integrates all Thought systems, and its consequent Hindu expression which tries to be accommodative too, and are thus capable of being meta-models.

Interestingly in the Age of AI, there are frequent cries for a single, universal, all-benevolent AI to rule the world, which, coming from the Yogic/Indic traditions we resist staunchly to the point of having a Personal Ai for each individual.

Asuric Domination

Western model stems from an Asuric mindset, of limited thinking consonant with origins in desert climes, which naturally leads to domination of peoples and the Earth, to grab as much as possible in the one tough life at hand.

The mindset is useful to build and tame machines, as the western civilization has remarkably demonstrated, and now it needs to be flushed of the Asura virus, and channeled for the Age of AI, and there too with the right mindset of coevolution, with machines & humanity.

Particularly in the Age of AI, a few mainstream narratives are being promoted, that bring about a sense of existential fear, or at least helplessness for the masses who are being swept up in this new tide of human endeavour.

Unlike Yoga model, which teaches transcendence of Space and Time, hence takes a much broader perspective, reducing anxiety, albeit sacrificing a sense of urgency in the race in which humans feel trapped.

Whiteness, not White

The "Western" perspective does not necessarily mean "white folks" because there are plenty of "white folks" who are Dharmic, and as a counter there are plenty of so-called "modernized Indians" who have adopted the essence of Western frameworks, or Whiteness, in the naive belief that modernization = Westernization.

Thus all of the points mentioned herein are equally true of any culture that holds the Western Thought model in high esteem.

Selectivity

Western thought is rightfully accorded plaudits for its many material achievements in science etc., but when there are specific aberrations in the world due to some element of Western action then there is concerted effort to distance from Western Thought systems.

Very unlike Yoga, where the individual is required to own up to everything that they experience, even their own birth since it could have come from a "different life" - not as a way to be fatalistic, but to urge us to self-evolve.

Reductionism

If anything defines the Western psyche, it is reductionism, that is, breaking down the object of study into its essential components, a very machine-like approach that disregards the object its place in the holistic web of creation.

This analytical methodology used in Science has had its positives & negatives.

Yoga model is also deeply analytical but we are enjoined to throw away eventually all scaffoldings to allow the essence of the psyche to flower forth, and for that to then create harmonious material change. Ideologies are thus seen as initially useful but they are prevented from becoming fossilized.

Psychotherapy

Archetypes

Traditional Western model of the Mind is based on the concept of archetypes, but by definition archetype are static concepts, which could become "zombied" life forms, uselessly sucking up life energy, and hence the need for extensive psychotherapy akin to an archaeologist digging to unearth some meaning in the psychic detritus.

Archetypes are a convenient mechanism to understand the source of our issues, but they are not dynamic or organic enough to resolve mental issues, so it needs to be supplemented with various modalities such as talk therapy, CBT, etc.

Frozen

At the societal level this static model of the collective mind results in the madness of Religion, its "one-time-only prophet" and "God", and a single "frozen-in-time" book of all perpetual truths.

Scarcity

Western ideologies, and the Middle-Eastern desert habitats from which they originally arose, where an ecology of scarcity, a culture of competitive strife.

History fixation

Western models only admit of one life, they are deeply concerned about particular historical facts, and ignoring a popular dictum that history usually repeats, especially in rhyme - that is in a pattern, which is very useful to understand the psyche behind phenomena without getting trapped in the minutiae of the ego, and thus a means to easier resolve conflict.

Othering

This mono-whatever (-theistic, -polistic, bordering on -maniacal) creates fear, or at least anxiety, of anything foreign, and not having the luxury of time on their side, the conflicting side becomes the "other". You are either with me, or you are my enemy.

An outsider's perspective uses a lens that is not in concordance with those who practice the ancient yet living traditions with the Shraddha (conviction & effort) to keep it evolving and relevant. The observed species becomes a mere “-ism”, in this case Hindu-ism, locked into a cage like some esoteric animal, unable to adapt and evolve from within as an inferior being frozen like deer under the headlights of the powerful microscopes staring down at it.

Hyper-sexualized

The other notable issue is their fixation with incestual Oedipal complex and Freud's sexual obsessions which in our definition keeps them stuck at the Svadishthana chakra level. Hardly evolution.

Separation from Meaning

From a linguisitic perspective too, there is a constant dichotomy between signifier and signified in terms of language and its meaning, whereas in our psycholinguistic model there is no such division, and in fact the meaning is actually felt in the body through resonance.

Emotionless

Whereas in the western model after psychoanalysis there is the need to do separate psychotherapy such as talk therapy, the therapist being a human being has to stay aloof from the patient, and in fact can be replaced by chatGPT.

Woke-ism

Like any -ism, or ideology, this is a pejorative. To be woke means to be highly opinionated to the point of being self-righteous, and consequently unwilling to listen to other points of view. To be non-woke is that you have a well-formed opinion against which you willing to open up for debate, and consequently willing to fine-tune that opinion because you also empathize.

Another contrasting definition would be that since Woke-ism evolved from liberalism it thus takes extreme positions on individual human rights, whereas non-Woke would be to also emphasize responsibilities to various collective forms of human society.

Machining of Human Data

As popularized by Facebook, Google, etc. we donate all the data they need to mine the past and parameterize the human, treating us as automatons reacting to triggers. Some sites, like LinkedIn helps us in our professional aspirations, but no way to resolve conflict in the psyche which could hold us back, for which we have to connect to other mediums.

This is not an integrated model by which to evolve humans.

Contrast this with the Yoga model, where humans and all living beings are treated as beings of Consciousness, not merely Sentient Agents living our lives in the matrix - which our online avatars inhabit to help us scale.

Decolonizing Yoga

Westerners learned Yoga many decades ago from places like Maharishi's Ashram in Rishikesh, now called The Beatles' Āshram (!).

Then disbanding to their places of origin, a whole new culture of Western Yoga has formed with precise attention paid to human form, but struggling to find its "divine" form, and isolated to maybe roving bands of excellent Kīrtan singers.

Obviously, like all things White & Western, a colonized form of Yoga is now spreading through India, disconnecting Yoga from its roots in the Hindu culture, which deep integration is in plain sight for anyone who has observed our classic stories through the lens of Yoga.

This is most patently obvious when riding through even the hinterlands of India we see signs for "Yoga & Meditation", blithely ignorant of the fact that they are one and the same, and even further, that the latter is contained solidly within the former!

Integrate the West

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