Mystified  By  The  Mystic  ???

by - dr. s selvakumaran

While de-mystifying the mystic, an Indian-psychiatrist emotes. In doing so he clarified that, " THE  HINDU "  & the so-called present-day  " hinduism "  were not synonyms. Please read on should you feel kindled by this prologue.

During my recent visit to Geneva, Switzerland, in connection with an errand at the WHO, I was put-up with the family of a very long time Srilankan-acquaintance of mine, whose popularity amongst the local Suisse-whites coupled with my inherent nature to encourage socio-religio- cultural pluralism, in turn, had rewarded me with a lot of close-friendships in short-notice, that were more than intelligent enough to generate several healthy-dialogues on a wide-variety of global issues & what'd be discussed below shall be one belonging to such a category.

In the wee-hours of quotidian-mornings there, between 4 am & 7 am local-time, I'd devoutly recline to the on-line edition of my cultural-identity, namely, THE HINDU & my closely- observed routine was well enough for a few totally innocuous-yet-adrenaline driven Suisse- whites to check-me down for a capture with their sarcastic-innuendoes about the socio-religio- cultural pluralism that I was identified with. I soon came to learn that it was a product of their distorted belief, that THE HINDU always & only had something to do with a religious-system. I set-out my sail to politely-
sabotage their perception about THE HINDU & it sailed on the following compass.

I had no hesitations whatsoever in dragging Yogi Jaggi Vasudev to my rescue & his quotable quotings came in handy & strait-laced to subtly-wallop my very-well-behaved critics.

Yogi Jaggi Vasudev took-off as, "when you referred to somebody as a 'hindu', I wanted you to clearly comprehend that you were not giving the person any religious-identity, but a culturo- geographical-identity, as the word 'hindu' came from the word 'sindhu' which was in-turn a derivative of the word 'indhu' & therefore people that were born in the land of Indus came to be known as the-hindus. One does not have to tag-along to any particular belief-system in order to be a hindu, one could believe in God to be a hindu, the other could dis-believe in God to still be a very-good hindu & several-others could be anything to call themselves as hindus. Unlike of any narrow-belief-system, the land of Indus, namely, India had always welcomed open-handedly all & everything that came-upon itself. This multi-faceted & pluralistic culture that had the rich-heritage of having manufactured enlightened-beings had always & ever been open to all kinds of Gods, religions & philosophies. There were so many hindus that worshipped Jesus, Mohammed & etc as much as they worshipped Rama, Krishna, Siva, Parvathi, Muruga & etc. Hindu culture never resisted anything, on the contrary, it embraced everything - such was the depth of it's wisdom. A true-hindu treading on a spiritual- path had never identified himself or herself with any particular group or religion. For a true- hindu, since religion was an inward-step, they'd never have done it on the streets but within themselves & therefore they'd never be having anything to do with the so-called present-day 'hinduism' which was a strict political-exercise".

My Suisse-company eventually evolved as an exalted-lot & their thorough understanding that the news-paper of the land of Indus, namely, THE HINDU........ actually meant the nation India with all it's cultures - chaotic-yet-very beautiful, came in as a divine-feast to my hindu-ego that was being threatened for a brief-while.

referred to reverend  yogi  jaggi  vasudev.