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For someone born in the village of Bhadragiri near Bangalore in
1934, Sant Keshavadas has undergone a remarkable transformation.
Known in the West as the founder of the Temple of Cosmic Religion,
he is a jet-setting guru to whom the world is a village.
Keshavadas has spread his gospel of the unity of religions across
the continents since the late 1960s. Aimed as it is towards a
global audience, his ecumenical approach combines elements from
diverse traditional sources. Keshavadas was originally trained in
the recitation of the Harikatha, a form that narrates the acts of
the god Vishnu: he has repackaged the traditional roles of the
kathakar and kirtankar for the nineties.
To a generation brought up in anxiety and turbulence, he comes
across as a compassionate healer who is also a pragmatist looking
for solutions to life's problems rather than contemplating abstract
metaphysical questions.
Ranjit Hoskote spoke to Keshavadas who is currently in Mumbai to
conduct a ten-day musical discourse on the Ramayana in English.
Excerpts from the conversation:
What is the philosophical basis of the Temple of Cosmic Religion?
When we proceed from the principle that the entire world is our
village, the future consciousness of humankind must be a cosmic
one. The ground has been laid for this cosmic consciousness in
terms of material and technological interconnectedness -but the
petty human ego resists transformation. There is no Christian sun
or Hindu moon, and yet, on every side, people are battling one
another on the grounds of religious differences and the only way
out of this imbroglio is an ecumenical sense of universal
brotherhood. I am not the originator of this idea Gandhi, Tagore,
Vivekananda and the Theosophists have said it before me.
But can the world's religions overcome their basic doctrinal
differences to attain this unity ?
The first step towards mutual understanding is taken when each
religion expresses it views freely. Over the last hundred years,
for instance, the Christian West has learnt a great deal front
India's religious traditions. Minds of the calibre of Schopenhauer
and Max Mueller were attracted to the Upanishads, and today, many
in the West have been persuaded by the Vedantic conviction that the
immortal soul is reborn in body after body on its way to release.
The word 'karma' has passed into common usage.
Today, many Western universities have chairs in Sanskrit and
departments of comparative religion. Hindu temples dot the
American landscape. Even congregations like the Unitarian Church
now invite Hindu, Buddhist and Jain speakers to share their
platform.
Hasn't there also been a reverse flow, with the influence of
Christianity on India's religious traditions?
Of course. Christianity does not simply talk about self-sacrifice
and divine love -it translates these concepts into action, by
establishing schools and hospitals, by serving the suffering as
Mother Teresa does. We have learnt, from such examples, to serve
the Divine through the creatures who are its living image.
How much truth do you rind in the cliche which contrasts the
materialist West and the spiritual East?
In the West, people put their wholehearted effort into whatever
they do, whether it is work, play, meditation, prayer or
pilgrimage. Recent surveys indicate that a sizeable number of
Americans practise a lifestyle which includes meditation and
vegetarianism, either for religious or health reasons. We in India
should learn these things from the Westerners. Ironically enough,
it is in the West that expatriate Indians learn to approach the
very traditions which they ignored at home.
You have established a series of 'mantra clinics'. Can such
alternative modes as 'mantra healing' or 'breath healing' provide
an alternative to con. ventional medicine?
I believe in the healing power of mantras and the practice of
pranayama, the rhythmic breath. Ideally, I would advocate a
combination of conventional medicine and prayer, science supported
by faith. But devotion - in the form of the mantra japa or puja -
becomes especially important to people who have not received
comfort from conventional medicine. Such people feel that only the
wisdom of the ancient masters can help. Modern civilisation has
created psychological problems for which its medicine has no
solutions. As a result, people dream dreams that no one today can
interpret except the followers of Freud, who reduce everything to
sexual anxiety. But our tradition remains aware of a higher
creative intelligence, which must be liberated from the pressures
of ordinary life. The key lies in balance: the amenities of
civilisation and the norms of culture must go together; science and
religion must complement each other.
Over the last century, many Indian teachers from Vivekananda to
Osho have crossed the seas to spread the message of India. How has
that message been assimilated in the West? ?
The Hindu way of life has taken root in many communities. There are
American Vaishnavas and American Smarthas now, who have found in
Hindu practice a real alternative to the lives they had led before,
lives that were materially satisfying but devoid of a sustaining
spiritual dimension. In the West, the phase of experiment is over:
they have realised that religion is not for the curious, it is for
the serious.
In the nature of things, light travels from east to west while the
world revolves from west to east. I take this symbolism to mean
that religious illumination moves from east to west, while
scientific inquiry moves from west to east. It is by complementing
each other's gifts that West and East will merge into a unified
cosmos.
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