If you are into modern day Gurus, you might have by now heard about the popular 'Nithyananda Swami', as he is called. He is now big news for the scandalous affair caught on tape which was splashed across the TV channels all over India. The video shows him cavorting in bed with a little known south indian actress. Now that the cat is out of the bag, there is no sign of the every smiling Nithyananda. ( For those who may not know, 'Nithyananda' in sanskrit means everlasting happiness...or simply bliss.). Where is Nithyananda now? Hiding in some cave somewhere in the Nilgiris perhaps? Furiously meditating and trying to reach that 'superconscious' state where no one would ever be able to find him? More than anyone else he now needs his own medicine to work desperately for him...prescriptions that he has been dishing out with his ubiquitious smile as panacea to one and all; prescriptions for which his countless devotees didn't mind paying handsomely.
In today's social context where what one does in private is pretty much one's own prerogative, and where the society's moral compass is a bit wayward, why is it so disturbing to many to see a person's initmate moments caught on tape? What harm has he done really to anyone by engaging in a few raunchy escapades? The answer, I think, is very simple. Most spiritually inclined people don't view these so called spiritual leaders as ordinary people with the same sort of wants and desires as themselves. In fact the unstated norm is that many of these spiritual leaders are supposed to be 'sanyansis', having renounced the material world after arriving at the same metaphysical conclusions that countless before them had arrived at meticulously through meditation and reflection. Such sanyasis are supposed to be 'above' the commoners not only in their thoughts but also in their daily conduct to the extent that they must serve as constant reminders to everyone of the limitations of the material world. One of the central hallmarks of Hindu thought is the variously expressed notion that ultimate self-realization and renounciation are essentially two sides of the same coin. Therefore, images of a sadhu or sanyasi engaging in material worldly pleasures are not merely incongruent, but downright illogical. A 'sanyasi' can never be a person of the world, no matter what he does. With so many of the worldly charlatans planning for their next get rich and famous scheme, it has become easy pickings for some of them with a particular flair for religious sophistry to play on the sentiments of an entire population that treats the words and actions of any holy person with unflinching reverence and respect. No one, it seems, has any concerns of impropriety when such 'holy men' go on amassing pots of monies, deck themselves and their furniture in gold, and jet-set around the world in the utmost comforts. The sincere devotees perhaps choose to simply disregard these excesses as the banal necessities for someone with a higher calling. Or as some do, treat these as merely adminstrative activites required for achieving a larger and nobler objective of reaching out to the world and spreading that universal message, known and understood of course only by the sanyasi himself. But when such sanyasis are caught in bed half naked having a boisterous romp with women, it just is too much to handle. Which is why when the likes of Nithyananda are 'caught', there is much shock and anger. Shock that they could even do such a thing, and anger that the faithful devotees even put their life and soul into such persons, who shamed not just them alone, but an entire honorable tradition of sanyasis stretching back to more than 2,500 years. We now of course hear the common platitudes offered by his supporters that the video was morphed, their 'swami' is being framed, and that they will take legal action. Now there will be all this legal wrangling, semantic somersaults, and frenzied defenses to protect and project an image of "innocence" and purity. Let us imagine for a moment that Nithyananda is in fact innocent. That he has been framed. No matter what defenses he and his team can come up with, the damage has already been done. I simply think people will never treat him the way with respect and devotion the way they once did.
May be in today's age and time of instant gratification, where the commoners want instant solutions for stubborn problems, where insecurities of the mind play more havoc that the earthquakes and tsunamis of the world, it is the charlatans that have the upper hand. Perhaps true sanyasis just don't exist anymore. May be, they are only found in places where you wouldn't care to look. I for one don't think they can be found in the 'purposefully sanitized' environs of a plush looking ashram, where all the right signs and religious symbols are always on display with flowers, music and adequate lighting, where you always find a smiling potrait of the 'sanyasi' bedecked with flowers, and where you feel like you are more at a resort or a spa taking a group vacation. May be instead of looking for a true sanyasi somewhere to provide convenient solutions to our inconvenient problems and spending all our energies trying to confirm that the sanyasi is indeed a genuine one, we should rather be a bit more human, support each other and find problems ourselves together. While we can rely on teachings of Gurus and the wise ones, we will do better to stay away from those that promise handsome rewards in exchange for spiritual membership, which of course carries its fees. We will probably do much better to find our ways out of problems no matter what they are. Rather than achieving the individual 'superconsciousness' which would, as I am told, connect us directly to the sublime, let us at least target the simpler and more readily available goal of being deliberately 'conscious' of each other's joys and sufferings and see if we can do something each day to share the joy or alleviate the pain. May be at least this will put us on the path of 'enlightenment'!! And heck, even if we don't ever become enlightened, at least we won't be sorely disappointed that we knowingly followed someone who didn't deserve the title of a sanyasi!
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Language and Discourse.
As someone who grew up speaking multiple languages till English became the predominant language of my expression for all the "important" stuff in life, I have never ceased to wonder whether my persona would have been any different had I never spoken a word of English. One may only casually reflect on this when encountering the difficulty of explaining a notion that feels natural to you, but somewhat alien to someone else not from within the same cultural milieu. Meanings and significance somehow get lost in translation no matter how hard you try.We usually put down the "lost in translation" experience as an inability to somehow find the right set of words or phrases at the right time, or an individual inability to express the meaning and significance, rather than the inherent unavailibity of such concepts and discourse in the other person's language. It is easy to rationalize that our own grasp of language is rather adequate and even on those ocassionally ineffable moments, we may believe that all we need to do is to just reach out for the closest dictionary available to search for potential synonyms. But really, does langugage influence our thinking, does it box us into corners in certain specific ways to the point that it becomes rather tedious to find ways to explain it to others? Do our thought patterns and "common sense logic" depend on vocabulary and discourse patterns in a particular language? Finally, does it even matter whether language influences thought? Might it simply not be a "category mistake", where I am unknowingly wasting my time in finding a "right" answer to a wrong question?
Let me tell you why I even got started with this thought. I had known for a while that the Inuit tribe in Canada had 24 distinct words describing the different types of 'snow' they encounter, whereas many other languages don't have a clearly separate word for 'snow' even when snow was a part of the peoples' regular experience. Similarly, in a certain South Indian language called 'Tamil', the opposite of the color 'white' is not 'black', but rather 'red'. In certain languages there simply is no vocabulary to distinguish between the color 'red' or 'brown'; it is all 'red'. In yet other languages the vocabulary affords a distinction between so many shades of 'green' that no corresponding words are available in other languages. We know well that language evolves together with social practices and is intertwined with customs and tradtions that are specific to geographies. Notice how certain cultures have elaborate greeting rituals whereas other cultures don't even have a verbal expression for the same. Certain cultures celebrate death and mourn birth, whereas many others mark various stages of life with a ritual celebration and not just the regular birthdays and anniversaries. If concepts and discourse are so tied to socio-cultural contexts, who is to say that we truly understand each the significance of words, discourse and actions across the socio-cultural boundaries well enough? Is it simply a sign of our intellectual hubris that we so comfortably assume that we truly understand the discourse of the other perhaps through copious translations?
As we expand our understanding of the world and try to make "sense" of things around us, we can only use our own looking glass to make sense of the other. When we do so, we see stark differences, we see conflict, we see irreconcilable differences around us. One may say well language itself doesn't have to do any thing with it. Well really just take a hard look around. A majority of the disagreements arise around cultural identities, around rigid value systems and a lack of willingness to beyond staid concepts and assumptions. All of which is amply evidenced in the discourse around such issues, if only one cares to look.
While language individually allows us to transend our immediate experience and understand the other dimensions of the unexplored world, it also at once limits us...we cannot as it were, remove our glasses, and look at everything just the way it is. So, if it is English that I have to develop my world view in, then in some ways I'm 'stuck' with English. But knowing that other languages present their own dinstinct world views, which in some cases significantly contrast with mine, I often wonder whether certain world views allow you to understand and make sense of the world better so that we feel comfortable in the choices we make, not out of fear, greed or some other compulsion, but merely with the knowledge that it simply is the right choice to make. Have you ever wondered what compels a person in the U.S. to constantly strive for the personal economic security and wanting "next best" technology, the "best available" home, job, car, spouse....whereas in other certain other fast disappearing cultural contexts persons may be truly content with sharing what is available or granted to them without much regard for the long-term future. How do you even convey to someone in the West the concept of 'prasad' which is still the guiding principle in many rural villages in India, where all that one obtains is considered as begotten through divine grace, and therefore happily accepted? How do you even explain the Lockean and anglo-saxon legal concepts of property and rights to indigenous people who have had the misfortune of their shared living space being grabbed, all in the name of re-development? How do you convey the western concept of 'social-security' to someone when their well being has less to do with economic independence and more to do with immediate social ties? I am not sparring here on what is right and what is wrong. Of course, that is a choice that we make for ourselves, if we ever can truly anymore. It almost appears that there is constant tug of war being played out in front of our eyes daily for cultural and linguistic supremacy, where each culture struts it icons and intellectual wares through a vastly organized media; whether it be in the varied forms of the usual promises for a economically prosperous texas-sized bigger and better life, or atlernatively in the comforting soothsayings of never ending blissful spiritual experiences. Of course, all these 'benefits' supposedly come along only so along as you faithfully follow their prescribed paths!
While we navigate through these never ending prescriptions and try to reconcile these confusing messages with our own seemingly (mis-)guided wants and desires, we hardly ever pause to think and change our lenses for a while. Why have we all become so apathetic and insensitive to certain types of discourse, to people who have a different world view, and in many cases even to each other? And why have we caught up ourselves in prescriptions contrary to our own innate sensibilities?
But what precisely does language have to do with such insensitivities and excesses? If a glue-sniffing kid in Colombia has little hope to make it alive in the near future in comparison to a teenager in Switzerland who prepares to scale newer heights in the next skiing competition, one may ask, what does language or thought have to do with it? Each to his own destiny, right? Isn't this local politics? May be so. But the conceptual vocabulary and its corresponding discourse which would allow for a positive change have to be genuinely available to begin with. In several cases, this is clearly lacking. We are so to speak stuck in our collective linguistic experience and must use existing metaphors and analogies to conduct novel discourse in trying to seek meaningful solutions. Or one must possibly arrive at new forms of discourse using borrowed analogies and metaphors from contexts that do provide a better understanding. For example, there is ample discourse in English on the concept of well-being, empathy, and tolerance, but limited expressions to express the severally different and distinct concepts of 'love and affection' that are common in the East-Indian languages. For e.g. there isn't a comparable concept or the requisite cultural context in English to express the Sanksritic notion of "vatsalya", which in its original context refers to a cow's affection, or more accurately a frenzied concern, for the well-being of its calf. If we were to grasp the true significance of such concepts when looking from the outside of known contexts and discourse, then perhaps certain novel discourse patterns could emerge providing us with solutions. Similarly certain concepts even if readily available may have no value in other cultures unless a contextual need arises. Consider the inavailability of a common western concept like a "marriage certificate" in cultures where marriage is more of a religious concept, rather than a socio-legal one. However as certain cultures experience gradual shifts to western models, the legal contexts may become apparent making the the same marriage certificate as having some intrinsic value. Similarly consider this: a seemingly innocous 'thank you', may in fact be offensive and insulting to the host receiving the compliment, unless of course the host also understands and accepts the notion that the service was provided as a 'favor'. Our normal instinct when we don't have recourse to such novel concepts or contexts is to use or even abuse what we already know. For e.g. in trying to get the masses to change their daily eating habits for the better and get off the miserable health care bus, we may simply get stuck in the wrong set of concepts and empty discourse. Instead of encouraging the people to lose weight through healthy choices, a well-developed industry now actively exists promoting dangerously deceptive discourse on how easy it is to shave pounds off your waist by swallowing a few pills or using a gadget for a few minutes while all the time letting you have your cake too. The 'diet-colas', the 'low-cal' 'zero-fat' heavily popularized by so-called food and health fashionistas are all too common words now in the everyday lexicon of the masses .
We somehow have lost the art of critical discourse when engaging the other. We find it acceptable when stale rehashed concepts on morality, social responsibility and 'what is truly good for us' are repeatedly drilled into us regularly by all forms of media. Or conversely in opportunistic moments, we feel no regrets in imposing these self-same concepts we have unconsciously acquired at the cost of deliberately ignoring the values that the others cherish and hold dear. Instead of letting people use their indigenous concepts and technologies to solve for problems, we happily impose our entrenched concepts and discourse for the better or worse, but more so at the risk of never finding simple solutions to their local problems.
Similarly, political will can only be generated through discourse that is at once clear engaging and strikes the emotional chord of masses in order motivate them to solving the issues. Media has a tremendous responsibility to that end. Not that we really need to remind the media of that. In fact, it is precisely in knowing this responsbility and occasionally asserting it that media itself thrives. On the flip side, one may say, such open-ended discourse on the very possibilities inherent in discourse is never going to solve the problems, as evidenced by many issues including Israel-Palestine conflict. That is not because language and discourse are futile, but rather because our concept of discourse mostly involves in looking through ones own looking glass only, and then too chosing where to look and what to say uncritically. We would rather happily feign ignorance, than concede that we truly lack a grasp of the others' concepts that drive such discourse.
Perhaps, I am naive and altruistic. Perhaps I live in a glass world surrounded by unrealistic images of utopia. But perhaps, the real world I live in isn't so bad after all. When we are able to patiently learn a little about others through their own lenses, may be we will appreciate our own lenses better and learn to solve problems together rather than imposing one's will through deception and sophistry. But in the end, even if we don't really change our lenses, even if we may not know whether culture influences language and thought or the other way around, whether media knowingly conspires and seeks to manufacture our consent on products we use and choices we make, could we all not as sentient creatures for heavens sake at least pretend to get along a little better each day in the hope that someday not all gets lost in translation and that we truly do get along better?
Let me tell you why I even got started with this thought. I had known for a while that the Inuit tribe in Canada had 24 distinct words describing the different types of 'snow' they encounter, whereas many other languages don't have a clearly separate word for 'snow' even when snow was a part of the peoples' regular experience. Similarly, in a certain South Indian language called 'Tamil', the opposite of the color 'white' is not 'black', but rather 'red'. In certain languages there simply is no vocabulary to distinguish between the color 'red' or 'brown'; it is all 'red'. In yet other languages the vocabulary affords a distinction between so many shades of 'green' that no corresponding words are available in other languages. We know well that language evolves together with social practices and is intertwined with customs and tradtions that are specific to geographies. Notice how certain cultures have elaborate greeting rituals whereas other cultures don't even have a verbal expression for the same. Certain cultures celebrate death and mourn birth, whereas many others mark various stages of life with a ritual celebration and not just the regular birthdays and anniversaries. If concepts and discourse are so tied to socio-cultural contexts, who is to say that we truly understand each the significance of words, discourse and actions across the socio-cultural boundaries well enough? Is it simply a sign of our intellectual hubris that we so comfortably assume that we truly understand the discourse of the other perhaps through copious translations?
As we expand our understanding of the world and try to make "sense" of things around us, we can only use our own looking glass to make sense of the other. When we do so, we see stark differences, we see conflict, we see irreconcilable differences around us. One may say well language itself doesn't have to do any thing with it. Well really just take a hard look around. A majority of the disagreements arise around cultural identities, around rigid value systems and a lack of willingness to beyond staid concepts and assumptions. All of which is amply evidenced in the discourse around such issues, if only one cares to look.
While language individually allows us to transend our immediate experience and understand the other dimensions of the unexplored world, it also at once limits us...we cannot as it were, remove our glasses, and look at everything just the way it is. So, if it is English that I have to develop my world view in, then in some ways I'm 'stuck' with English. But knowing that other languages present their own dinstinct world views, which in some cases significantly contrast with mine, I often wonder whether certain world views allow you to understand and make sense of the world better so that we feel comfortable in the choices we make, not out of fear, greed or some other compulsion, but merely with the knowledge that it simply is the right choice to make. Have you ever wondered what compels a person in the U.S. to constantly strive for the personal economic security and wanting "next best" technology, the "best available" home, job, car, spouse....whereas in other certain other fast disappearing cultural contexts persons may be truly content with sharing what is available or granted to them without much regard for the long-term future. How do you even convey to someone in the West the concept of 'prasad' which is still the guiding principle in many rural villages in India, where all that one obtains is considered as begotten through divine grace, and therefore happily accepted? How do you even explain the Lockean and anglo-saxon legal concepts of property and rights to indigenous people who have had the misfortune of their shared living space being grabbed, all in the name of re-development? How do you convey the western concept of 'social-security' to someone when their well being has less to do with economic independence and more to do with immediate social ties? I am not sparring here on what is right and what is wrong. Of course, that is a choice that we make for ourselves, if we ever can truly anymore. It almost appears that there is constant tug of war being played out in front of our eyes daily for cultural and linguistic supremacy, where each culture struts it icons and intellectual wares through a vastly organized media; whether it be in the varied forms of the usual promises for a economically prosperous texas-sized bigger and better life, or atlernatively in the comforting soothsayings of never ending blissful spiritual experiences. Of course, all these 'benefits' supposedly come along only so along as you faithfully follow their prescribed paths!
While we navigate through these never ending prescriptions and try to reconcile these confusing messages with our own seemingly (mis-)guided wants and desires, we hardly ever pause to think and change our lenses for a while. Why have we all become so apathetic and insensitive to certain types of discourse, to people who have a different world view, and in many cases even to each other? And why have we caught up ourselves in prescriptions contrary to our own innate sensibilities?
But what precisely does language have to do with such insensitivities and excesses? If a glue-sniffing kid in Colombia has little hope to make it alive in the near future in comparison to a teenager in Switzerland who prepares to scale newer heights in the next skiing competition, one may ask, what does language or thought have to do with it? Each to his own destiny, right? Isn't this local politics? May be so. But the conceptual vocabulary and its corresponding discourse which would allow for a positive change have to be genuinely available to begin with. In several cases, this is clearly lacking. We are so to speak stuck in our collective linguistic experience and must use existing metaphors and analogies to conduct novel discourse in trying to seek meaningful solutions. Or one must possibly arrive at new forms of discourse using borrowed analogies and metaphors from contexts that do provide a better understanding. For example, there is ample discourse in English on the concept of well-being, empathy, and tolerance, but limited expressions to express the severally different and distinct concepts of 'love and affection' that are common in the East-Indian languages. For e.g. there isn't a comparable concept or the requisite cultural context in English to express the Sanksritic notion of "vatsalya", which in its original context refers to a cow's affection, or more accurately a frenzied concern, for the well-being of its calf. If we were to grasp the true significance of such concepts when looking from the outside of known contexts and discourse, then perhaps certain novel discourse patterns could emerge providing us with solutions. Similarly certain concepts even if readily available may have no value in other cultures unless a contextual need arises. Consider the inavailability of a common western concept like a "marriage certificate" in cultures where marriage is more of a religious concept, rather than a socio-legal one. However as certain cultures experience gradual shifts to western models, the legal contexts may become apparent making the the same marriage certificate as having some intrinsic value. Similarly consider this: a seemingly innocous 'thank you', may in fact be offensive and insulting to the host receiving the compliment, unless of course the host also understands and accepts the notion that the service was provided as a 'favor'. Our normal instinct when we don't have recourse to such novel concepts or contexts is to use or even abuse what we already know. For e.g. in trying to get the masses to change their daily eating habits for the better and get off the miserable health care bus, we may simply get stuck in the wrong set of concepts and empty discourse. Instead of encouraging the people to lose weight through healthy choices, a well-developed industry now actively exists promoting dangerously deceptive discourse on how easy it is to shave pounds off your waist by swallowing a few pills or using a gadget for a few minutes while all the time letting you have your cake too. The 'diet-colas', the 'low-cal' 'zero-fat' heavily popularized by so-called food and health fashionistas are all too common words now in the everyday lexicon of the masses .
We somehow have lost the art of critical discourse when engaging the other. We find it acceptable when stale rehashed concepts on morality, social responsibility and 'what is truly good for us' are repeatedly drilled into us regularly by all forms of media. Or conversely in opportunistic moments, we feel no regrets in imposing these self-same concepts we have unconsciously acquired at the cost of deliberately ignoring the values that the others cherish and hold dear. Instead of letting people use their indigenous concepts and technologies to solve for problems, we happily impose our entrenched concepts and discourse for the better or worse, but more so at the risk of never finding simple solutions to their local problems.
Similarly, political will can only be generated through discourse that is at once clear engaging and strikes the emotional chord of masses in order motivate them to solving the issues. Media has a tremendous responsibility to that end. Not that we really need to remind the media of that. In fact, it is precisely in knowing this responsbility and occasionally asserting it that media itself thrives. On the flip side, one may say, such open-ended discourse on the very possibilities inherent in discourse is never going to solve the problems, as evidenced by many issues including Israel-Palestine conflict. That is not because language and discourse are futile, but rather because our concept of discourse mostly involves in looking through ones own looking glass only, and then too chosing where to look and what to say uncritically. We would rather happily feign ignorance, than concede that we truly lack a grasp of the others' concepts that drive such discourse.
Perhaps, I am naive and altruistic. Perhaps I live in a glass world surrounded by unrealistic images of utopia. But perhaps, the real world I live in isn't so bad after all. When we are able to patiently learn a little about others through their own lenses, may be we will appreciate our own lenses better and learn to solve problems together rather than imposing one's will through deception and sophistry. But in the end, even if we don't really change our lenses, even if we may not know whether culture influences language and thought or the other way around, whether media knowingly conspires and seeks to manufacture our consent on products we use and choices we make, could we all not as sentient creatures for heavens sake at least pretend to get along a little better each day in the hope that someday not all gets lost in translation and that we truly do get along better?
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