Institutions, – religious, social, political are always dated. They are born in time, rise upon a crest and then decline and must pass away with time so that new things, impelled by the Divine, can emerge from the heart of Time. If the old institutions linger past their time, then they turn harmful and counterproductive to the evolutionary progress. We see this lesson in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata itself. It is only the core Truth that survives; all the rest departs, leaving its imprint for future development.
The core truth of Shankaracharya’s Adwaita is that there is but One Reality, ekamevadwitiyam. This is an eternal truth. He expressed it as Brahma Satyam. This too is a partial truth and, like all partial one-sided truths, tends to become a great error if given an exclusive importance. Shankaracharya’s Mayavada, or at least as it is presently understood and propagated, is one such philosophical statement that is bound to decline with time because of its one-sided exclusivity. On the other hand, the Gita with its many-sided vision of Truth and inclusivity will have a much larger universal appeal. It is unfortunate that following the rise of Mayavada, everything, including the Gita, started getting (mis)interpreted as an other-worldly scripture. This naturally led to a decline of India that reached a stage where she could not even defend herself against invaders. After all, if the world is all an illusory Maya, then what difference does it make if the world exists in an illusory perception or else vanishes away, blown by bombs? Then the only right thing to do is to selfishly turn away from the world and vanish into the Truth of the Self, Atman, or the truth of ‘Nothingness’, Nirvana! It is an inexplicable paradox which leaves the world devoid of all meaning and substance, turning the ‘One’ into a great illusion maker. But for whose joy! These and many other aspects remain an inexplicable mystery.
It is time that we get rid of the extreme illusionist Vedanta that has harmed India by turning it away from the world in an exclusive way. Even if we don’t, the Time-Spirit will discard these other-worldly philosophies and institutions; in fact, all institutions born during the Age of decline. What we need today as a nation is the Gita and not the Illusionist Vedanta.
