Tantra’s approach of Pashu-Bhava -> Vir-Bhava -> Divya-Bhava is more pragmatic and easy at least in today’s time. Perhaps they are desiring a sadhaka to gradually purify starting from Sharira –>Vichara –>Bhavana . Your expectation is exactly the opposite of this one. In today’s time where all the evil and lower stuff are easily accessible, it is quite difficult to directly work on bhavana which of course if purified, other two aspects will automatically get refined.
I am not against karmakand which is undeniably an important aspect of Sanatana Dharma. It has its own place and purpose, even its strength and usefulness to bind a people together. The problem is when this passes of as the main thing. As Swami Vivekanand spoke about the two Hinduism, that of the cooking pot and the kitchen, and the other larger wider more powerful, the Hinduism of Sri Krishna and Bhisma, the Hinduism of Rama and Sita, the Hinduism of Janak and Ajatashatru, of Valmiki, Vyas and Kalidas and of countless other powerful kings and sages whose names are legion, Agastya and Vasistha and Viswamitra, Anusuya, Draupadi and Arundhati, the Hinduism of Bharat and Nachiketa, of the God drunk Chaitanya and Sri Ramakrishna, the Hinduism of Sri Aurobindo wherein one man’s pen shook the British Empire. That is the Hinduism that can save India and the world rather than the elaborate rituals and discussions over the various schools of philosophy. If India has to rise as it must rise for the world’s good and her own, she needs to shake off this mindset of the pashu living for bread and content in its small and narrow round of stock ideas of Moksha and Maya as if the glory of God could be exhausted in these two magic formulas. I long to see that Hinduism where each claims his noble Aryan patrimony by virtue of being born in this sacred land, the Hindu to whom nothing is impossible once he sets his heart and mind at it, utisthata jagrata prapyavarranibodhata, arise, awake and stop not until the goal is reached. It is the Hindu who sees the country as a living goddess, who bows down before her with all sincerity and love crying Bande Mataram and in his life emulates the mahavakya, Satyameva jayate, who will save the nation and the world. It is not millions of sheep that we need but a hundred fearless lions, leonine men and women who are afraid of nothing, neither demons nor gods but are here only to fulfil God’s great purpose and His Will in them.
If I don’t stress on karmakand, it is because anyways countless will follow that. It is the easier part, as you rightly say. But there are few, very few who are ready to go past the karmakand, the shatdarshana and Mimansa, or look beyond individual Moksha and live the more difficult ideal of jeevanmukta. Yet these are the future and given our proclivity to find the easy way, it is necessary to provide the corrective and draw attention to the Gita and the larger, vaster, world conquering through self conquest rather than the world shunning Hinduism that is the pressing need of the hour.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
