Bhagwan or Humans – Who is your Role-Model?

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It is said that whatever is there in the Mahabharata is timeless. Paundraka Vasudeva considered himself to be the real Avatar of Mahavishnu and wanted everyone to worship him. It was his so-called friends and well-wishers who encouraged this foolish thought of his. After forgiving him many times, Sri Krishna finally waged war against him and killed him. During Satya Yuga Hiranyakashipu wanted everyone to worship him as Bhagwan and he tried to even force his son Prahlad to stop worshiping Narayan and worship him alone. Finally, Mahavishnu appeared before him as Narasimha and released him from his mortal coils. 

We have seen time and again in our scriptures that everytime anyone thought of himself as Divine or called himself Bhagwan, just because they were powerful, they faced their end. “Vinaash Kaale, Vipreet Buddhi”.

Right through the ages, we have had very learned, powerful Ansh-Avataars ie. those who were born due to Divine Grace or who had a part of the Divine in them but though they were considered as Divine, we Hindus did not consider them as equivalent to Bhagwan. For example, Adi Shankaracharya, Patanjali Maharishi, Vyasa Muni, Madhavacharya, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, etc., all were Divine and highest among human beings, but we do not worship them the same way as we worship Mahadev or Mahavishnu or Ambika. Prabhu Sri Rama was of the Ikshvaku Vansh and He had many illustrious ancestors. Whenever we try to accomplish an impossible task, we call it as “Bhagirath Prayathna”. The mighty ocean derives its name from Sagar. The ultimate epitome of honesty is Harishchandra. Dileepa and Raja Shibi are remembered for their willingness to sacrifice themselves to save GouMata (Nandini) and a Pigeon respectively. Despite all these great ancestors, we only worship Prabhu Sri Rama, because He is the only Bhagwan amongst all these Raghuvamshis.

Have you ever wondered why our scriptures always made our Bhagwans our ultimate role models?

This is because despite all the greatness that human beings may possess, they are not perfect. They have Ego and desires in them. It is only Bhagwan who is capable of making us desire to attain that ultimate goodness in us, crossing the river of Maya and attachment. Whether we accept it or not, all human beings have flaws in them in varying degrees. What may make one group of people consider a human being as being perfect, may not be acceptable to another group. Hence, we consider such super-humans as Gurus, Rishis or Sants but not as Bhagwan. Hindus always looked up to such super humans to guide them but did not place them on par with Bhagwan. They were mortals, not immortals. We taught our children to become Sri Rama and Sri Krishna, Devi and Mahadev. Even Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s life was moulded by these great Divinities. Our Rajas and Ranis ruled as the Ansh-Avatar of Mahavishnu. That is why they were able to achieve extraordinary greatness and protect our Dharma for all these years. That is why we are the ONLY ancient civilization which resisted the onslaught of the Abrahamic cults/religions and survived.

Unfortunately our modern Politicians especially from the ruling party and influencers of RSS seem to show an affinity to elevating human beings to being considered as the ultimate role models. They want the people of this Dharmic Bharat to emulate not our Bhagwans and Devis, but mere mortals like Babasaheb Ambedkar, Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule, Mahatma Gandhi and more. While it may seem that they are trying to be “Secular”, the fact is that their secularism is cut short when they have to talk about Islam or Christianity or even Buddhism. At that time, they only remember Mohammed / Jesus /Buddha respectively and not any other freedom fighter or politician of that religion. In fact, I have noticed that when they had come to power in 2014, they tried their level best to promote Deen Dayal Upadhyaya ji but lack of public interest in him seems to have dulled the enthusiasm in promoting his teachings. Even the constant refrain to Bharat Mata (individualizing the Nation’s spirit instead of the Dharma) in the first term of their rule has lessened. This shows that there is a different line of thought that they are promoting…

One constant in the line of thought being promoted by both BJP politicians and RSS leaders since their second term win, is Brahmin bashing and seeming support of what they have termed as “marginalized castes/tribes”. RSS Supremo Mohan ji Bhagwat has again and again talked about certain sections of society having mangled our holy scriptures to sow a sense of high and low among the people. This is very strange because the universal fact is that though dignity of labour might seem to be prevalent more in the Western countries, racism also exists more over there. Also, slavery began and existed in almost all countries except for Bharat and still exists in parts of the Islamic world. So, to blame Hindu scriptures or distortions in them for the human tendency to create classes in Indian society is ridiculous. Yes, we can aim for a classless society and equality among people, but it is a Utopia which exists only in poems. In fact, the best way to work towards that Utopia is to go back to our Devi-Devatas who bless without any biases whatsoever and make them our role models. There is no way one can say that Dr. Ambedkar or Mahatma Gandhi loved everyone equally or treated all as one. Everyone had their own biases, ambitions and desire for fame and power. So then why are human role models being promoted so much now?

One reason that is very obvious is that Hindu and Brahmin bashing is done with the aim to “reform” Hinduism to suit Abrahamic thinking. This means that they want Hindus who do not accept varied thoughts, Devi-Devatas, rituals, scriptures, etc and want Hindus to meekly accept what is presented to them. That is why when some people resisted the demolitions of ancient Temples in Kashi during the building of the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, they were silenced in various ways. For silent acceptance, it is necessary that the mind never rises to sublime levels of Bhakti which only Dev-Bhakti can achieve. Manav-bhakti or acceptance of human role models makes one reach levels far below the achievement of that particular individual. It is the way to create zombies who only obey but do not think. In recent times we see this class of people very active on the Social Media.

The second reason to my mind is that only if people lower their expectations to suit levels of ordinary politicians, activists, historians, etc. can stooges be elected to rule us. This will help power be concentrated in the hands of the few who may or may not be unprincipled or may or may not be, slaves of the First World. This is what they hope will finally break the spine of our Dharma and convert us into either of the two main predatory Abrahamic cult/religion of the world. Delinking us from our Devi-Devatas will help them delink us from our Dharma and will cause the destruction of the only surviving ancient civilization of the world, the one we call Sanatana or Eternal. It is time we see through this and pin our complete faith in our Dharma and our Bhagwans and make sure that Hinduism remains Sanatan.

Article appeared earlier on author Rati Hegde’s blog republished here with permission.

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Rati Hegde
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