SREE NARAYANA GURU (1856-1928) If you see a beautiful idol or a mountain around, you will have different pictures; if a cluster of blind men feel an elephant at various parts, their perception will be different. If you take the sum total in all these cases you will get more or less a correct picture of the idol or the mountain or the elephant. So is one’s opinion about Sree Narayana Guru. It depends on, the eyes through which Guru is seen. Guru could be a God (Parabrahma), a son of God like Jesus Christ, a prophet like Prophet Mohammed. He could be a prophet of a new order, of non-religious spirituality or of a casteless society. He could be someone installing idols, an idol breaker or one who changes from, consecrating an ordinary idol-‘silaiva sivalinga’, through lamp, shield with inscriptions, mirror and finally setting up an advaitha ashramam without any idol. He could be a literati – a poet writing in Sanskrit, Tamil and Malayalam. He wrote prose, poetry and songs. He was an educationist – conventional non-conventional and vocational. He was a social reformer, the seed for the reformation of the forward communities, the backward communities and dalits in Kerala. while Raja Rammohan Roy worked only among a small percentage of upper caste with the support of the British judiciary to abolish “sati”, Guru worked among the majority down trodden without any support from the administration. Dayananda Saraswathy in North India, Acharya Phule and Ranade in Maharashtra , Veeresa Lingam Panthalu in Andhra Pradesh and Ramaswami Naicker in Tamil Nadu and Vaikunta Swamikal in Travancore worked only among a section of the society . So the leadership for the social renaissance and reformation in India should be given to Sree Narayana Guru. He was a scientist, psychologist and a healer. He was an environmental protector. He was a guru –a Hindu guru,a secular guru, viswa guru (universal guru) or a sanathana guru (eternal guru). He was a conventional saint, a rebel saint or a revolutionary saint. He started a new monastery. For few, he was even a rationalist. To Nobel laureate Romain Roland, he was jnanin of action. He was responsible for the present demographic structure of Kerala. He was a democrat, a “meritocrat”, a socialist, a man for social justice and an economist. He was a prohibitionist. His first saying/sandesh “this is the place irrespective of caste and religion one can pray or live as brothers” forms the basic structure of Indian constitution. He was an advaithi. While Sankaracharya established advaitham by conquering and defeating, Sree narayana Guru became an advaithi by his teachings; not by hurting or conquering. Hence Guru should be placed steps ahead of Sankaracharya. He had the ability for extra sensory perception, thought transfer, mind reading and “thriloka jnanam”_ reading the past, present and future. Sree Narayana Guru believed in the concept of non-violence. In this he is very close to Sree Budha. He had borrowed two of the ‘trisaranas’ in the two organizations he had founded – Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam, the organization for the social up liftment of humanity and Sree Narayana Dharma Sangham, the spiritual organization for the teaching of his philosophy. The third ‘sarana’ was established through the educational institutions started by Guru and his followers. Guru was a world citizen. Guru had said; ‘one caste, one religion and one God for man’. His ‘sanyasa’ disciple Nataraja Guru brought the concept of one world, one people and one justice. In the 1940s Gary Davis, an American bomber pilot who threw bombs over Germany; after seeing the destruction, death, mutilation and agony of the Germans he bombed, threw away his American citizenship. Nataraj Guru and Gray Davis started the “World government, the passport of the world government and the world government manifesto and the principle of one world”. Social environment of Kerala during the period of Sree Narayana Guru was better described by Swami Vivekananda as the ‘lunatic asylum’. Mahabali ruled in a small kingdom named ‘Onanadu or Onadu’ with its capital at Mavelikara in the 12th century. Then people were equal and self sufficient. With the spread of caste-Hinduism, taking 1000 years, by the middle of the 19th century, Kerala had become the land of untochability, unapproachability and unseeability. It is Sree Narayana Guru through his golden words, activities and establishments that changed the lunatic asylum to the present day ‘Gods own country’, Kerala. Guru’s golden words were * Get educated and be free
* Get united and be strong
* Get industrialized and be prosperous.
* One caste, one religion, one God for man
* Ask not, say not, think not caste.
* Whatever may be one’s religion, one has to be good
* The essence of all religions is the same.
* One’s actions should be for the benefit of one’s neighbours also.
* Whatever one does for oneself should be for the benefit of others also.
* Not for argument and victory, but for knowing and to inform.
* Liquor is poison, don’t make it, sell it, or drink it.
* Don’t hurt even the ant.
* Service to humanity is the greatest prayer to the God. Some of his words remind the three dispositions of Sree Budha, - ‘karuna’ that is compassion, ‘mudita’ that is happiness at other’s well being and ‘maitri’ that is love. With advance of science, jet air journey, tube railway, magnetic railway, information technology, genetic engineering, nano technology, e-commerce etc. the world has become a global village. But unfortunately human mind and science have got other sides. Countries have accumulated tons and tons of nuclear weapons sufficient to destroy the whole living beings of mother earth any number of times. There are stocks of biological weapons and chemical weapons sufficient to cause high mortality and morbidity. Man has technology for star wars. He has developed nano-technology and antimatter, much stronger than nuclear weapons. Buddha, Jesus and Sree Narayana Guru preached to consider your fellowmen as none, but yourself. We have conquered moon, we dream of colonizing other planets. We have under sea tube railways. We constructed Panama canal. We produced test tube babies and cloned animals. But we forget to bridge the heart/mind between our neighbours. You and I got one mother and one father. Each of them has got a father and a mother; if they are unrelated, by two generations we both of us have got eight parents. If we go back to the 50th generation, it is likely that you and I come from the same parents. Similarly let you and I are enemies now, who knows there will be a child born of parents one each from you and me if generations are followed forwards. There is one thing in the world for which we don’t have to pay – love. Love is what required now among humanity. This is the relevance of the philosophy of Sree Narayana Guru.
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