“As the Kundalini rises into the third part, next to the Nabhi Chakra, we become absolutely righteous. This area, which we call as the Ocean of Illusion, is enlightened by ten principles of mastery. The great masters have created these ten centres of commandment which are enlightened and we become holy. There is no need to be strict in one’s behavior. We automatically become really spiritual. Like an egg becomes the bird, we are born twice. In Sanskrit a Yogi or the one who knows about Brahma, meaning the All-Pervading Power, is called Dwija and a bird is also called Dwija, meaning twice born. There were Abraham and Moses and all the ten Primordial Masters who have been born again and again on this Earth. Zoroastra has been born five times and also so many of these were born in different places in different countries to guide the people to take to religious life to establish the necessary balance for the ascent. By talking about religious life it does not work. By reading scriptures we get lost in the web of words (Sabda Jalam). We innately feel the existence of universal pure religion within ourselves after awakening when the Kundalini rises into this part called the Ocean of Illusion (Bhavasagara or Void which is the circled area around Nabhi Chakra). When this centre is fully enlightened and established in spirituality, we become automatically righteous. We respect our value system, we become moral, we become honest, non-violent and we become innately compassionate. All these qualities becoming so evident within ourselves that we change and get transformed into a new being who is extremely righteous and who is like a saint. To such a person there is no need to talk about the do’s and the don’ts.”

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

During the period of human evolution to date there has been a constant battle against ignorance and illusion. This state of ignorance is something that has to be overcome before humans can actually experience the beauty and Reality of the Spirit. The area that represents this struggle to cross over from illusion to Reality is known as Void, or the Bhavasagara (Ocean of Illusion). The Void is the gap between the Kundalini and the vagus nerve of the parasympathetic system. It represents all spaces and time from the beginning of creation to the peak of our evolution in human awareness. It is the vacuum which separates our awareness from the Absolute, the critical gap that no religious institution or spiritual school has able to cross — till now.

The Void is the centre of our own mastery. As the Kundalini energy enlightens this area we become our own Guru and attain gravity. This grounded state is one of the primary ways that we remain in balance in the midst of our turbulent existence. When the Kundalini rises and fills the Void our Attention is led out of confusion and Maya, and into the awareness of the higher Reality. In this way we can take control of our own evolution without relying on external forces. Eventually our own introspection will provide answers and keys during our meditation. We become our own masters, far surpassing the most enlightened religious prisoner.

In a lot of cases the key will be to recognize a solution to our problem presented to us externally, but as we become our own master we are able to discern the right from wrong, the Truth from falsehood from within. The other side of the coin is the principle of discipline. It is important for us to recognize Truth in a humble and open-minded and give advice with the gravity of a Master. The great Masters throughout the ages have been most humble. In this way they surrender their ego to the Divine and are able to teach with absolute authority, even when directly challenging the established wisdom of the time.

Since the Void is directly connected with the Nabhi Chakra it is no coincidence that the principle of Dharma is a fundamental aspect of this area. All of the great Prophets who have come to act as role models for the human race and to give Knowledge of the higher Reality are associated with the Void. The Primordial Deity is Shri Adi Guru Dattatreya. The ten embodiments of the Adi Guru are Socrates, Confucius, Moses, Abraham, Zarathustra, Lao-tse, Mohammed, Raja Janaka, Guru Nanak, and Shri Sai Nath of Shirdi. One has to understand that evolution is time sensitive. All incarnations of the Primordial Master came in stages, and scattered all over Earth. It is they who have taught us the ways of righteous living that maintain codes of conduct by which anarchy is avoided. All of the great Masters and Prophets who took their birth on Earth to guide us, have made Dharma a key tenet of their teachings. We can only become better beings by not abusing ourselves or debasing others, that is, by living as beings of the Almighty Creator and in accordance to the laws of nature.

ADDITIONAL QUOTES

“Surrounding the second and the third chakra is the Void which stands for the principle of mastery (guru principle) within us. In many spiritual traditions, this area is the “ocean of illusions” that needs to be crossed with the help of a spiritual guide. When the Kundalini is awakened and passes through the Void, this principle of mastery is established within us. Thus, as Shri Mataji says, in Sahaja Yoga you become your own guru, your own spiritual guide since you can feel on your fingertips all your subtle problems and have the power to cure them using your own Kundalini. Moreover, establishing this center helps us get rid of all our habits, laziness, gross attachments, and everything that enslaves us in a way or another: we become our own master.

Following false “gurus” who are more interested in power tricks or your purse can damage very much the Void area. But after Self-Realization, everything can be cured through the purifying power of the Kundalini in meditation.”

www.sahajayoga.org

“Dhyana, is to remove all objects and keep the mind single pointed. On what? On the void, on emptiness. This is meditation. Those who have tried meditating, have experienced how easily the mind attaches itself to the next arising object and suddenly you are off and lost in a labyrinth of thoughts and identifications. Yoga signifies that the average man cannot meditate without adequate preparation. When you have purified body and mind and learnt to control your thoughts and senses you become more and more able to see the empty spaces between all of the phenomenon that arises in your mind. To rest in this emptiness which is like the blue sky beyond the clouds of your thoughts and to remain unidentified with them is true medittation. It is here where we gain glimpses of the freedom we are capable of experiencing.

The eighth limb, samadhi is translated as absorption, bliss, realisation and the highest consciousness or truth. It cannot be practised but arises spontaneously after extended periods of meditation. Able to observe the void within oneself, the observer finally turns around and becomes a witness of our true nature. You realise that your individual self (atman) is one with the divine self (brahman).

The union of atman and brahman is the true subject of Yoga. It is here that we attain the final freedom.”

www.8limbs.com

“In yoga it is necessary to control all of the senses, and when all the senses are controlled, the mind must be engaged in thinking of Visnu. One becomes peaceful after thus conquering material life.

jitatmanah prasantasya
paramatma samahitah

“for one who has conquered the mind, the Supersoul is already reached, for he has attained tranquillity.” (Bg. 6.7) This material world has been likened to a great forest fire. As in the forest, fire may automatically take place, so in this material world, although we may try to live peacefully, there is always a great conflagration. It is not possible to live in peace anywhere in the material world. But for one who is transcendentally situated—either by the meditational yoga system or by the empirical philosophical method or by bhakti-yoga—peace is possible. All forms of yoga are meant for transcendental life, but the method of chanting is especially effective in this age. Kirtana may go on for hours, and one may not feel tired, but it is difficult to sit in lotus position perfectly still for more than a few minutes. Yet regardless of the process, once the fire of material life is extinguished, one does not simply experience what is called impersonal void. Rather, as Krsna tells Arjuna, one enters into the supreme abode.

yunjann evam sadatmanam
yogi niyata-manasah
santim nirvana-paramam
mat-samstham adhigacchati

“By meditating in this manner, always controlling the body, mind and activities, the mystic transcendentalist attains to the kingdom of God through cessation of material existence.” (Bg. 6.15) Krsna’s abode is not void. It is like an establishment, and in an establishment there is a variety of engagements. The successful yogi actually attains to the kingdom of God, where there is spiritual variegatedness. The yoga processes are simply ways to elevate oneself to enter into that abode. Actually we belong to that abode, but being forgetful, we are put in this material world. Just as a madman becomes crazy and is put into a lunatic asylum, so we, losing sight of our spiritual identity, become crazy and are put into this material world. Thus the material world is a sort of lunatic asylum, and we can easily notice that nothing is done very sanely here. Our real business is to get out and enter into the kingdom of God. In Bhagavad-gita Krsna gives information of this kingdom and also gives instructions about His position and our position—of what He is and what we are. All the information necessary is set forth in Bhagavad-gita, and a sane man will take advantage of this knowledge.”

Source

– H.H. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

During the period of human evolution to date there has been a constant battle against ignorance and illusion. This state of ignorance is something that has to be overcome before humans can actually experience the beauty and Reality of the Spirit. The area that represents this struggle to cross over from illusion to Reality is known as Void, or the Bhavasagara (Ocean of Illusion). The Void is the gap between the Kundalini and the vagus nerve of the parasympathetic system. It represents all spaces and time from the beginning of creation to the peak of our evolution in human awareness. It is the vacuum which separates our awareness from the Absolute, the critical gap that no religious institution or spiritual school has able to cross — till now.

The Void is the center of our own mastery. As the Kundalini energy enlightens this area we become our own Guru and attain gravity. This grounded state is one of the primary ways that we remain in balance in the midst of our turbulent existence. When the Kundalini rises and fills the Void our Attention is led out of confusion and Maya, and into the awareness of the higher Reality. In this way we can take control of our own evolution without relying on external forces. Eventually our own introspection will provide answers and keys during our meditation. We become our own masters, far surpassing the most enlightened religious prisoner.

In a lot of cases the key will be to recognize a solution to our problem presented to us externally, but as we become our own master we are able to discern the right from wrong, the Truth from falsehood from within. The other side of the coin is the principle of discipline. It is important for us to recognize Truth in a humble and open-minded and give advice with the gravity of a Master. The great Masters throughout the ages have been most humble. In this way they surrender their ego to the Divine and are able to teach with absolute authority, even when directly challenging the established wisdom of the time.

Since the Void is directly connected with the Nabhi Chakra it is no coincidence that the principle of Dharma is a fundamental aspect of this area. All of the great Prophets who have come to act as role models for the human race and to give Knowledge of the higher Reality are associated with the Void. The Primordial Deity is Shri Adi Guru Dattatreya. The ten embodiments of the Adi Guru are Socrates, Confucius, Moses, Abraham, Zarathustra, Lao-tse, Mohammed, Raja Janaka, Guru Nanak, and Shri Sai Nath of Shirdi. One has to understand that evolution is time sensitive. All incarnations of the Primordial Master came in stages, and scattered all over Earth. It is they who have taught us the ways of righteous living that maintain codes of conduct by which anarchy is avoided. All of the great Masters and Prophets who took their birth on Earth to guide us, have made Dharma a key tenet of their teachings. We can only become better beings by not abusing ourselves or debasing others, that is, by living as beings of the Almighty Creator and in accordance to the laws of nature.

Source

The chanting of mantras while performing the sacrifices is expected to ensure fulfillment of specific desires, the overall welfare of an individual, a group of people or the entire society.

The simplest form of yajna is the domestic ritual performed by the householder who would offer simple oblation into the sacred fire lit in his house. A more complicated version involves setting up of three to five fires and pouring of offerings into them such as food grains, ghee or butter, and other vegetable substances by chosen and qualified priests, chanting mantras simultaneously, invoking various gods especially Agni, Indra, Varuna etc.

Some yagnas are performed on large scale for the general welfare of the entire community, to increase fertility of soil, to invite rains, to welcome peace and wealth etc. Depending upon the degree of complexity, these yagnas may last from a few hours to several days. The number of priests participating and conducting the ceremony would depend upon the nature and objective for which it is performed.

Yajna is a vedic sacrifice which has an outer aspect and an inner aspect. To the vedic priests, yajna was the means to invoke gods and seek their blessings and favors. They used to perform these yagnas for various purposes and at various times during the year, at the time of sowing, at the time of harvest, at the time of initiating some important social event or before going to wars. One very popular yajna of those days was the Asvamedha Yajna, or the Horse Sacrifice which used to be performed by powerful kings to show their Valor and the extent of their influence. This yajna is now almost extinct in practice.

The outer aspect of yajna consists of building an altar, generally with bricks, kindling fire using specific types of grass and wood and then pouring into it oblations such as ghee or clarified butter, food grains, sesame seeds, and water to the accompaniment of chanting of sacred verses from the Vedas.

The inner or hidden aspect of Yajna is known to those who are familiar with the Vedic rituals. The yajna is the means of worshipping the highest God or ones own inner self.

In the Bhagavad-Gita Lord Krishna explains that every aspect that is associated with a ritual of sacrifice, the act of offering, the oblation, the sacrificer himself and the sacrificial fire as well is Brahma (4.23). In the subsequent verses He enlists the various types of sacrifices people perform with various objectives in their minds (4.25-4.30) and concludes that sacrifice in the form of knowledge is superior to sacrifice done with material things. In the ninth chapter he declares, ” I am kratu (vedic ritual), I am yajna (sacrifice), svadha (offering), ausadham (medicine), mantra (chant), ajyam (ghee), agni (fire), and hutam (burnt offering).

In Chandogya Upanishad, the yagna is compared variously to the world (section 4), the god rain (section 5), the earth (section 6), man (section 7) and woman (section . The comparison can be summarized in the table as shown below:

The physical or the outer aspect of the Vedic rituals was always viewed with suspicion by the followers of gnana marg. In Satapatha Brahmana we told that gods and demons tried to perform the sacrifice. The demons tried to perform it externally while the gods kindled the fire within themselves and thereby became immortal.

The Mandukya Upanishad is very clear in its attitude towards the sacrifices, ” Unsteady are the boats of 18 forms of sacrifice, which are part of inferior karma. The deluded who take delight in them thinking that they would lead them to good fall again into old age and death…” Again ,” These deluded men regarding sacrifices and works of merit as most important do not know any other good. Having enjoyed in the high place of heaven won by good deeds, they enter again this world or still the lower ones.”

The same Upanishad also declares the knowledge of the Vedas and rituals, grammar, etc,. to be the lower (apara) knowledge, while the higher (para) knowledge is that one by which the Imperishable Brahman is realized.

Almost a similar view is echoed in the Bhagavad-Gita by Lord Krishna who cautions us against empty ritualism (11.48). The knowers of Vedas who worship God through sacrifices would ascend to heaven and return from there.(9.20&21), but they would not attain liberation.

Even today there are many educated Hindus who are not very serious about performing the yagnas. For most of them they are just a part of the tradition, whose significance either we have lost or which are no more relevant to the present day world.

The rituals generated controversy even in ancient India, resulting in the rise of many independent schools of thought around sixth century B.C., foremost among which were the school of charvakas, the samkhya school of Purusha and Prakriti, and most importantly, the religions founded by Mahavira and the Buddha. The last two were openly against the empty ritualism of the Vedic religion and the extent of materialism that had crept into it by that time.

It is a fact that the incidence of performing the yagnas and other forms of sacrifices is slowly coming down in modern Hindu Society, primarily because of the influence of western education, the complexity involved in performing them and the decreasing number of priests who are well versed in the art of performing yajna according to the Vedic injunctions.

But like many traditions in Hinduism, the tradition of yagnas still continues though with reduced vigor. Some devout Hindus still believe in their efficacy and organize them for various purposes, sometimes in public for a social cause or sometimes in private for a personal gain. Whether eventually the outer aspect of yajna would yield place to the inner aspect only time can tell.

Source

Browse all articles by Karol Zemek in the NS Library
1,080: population in millions 2005 . . .
3.3: area in millions of square km . . .
2 and 7: India’s rankings in the world in terms of population and area respectively . . .
16: official/national languages . . .
22: languages with over one million speakers in India . . .
59.5: percentage of adult literacy (70.2 per cent of men, 48.3 per cent of women) . . .
8,598: height of Kanchenjunga, India’s highest point, in metres . . .
17: percentage of Indian university students citing Hitler as a model for leader of India . . .
869.6: Hindus living in India (in millions) . . .
144.76: Muslims living in India (in millions) . . .

1.2: number of Christians in India for every Sikh . . .
80: percentage of the population living on less than $2 a day…
30: percentage of newborns who would qualify for intensive care if they were born in California . . .
127: India’s rank in the United Nations Human Development Index (out of 177 countries) . . .
3.4: percentage of politicians at ministerial level who are women
29: number of states that, together with six union territories, make up the federal republic . . .
21: percentage of surveyed Indians who have had unprotected sex without knowing their partner’s history (compared to a world average of 47 per cent) . . .
28: percentage of the population living in cities…
19.94: population in millions of Mumbai, India’s largest city (2006 estimate)
95: percentage of Indians who do not know what a vindaloo is . . .
2007: the year that the Indian space programme is planning to reach the moon . . .
1: percentage of Indians who have travelled on an aeroplane
69: percentage of Indians with a high income who believe that the US is a positive influence on the world (37.1 per cent in the UK) . . .
29: percentage of Indians with a low income who believe that the US is a positive influence on the world (57.6 per cent in the UK) . . .
4: rank in the world by size of India’s coal reserves . . .
44: percentage of wounding or fatal terrorist attacks worldwide in 2004 which took place in India (compared with 32 per cent in Iraq) . . .
2009: the year of the next general election . . .
333: number of airports (the UK has 471) . . .
77: percentage of Indians who do not believe that their country is governed by the will of the people
50: estimated gay population of India in millions . . .
7:
percentage of Indians who supported social acceptance of homosexuality in 2002 survey …
213: percentage increase in electricity consumption per capita between 1980 and 2002 (32 per cent in the UK)…
50: percentage increase in CO2 emissions per capita from1990 to 2002

Source

An Indian sailor was allegedly beaten to death by his colleagues on board a Norwegian oil tanker in the international waters off the coast of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates following an argument over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in some European newspapers. A fight ensued among the seamen after an argument over the issue, causing the death of one sailor, a media report said.

Official sources confirmed the death of 31-year-old Sudhir Jagannathan, a native of Mumbai.

‘We have been informed about the death. Our officials visited the Fujairah hospital and collected the details. The investigation is going on and once it is over, the consulate will render all the help to repatriate the body,’ an Indian official told the Khaleej Times newspaper.

The entire crew on the ship hails from India. The ship was traveling from Mangalore in Karnataka to Fujairah with a chemical cargo.

Jagannathan worked as a fitter on the ship. The captain of the oil tanker has denied any foul play. He and his crew were remanded to the custody of the Fujairah police, the report added.

 Source

Here are the tentative conclusions drawn from the latest human genetics findings. They are taken mostly from the following three papers:

1) Basu et al. (2003) Ethnic India: A genomic view, with special reference to peopling and structure, Genome Research, 13, 2277-2290.

2) Bamshad et al. (2001) Genetic evidence on the origins of the Indian caste populations, Genome Research, 11, 994-1004.

3)Cann, R. (2001) Genetic clues to dispersal in human populations: Retracing the past from the present, Science, 291, 1742-1748.

When exactly the Indian subcontinent was first populated by modern humans is not known with any degree of certainty. However, genomic studies indicate that India was settled very soon after humans emerged out of Africa. These studies provide the mean upper and lower limits for this event - 63,000 years and 32,000 years before the present (B.P.), respectively.

The first tribe to enter India was one that belonged to the Austro-Asiatic linguistic group. These folk entered from the northwest, and presumably branching off south of the Himalayas from those that moved into Tibet and China north of those mountains. Between 50,000 and 20,000 years B.P. most parts of India became habitats for humanity.

There are a small number of matrilineages among Indians, suggesting either that we are the descendents of a few founding females that entered India with the initial settlers or that our matrilinear descent is from a fairly homogeneous ancestral mitochondrial gene pool.

Many hitherto speculative ideas have been supported by the new genetic data. Tribes are more ancient than castes. There was considerable cross-breeding between the non-Indo-European speaking earlier inhabitants and Central/West Asians (Indo-European speaking groups) during the formation of the caste system.

The Indo-European speakers introduced several new matrilineages. The Austro-Asiatic speaking tribals are the original inhabitants of India. The Dravidian speaking tribals who may have branched off from the Austro-Asiatic speaking tribals were widespread throughout India before the arrival of the Indo-European speaking tribals. After initial mixing and acceptance of the caste system and the Indo-European language, around 3500 years B.P., these Dravidian speakers may have retreated to the south to avoid what has been termed as “Elite Dominance”, the taking over of the system by a small but well-organized group of Indo- European speakers who advanced into the Indo-Gangetic plain. The latest study has also confirmed the finding that the upper castes are genetically closer to Eurasians compared to middle and lower castes.

As regards the Tibeto-Burman tribals, the northeastern corridor served as a major path of entry for these people beginning around 30,000 years B.P. This passage also served as an entry point for some Austro-Asiatic speaking tribals.

Taken together, these new findings appear to be supporting the old Aryan invasion theory, and also strongly pointing towards a role for Indo-European genetic proximity in the emergence of casteist hierarchy.
Source

Spirituality means different things to different people. We need to find a definition for it here that will let us connect to both the scientific understanding of spirituality, and the spiritual traditions of the world. One definition that works pretty well is ‘being prone to altered states of consciousness.’ It doesn’t matter whether a person is drawn to union with God, ‘oneness with the universe’, the state of total ‘emptiness’ of Zen, the experience of channeling the spirits as a medium, or to heal others through prayer or ‘energy.’ Each of these only happens when a person enters a different, ’special’ state of consciousness. There are other ways of seeing spirituality, but looking at it this way will bring out some features of the spiritual process that we might miss using if we emphasize other aspects. Many people who are involved in spiritual practice object to hearing it ‘defined’ or ‘labeled’. I would ask such people to remember that definitions will be a part of any attempts at integrating spirituality with science, because science always defines its terms.

Our states of consciousness are managed in the temporal lobes of our brains. The temporal lobes do all sorts of things including language, long-term memory storage, emotional reactions, perceiving spatial relationships, and music. Smells are interpreted here, as well as patterns, whether these are patterns in time or in space. Most importantly, the human sense of self is maintained here, in all its guises including our feelings of self-worth, and our sense of being an independent person.

The temporal lobes are unique in having their own special kind of epilepsy. Its usually called temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), but it also goes by the name of ‘complex partial seizures’. Its called partial because it stays in the temporal lobes of the brain. TL seizures are mostly experiences of altered states because the temporal lobes control states of consciousness. When they go haywire, they person’s state will be an odd one, at least compared to that person’s usual (or baseline) states.

Most often, this kind of seizure begins in the lower portions of the temporal lobes, in a structure called the amygdala, and then spreads out into other areas. Each time a seizure spreads into a brain area, the threshold of electrical activity needed to activate that area gets just a bit lower. If it gets low enough, a person will find themselves having the experience associated with that brain part almost all the time. Not as it comes up in their seizure, but as it might appear normally. In one example, a person whose seizures include an hallucinated smell might find that they have a sharper-than-usual sense of smell at all other times.

One of the functions of the amygdala is that it infuses our moment-to-moment experiences with meaningfulness. As the pathways that are involved with the experience of meaningfulness have their thresholds lowered, individuals find meaning in more and more things.

Remember that both spirituality and TL epilepsy involve experiencing altered states. Let me be clear: I’m not saying that TL epileptic events are all spiritual experiences. Some TL seizures have features (such as automatic lip-smacking) that just don’t come up that often (if at all) during spiritual experiences. I’m not trying equate TL epilepsy with spirituality, I’m saying that there’s a big area where they overlap.

Some of the personality transformations (or seqelae.) that happen when a person has a lot of altered state experiences can be found in both groups. So I’m going to be comparing what medicine has learned (in very concrete ways) about TL epileptics with what I and others find in spiritual people, communities, and traditions, even though they haven’t been very deeply studied as yet. There have been studies of spiritual groups, and many case histories of spiritually-minded individuals, but as far as I’m aware, I’m the only the second researcher to examine how often the phenomena of the temporal lobe comes up for people involved with spiritual practice. I used standard neurological questionnaires with a group of students at a school that taught massage and spiritual bodywork. The school is constructing its new campus at present, so the study is ‘on hold’, but the results to date show that people who do spiritual practice of any kind have more of the subtler signs of TL epilepsy than people who don’t. Their personalities also show many of the traits that TL epileptics show.

Lets start by talking about language. Language depends on several parts of the brain, but one of the most important is called Werneke’s area. This is the part of the brain where speech gets its meaning. If this is involved in a person’s seizures, they might start manifest a trait called viscosity. Viscosity is a physics term used to describe fluids, and it means ‘resistance to change in flow.’ A viscous person will tend to talk at length and they won’t want to change the subject until they are through with it. The trait has to do with self-expression. When humans developed writing, we also found a new way to act out this trait, called hypergraphia. A hypergraphic person will write almost compulsively at times. They fill diaries and journals. They’re often poets. Some people would say that the throat chakras of these people were active (or blocked, depending on who you’re talking to), but this is supposed to be brain science, so we’re going to take the view that its the brain’s language centers that are keeping busy.

During this kind of experience, they might ‘hear voices’, or just hear their name called from within. They might ‘channel’ or ’serve’ as a medium. When they are not having an experience, they are more likely to spend time writing. Poets have been found to have TL ’signs’ more often than others. Such people might fill diaries, write metaphysical books (most of which, of course, are never published), and I suspect, create websites. Even without this kind of experience, many practitioners still find a lot to express. There are important language centers in the temporal lobes, and when the temporal lobes are generally more active, these language centers are going to be affected. In one of the questions (true or false) I asked if the subjects ‘felt that they had an important book to write’. Most answered ‘true’.

I had an experience in my lab not too long ago. I was doing a session with a volunteer who received 30 minutes of a magnetic signal derived from an EEG signal taken from the amygdala. After the session, she wanted to drive to a store to get something to drink. When I got into her car, I noticed several books on the floor of her car. She told me just to toss them into the back seat. As I picked them up, I noticed that they were journals filled entirely with very small writing. I asked her about them, and she told me that she wrote in them all the time, and that she like to keep them with her. When we got to the lab/office, she noticed my ‘Collected works of Shakespeare’, and got excited over, telling me how much she loved his work. In the interview, she had told me that she wrote poetry, and I began to think that her spirituality, the altered states that were available to her, had something to do with language. As we sat on the floor, I led her through the ’sensed presence guided meditation’, described here. After she had done it without suggestions, I asked her to imagine the presence of one of her spiritual teachers who had been killed, and to imagine herself asking the ‘presence’ to speak to her. What happened next surprised me. My theories were telling me that such a ‘linguistic’ person, right on the heels of a neuromagnetic session (described here) had a very good chance of becoming a channeler right then, if the situation favored it. Her voiced changed. Her posture changed. I asked her if she had anything she wanted to say to me, and she started channeling a ‘reading’ for me. It was quite positive. After some time, she finished, and asked if she could just be silent for a minute. I said yes, and after a couple of seconds, she gave a shudder and opened her eyes. “What happened?” she said. She didn’t remember a word she’d said to me.

The lack of recall happens in ceremonial spirit mediumship in many cultures, and is also a feature of seizures of many kinds, including some TL seizures.

The point is that experiencing linguistic states impacts a person’s linguistic traits.

Another personality trait that spiritual practitioners almost always seem to show is a fascination with spirituality. It may seem to be too obvious to say, but what it less obvious is that spirituality dominates over other kinds of concerns more than other pursuits do. What seems to be happening is that the repeated experience of altered states is so novel, and infused with such a sense of meaningfulness that things which lack meaning in them lose their impact.

Another personality trait that can emerge after enough time in an altered state has two names. In medical terms, its called hyperemotionality. In spiritual terms, its called open-heartedness or more simply ‘being filled with love’. A psychologist might call it ‘extreme vulnerability.’

Most of the time, unusual states of consciousness invoke intense emotional states. TL seizures most often involve fear, terror or a sense of ‘impending doom.’ (Interestingly, there are also dissasociative seizures that seem to have no emotion at all.) Spiritual states are usually pleasant. Everything from simple calm or freedom from fear to bliss or ecstasy.

This extra input to the amygdala has an impact beyond just making for intense moments. It makes the person more emotionally sensitive at all other times as well. Among TL epileptics, is commonly makes for extra irritability. For spiritual practitioners, it seems to be more a matter of an extra need to feel safe. After a certain point in spiritual development or ‘growth’, the aspirant begins to be more careful about the ‘energies’ they connect with. Their own way of seeing it is a bit monastic. Monks and nuns withdraw from the world, avoiding socially intense situations. In more modern times, we hear of meditators ‘withdrawing into their own space’. The need to defend one’s self from verbal assaults, and to avoid those who aren’t like-minded gets more intense. Practitioners become more ‘open-hearted’, and along with it, more vulnerable. Few romantic relationships escape unscathed. If one partner begins spiritual practice, and the other doesn’t, they may soon find that the level of intimacy that’s comfortable for each is now different. Of course, the now-spiritual partner has a new set of interests, and that tends to divide two partners. The practitioner can feel that they’ve ‘outgrown’ the relationship, while the one who’s not doing practice might tend to blame the group their partner joined, or to feel that their partner has taken religion ‘too far’. In fact, one study of TL epileptics found that they were more likely than others to undergo multiple religious conversions.

But, I’m digressing. The point I’m trying to make is that the way a person feels while relating to others changes as their practice deepens. The direction always favors closer intimacy, or deeper rapport.

In order to go further with this topic, we need to talk about the amygdala again. What seems to be happening is that as the two amygdala get more active, the chances of their falling out of phase with one another increases. Normally, the left amygdala (remember language is on the left) is the dominant one. Normally people process their experiences by thinking about them; thinking in words.

Humans seem to have two senses of self. Left hemispheric, and right hemispheric. The pathways of the human sense of self on each side have been found to include the amygdala. When the two amygdala fall out of phase with one another, the ’self’ on the left can become aware of the activities on the right. The right-sided sense of self is experienced as an outer (ego-alien) ‘presence’. All of this is fairly well established. What I want to add to it, as an hypothesis, is that the two amygdala are out of phase whenever we’re relating to another. (I’ve designed a study that should put it to the test, but lack of funding at present makes it difficult to carry out.) As a person experiences altered states more often, they find that the way they relate to ‘the other’ is changed.

Another obvious effect is that as the left ’self’ begins to lose its mastery over the individual, the person is more and more likely to ‘feel’ their way through situations, rather than thinking about them. One study found that people who experienced altered states frequently were unable to follow scientific, ‘linear’ reasoning.

Still another effect is that, because each time the right-self intrudes on the left, the left-self loses a bit of its control, and because the left is normally dominant, the effect is that the person’s self esteem (while they are in normal states) goes down. As near as I can tell, it stays that way until the person’s normal states are adjusted so that they then have a permanent ‘baseline’ state that allows their right-sided ’self’ to emerge in all circumstances.

Until this happens the person can suffer from ‘the dark night of the soul’, which can come as moments when they doubt their self-worth, or as long periods of melancholy. More often in my experience, such people respond with a specific coping strategy. They become ‘holier than thou.’ In these cases, spiritual practitioners will respond to comments from others with ’spiritual’ interpretations.

You missed your bus? You weren’t ‘meant’ to be on it. How have you been lately? There is no lately: there is only this moment. The person you were attracted to isn’t interested in you? Give your love to Jesus. I seem insensitive? I’m only sharing my truth in this moment. You’re angry about something? It just shows how are attached you are. You’re offended by something? That’s just your ego coming out.

In extreme cases, such people have an answer for everything they don’t care to hear, and each answer shows how ’spiritual’ they are, and subtly ‘puts down’ the other. Its just not possible, for one who is ‘holier than thou’, to feel beneath others. This type of person won’t be free of the inner turbulence that an extra-active amygdala creates, they just won’t feel that they are lower than others. Because we are such linguistic beings, we are very sensitive to words that we don’t like. An easy way to cope is to have a stock of things to say that invalidates whatever the ‘other’ has to say, and to do so in a spiritual-seeming way. If they are successful, they can become gurus or teachers in their own right.

Now, gurus (or masters or satgurus, sufus, tzaddiks, roshis, growth group or workshop leaders, priests, or a ministers) often don’t like to be ‘defined’ or ‘labeled’ or ‘categorized’, but there a category that seems to invite them in. Its a term from primatology, the study of our closest living evolutionary cousins, the primates. You know. Monkeys and chimpanzees. Gurus are dominant or alpha individuals. Within their community, the guru is the boss. He (forgive the sexist pronoun) usually calls the shots. He disperses the donated resources, and if the tradition doesn’t include celibacy, to be his romantic partner is a ‘position’ of some prestige. All other conditions being equal, the guru will be more successful at passing on his genetic material than the disciple. If you become a guru, your self-esteem will automatically rise. You’ve become the alpha person.

In one study of seratonin levels in monkeys, it was found that the seratonin level of the alpha male in the troupe was higher than that of the betas. When he was removed from the group, one of the betas took his place. When his seratonin levels were taken again, it was found that they had risen to the level of the previous alpha. Becoming a guru works against low self-esteem, just as becoming a leader of any kind will bring a person ‘up’.

We’ve been talking about gurus and ‘wannabe’ gurus. Another type we need to look at is the ‘perfect disciple’.

Another way of responding to low-self esteem is to lower your self. The perfect disciple will always see the guru as being higher. Devotion to the guru allows a context where low-self esteem can be acted out in a constructive way. Being subordinate is rewarded in communities gathered around a spiritual master. The Buddhist and Hindu practice of prostrations or pranam allows a person to behave submissively without actually taking on a position of inferiority for those around them. Only the master (and the ‘inner circle’ of senior disciples) is worthy of these gestures. For day-to-day living in the ashram, the slogan seems to be ‘we’re all bozos on this bus’. Outside of their community, their having found the path allows them to discount what others say. They don’t know the truth. Such a believer need not pay any heed to slights or challenging remarks from others.

Its no wonder that so many cults, religions, and spiritual traditions are so ready to embrace those in a state of sadness or despair. They will usually claim to have the answer. And they do. It actually works. Its an effective coping strategy that people have been using for millennia. As such, it has stood the test of time far longer than any kind of psychotherapy.

It doesn’t matter whether a person experiences altered states spontaneously (as in TL epilepsy) or through spiritual practice. The results are the same: these people have something they need to respond to. When I consider that 60% (according to one reckoning) of all TL epileptics are mis-diagnosed as schizophrenics or as having bipolar disorder, I cannot, in good conscience, suggest that those who are ‘processing’ the psychological effects of intense spiritual experiences see a mainstream therapist.

Religion and spirituality are still the most effective methods known for coping with the emergence of a new sense of self or with spiritual transformation.

While I find the mentality of the true ‘believer’ difficult to respond to, I prefer to support spiritual people in their beliefs.

Now my mind turns to the old Catholic women of Spain, Portugal and Latin America. The stereotypical example is of a widow, dressed in black, who slowly puffs her way up the stairs to her church. She believes in One God, the creator of heaven and earth. She believes that The Virgin Mary sits, surrounded by adoring cherubs who sing her praises, at the left hand of God. She believes that saying her rosary will help ease her life while she lives, and to gain her a better place in heaven after her death.

I don’t share any beliefs with this woman. But, if I were to convert her to my way of thinking, the poor woman would no longer know how to live, and I would have done her real harm.

I might be right in my views, but spirituality is one area of human experience where being right doesn’t really count for much.

Source

Yet, the Dalits are resisting. In parts of the country, they are organizing politically to demand their rights. A Dalit woman rules the largest state, Uttar Pradesh. However, breaking the barriers laid down by the Hindu caste system is an uphill struggle, especially when the government does little to uphold the law of the land that prohibits discrimination on account of descent.

The Dalits of Chakwara village discovered this when they lay their claim to a common or public resource: the village pond, bathing in which is an important ritual. The pond and the steps leading to it have been built and maintained over the years with state funds and contributions raised by the entire village, including the Dalits. But Dalits have been excluded from using the common ‘ghats’ for decades. Caste-based “tradition” ensures that Dalits are treated worse than the buffaloes, cows and pigs that have virtually unrestrained access to the pond. The only exception is the women who have also, irrespective of caste, always been barred from the pond.

However, in December, Babulal and Radheshyam, who belong to the Bairwa group of Dalits, decided to defy the hallowed “tradition” and take a dip in the pond. Outraged, the caste Hindus subjected the Bairwas to vile abuse, threats of a “bloodbath”, a nightly siege of their homes and a crippling social boycott. The Dalits could no longer buy tea or vegetables or hire farm implements. The local doctor would not treat them. The grocery shop ostracized them. The local mechanic would not repair their bicycles. Their men were stalked, their women abused.

The local administration and police should have protected and supported the Dalits. Instead, they generally sided with the upper castes. In January, officials allied with the caste Hindus in breach of the law bullied the Dalits into signing a “compromise” agreement, which effectively erased their right to the pond. The agreement produced discontent and resentment that has been simmering ever since. Last month, the discontent culminated in another effort by the Bairwas to assert their rights, through a rally in collaboration with other human rights organizations.

The caste Hindus decided to confront the Dalits “physically” and gathered a mob of 10 to 15,000 men armed with sticks. The police tried to stop the men from attacking the rally, halted some distance away. Angered, the caste Hindus attacked the police who responded with teargas and bullets, and in the ensuing brawl more than 50 people were injured, including 44 policemen.

The incident has created waves beyond Rajasthan - one of India’s most socially backward states. Rajasthan has a dismal record of anti-Dalit offenses, with an annual average of 5,024 crimes registered in the last three years. On average, there are 46 killings, 134 rapes and 93 cases of grievous injury every year. One of the worst killings was the massacre of 17 Dalits, at Kumher village, in 1992.

However, the state administration and police have learnt few lessons. Rather than take preventive measures or prosecute those guilty of caste discrimination, they side with the upper castes. This is partly because the bulk of India’s bureaucracy is caste Hindu. Although the Dalits are entitled to 15 percent of all government jobs, they rarely get the better-paid ones in senior categories.

Of equal importance is the role that “tradition” plays in the Hindu religion. Many enlightened Hindus reject the idea of caste. Modern education persuaded large numbers of them to support a reform movement for cleansing Indian society of evils like caste-based apartheid, widow burning and dowry. But despite early gains, the reform momentum ran out of steam by the 1950s and conservative currents have taken hold since then. In the past 10 to 15 years, these have struck their deepest roots in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and critics allege that the party ideologically represents hierarchical Hinduism and casteism in its worst aspects.

Legally, the notion of untouchables and discrimination against the Dalits are prohibited under the Indian Constitution under a 1955 civil rights act and the 1989 Prevention of Atrocities, or POA, act. The act was written explicitly to outlaw physical and verbal abuse against Dalits, but hasn’t had the desired effect.

The Dalit struggle for emancipation from social and economic servitude faces heavy odds, but it has also acquired an international dimension since the World Conference Against Racism last year in South Africa. Casteism has come in for strong criticism from the United Nations. In August, while discussing descent-based discrimination, the U.N. Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination strongly condemned caste. The panel’s recommendations for corrective measures are thoughtful and exhaustive. They confront India with a simple choice: systematically fight casteism or face opprobrium and possible sanctions from the world community.

Praful Bidwai
October 2002

Source

Hindu empires had flourished in Java for a millennium until they were replaced by expanding Islamic polities in the 15th century, setting the stage for Indonesia becoming the world’s largest Muslim nation. In the 1970s, however, a new Hindu revival movement began to sweep across the archipelago. Hinduism is gaining even greater popularity at this time of national crisis, most notably in Java, the political heart of Indonesia. Based on preliminary ethnographic research in five communities with major Hindu temples, this paper explores the political history and social dynamics of Hindu revivalism in Java. Rejecting formalist approaches to the study of religion, including the notion of ’syncretism ‘, the Hindu revival movements of Java are treated as an illustration of how social agents employ religious or secular concepts and values in their strategic responses to the particular challenges and crises they may face in a specific cultural, social, political and historical setting.

Expectations of a great crisis at the imminent dawn of new golden age, among followers of the Hindu revival movement in Java, are an expression of utopian prophesies and political aspirations more widely known and shared among contemporary Indonesians. These utopian expectations are set to shape the prospects of Indonesia’s fledgling democracy. In this paper, I will reflect on the different historical conditions under which these and similar utopian expectations and associated social movements arise, and may either either incite violent conflict or serve a positive role in the creation or maintenance of a fair society.

My interest in Java is recent and arose inadvertently from nearly a decade of earlier research on the neighboring island of Bali. The majority of Balinese consider themselves descendants of noble warriors from the Hindu Javanese empire Majapahit who conquered Bali in the 14th century. A growing number of Balinese are conducting pilgrimages to Hindu temples in Java, most of which have been built in places identified as sacred sites in traditional Balinese texts (often written in Old-Javanese language). Balinese have been heavily involved in the construction and ritual maintenance of these new Hindu temples in Java. They further dominate organizations representing Hinduism at a national level. Finally, many Javanese Hindu priests have been trained in Bali.

I had the opportunity to gain a first hand impression of the expansion of Hinduism in Java and of Balinese involvement therein during a field trip in late 1999. Following preliminary ethnographic research in eight different Hindu Javanese communities it became evident that this movement has its own dynamics and rationale, no matter how much it may have been spurred by Balinese support. Most thought-provoking, perhaps, were the emotional accounts of events since 1965 leading up to a resurgence of Hinduism, and the constant references to the famous Javanese prophesies of Sabdapalon and Jayabaya.

On an earlier field trip in 1995, I was also able to visit central and southern Kalimantan where a large Hindu movement has grown among the local Ngaju Dayak population. The lead-up to a mass declaration for ‘Hinduism’ on this island was rather different to the Javanese case, in that conversions followed a clear ethnic division. Indigenous Dayak were confronted with a mostly Muslim population of government-sponsored (and predominantly Javanese) migrants and officials, and deeply resentful at the dispossession of their land and its natural resources. Compared to their counterparts among Javanese Hindus, many Dayak leaders were also more deeply concerned about Balinese efforts to standardize Hindu ritual practice nationally; fearing a decline of their own unique ‘Hindu Kaharingan’ traditions and renewed external domination.

The Javanese Hindu revival movement is in many ways unique, and its recent expansion may surprise a casual observer. Java is often viewed as the headquarters of Islam within the world’s most populous Muslim nation. On its own, however, this superficial image fails to do justice to the immensely complex and varied cultural history of this island; a history that continues to exert a profound influence on contemporary Javanese society. A glance at one of the many ancient monuments scattered across its landscape would suffice to remind one of a very different Java, where a succession of smaller and larger Hindu kingdoms flourished for more than a millennium, producing a unique and dynamic mixture of Indic and indigenous Austronesian culture. At the peak of its influence in the 14th century the last and largest among Hindu Javanese empires, Majapahit, reached far across the Indonesian archipelago. This accomplishment is interpreted in modern nationalist discourses as an early historical beacon of Indonesian unity and nationhood, a nation with Java still at its center.

That the vast majority of contemporary Javanese and Indonesians are now Muslims is the outcome of a process of subsequent Islamization. Like Hinduism before it, Islam first advanced into the archipelago along powerful trade networks, gaining a firm foothold in Java with the rise of early Islamic polities along the northern coast. Hinduism finally lost its status as Java’s dominant state religion during the 15th and early 16th century, as the new sultanates expanded and the great Hindu empire Majapahit collapsed. Even then, some smaller Hindu polities persisted; most notably the kingdom of Blambangan in eastern Java, which remained intact until the late 18th century.

Islam met with a different kind of resistance at a popular and cultural level. While the majority of Javanese did become ‘Muslims’, following the example of their rulers, for many among them this was a change in name only. Earlier indigenous Javanese and Hindu traditions were retained by the rural population and even within the immediate sphere of the royal courts, especially in a context of ritual practice. In this sense, the victory of Islam has remained incomplete until today.

To proclaim on these grounds that Javanese religion, or any other religion, is a product of ’syncretism’ is to say no more than that it has a history, as every religion inevitably does. Given that history has no definite beginning, ’syncretism’ has been a feature in all world religions from the start.[1] Even a more modest distinction between degrees of ’syncretism’ or ‘orthodoxy’ in the religions of different societies, or in those of the same society at different times in its history, is rather unproductive unless this or similar distinctions are situated in relation to much broader historical processes affecting the societies concerned as a whole. A process of religious ‘rationalization’ (in the Weberian sense), in particular, may needs to be situated within a broader context of modernity.

Insofar as it is justifiable to speak of a trend toward increasing ‘orthodoxy’ in Indonesian Islam in the 20th century, a trend which applies similarly to Indonesian Hinduism and Christianity, this phenomenon must be assessed against the historical background of colonialism, the subsequent establishment of an independent Indonesian state, and the advent of modernity. In the colonial and post-colonial era, an ever more popular and educated acceptance of Islam was gained, in Java and elsewhere, through the work of independent or government Islamic organizations with an anti-colonial and modernist socio-political orientation. In the wake of this still continuing process of rationalization, a conceptual potential has been created for greater socio-political polarization among the followers of different and, now, more precisely distinguishable ‘religions’. Nevertheless, the more orthodox among Javanese Muslims, who tend to identify themselves with a more modern and global notion of Islamic religion, are still a minority and are themselves divided into factions (for example, over the issue of whether to aspire toward a secular or an Islamic Indonesian state). Most recently these divisions became apparent during the dismissal of President Wahid on charges of incompetency.

To a large and growing number of equally ‘modern’ Javanese, however, their ancient Hindu past is still very present indeed, and prophesied to come alive once more in the near future. A utopian Hindu revival movement has emerged in Java over the last three decades of the twentieth century, and is gathering momentum in the turmoil of Indonesia’s continuing economic and political crisis. Drawing on ancient prophesies, many of its members believe that a great natural cataclysm or final battle is at hand in which Islam will be swept from the island to conclude the current age of darkness. Thereafter, they say, Hindu civilization will be restored to its former glory - with Java as the political center of a new world order that will last for a thousand years.

Adding to the concern of Muslim observers, the Javanese Hindu movement is part of a wider national phenomenon of Hindu revivalism and expansion. Situated at the heart of Indonesia, however, the Hindu movement in Java may have the most serious implications yet for the social and political stability of the nation as a whole. In addition, the same mood of apocalyptic fear, utopian expectation and revivalist zeal is shared by many Javanese Muslims. This is made evident in a number of revivalist Islamic movements, whose members also tend to describe the present as an age of moral and social decay.

Recent incidents of inter-religious violence in the Moluccas and Lombok, and the major importance afforded to religious affiliation in Indonesia’s recent parliamentary and 1998 presidential elections are both indicative of a national trend towards religious polarization (Ramstedt 1998). Such polarization has not been characteristic of Javanese society, particularly at a community level, where neighborhood cooperation and social peace have been valued more highly than religious convictions (Beatty 1999). With nominal Muslims now openly converting to Hinduism this could well change, tearing away at the delicate web of compromises that is the very fabric of Javanese society. On a more positive note, Indonesians of all confessions also share an urgent desire for political reform and genuine democracy, and may still be prepared to cooperate in the struggle to achieve this common aim.

The emergence of a self-conscious Hindu revival movement within Javanese society is thus a highly significant development. The following preliminary outline of this movement is to provide an appraisal of some of the deep social divisions and widely shared utopian aspirations in contemporary Indonesian society which are set to shape the immediate future of this fragile nation.

Hindu Revivalism in Historical and Political Context

While many Javanese have retained aspects of their indigenous and Hindu traditions through the centuries of Islamic influence, under the banner of ‘Javanist religion’ (kejawen) or a non-orthodox ‘Javanese Islam’ (abangan, cf. Geertz 1960), no more than a few isolated communities have consistently upheld Hinduism as the primary mark of their public identity. One of these exceptions are the people of the remote Tengger highlands (Hefner 1985, 1990) in the province of Eastern Java. The Javanese ‘Hindus’ with whom this paper is concerned, however, are those who had officially declared themselves ‘Muslims’ prior to their recent
conversion to Hinduism.

In an unpublished report in 1999, the National Indonesian Bureau of Statistics tacitly admits that nearly 100.000 Javanese have officially converted or ‘reconverted’ from Islam to Hinduism over the last two decades. At the same time, the East Javanese branch of the government Hindu organization PHDI (below) in an annual report claims the ‘Hindu congregation’ (umat hindu) of this province to have grown by 76000 souls in this year alone. The figures are not entirely reliable or objective, nor can they adequately reflect the proportions of Java’s new Hindu revival movement, based as they are on the religion stated on people’s identity cards (kartu tanda penduduk or ‘KTP’) or on other measures of formal religious affiliation. According to my own observations, many conversions are informal only, at least for now. In addition, formal figures often do not adequately distinguish between religious conversions and general population growth, given that most government agencies only record people’s religion at birth.

Problems with estimating rates of conversion aside, it is remarkable that despite their local minority status the total number of Hindus in Java now exceeds that of Hindus in Bali. Data collected independently during my preliminary research in Eastern Java further suggest that the rate of conversion accelerated dramatically during and after the collapse of former President Suharto’s authoritarian regime in 1998.

Officially identifying their religion as Hinduism was not a legal possibility for Indonesians until 1962, when it became the fifth state-recognized religion.[2] This recognition was initially sought by Balinese religious organizations and granted for the sake of Bali, where the majority were Hindu. The largest of these organizations, Parisada Hindu Dharma Bali, changed its name to P.H.D. Indonesia (PHDI) in 1964, reflecting subsequent efforts to define Hinduism as a national rather than just a Balinese affair (Ramstedt 1998). In the early seventies, the Toraja people of Sulawesi were the first to realize this opportunity by seeking shelter for their indigenous ancestor religion under the broad umbrella of ‘Hinduism’, followed by the Karo Batak of Sumatra in 1977 and the Ngaju Dayak of Kalimantan in 1980 (Bakker 1995).

Religious identity became a life and death issue for many Indonesians around the same time as Hinduism gained recognition, namely, in the wake of the violent anti-Communist purge of 1965-66 (Beatty 1999). Persons lacking affiliation with a state recognized-religion tended to be classed as atheists and hence as communist suspects. Despite the inherent disadvantages of joining a national religious minority, a deep concern for the preservation of their traditional ancestor religions made Hinduism a more palatable option than Islam for several ethnic groups in the outer islands. By contrast, most Javanese were slow to consider Hinduism at the time, lacking a distinct organization along ethnic lines and fearing retribution from locally powerful Islamic organizations like the Nahdatul Ulama (NU). The youth wing of the NU had been active in the persecution not only of communists but of ‘Javanist’ or ‘anti-Islamic’ elements within Sukarno’s Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI) during the early phase of the killings (Hefner 1987). Practitioners of ‘Javanist’ mystical traditions thus felt compelled to declare themselves Muslims out of a growing concern for their safety.

The initial assessment of having to abandon ‘Javanist’ traditions in order to survive in an imminent Islamic state proved incorrect. President Sukarno’s eventual successor, Suharto, adopted a distinctly nonsectarian approach in his so-called ‘new order’ (orde baru) regime. Old fears resurfaced, however, with Suharto’s ‘Islamic turn’ in the 1990s. Initially a resolute defender of Javanist values, Suharto began to make overtures to Islam at that time, in response to wavering public and military support for his government. A powerful signal was his authorization and personal support of the new ‘Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals’ (ICMI), an organization whose members openly promoted the Islamization of Indonesian state and society (Hefner 1997). Concerns grew as ICMI became the dominant civilian faction in the national bureaucracy, and initiated massive programs of Islamic education and mosque-building through the Ministry of Religion (departemen agama), once again targeting Javanist strongholds. Around the same time, there were a series of mob killings by Muslim extremists of people they suspected to have been practicing traditional Javanese methods of healing by magical means.

Repeated experiences of harassment or worse have left adherents of Javanist traditions with deep-seated fears and resentments. In interviews conducted in 1999, recent Hindu converts in eastern and central Java confessed that they had felt comfortable with a tenuous Islamic identity until 1965, but that their ‘hearts turned bitter’ once they felt coerced to disavow their private commitment to ‘Hindu Javanese ‘ traditions by abandoning the specific ritual practices which had come to be associated therewith. In terms of their political affiliation, many contemporary Javanists and recent converts to Hinduism had been members of the old PNI, and have now joined the new nationalist party of Megawati Sukarnoputri. Informants from among this group portrayed their return to the ‘religion of Majapahit’ (Hinduism) as a matter of nationalist pride, and displayed a new sense political self-confidence. Political trends aside, however, the choice between Islam and Hinduism is often a highly personal matter. Many converts reported that other members of their families have remained ‘Muslims’, out of conviction or in the hope that they will be free to maintain their Javanist traditions in one way or another.

These observations provide no more than a preliminary sketch of the changing landscape of cross-cutting and sometimes contradictory social, political and religious identities wherein the Javanese Hindu revival movement is taking shape. In essence, the collapse of the authoritarian Suharto regime has allowed old rivalries between Islamic and Nationalist parties to resurface in a changed environment and in a new guise. This has led to a degree of socio-political polarization as has not been seen since the 1960s revolution, although it may have been an inherent conceptual possibility throughout modern Indonesian history.

Hindu Revivalism in Social and Economic Context

A common feature among new Hindu communities in Java is that they tend to rally around recently built temples (pura) or around archaeological temple sites (candi) which are being reclaimed as places of Hindu worship. One of several new Hindu temples in eastern Java is Pura Mandaragiri Sumeru Agung, located on the slope of Mt Sumeru, Java’s highest mountain. When the temple was completed in July 1992, with the generous aid of wealthy donors from Bali, only a few local families formally confessed to Hinduism. A pilot study in December 1999 revealed that the local Hindu community now has grown to more than 5000 households. Similar mass conversions have occurred in the region around Pura Agung Blambangan, another new temple, built on a site with minor archaeological remnants attributed to the kingdom of Blambangan, the last Hindu polity on Java. A further important site is Pura Loka Moksa Jayabaya (in the village of Menang near Kediri), where the Hindu king and prophet Jayabaya is said to have achieved spiritual liberation (moksa). A further Hindu movement in the earliest stages of development was observed in the vicinity of the newly completed Pura Pucak Raung (in the Eastern Javanese district of Glenmore), which is mentioned in Balinese literature as the place where the Hindu saint Maharishi Markandeya gathered followers for an expedition to Bali, whereby he is said to have brought Hinduism to Bali in the fifth century AD. An example of resurgence around major archaeological remains of ancient Hindu temple sites was observed in Trowulan near Mojokerto. The site may be the location of the capital of the legendary Hindu empire Majapahit. A local Hindu movement is struggling to gain control of a newly excavated temple building which they wish to see restored as a site of active Hindu worship. The temple is to be dedicated to Gajah Mada, the man attributed with transforming the small Hindu kingdom of Majapahit into an empire. Although there has been a more pronounced history of resistance to Islamization in East Java, Hindu communities are also expanding in Central Java (Lyon 1980), for example in Klaten, near the ancient Hindu monuments of Prambanan.

It is a common feature of social organization in neighboring Bali to find temples at the hub of various networks of social affiliation (Reuter 1998). Temples may be equally important for Hindu Javanese, though for different reasons. Clear ethnic or clan-like divisions are generally lacking in Javanese society, and in any case, would be too exclusive to promote a rapid expansion of new Hindu communities. How social relations take shape within the support networks of Javanese Hindu temples and how they differ from those among patrons of Balinese temples remains to be explored, as is also true of the ritual practice of Javanese Hindus. Some of the resemblances observed so far seem to reflect not only the common historical influence of Hinduism in Java and Bali, but also a common indigenous cultural heritage shared among these and other Austronesian-speaking societies (Fox & Sathers 1996).

Taking Pura Sumeru as an example, it is also important to note that major Hindu temples can bring a new prosperity to local populations. Apart from employment in the building, expansion, and repair of the temple itself, a steady stream of Balinese pilgrims to this now nationally recognized temple has led to the growth of a sizeable service industry. Ready-made offerings, accommodation, and meals are provided in an ever-lengthening row of shops and hotels along the main road leading to Pura Sumeru. At times of major ritual activity tens of thousands of visitors arrive each day. Pilgrims’ often generous cash donations to the temple also find their way into the local economy. Pondering with some envy on the secret to the economic success of their Balinese neighbors, several local informants concluded that “Hindu culture may be more conducive to the development of an international tourism industry than is Islam”. Economic considerations also come into play insofar as members of this and other Hindu revival movements tend to cooperate in a variety of other ways, including private business ventures which are unrelated to their joint religious practices as such.

Hindu Revivalism as a Utopian Movement

Followers and opponents alike explain the sudden rise of a Hindu revival movement in Java by referring to the well-known prophecies of Sabdapalon and Jayabaya. In this they reveal a number of shared utopian and apocalyptic expectations, even though their interpretations of the prophesies differ significantly. These mixed expectations have been a reflection of growing popular dissatisfaction with the corrupt and dictatorial Suharto government in the 1990s and until its demise in 1998, following student riots and popular demonstrations in many major Javanese cities in the wake of the Asian economic crisis. They also draw inspiration from a deeper crisis of political and economic culture still current in Indonesia today. The Indonesia’s present first democratically elected government under President Abdurahman Wahid’s leadership again has attracted criticism, increasingly so in during recent months, as the nation continueds to be threatened by religious conflict, secession movements in Aceh and West Papua, and by government corruption scandals.[3] Under the new presidency of Megawati Sukarnoputri (from 23 July 2001) this sense of political instability is widely expected to persist. At the same time many also fear a possible return to the repression of the Suharto years. It is the prophesies of Sabdapalon and Jayabaya that provide perhaps the most ready vehicle for the interpretation of these tumultuous political events, to the members of Hindu revival movements as well as their opponents. The prophesies of Sabdapalon and Jayabaya provide a ready vehicle for the interpretation of these events, to the members of Hindu revival movements as well as their opponents.

Sabdapalon is said to have been a priest and an adviser to Brawijaya V, the last ruler of the Hindu empire Majapahit. He is also said to have cursed his king upon the conversion of the latter to Islam in 1478. Sabdapalon then promised to return, after 500 years and at a time of widespread political corruption and natural disasters, to sweep Islam from the island and restore Hindu-Javanese religion and civilization. Some of the first new Hindu temples built in Java were indeed completed around 1978, for example Pura Blambangan in the regency of Banyuwangi. As the prophesies foretold, Mt Sumeru erupted around the same time. All this is taken as evidence of the accuracy of Sabdapalon’s predictions. Islamic opponents of the Hindu movements accept the prophesies, at least in principle, though their interpretations differ. Some attribute the Hindu conversions to a temporary weakness within Islam itself, laying blame on the materialism of modern life, on an associated decline of Islamic values, or on the persistent lack of orthodoxy among practitioners of ‘Javanese Islam’ (Soewarno 1981). In their opinion, the ‘return of Sabdapalon’ is meant to test Islam and to propel its followers toward a much needed revitalization and purification of their faith.

A further prophesy, well-known throughout Java and Indonesia, is the Ramalan (or Jangka) Jayabaya. A recent publication on these prophesies by Soesetro & Arief (1999) has become a national best seller. The predictions of Jayabaya are also discussed frequently in daily newspapers. These ancient prophesies, indeed, are very much a part of a current public debate on the ideal shape of a new and genuinely democratic Indonesia.

The historical personage Sri Mapanji Jayabaya reigned over the kingdom of Kediri in East Java from 1135 to 1157 AD (Buchari 1968:19). He is known for his efforts to reunify Java after a split had occurred with the death of his predecessor Airlangga, for his just and prosperous rule, and for his dedication to the welfare of the common people. Reputed to have been an incarnation of the Hindu deity Vishnu, Jayabaya is also the archetypal image of the ‘just king’ (ratu adil) who is reborn during the dark age of reversal (jaman edan) at the end of each cosmic cycle to restore social justice, order, and harmony in the world. Many believe that the time for the arrival of a new ratu adil is near (as the prophesies put it, “when iron wagons drive without horses and ships sail through the sky [i.e. cars and airplanes]”), and that he will come to rescue and reunite Indonesia after an acute crisis, ushering in the dawn of a new golden age. These apocalyptic and utopian expectations evoke the notion of a revolving cosmic cycle, of a glorious past declining into a present state of moral decay, where the ideal order of things is momentarily inverted, only to be restored again in a future that is in effect a return to the past.

Hindu Javanese emphasize with pride that their ancestors Sabdapalon and Jayabaya represent a golden pre-Islamic age. Islamic opponents, in turn, claim that Jayabaya was in fact a Muslim and that Sabdapalon had only resisted conversion because what he was confronted with at the time was but a muddled and impure version of Islam (Soewarno 1981). Nevertheless, Muslim and Hindu interpreters agree that this is the time of reckoning, of major political reform if not a revolution. They also tend to agree that a truly democratic system of government may only be realized with the help of a leader of the highest moral caliber, thus blending modern notions of democracy with traditional notions of charismatic leadership.

That the prophesies of Jayabaya are of profound significance to Indonesians of very different persuasion and from all walks of life is illustrated by the secret visits (once before he was nominated as a presidential candidate and again before his election) of President Abdurahman Wahid (then head of the NU) to the ancestral origin temple of Raja Jayabaya in Bali, the remote mountain sanctuary Pura Pucak Penulisan.[4] After a solitary nocturnal devotion at this ancient Hindu temple, as local priests told me, Gus Dur (the president’s popular nickname) spoke with them at length about Jayabaya’s prophesies and the imminent arrival of a new ratu adil. Opponents of Gus Dur have prefered to identify his government with another passage in the prophesies, which refer to “a king whose [interim] rule shall last no longer than the life span of a maize plant”.

In conversations in Java and Bali in late 1999, I was continuously struck by the spirited political idealism of my informants, and their readiness even to risk their lives in the pursuit of political reform. It was sobering to note that they were envisaging for their Indonesia of the future so ideal a system of government as even western democracies could not claim to have achieved so far. I became rather concerned as well, in contemplating a very different attitude of cynicism and a sense of futility that now seems to permeate political life in western societies, and is reflected in the decline of popular participation and the silent attrition of important democratic institutions, such as independent universities (Ellingsen 1999). Studying Hindu revivalism in Java, in particular, reminded me also of persistent utopian and apocalyptic undertones in western scientific and technological worldviews, such as the early utopian predictions of a new cyber-democracy among Internet users and the more recent apocalyptic hysteria about the ‘Y2K’ computer bug.

Implications

The study of ‘revival’, ‘millenarian’, ‘cargo-cult’ or ‘revolutionary’ movements has a long and somewhat controversial history in the social sciences (Schwartz 1987). A common feature identified in studies of such movements is the linking of apocalyptic and utopian expectations, suggesting a tendency for people to readily believe what they most fear or wish to be true. Most analysts have stressed the ease with which charismatic and authoritarian leader figures can exploit such powerful beliefs and sentiments (Adorno 1978), and how mass manipulation may precipitate self-destructive behavior, such as collective suicide, or bizarre acts of violence. At the same time, social theory has produced its own visions of apocalypse and utopia, Karl Marx’ prophesy of a ‘final class struggle’ and subsequent ‘class-less society’ being the most prominent among them.

In both cases, the lingering impression is that highly fatalistic or idealistic social movements are dangerous and destructive in the extreme. This is often true enough, but not necessarily so. Utopian expectations as such, judging by the original meaning of the word utopia (’no-place’), do not suggest a need for a single radical change so much as a continuous process of reform; a striving towards an ideal that ultimately can not be located or reached. As for apocalypticism, much may depend on whether it has some rational foundation. This may well be the case in Indonesia, now poised, as it is, at a significant historical juncture.[5]

A fundamental problem and simultaneously a source of inspiration for this field of social research has been the immense variability within the class of phenomena it seeks to describe. In the absence of a comprehensive theoretical framework that would serve to identify major categories of historical, political or situational variables in the genesis, development and outcomes of such apocalyptic or utopian movements, reporters and researchers alike are often seduced into focusing instead on their more obscure and sensational features.Although there have been repeated attempts to draw this research together under the umbrella of a single paradigm, such as Smelser’s (1962) proposal for a more general category of ‘value-focused social movements’, discussion continues to be frustrated by disagreements on matters of definition and terminology. This problem pertains to discussions both across and within the boundaries of contributing disciplines, including anthropology, political science, sociology, social psychology and comparative religion. A review of the extensive and varied literature on millenarian movements is beyond the scope of this paper.

Under these adverse conditions, most attempts to transcend the specificity of particular apocalyptic or millenarian movements have been geographically or culturally restricted, and taken shape in discussions among groups of area specialists. The more significant among recent advances in the field, on the basis of such regional comparisons, have come from anthropological research on ‘cargo-cult’ movements in Papua New Guinea (Stewart 2000) and on ‘endtime’ movements in America (Stewart & Harding 1999).

This regional focusing of the discussion has paid dividends as an interim solution, but it also has detracted attention from a broader anthropological project of understanding idealistic social movements as a possible modality of social change in all human societies. While the notion of ‘millenarian movements’ has become a kind of gateway concept for researchers in PNG and the USA, for example, those working in other regions may pay very little attention to the same topic even though they may have cause to do so. Indonesia is one of these more or less neglected regions, with only a small minority of scholars caring to comment on millenarian movements and their recent proliferation (including Lee 1999, Timmer 2000).

Collaboration among fellow Indonesianists will be essential for any future attempt to raise the level of comparative research on this topic to the same high standard that has been achieved elsewhere. Even then, such a regional research project must be firmly anchored in a general anthropological theory. Without such a broader comparative framework to bridge the gaps between regional studies, the latter may deteriorate, for example, into neo-colonial discourses about the ‘inherent madness’ of Indonesia or other non-western societies. This particular objection has been raised most vehemently in recent critiques of ‘cargo-cult’
studies (Lindstrom 1993, Kaplan 1995).

While Javanese Hindu revivalism may serve as my privileged example, an important future aim is to develop a more general theoretical approach to ‘value-oriented social movements’, on the basis of four hypothesis. Namely, that these movements; 1) can occur in all human societies, 2) are an extreme manifestation or response to social change, 3) are informed by radical some forms of ‘religious’ or ’secular’ idealism, and 4) are accompanied by a heightened self-awareness among participants of being ‘agents’ or ‘witnesses’ of societal change. These different dimensions of idealist social movements are assumed to be interconnected. A heightened sense of agency and reflexivity, for example, may reflect in different ways on underlying material and symbolic interests that have been frustrated or denied to broad or narrow sectors of the society concerned.

The link between value-based social movements and the general phenomena of ’socio-cultural change’ and ‘reproduction’ is a crucial issue, and it is both complex and variable. As a force operating within underdetermined and mutable socio-cultural worlds with limited cohesion such movements can not be adequately described, by evoking the metaphor of a homeostatic ’system’, as either ‘functional’ or ‘dysfunctional’. Even if we were to define cultural reproduction and change more cautiously, as different takes on a single and largely unpredictable historical process, some of these movements may appear to be exerting a ‘reactionary’ influence while others are more ‘radical’ or a combination of both. Expressions of social critique (in relation to society as it is or is perceived) are a common theme in the discourses produced within different value-oriented social movements. But we may also find combinations of restorative or visionary idealism, in different proportions, depending on whether the critique is focused on undesirable change or undesirable stagnation in the society concerned.

In evaluating the significance of Hindu revivalism and similar movements in Java for the stability and future development of Indonesian democracy, it is thus of the utmost importance to adopt a balanced view of processes of social change and their implications. The acute danger normally attributed to rapid social change in general and to idealistic social movements in particular must be weighed against the less sensational dangers of political inactivity, cynicism and complacency. Rather than casting a condescending judgement on the state of Indonesian society, the current proliferation of millenarianism therein must be evaluated within the context of a critical project of cross-cultural comparison. In this context, it may be worth pointing to the current “anti-globalization” movement in western countries, for this movement too serves as a reminder: The creation of a just society is a continuous, often circular, and still unfinished project, as much for us as it is for the people of Indonesia.

Footnotes

[1] Islam, for example, incorporated elements from the tribal traditions of Arab peoples and from Jewish and Christian texts such as the ‘Old Testament’.

[2] The other four state-recognized religions (agama) are Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Buddhism (mainly Indonesians of Chinese ethnicity). Unrecognized religions are categorized by the state as minor
’streams of belief’ (aliran kepercayaan) or are simply treated as a part of different local ‘customs and traditions’ (adat).

[3] As I am writing this, parliamentary procedures have been set into motion so as to impeach President Abdurahman Wahid on allegations of his involvement in corruption scandals.

[4] Pura Pucak Penulisan is still an important regional temple, and was a state temple of Balinese kings from the eighth century AD (Reuter 1998). Many statues of Balinese kings are still found in its inner sanctum, including one depicting Airlangga’s younger brother Anak Wungsu. Literary sources suggest that intimate ties of kinship connected the royal families of Bali with the dynasties of Eastern Javanese kingdoms, including Kediri. Jayabaya’s predecessor Airlannga, for example, was a Balinese prince.

[5] Sometimes apocalyptic expectations can reach such a pitch that members of the movement concerned may feel a need to bring about the very cataclysm the have been predicting. The poison gas attack in Tokyo launched by Japan’s AUM Shinokio sect is a recent example. It is still uncertain whether the recent bomb attacks on Javanese Christian churches over the christmas period of 2000 were the responsibility of radical religious groups, or were instigated by other political interest groups wishing to destabilize the country by inciting simmering inter-religious conflicts in Java to the same level of violence as in the troubled Molukka Province.

References

Adorno, T. W. 1978. ‘Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda’. In A. Arato & E. Gebhardt (eds), The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Bakker, F. 1995. Bali in the Indonesian State in the 1990s: The religious aspect. Paper presented at the Third International Bali Studies Workshop, 3-7 July 1995.

Beatty, A. 1999. Varieties of Javanese Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Buchari 1968. ‘Sri Maharaja Mapanji Garasakan’. Madjalah Ilmu-Ilmu Sastra Indonesia, 1968(4):1-26.

Ellingsen, P. 1999. ‘Silence on Campus: How academics are being gagged as universities toe the corporate line’. Melbourne: The Age Magazine, 11.12.1999:26-32.

Fox, J. & Sathers, C. (eds) 1996. Origins, Ancestry and Alliance: Explorations in Austronesian Ethnography. Canberra: Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.

Geertz, C. 1960. The Religion of Java. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Hefner, R. 1985. Hindu Javanese: Tengger Tradition and Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Hefner, R. 1987. ‘The Political Economy of Islamic Conversion in Modern East Java’. In W. Roff (ed.), Islam and the Political Economy of Meaning. London: Croom Helm.

Hefner, R. 1990. The Political Economy of Mountain Java. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hefner, R. 1997. ‘Islamization and Democratization in Indonesia’. In R. Hefner & P. Horvatich (eds), Islam in an Era of Nation States: Politics and Religious Renewal in Muslim Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Kaplan, M. 1995. Neither Cargo nor Cult: Ritual Politics and the Colonial Imagination in Fiji. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.

Lee, K. 1999. A Fragile Nation: The Indonesian Crisis. River Edge (N.J.): World Scientific.

Lindstrom, L. 1993. Cargo Cult: Strange Stories of Desire from Melanesia and Beyond. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Lyon, M. 1980. ‘The Hindu Revival in Java”. In J. Fox (ed.), Indonesia: The making of a Culture. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.

Ramstedt, M. 1998. ‘Negotiating Identity: ‘Hinduism’ in Modern Indonesia’. Leiden: IIAS Newsletter, 17:50.

Reuter, T. 1998. ‘The Banua of Pura Pucak Penulisan: A Ritual Domain in the Highlands of Bali’. Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs, 32 (1):55-109.

Schwartz, H. 1987. ‘Millenarianism: An overview’. In M. Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 9:521-532. New York: MacMillan.

Smelser, J. 1962. Theory of Collective Behavior. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Soesetro, D. & Arief, Z. 1999. Ramalan Jayabaya di Era Reformasi. Yogyakarta: Media Pressindo.

Soewarna, M. 1981. Ramalan Jayabaya Versi Sabda Palon. Jakarta: P.T Yudha Gama.

Stewart, K. & Harding, S. 1999. ‘Bad Endings: American Apocalypsis’. Annual Review of Anthropology 28:285-310.

Stewart, P.J. 2000. ‘Introduction: Latencies and realizations in millennial practices’. Ethnohistory 47(1):3-27. [Special Issue on Millenarian Movements.]

Timmer, J. 2000. ‘The return of the kingdom: Agama and the millennium among the Imyan of Irian Jaya, Indonesia’. . Ethnohistory 47(1):29-65.

Note: Dr Thomas Reuter is Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne’s School of Anthropology, Geography & Environmental Studies. This paper was published in The Australian Journal of Anthropology and is being reproduced with their permission.

Source

Brahmâ (the masculine form of Brahman), was a creator God in the Vedas (more or less identifiable with Prajapati), but he is actually not an important devotionalistic God. One story about Vis.n.u is that as he sleeps, dreaming the universe, a lotus grows from his navel and opens to reveal Brahmâ, who then creates worlds as he blinks his eyes. Brahmâ is awake for a kalpa, or a Day of Brahmâ, which is either 12 million years or 4 billion years. He then sleeps for another kalpa, a Night of Brahmâ, while all karma sleeps within him. After 36,000 Days and Nights, called the Life of Brahmâ (859 billion or 309 trillion years), Brahmâ dies, and all karma is annihilated. But then a new lotus grows from Vis.n.u’s navel, and another Brahmâ is born.[4]

The most important feature of the cult of Vis.n.u is the belief that he periodically causes himself to be born as a being in the world. He does this out of compassion, and this is probably responsible for his epithet as the “Preserver.” As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 4, Juan Mascaró translation, Penguin, 1962):

[7] Although I am unborn, everlasting, and I am the Lord of all, I come to my realm of nature and through my wondrous power I am born.

[8] When righteousness is weak and faints and unrighteousness exults in pride, then my Spirit arises on earth.

[9] For the salvation of those who are good, for the destruction of evil in men, for the fulfillment of the kingdom of righteousness, I come to this world in the ages that pass.

In the cycle of time within which we live, called a Mahâyuga (either 12 thousand or 4.3 million years), there are supposed to be ten Incarnations (or Avatars) of Vis.n.u. Nine have come already: 1) as the Fish, 2) the Tortoise, 3) the Boar, 4) the Man-Lion, 5) the Dwarf, 6) Parashurâma, 7) Râma (of the Râmâyâna), Kr.s.n.a (Krishna, of the Mahâbhârata), and 9) the Buddha. As the Buddha, however, Vis.n.u is supposed to have taught a deliberately false doctrine (which is how Hinduism always sees Buddhism), to destroy demons. The tenth Avatar, Kalkin, will usher in the end of the world (or the end of the Mahâyuga).

The most important feature of the cult of Shiva is perhaps his sexual complexity. This may come in answer to a difficulty that the chart of the Trimûrti may suggest. Each of the Gods is married, but the presence of a wife is a little awkward if the deity is to be considered the Supreme Being — there is no Mrs. God in the Old Testament. The solution is that the goddesses are really the female aspect of the God, not separate beings. Thus Shiva as a whole may be divided into male and female sides. This can be artistically represented either by showing Shiva as half male and half female, or by showing Shiva and Pârvatî locked together in intercourse. Much the same thing is shown through the union of the Shaivite fetish objects, the linga cone and the yoni ring or table.

This sets off a chain reaction of belief. The male side of the God is contrasted, as remote and detached, with the female side, which comes to be seen as the shakti, the active power and energy of the God. Then all goddesses are seen as active, powerful, and creative, and finally assimilated, more or less, into a sense of One Goddess, Shakti, who contains all power. This effectively eliminates the need for a creator Brahmâ, and gives rise to, virtually, a third sub-religion: Shâkta, or Tantrism (named after its texts, the Tantras). The Trimûrti thus might be refigured this way (though, evidently, it hasn’t been so far):

On the other hand, there are goddesses and there are goddesses. Some goddesses, like Pârvatî herself, are basically positive, protective, and reassuring; others and basically destructive, terrifying, and spooky. Kâlî is the most famous in that respect (thanks in part to the Hollywood exaggerations in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). Shiva as a whole might be divided, not just into male and female sides, but with the female side divided into peaceful and terrible sides:

The most fearful manifestation of the cult of Kâlî was the murderous secret society of her followers, the Thugs (pronounce the “th” like a “t”; there is no “th” sound, as in “thin,” in Indian languages). Thugee was the practice of murder and robbery by the Thugs, who strangled travelers in their sleep. They saw these murders as offerings to Kâlî. The British decided this should not be tolerated, so they actually infiltrated the society and stamped it out.

A very nice statement of the complex of the devotionalistic Gods can be found by George Michell, in The Hindu Temple, An Introduction to its Meaning and Forms [University of Chicago Press, 1977, 1988]:

Innumerable gods and goddesses are found throughout the mythology and art of Hinduism, but the history of this religion at its highest devotional level is mostly bound up with the simultaneous development of two major cults — those of the male gods Shiva and Vishnu. A third cult is also of importance — that of the Mother or the Goddess — but is rarely seen in isolation, as the Goddess is essentially the consort of Shiva. These cults are synthetic in character owing to their evolution as amalgamations of many different minor deities. Shiva, Vishnu, and the Goddess are compound creations with a wide range of divine powers and richly paradoxical personalities. The majority of Hindus ally their beliefs with one or other of these cults, worshipping Shiva, Vishnu, or the Goddess as the highest principle. In devoting themselves to one of these three deities Hindus do not deny the existence of the other two, who are regarded as minor expressions of the divine power. Thus in the cult of Shiva, Vishnu is considered an unimportant aspect, whereas in the cult of Vishnu, Shiva is reduced to a secondary emanation. To the worshipper of the Goddess, the male gods are mostly passive and shadowy figures.

In general, the cults of Hinduism developed peacefully together and only rarely is there any evidence of friction or religious persecution. The reason for this mutual co-existence is to be found in the belief that the ultimate godhead lies beyond the divisions of cult and that the worship of Shiva, Vishnu or the Goddess leads inevitably to the same same goal. [p.23]

As I have noted, however, this latter is not quite right, only holding true for the School of “unqualified” Advaita Vedânta, not for “qualified” Advaita Vedânta or Dvaita Vedânta, where the “ultimate godhead,” Brahman, is a personal Deity identified with a devotionalistic God. Michell may have gotten the wrong impression because the “unqualified” doctrine is both more intriguing to Western investigators (already familiar with personal Monotheism) and more to the taste of most recent Indian philosophers. The real reason for the co-existence of the cults may just be that they identify each other’s Gods with aspects of their own. Or, it may simply be that Hindus are aware that there are many gods in their religion, and they do not regard the status of other devotionalistic Gods as different from the surviving gods of the Vedas.
Source