One Caste One Religion One God A Study of Sree Narayana Guru One Caste One Religion One God A Study of Sree Narayana Guru V.T.SAMUEL STERLING PUBLISHERS PVT LTD AB/9 Safdarjang Enclave, New Dclhi-110016 1.J I I. .... l 1· , •• , I I . ___. • I - - ' /✓.·.·,: I _;. ,. \ One Caste, One Religion, One God A Study of Sree Narayana Guru @1977, V. T. Samuel Published by S.K. Ghai, Manaaing Director, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., AB/9, Safdarjang Enclave, New Delhi-110016 Printed at Sterling Printers, L-11, Green Park Ext., New Delhi-110016 FOREWORD Is there a universal philosophy? Is there a universal reli gion? Is our mundane world the result of a cause or the cause itself or does it cause another result? Is there a Supreme Force that presides over all of us and in the universe around us? All living things undergo an order in their course on earth youth, vigour of manhood, age and decay--just as the sun rising in the morning soars off into scorching white only to sink slowly into glorious hues; the seasons come with their rains and fruit, warmth and cold, clouds and clear blue, in a premeditated alternation. There appears to be reason, an amount of rhythm in the harmony of our existence, an unalter able law governing everything and in everything. The philosophy of the universe fathoms the nature of this harmony; religion expounds the law behind it. If the universe is one, if the Truth is one, irresistibly the philosophy of the universe is one. Religions may vary between one society and another, so too their pathways; but the ultimate destination is one; since religions are supposed to subse_rvet he philosophy of the Universe they acknowledge the source before they postu late their tenets or prove their sociological theorems. Such a philosophy of oneness is very much native to the Indian soil; it underlies the unity of purpose, of life and the immanence of the Divine in all that is : Ekam sat viprah bahutha vadanthi There is only One that exists; learned men speak of it in several ways. God there is common to all of us. In his Bhajagovindam-a portraiture of the sorrows of life with a clarion call to meditate on Govinda-Sankara exhorts men not to be intolerant of one another, particularly if one aspires to that faculty which is characteristic of God; one should learn to maintain a balanced mind with respect to all earthly things and VI ONE CASTE, ONE RELIGION, ONE GOD men. For the Divine spark is in us; do not the Mahavakyas from the four Vedas Praja;ranam Br:zhma, aham bramasmi, tat tvam asi, ayam atma brahma. lead us to this element? The socialism of Christ, the demo cracy of Islam and the individualism of Hinduism-all teach us besides humility, purity and self-sacrifice for common good, the equality between man and man. In such a state the con cept of 'superior' and 'inferior' withers; ancient India and Greece have seen the Divine Truth through man's imagination, intelligence and will, hrda manisa manasa. The indwelling of the celestial fire, the Divine in us urging us towards complete fulfilment, is the common denominator of fraternity and world brotherhood. There have been moves in the past towards a Christian Union, an Islamic Union and the like but what we need is the union of all believers in world solidarity and under standing in energising humanity with the touch of oneness of mankind, to which 'the gains of science and the gifts of arts, the thirst to know and understand a large and liberal discon tent' must cleave. Are we not all the children of God? Ashoka, Harsha and Akbar were wedded to this deep conviction. Of late an instance of a deep faith in one God, Creator of the Universe, was demonstrated at Rome (1962) when Catholics, orthodox Christians; Jews, and members of several other religious sects met under the presidentship of Cardinal Bea, representative of Pope John XXIII. The seers, the saints and savants and the prophets who understood this truth were men of universal order interested in the welfare of man and his upliftment, moral and spiritual. Sree Narayana Guru was one of them. He was an aatmavit man of self-realisation-who saw the unity of all being in one God. He indulged in practices which were human, congenial to our ethical sense, sanctified by tolerance and Jove that gave him his social dimension. He never quarrelled about names we giv~ to the Lord, nor did he harbour any communal or caste divisions; he abhorred communal conflicts since he saw humanity reflected in the one Absolute Reality; one caste, FORBWORD Vil therefore, meant for him the human kind from which stock you and I come. If religion proper is a way of life, expressive in a profound spiritual transformation through unity (of religions), Sree Narayana Guru had it in abundance, not by any theory or sentiment but by his vital experience, which was the result of incessant inward purification, it remade him from a reversal of the ordinary self-seeking attitude of minds towards our fellow men and nature; he felt it to be the integral of human exis tence, the vector of human relations, which introduced in him an entirely new sense, a new set of values only, to reveal the Infinite in the finite. His revelations showed the promised land. His religion was not degenerated nor degraded by sanctify ing intolerance, hatred and discrimination; on the other hand he practised the religion of ethical sublimity converging on the spiri tual vision that sees all beings in one God. He had that social vision and spiritual unity to reach the top where he found every man congregating from the same family of the Supreme. In the oneness of God his religion was real. In the oneness of religion his humanity was real. In the oneness of caste his individual was real. All this in combination made him an instrument of a higher purpose, to advance socially and with spiritual sobriety. Thus Sree Narayana Guru accepted the Divine arrange ment of things. Though a commoner, he led a life which had the aroma of Divinity and with which he endeavoured to re lieve his fellowmen in their garden of life of its wild herbage. The new movement with its base on Homo-noia of one mind, on a communion of minds and hearts, that gained momentum through institutions which bear his name even today, and to which he gave an ethically humanitarian yearning, is vigorous ly alive in Kerala, his home-state in India. His experience as a saint and a social reformer is ineffable. The world needs the like of him; the society of today marked by disintegration of faith and growing disillusionment about the traditional values, longs for his spiritual force inviting individuals to keep a term in it so that they be worthy of his "one world" that he dreamed in the frame of right conduct, in being in one caste, viii ONE CASTE, ONB RELIGION, ONB GOD one religion and one man, so that a world of community of ideas and purposes, instead of a world of unanimity and uni formity may develop where all men are brothers. This book takes origin from the first rate intensive resear ches and training the author, Dr V.T. Samuel, received in culture, theology and social sciences. Its thematic thrust is concerned with the religious, social and sacred complex of the Guru's personality, his childhood and wandering life that provided the backdrop for the blossoming of his philo sophy of 'oneness'. An effort has been made to render the Guru who himself was expansively rooted in Indian culture, as a socio-religious reformer. His teachings are as relevant as possible to the needs of a practical operation in a crisis-ridden world of today where humans do not seem to count but every thing else does. Io a ·systematic study of this kind with its basal dressing in sociology, socio-psychology, religion, meta physics and philosophy, the present book evolved. The book, therefore, is offered in the hope that its audience will include not only those who have inspired ideal of God head, aesthetic consciousness, human dignity and love of man kind, but the social scientists as well who are engaged through researches in seeking international amity and understanding on the plank of better human relations. R. SUBRAMANIAN London November 1976 PREFACE This book is the study of the life and teachings of Sree Narayana Guru with particular emphasis on his famous maxim "Oru Jati, Oru Matam and Oru Daivam Manushyanu" (One Caste, One Religion and One God far Man). In order to grasp the mission and message of a Guru, it is essential for all readers, particularly those outside India, to know not only the background of the personality, but the background which is the setting for the teaching in which the maxim has its first mean ing. Thus this book reflects an attempt to understand Sree Narayana Guru in the context of historical, socio-cultural, religious, and philosophical background. Since this volume is based on the author's Ph.D. disserta tion submitted to the Hartford Seminary Foundation, the pages that follow reflect in part the writer's two years of continuous research and intensive study of Sree Narayana Guru. From the very inception of the study to the conclusion, the writer had the benefit of consultation, personal interviews, and communi cation of several scholars and disciples of Sree Narayana Guru both in India and the USA. I am particularly grateful to the Chairman of the disserta tion committee, Dr Bhabagrahi Misra, for his role in supervision of this research. I am indebted also to Professor Willem A. Bijlefeld, the former Dean of the Hartford Seminary Founda tion, Dr Richard A. Underwood, and the late Dr J. Maurice Hohlfeld for their many helpful suggestions, and to Dr Herbert Jai Singh who first suggested to me to undertake this study. Acknowledgement is due to many others who have encou raged this study of Sree Narayana Guru. But particular mention must be made of the following scholars who have contributed in some way to this study : Swami Nijananda, the president of the Sree Narayana Dharma Sangham Trust; C.R. Kesavan Vaidyar, the editor of Vivekodayam and the president of Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam; the late R. Sankar, the ex-chief rtinister of Kerala and the secretary- X ONE CASTE, ONE RELIGION, ONE GOD treasurer of the SNDP Yogam; Swami John Dharmatheerther of Trivandrum; Professor K. Balarama Panicker, retired princi pal of Government Sanskrit College, Trivandrum, Mr P.K. Bala Krishnan, noted contributing editor of Kera/a Kaumadi newspaper and Mr John Spiers of Bangalore, the editor of Values, who has unreservedly lent me some of his published and unpublished manuscripts of Sree Narayana Guru. A most grateful acknowledgement is made to Professor R. Subramanian, Head of the Department of Research at Gandhi· gram University who recently served a tenure as Visiting Pro fessor and Consultant on Asian Studies at Grambling State Un iversity. The author would also like to acknowledge his gratitude to the Hartford Seminary Foundation and its former President Dr James N. Gettemy for all the financial assistance which made possible not only the present study but the writer's academic training as well; and above all, the Indian Council of Social Science Research for the generous grant that enabled the publication of this study in the present form. However, the responsibility for the facts stated and opinions expressed is entirely mine. V. THOMAS SAMUEL Grambling, USA.