The Spiritual and Religious Leaders Who Have Failed

The fault is with those whom the Hindu Nation and the Hindu society consider to be the leaders guiding their destiny. The Bhagavad Gita says,

"Yadyadaacharati shreshthah,
tattadevetaro janaah;
sa yat pramaanam kurute,
lokastatanuvartate "

"Whatever those who are considered to be the elders or men of perfection do, the same is done by others; that which is set as standard by them, is blindly followed by the common run." In the most ancient period, great sages and seers like Vyasa, Valmiki, Vasishtha and Vishwamitra, set the standards of Dharma and lived it making themselves examples to the people of Bharatavarsha. In the historical period also we had great saints and sages who aroused the people to fight for the preservation of the Motherland and its ideals. Samartha Ramdas moulded a Chhatrapati Shivaji to create a Hindu Empire when the Moghuls ransacked the nation and destroyed our culture. Vidyaranya, the Shankaracharya of Sringeri, was instrumental in enabling a Harihara and Bukka to build up a mighty Vijayanangar Empire in the south to check the inroads of the Muslims. During the Sannyasi Rebellion, the mendicants in ochre cloth took up arms and fought against the aliens, but what sort of Sadhus and Sannyasins do the nation see today? A hundred years ago, a patriotic sannyasi of highest realization, Swami Rama Tirtha, said: "The Sadhus of India are a unique phenomenon peculiar to this country. As a green mantle gathers over standing water, so have the Sadhus collected over India, full fifty-two lacks by this time. Some of them are indeed beautiful lotuses—the glory of the lake! But a vast majority are unhealthy scum." We have today in our midst the so called spiritual leaders in millions, wandering throughout the length and breadth of the country in ochre, yellow, white or red clothes, setting up missions and mutts of various sampradayas and cults and some of them are globe-trotting, bringing in foreign exchange by exporting Yoga, meditation, philosophy, Jyotisha and Ayutveda, but a large majority of them are "scum" as Swami Rama Tirtha said. How many of the sadhus and sannyasins in our midst today have the courage to arouse the Hindus to stand up against Adharma and the onslaught of alien, anti-national and treacherous forces on this sacred nation. How many of them have raised their voice against the persecution and massacre of Hindus in Kashmir? How many have condemned the destruction and devastation of Hindu sacred places and killing of Hindu people in thousands? How many have stood up against the mass conversion of helpless Hindus by Christians and Muslims in this land? Many of the ignoramus posing themselves as spiritual leaders talk about " sarva dharma samabhava", not knowing what dharma means and proclaiming shamelessly that Islam, the religion that says Allah alone is to be worshipped and others are Kafirs to be annihilated, and Christianity, the religion that says Jesus alone saves and those who do not believe in him and in the Father-in-the-heaven are bound to go to Hell, is equal to Hinduism, the great Sanatana Dharma which proclaims that whoever worships the Ultimate Reality in whatever form reaches Him and all ways of worship lead to the same goal. These sadhus and sannyasins and their mutts and missions have been the dreaded cancer that has afflicted the Hindu nation and society. In his epic poem, " Paanchaali Sabatam", the great Tamil patriot-poet, Mahakavi Subramania Bharati presented allegorically Bharatamata as Draupadi who was dragged to the court of Kauravas, the Britishers, and humiliated, when her own husbands and the great Acharyas like Bhishma and Drona, the warriors and elders of the country, stood like " pettai marangal"—"dead wood". In the present predicament of the country, our Hindu leaders and Dharma Acharyas, though they are in no way comparable to the epic heroes, are also exactly like dead wood. The salvation of Hindus is possible only when sadhus and sannyasins, peethaadheeswars and mahamandaleswars renounce their attachment to name, fame, sampradaya, mutt and mission and give up mutual jealousy and hatred and come out of their narrow shells to serve the entire Hindu society and nation, sitting side by side on one platform and going into the remote villages, slums and tribal areas to give light and guidance to the poor and downtrodden. As long as the Hindu society is confined to narrow shells and remains as a conglomeration of diametrically opposed and warring sects, castes and creeds, there is no hope for the Hindu nation.