Relative And Absolute Religion (continued from part1)

The Akram Vijñān Mārg presents itself as the very opposite of organised religion. It is, in the words of A. M. Paṭel, not a cult but a method to directly experience the ultimate truth. Anyone, whether Hindu, Jain, Muslim or Christian, is therefore invited to follow the stepless path and to realise that all living beings are essentially pure souls:

All religions of the world are correct by their own view point. But the religion which investigates, 'Who am I?' and 'Who is the doer?' is the final path. The absolute religion is the one that gives us the one and final understanding of 'Who is the knower and the seer?'".¹¹¹

The acceptance of the doctrines of all religions as partially but not absolutely true is informed, on the one hand, by the Jain distinction between the practical point of view (vyavahāra naya) and the transcendental point of view (niścaya naya) and, on the other hand, by the Jain doctrine of qualified assertion (syādvāda) which is predicated on the belief in the omniscience of the Jaina tīrthaṅkaras and of permanently self-realised beings such as the Dādā, who alone are able to see the absolute truth, while unenlightened beings or members of organised religions such as Jainism have to remain satisfied with the manifest plurality of partial truths:¹¹²

All these religions are true but they are relative religions. They are religions based on different view points. But if you want totality, you'll have to be in the centre. True (Real) religion is at the centre which includes all aspects of reality, integrates all fragments of reality. That is the religion of the soul (Atmadharma) for it leads to self-realisation. He, who sits at the centre, comprehends the view points of all and hence he has no cause for quarrel with any religion. That is why 'we' say that 'we' are 'Mahaveer' of the Jains, 'Krishna' of the Vaishnavas, 'Sahajanand' of the Swaminarayans, 'Christ' of the Christians, 'Zarathustra' of the Parsis and 'Allah (Khuda)' of the Muslims. Ask anything you love and it shall be given (A. M. Paṭel, in Shah 1983: 9f.).¹¹³

Of course only few, if any, Muslims or Christians etc. accept this argument which may, on the contrary, be perceived as a hegemonic device. But many Jains and Vaiṣṇava and Śaivaite Hindus, particularly those who live outside India, are currently attracted by the individualist and universal trans-sectarian message.

Before A. M. Paṭel, a similar message was preached by his Gujarātī compatriot Śrīmat Rājacandra whose philosophy was somewhat closer to classical Jain ontology, and to the concept of the path purification through acts of asceticism and renunciation, but also influenced by Vaiṣṇava bhakti movements going back to the Bhagavadgīta.¹¹⁴ It is evidently not the hierarchical idiom of purity and pollution but the individualistic, egalitarian spirit of bhakti which colours many forms of religious expression in Western India and the Indian diaspora today. These devotional movements can not be easily accommodated within conventional models of Indian religion and culture, neither within 'orthodox Brāhmaṇism' or so-called 'popular Hinduism', nor within 'heterodox Jainism', since both the path of grace (bhaktimārga) and the path of knowledge (jñānamārga), as advocated by the Akram Vjñān movement, is invariably characterised by its adherents as superior to the traditional paths of merit (puṇyamārga) and of asceticism (taptamārga), etc., which are explicitly rejected.¹¹⁵

Almost all Jain and Non-Jain devotional movements developed institutions, which betray their characteristic ideological rejection of organised religion - in particular lineages of charismatically qualified virtuosi and initiation rituals. These features are typical for routinised forms of charismatic religion, as outlined by Max Weber. The principal organisational features of the Akram Vijñān Mārg, the officially denied guru-śiṣya relationship and the egalitarian cultic milieu, are in this form not present in the typical dualistic organisation of the mainstream 'fourfold' Jain sect, the caturvidha saṅgha, as analyzed by Weber (1951: 196) and Dumont (1980: 186), whose definition of 'the Indian sect' as "a religious grouping constituted primarily by renouncers" proves insufficient in this respect.¹¹⁶ Not only bows the individual follower of the Akram Vijñān Mārg to his own pure soul, and to the knower, but the knower also bows to the mahātmās. Although Dādā Bhagavān was recognised as a spiritually superior, A. M. Paṭel himself and his successors Nīrubahen and Kanubhāī are regarded as human beings of equal status. Yet, despite the outwardly egalitarianism, no detailed religious instruction on the pāñc ājñā is imparted by Nīrubahen to anyone who has not performed the jñān vidhi, and she also creates a strong sense that it is only by her grace - as the medium of the Dādā and Sīmandhar - that the initiation is given, as it were, as a personal favour.

In this respect, many similarities exist to the practices of the Vaiṣṇava Puṣṭimārga and other Vaiṣṇava and Śaiva devotional movements. In his exemplary study of the religious practices of the Puṣṭimārg, Peter Bennett (1993: 35), for instance,¹¹⁷also highlighted that the mantra of initiation is the "lifeblood" of the segmentary lineage structure of the Puṣṭimārg, and that "the Maharaja [guru] is at liberty to refuse a request for initiation, though I heard of no specific instances of this kind".¹¹⁸ Moreover, the purification of the self through the formal dedication of all possessions to Kṛṣṇa¹¹⁹ and the emphasis on his grace (as opposed to karman and jñāna in early Vaiṣṇavism), is one of the principal components of the śuddhādvaita Puṣṭimārgī initiation, the brahma sambandha, which shares many features with the initiation of the Akram Vijñān movement, amongst others.

The attitude of devotion and surrender expected by the devotee is the same in both traditions, although the Akram Vijñān Mārg does not propagate the worship of a transcendent God, but the veneration of one's own pure self through the mediation of Dādā-Sīmandhar as a quasi-personal God. Like the Puṣṭimārg mahārājās,¹²⁰ both the ātmajñānīs and the āptaputras visit family homes, which are thereby turned into temporary temples (ghārasevā), where they sit on an improvised throne (gaḍḍi), are garlanded and venerated through toe worship, and the āptaputras even receive gifts of money in return for their religious instruction and, sometimes, for the consecration of small house shrines (which a jñānī never does). However, in contrast to the Puṣṭimārgīs, the leftover food of the ātmajñānīs and āptaputras are not regarded as prasāda or āhāra amṛta, since the religious virtuosi of the Akram Vijñān Mārg eat together with their hosts.¹²¹ The communication between the godlike jñānī and the mahātmās are characterised by great intimacy - hugging, for instance, is quite common - and couched in a discourse of love and transcendental unity, which is usually not found in Jainism, but in the Vaiṣṇava and the Śaiva Siddhānta traditions.¹²² In fact, the accessibility of the religious functionaries and the closeness between them and their followers is one on the most attractive feature of the cult for its devotees, which, like the Puṣṭimārg, makes no caste distinctions, and rejects brāhmaṇic discourses of purity and pollution¹²³ in favour of a purely spiritual experience of the pure soul. These attributes are also manifest in the ritual offerings of both movements.¹²⁴ Yet, in contrast to the Puṣṭimārgī, the followers of the Akram Vijñān path do not perform elaborate material pūjās, but only āratī to the images of Sīmandhar Svāmī, Kṛṣṇa and Śiva and to the photograph of Dādā Bhagavān in their temples. The also do not display the same concern about food at all,¹²⁵ nor about charity,¹²⁶ or asceticism, which are all perceived as mere preoccupations of relative religion.

"Who Am I?"

The question how the Akram Vijñān Mārg as an organised religious movement succeeds in transcending reified Jain, Vaiṣṇava and Śaiva etc. identities seems to lie in a particular variant of the proverbial dance (nāṭaka) of the mind which serves as a metaphor for the relationship of the dancer prakṛti and the spectator puruṣa in the Sāṁkhya inspired religious movements.¹²⁷ Because the inner self of the devotee and of the jñānī, the self-realised God, are essentially identical in the Akram Vijñān doctrine, paradoxical shifting identities are created:

Basically, you should play two different roles. With your external eyes you see by relative view-point and with your internal eyes you are the soul (pure-self). ... We should also remember that we too are playing two roles; the human being and the soul".¹²⁸

The question of how the alternating of perspectives is practiced by the mahātmās who, at best, can only temporarily realise their pure self, can be answered through a comparison of the phenomenology of religious experience of the Puṣṭimārgīs, for instance, and of the Akram Vijñān Mārg. Bennett observed that the initiation into the Puṣṭimārg resembles a consecration (prāṇa-pratiṣṭhā) of a statue, because in both cases the guru makes the identity of the divine qualities of both the image (mūrti) and the real nature or svarūpa of the soul of the devotee manifest.¹²⁹ The word svarūpa is similarly used by the Akram Vijñān to describe the manifestation of Sīmandhar-Dādā's real form, as opposed to his outward appearance or figurative representation, in the inner experience (bhāva) of the mahātmā who is contemplating the Dādā by means of songs, darśan or pūjā to an image of Sīmandhar or the Dādā, the pure soul (śuddhātmā) is ideally felt as being actually present. There are no rules for the performance of darśan by an initiated mahātmā, since the knowledge and the devotional attitude towards the pure self alone is crucial for the realisation of the God within through the medium of an image, be it a statue, a photograph, or a living manifestation, such as the Dādā himself, and his words:¹³⁰

These our mahatmas can perceive the god residing in you and have 'his' darshana, because 'we' have blessed them with divine eyes (divya chakshu). These eyes of yours are physical ones which can see only transient things. The indestructible Bhagavan can be perceived with divine eyes only. ... But (this) wonderful Gnana (knowledge) is naturally revealed. It is a natural adjustment and therefore divine eyes are so effortlessly available in an hour. This, our word, your soul must accept because I am seated within you; but you must not be intransigent. We do not find any difference either in you or in us."¹³¹

The presence of Kṛṣṇa is experienced by the Puṣṭimārgīs as a momentary revelation in form of a sudden and brief change of consciousness, called sākṣāta darśana, or face-to-face vision.¹³² Similarly, through the vision and voice of Dādā-Sīmandhar, the mahātmās suddenly temporarily realise the presence of their own pure soul, which is also characterised by the word saccidānanda, or truth, consciousness and bliss, which is used by Vaiṣṇavas to designate Viṣṇu and by the Śaivaites to designate Śiva, who are identified with the ultimate self-existing spirit (brahma).¹³³ Sīmandhar Svāmī, like Kṛṣṇa amongst the Puṣṭimārgī, "is both mediated by and manifested in the figure of the guru".¹³⁴ Although the soul of the worshipper is conceived in Jain terms as an individual entity and not as a reflection of the one and only soul of God, during the veneration of the Dādā in the experience of the worshipper the soul of Dādā-Sīmandhar and his/ her own soul almost unnoticeable tend to merge into one. Momentarily, at least, all souls seem to be an integral part of Sīmandhar Svāmī and the Dādā as his medium, in the same way as Kṛṣṇa is worshipped by the Puṣṭimārgīs and Śiva by the Śaiva Siddhāntins as the only real self.¹³⁵

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