Sanatan Dharma - Sunny Narang

I keep telling people that the creative spiritual traditions of this bhoomi flower in every single generation .

And there is a very varied menu of options from bhakti to gyan to karma to yoga to various syncretic innovations combining whatever is available as a language and influence at that time .

We here have never been fearful of adapting, adopting new ways of telling the same story and experience .

 

The problem is always the new entrant , invader seems to be totally mind-boggled by the diversity and wants to simplify, simplify , simplify .

Including those from the Indic traditions who become totally colonised in their imagination and being .

Just in late 19th and 20th century there have been Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (18 February 1836 – 16 August 1886) , Ramana Maharshi (30 December 1879 – 14 April 1950) , Paramahansa Yogananda (5 January 1893 – 7 March 1952), Vivekananda (12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), Aurobindo Ghose (15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950 ), Jiddu Krishnamurti (12 May 1895 – 17 February 1986) and I can go on and on , obviously including absolutely disruptive masters like Osho aka Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain, 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990).

And yes the most popular Baba in India now Sai Baba of Shirdi who died in 1918 , and could have been born sometime in mid 19th century or before .

And the tradition is called Sanatan , precisely because of this .

For there was no known beginning, and there will be no known end.

Anyways now the new ones travel across the oceans and those across the oceans come here .

Now the Sanatan Experience is Planetary .

We here believe it was always Cosmic , so just the Planet Earth is a bit tiny, for us to be satisfied with it ;-)

And pre the attack of Babur in 1526 , there was already an amazing efflorescence of new spiritual movements and synthesis led by great spiritual preceptors and leaders like Kabir, Guru Nanak , Meera and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu .

Guru Nanak (1469 – 1539) was the founder of Sikhism and the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. Guru Nanak's words are registered in the form of 974 poetic hymns in the holy text of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib, with some of the major prayers being the Japji Sahib, the Asa di Var and the Sidh-Ghost. It is part of Sikh religious belief that the spirit of Guru Nanak's sanctity, divinity and religious authority descended upon each of the nine subsequent Gurus when the Guruship was devolved on to them.

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (18 February 1486 – 14 June 1534) was a spiritual leader who founded Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Chaitanya was the proponent for the Vaishnava school of Bhakti yoga (meaning loving devotion to God), based on Bhagavata Purana and Bhagavad Gita.

Meera, also known as Meera Bai or Mirabai ( 1498-1546) , Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She is a celebrated Bhakti saint, particularly in the North Indian Hindu tradition.

The years of Kabir's birth and death are unclear.

Some historians favor 1398–1448 as the period Kabir lived, while others favor 1440–1518.

Kabir was a 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint, whose writings influenced Hinduism's Bhakti movement and his verses are found in Sikhism's scripture Adi Granth.

His early life was in a Muslim family, but he was strongly influenced by his teacher, the Hindu bhakti leader Ramananda.