Of ‘Two Saints’ and ‘Pseudo-Religion’: Arun Shourie to The Quint

On Arun Shourie’s birthday, throwback to an interview with the economist on his book, ‘Two Saints.

“At the book launch, my son Aditya put his hand on the The Dalai Lama’s head as if to bless Him,” Arun Shourie smiles at the memory created just a day earlier at the release of his latest book, Two Saints.

Seated in his book-lined study in Delhi’s West End, the prolific author speaks to The Quint about his fascination with Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi, to what extent neuroscience can explain the visions they experienced 200 years ago, and what do these visions have in common with explorers and mountaineers.

Your 27th book is a departure from your usual subjects – government, politics and law. What was the genesis of the idea for ‘Two Saints’?

Both Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi have been the great mystics of India of the last 200 years. I became fascinated with them after I started studying about them for the previous book. That’s where ‘Two Saints’ came from. I feel we look for a supernatural reason behind everything, but we should see how far a natural explanation can take us before we latch onto a supernatural explanation.

I then studied almost everything written about the two in English. I don’t know other languages. So I looked for either descriptions by the saints themselves of the experiences they’ve had, or of those who were close to them, writing diaries or letters to their brothers – you know, the records of that time.

From what I learned, I followed two methods. One, does this experience occur in other circumstances? Two, does it occur when, for instance, the skull is opened up for a surgery for epilepsy?

What happens is that the surgeon will decide he needs focus on the temporal lobe. He has to disconnect this focal point from other parts of the brain so that the epilepsy originating at this point does not spread across the brain. For that, they take an electrode and press a point in the brain and ask you what you are feeling. Because the brain does not have pain sensors in itself, you’re conscious. Your skull has been taken away and the doctors are working.

A great surgeon called Benfield in Canada used to get a stenographer to record what the patients felt. He may feel that somebody else has come into the room; he’s talking to his friend in Johannesburg; he’s feeling that he’s being lifted out of his body and says “can’t you please put me back into my body?”

So these records became very important in mapping parts of the brain to see what functions they perform and what experiences can be triggered if you stimulate them.

The question that arose first was – what circumstances trigger such experiences (that I’ve explained with examples)? Second, if such experiences can be triggered by stimulating points in the brain, is it possible that Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi altered their brain to stimulate those points and experience those things via the long periods of unimaginable austerities and immersion that they put themselves through?

For instance, Ramkrishna Paramahamsa would say that when he sat down for meditation, a person who looked just like him would come out of his body. This person would sit in front of him and guide him for the many hours that Ramkrishna would stay in that state. And when that period was over, this person would go back into the body.

Now, this phenomenon is well documented and is well-known among explorers who try to cross the Atlantic alone. It’s familiar to mountaineers who face life and death situations, especially above 26,000 ft.

So what is the corresponding factor? The expression is the same – somebody is here who’s guiding me. The supernatural explanation is ‘This is Jesus’. Sri Ramkrishna always felt that this was Krishna; sometimes he felt it was Radha, or Mother Durga rising from the Ganges and walking towards him. It was the sensed presence. So the book looks at the symptoms and asks these two questions.

How much of a challenge was it to delve into all the research on neuroscience?

It was a tremendous challenge. Even today, I fumble over the Latin words used to describe the parts of the brain. Because there is a common saying in neurology that the brain is the most complex structure in the known universe. And while it is true that parts of the brain specialise in different functions, in truth it is not just happening there, it’s happening across many connections in the brain.

It is very difficult to understand the brain and it took me two years of effort, which I need not have put in because in the end, my notes came up to about 5,000 pages. This is why I left out a large part of the description that I’d been able to put together as a student of the brain, and crunched it to only five or six points in the book.

What was it that drew you towards Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi?

Well they are the great mystics. They influenced the course of our country in ways that people like us just don’t know about.

If you read the letters of Max Mueller, there are four volumes. Now in one of the letters, he says, “Ah! We have found the key to Christianise India.” And the key, according to him, was the Brahmo Samaj, in which the missionaries reposed great hope as the intermediate station for the Hindus of Bengal to become Christians. They had their hopes, in particular, on Keshav Chandra Sen, who was heading the Brahmo Samaj then.

At the time, Bengal had been swept off its feet and had internalised the notion that our beliefs and practices are primitive, and that the religion of the conqueror was the great religion.

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a simple, illiterate priest in a temple, reversed that by the virtue of his goodness and insight, his purity and mystic attainment. They were relying on Keshav Chandra Sen to convert Indians, but he was a devotee of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.

Similarly, in the case of Ramana Maharshi, if anyone in Gandhiji’s circle was in distress, he would tell them to go spend a month in Raman ashram. So you can see their direct and indirect influence. In Ramakrishna’s case, he identified Vivekananda and a small group of youngsters who then formed the Ramakrishna Mission which took the teachings of the Veda all over the world. So these were contributions to the making of India.

Gandhiji wrote the foreword for Ramakrishna’s biography, written by Swami Nikhilananda, and there were very few books for which Gandhiji would write the foreword. In it, he writes that those who saw Ramakrishna, saw what it was like to live face to face with God. He said that it was religion in practice and that you could understand the real meaning of a religious man if you saw Ramakrishna. What a great tribute that is. We should remember these people.

The Dalai Lama released ‘Two Saints’ and, in an interview to a newspaper in the course of writing the book, you said that if India needed to study spirituality and mysticism, we needn’t look beyond the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama has been saying that all experiences and truths that are described in the ancient scriptures must be made to face facts. He says that if there is a new discovery that contradicts something that we regard as scripture, then we should discard that part of the scripture. He often quotes the Buddha himself, saying, “Do not believe what I say because I say it. Do not believe it because it is written in a book you regard as ancient. Put it to the anvil of your own experience.” And his last words were not, “Oh pray for me or pray to me salvation.” No. They were, “Work out your own salvation with diligence.”

Hinduism also must face facts. Here are many types of experiences described by people who have lived great lives, but what was the real miracle of their lives? Jaadu tona tha?  Was it being in two places at the same time? Was it an appearance after death, or their visions? These are things that we look upon as marks of divinity.

There is actually a simple, logical, physiological explanation for all of these things. But there isn’t one for that peak mystic experience. So that’s the spirit of the book. In that sense, it is a book that follows the Dalai Lama’s instruction on the matter.

What relevance do your findings hold in today’s socio-political scenario?

I’m not fond of organised religions. First, we must differentiate between organised religions and what lies under, or flies above them – that is, the spiritual tradition in those religions.

Now its very interesting that in Indic religions, the mystics were greatly honoured. Their word is conclusive. “Arrey vo kehte hain ki ye cheez hai, therefore it must be true.” In Judaism, yes there is a tradition of mysticism. In Christianity, it’s a marginal thing like the Desert Fathers, the original Mother Teresa, Saint Francis – it is a marginal tradition. In Islam, it is a beleaguered tradition, the Sufis were set upon by the rest of the organised religion. In India, it was the opposite. And what is happening now is that today’s religion has almost, or rather nothing, to do with spirituality.

These gurus you see on television, they’re running pharmaceutical empires, real estate empires, getting a lot of money from corporates – what has that got to do with religion?

Sri Ramakrishna could not touch money. Incidents have been described, like the time when some boys put a coin under his bed. He jumped out of bed as though he had been electrocuted. That was his disdain for money. Today, look at the way people are made to bow before these characters.

In Ramakrishna’s case, the devotees describe a time when he had long hair. He would use his hair as a brush to clean the toilets used by the pilgrims. Aur ye janaab, rangeen clothes hain, Cadillac hai, my retreat is better than your retreat. What has that got to do with spirituality? That is one point of relevance.

The second point of relevance is that as long as our search remains directed inwards, to that extent, we will be one. Because on that road, everybody is one. But if we focus on externals – aapka pajama ankles ke upar hai ke neeche; do you keep a mustache or a beard; do you keep the beard and shave the mustache; is your holiday Friday or Sunday; do you dye your hair black or red – these externals will divide us and set us on each other’s throats.

Therefore, what is happening today in the name of religion has absolutely nothing to do with our religion. It is a pretext, a political use of religion. That’s why when people condemn pseudo-secularism, I used to write about it. Now, this is pseudo-religion. It is religion being made into an instrument of domination, of bullying, of gunda gardi. So the relevance of this book, is the essence of searching inwards. Engage yourself with that. That’s where you will find commonality.

Two Saints: Speculations Around and About Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi
By Arun Shourie
Harper Collins Publishers India
480 Pages
Rs 699

(This story was first published on 29 May 2017 and is being reposted from The Quint’s archives to mark Arun Shourie’s birthday)