Today is the 168th Birth Anniversary of Narayana Guru, the great saint, visionary and social reformer who brought out a thorough transformation through his progressive and revolutionary teachings. Guru was the second “Advaithi” that the God’s Own Country gave birth to after Sree Shankaracharya, in 1856, when Kerala was at its peak of caste-based discrimination and untouchability. Swami Vivekananda called Kerala a Lunatic asylum witnessing the untouchability between the various castes in Hindu religion. Many people started converting into other faiths, especially like Christianity to save themselves from the discrimination. Guru reformed this society through reforming Hindu religion. During his time the Hindu religion and community were undergoing huge challenges in South India, especially in Kerala due to the extreme caste system, wrong practices in the religion and to amount to it, due the influence of English East India Company, Christianity was spreading. Guru took a bold stand against these wrong practices in Hindu religion. He spread the values of Sanatana Dharma through his simple language which was more familiar to the common people, in turn, purifying the people and society.
His Great teaching of “Whatever be the religion, it is enough if man becomes virtuous” was mainly to prevent the mass religious conversion of Hindus to Christianity which had become prevalent in South India at the time. Through this teaching he enlightened society that religion is not the problem, the attitude and approach of the people is more important. His emphasis was always on man striving for a better society. He brought The full essence of The Upanishads into a ten verses of the universal prayer called “Daiva Dashakam”. Guru consecrated 38 temples across south India, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka states. These temples consecrated deities like Lord Shiva, Devi Sharada (Saraswathi), Subramanya idols, even mirrors and holy light. These temples didn’t discriminate among people and were open to all castes.
Guru advocated a Sanatana Dharma based social engineering to Kerala society. For the comprehensive growth of society he advocated the eight fold path which progressed Kerala from “Lunatic asylum” back to “God’s own country”. These paths were of Education, Cleanliness, Bhakthi(Piety), Organisation (Sanghatan), Agriculture, Trade, Handicrafts and Science & Technology with its training. We have witnessed how this “Eight Fold Path of Social Engineering” has progressed India in the last 7 years under the effective implementation of PM Narendra Modi. To build toilets as an emphasis on Sanitation, being Vocal for Local for Handicrafts and trade friendly policies and treaties, the launch of new Aircraft carriers made in India showing our technological prowess, the Guru’s Mantra of development has proved its effectiveness in nation building, evident from the recent upgradation of India’s position in to 5th largest Economy in the world.
Guru was a Scholar in Sanskrit, Malayalam and Tamil and he wrote 45 different literary works put together in these three languages. Each of his spiritual successors tried to guide the people to realise the supreme truth in there own way. Even though the teachings looks very simple, they were difficult to practice in real life. Surprisingly, many could not understand the meaning and reliability of Gurus teachings. So far not much literary study has been conducted on these works in an organised way by any educational institutions or research organisations.
In this era of religious Intolerance and when the world is under the threat of extremists and terrorists, Narayana Guru’s messages of ONE WORLD CONCEPT has paramount importance. Guru’s teaching of equality and ONE CAST, ONE RELIGION, ONE GOD FOR MAN KIND is to bring peace. It is a necessity for his teachings to be mentioned in the curriculum of Schools up to higher education. This step is very important to bring true COMMUNAL HARMONY, in our nation where unity in diversity is our strength.
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