Zahar: the Last Mughal Emperor

I'm very much enjoying William Darymple's "The Last Mughal" and today I read a passage that resonated with me. Zahar was the last Mughal emperor and he was fond of writing Sufi poetry:

Zafar’s poetry, however, existed on a higher plane than this. Like much verse of the period, it was deeply imbued with the Sufi ideals of love, which were regarded as much the surest route to a God who was seen to be located not in the heavens but deep within the human heart. For if the world of the heart lay at the centre of Sufism, it also formed the cornerstone of the principal literary form in late Mughal Delhi—the ghazal, which derived its name from the Arabic words “talking to a woman about love. The love of the ghazal poet was ambiguous—it was rarely made entirely clear whether it was sacred or worldly love to which the poet referred. This ambiguity was deliberate, for just as the longing of the soul for union with God was believed to be as compelling and as all-embracing as the longing of the lover for the beloved, both loves could be carried to the point of insanity or what Sufis called fana—self-annihilation and immersion in the beloved. In the eyes of the Sufi poets, this search for the God within liberated the seeker from the restrictions of narrowly orthodox Islam, encouraging the devotee to look beyond the letter of the law to its mystical essence.

Later Darymple writes that:

This was an attitude to Hinduism that Zafar—and many of his Mughal forebears—shared. It is clear that Zafar consciously saw his role as a protector of his Hindu subjects, and a moderator of extreme Muslim demands and the chilling Puritanism of many of the ‘ulama. One of Zafar’s verses says explicitly that Hinduism and Islam “share the same essence,” and his court lived out this syncretic philosophy, and both celebrated and embodied this composite Hindu-Muslim Indo-Islamic civilisation, at every level. The Hindu elite of Delhi went to the Sufi shrine of Nizamuddin, could quote Hafiz and were fond of Persian poetry. Their children—especially those of the administrative Khattri and Kayasth castes—studied under maulvis and attended the more liberal madrasas, bringing offerings of food for their teachers on Hindu festivals. For their part, Muslims followed the Emperor in showing honour to Hindu holy men, while many in the court, including Zafar himself, followed the old Mughal custom, borrowed from upper-caste Hindus, of drinking only Ganges water. Zafar’s extensive team of Hindu astrologers rarely left his side. 

It was very interesting to read of this tolerance at the time between the Hindus and Moslems as well as between the Shia and Sunni sects. The author has himself lived in Delhi for the past twenty years but holidays in England during the summer months. I'm looking forward to reading more about India in his other books.

Dalrymple's overview of the consequences of the sepoy rebellion is quite insightful:

There was nothing inevitable about the demise and extinction of the Mughals, as the sepoys’ dramatic surge towards the court of Delhi showed. But in the years to come, as Muslim prestige and learning sank, and Hindu confidence, wealth, education and power increased, Hindus and Muslims would grow gradually apart, as British policies of divide and rule found willing collaborators among the chauvinists of both faiths. The rip in the closely woven fabric of Delhi’s composite culture, opened in 1857, slowly widened into a great gash, and at Partition in 1947 finally broke in two. As the Indian Muslim elite emigrated en masse to Pakistan, the time would soon come when it would be almost impossible to imagine that Hindu sepoys could ever have rallied to the Red Fort and the standard of a Muslim emperor, joining with their Muslim brothers in an attempt to revive the Mughal Empire.

Of course, the events of 1857 also led to the formal dissolution of the British East India Company and its being taken over by the British Government. 

The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit

My posts are less frequent now that this blog has become mainly a vehicle for whatever spiritual observations I might make. It's far easier to post to my Mathematics or Alternative News blogs. Writing about spiritual matters is less easy. However, having recently finished E. Michael Jones's "The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and its Effect on World History", I think it's time to put some of my reflections down in writing.

Jones wrote his book from a Catholic perspective because that's the religion that he follows. However, I firmly rejected Catholicism when I was in high school, in Grade 11. The belief in Christ's resurrection from the dead, his virgin birth, his ascension into heaven and the like suddenly seemed like ridiculous fantasies. In 1965, I embraced atheism and remained an atheist until early 1973 until I reconnected with Theosophy and eastern mysticism. Labelling myself an atheist is perhaps too strong a word as it seems to connect me to card-carrying atheists like Richard Dawkins who proselytise with religious fervour. During my time at University I'd read books about Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen and so on but spiritually there was no connection with the content. I was processing what I was reading at an intellectual level.

Figure 1: St Theresa of Avila

From 1973 to 1993, I certainly believed in planes of consciousness beyond the physical and by implication God as the pinnacle of consciousness and a goal toward which myself and the lifestream were ascending. Fortunately, I came to the light of Meher Baba is 1993 and it all became clear or at least clearer. However, I was never hostile to Catholicism, at least not the same way that the Jews had been. I had no time for the hierarchy of the Church but great respect for some of its saints such as St. Francis of Assisi, St. John of the Cross and Saint Theresa of Avila. To quote from pages 1271 and 1272 of the Online Edition of Lord Meher: 

Desmond then asked, "Are there any true saints and holy priests in Christianity?" 

"There were saints," Baba answered, "but the Christian priests are the same type as those priests in every other religion throughout the world. Out of selfishness, priests create and propagate their own customs, tenets and practices, thereby crippling religion. All these rites, rituals and ceremonies are the dry husk of the corn." 

It seems in a sense that the Jews are God's chosen people because they seem to be the ones who are the most ready to attack hierarchies that they perceive to be oppressive such as the Catholic Church around the time of the Reformation. The alternatives, such as Protestantism in the case of the Church, that they champion however, turn out to be little better than what they replace. In the case of Communism, championed as an alternative to the rich-poor divide, the results were far worse. As Jones say in his book, the atheistic Jews like Marx were the most dangerous of all because, having abandoned belief in the coming of their Messiah, they believed political ideologies, like Communism, could act as a replacement messiah and save the world. 

Figure 2: Christian Zionists

Of course, no political system or organisation will solve the world's problems because it will be run by human beings who are firmly in the grip of their egos. Catholics like E. Michael Jones are hoping that disillusionment with humanity's descent into moral chaos will lead to a resurgence of faith that will fill the now largely empty churches. I don't think that's likely. 

Catholicism seems to have dealt a mortal blow with the pedophilia revelations that keep being trumpeted gleefully by the mainstream media. Protestantism is fragmented and even linked to Messianic Judaism in the case of the Christian Zionists. Buddhism is halfway between a religion and a philosophy and there are certainly aspects of it that can be useful to a humanity that is striving to find its moral compass again. Islam remains a powerful religious force but the long-standing Shia/Sunni split is being exploited successfully by its enemies to set the one against the other. Additionally and unfortunately, the majority Sunni variant is currently going through a phase whereby it is very focused on the extrinsic (outer rituals) as opposed to an intrinsic (Sufi) orientation. As such it is an unlikely candidate to carry the flame of spirituality further into the twenty-first century.

Israel is fearful of Sunni Islam, surrounded as it is so many of its adherents, and will do everything necessary to undermine and weaken it. The last thing that it wants is to find itself opposed to the North, West and South by a Caliphate. Despite the Israeli rhetoric about how dangerous Iran is, I suspect that all is not as it seems. My feeling is that the two countries have a secret agreement whereby some engineered conflict will lead to an Iranian  invasion of Saudi Arabia and an Israel intervention. The result will be an expansion of both countries borders and many Sunni Moslems will suddenly find themselves in Shia or Israeli controlled territory. 

Figure 3: Greater Israel

On a different but related note, Israel's increasingly close ties to India (and thus Hinduism) may be part of longer term strategy. India is purchasing large amounts of Israeli military technology and the tension between Pakistan and India is perennial. Given Israeli technological prowess and the backdoors that have built into the software and hardware that they sell, it would be easy for its hackers to trigger an Indian missile launch that might lead to all out war, perhaps involving nuclear weapons. This might seriously weaken both countries and lead to a refugee crisis of staggering proportions. Israel remains far enough away so as to not be affected by fallout or refugees. Zionists have no love of Hinduism, nor any religion, that might pose an obstacle to their plans for global hegemony. Refugee crises are an ideal way of diffusing a native population and diluting the populations into which they are forced to assimilate. 

I don't think that Israel will succeed in its plans for global hegemony. Historically, the Jewish Elite has always overplayed its hand and the rank and file Jews have payed dearly for it. This time around, I don't think it will any different. Jewish disillusionment with their leadership and disillusionment with messianic fantasies will encourage the majority to finally join the mainstream of humanity. Out of the turmoil of Hindus versus Sunni Moslems and Sunni Moslems versus Shia Moslems, a general disillusionment with religion (already well underway in Western countries) as a source of division will develop and deepen. The West will already have reached its spiritual nadir and looking for a way back up to the light. That's when I think that Meher Baba's teachings will begin to appeal to a bewildered humanity in search of spiritual guidance. His acceptance of all religions and his emphasis on the inner experience of the intrinsic truths of a religion rather than adherence to its outer rituals will be key. Jai Baba!

Figure 4: Mastery in Servitude