Dear Udhayanidhi Stalin,
I must confess I didn’t know much about you before the Sanatana Dharma controversy broke out. For me, you were just the son of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin. But after the uproar over your statement declaring that Sanatana Dharma must be exterminated like mosquitoes, dengue, malaria and corona, I have discovered more about you — that you are no ordinary man, you are a successful film producer, actor in Tamil films and even a minister in your father’s cabinet, and inheritor of vast wealth and power of your family.
In your infinite wisdom, please help us understand a few things. Today, nearly 177 countries signed up for International Yoga Day and 2 billion people practice yoga across the world (as per UN). Yoga is an integral part of Sanatana Dharma. If Sanatana Dharma divides people, how come nearly one-fourth of the population in the world practice yoga? In fact, Christians in the West rejected Church warnings that yoga is satanic. In the United States alone, where I live, about 10 per cent of the population practices yoga regularly. In the YMCA very close to my home, where people go for fitness classes, almost all non-Hindu members start and end their yoga practice with ‘OM’ and Namaste. Almost every other class they offer is related to yoga and meditation. They even had a ‘Yoga Day’ a few years ago that included bhajans. Perhaps, you should educate them on the true face of Sanatana Dharma. These people need to be enlightened by your wisdom.
Let us dig a little more. I am sure you have heard of the late Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, who is considered the greatest inventor of the last century. Steve Jobs’ biographer wrote how Autobiography of a Yogi is his most revered book which he had to read at least once a year to be motivated and inspired. He carried it on his iPad until his last moments. Not only that, before he died of cancer, he had arranged to buy 500 copies of the book and be given as a special gift with a personal message to every single top executive of many multi-billion dollar companies who would attend his funeral. Too bad he did not have the opportunity to learn from your wisdom on the ‘evils’ of Sanatana Dharma.
Perhaps you could have enlightened J Robert Oppenheimer and many quantum physicists such as Heisenberg, Bohr and Schrodinger, all winners of the Nobel Prize in Quantum Physics who carried the book of Vedanta or Bhagavad Gita in one hand and physics in the other, that how ‘evil’ Sanatana Dharma is. In fact, Oppenheimer, who led the famous Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bomb, spontaneously chanted the verses from the 11th chapter of Gita when he saw the massive ball of fire after the bomb exploded in the New Mexican desert to test it. This poor man spent so much time of his life learning Sanskrit and attributed his deep insights to the Gita and the teachings of Sanatana Dharma. What an opportunity they have lost not to learn from you that what they followed is ‘evil’ and instead of exterminating it, they were caught up in this ‘evil’.
Maybe not all is lost. CERN institute near Geneva, where the topmost scientists in the world are today, with 23 member states, building the most sophisticated and advanced collider has an imposing statue of Nataraja, the lord of dance of the universe, right on its premises. Can you imagine, such an institute doing the most advanced research placing one of the most revered symbols of the followers of this ‘evil’ Sanatana Dharma as a statue in their midst? How bad an influence it will have on their minds?
Even more, today, 14 top German universities are teaching Sanskrit and European universities are not able to keep up with the demand. How can this be possible? Why is the world not grasping what you grasped, that they are hungering to learn an ‘evil’ language of an ‘evil’ religion ‘Sanatana Dharma’?
As I write this, I am reflecting on how the world missed a messiah like you who could have made immense contributions with your wisdom. Can you imagine how the late Joseph Campbell, who is the most well-known mythologist of the last century and who inspired the famous Star Wars series, expresses Sanatana Dharma in the widely popular ‘Power of Myth’ series? This multi-part series was in fact filmed in the home of George Lucas who produced the Star Wars series. This poor man cannot even find words to express the profundity of this ‘evil’ Sanatana Dharma, though his interviewer wanted him to talk about Christianity. He must have also led the ‘evil’ path starting as a university student when he quit the university because it did not offer Sanskrit. All his life he was a great follower of Upanishads.
You must have certainly heard of Carl Sagan, the well-known astrophysicist who created the Cosmos series, saying the secrets of the universe are hidden in the Hindu scriptures. This series was seen by 50 crore people in 60 different countries! He praised the Nasadiya Suktam, the seven ‘hymns of creation’ in Rig Veda as the most sophisticated analysis of the origin of the universe, at the boundaries of what an analytical human mind can be ever capable of. These people must be ignorant fools not to realise the wisdom you have that Sanatana Dharma is really an ‘evil’ that needs to be urgently exterminated, like dengue, mosquitoes, malaria and corona!
After I heard from you, I came to realise how appalling the situation has become that the most followed spiritual teachers of the Christian world today, such as Eckhart Tolle, Mike Singer, Wayne Dyer, Stephen Wolpert (Ram Dass) and many others who have hundreds of millions of followers in the Christian world, all across the globe, are also deep believers of Hinduism and Buddhism teachings. They are bypassing the Church to explain Jesus’ teachings based on the teachings of Krishna and Buddha.
When Oprah Winfrey had a show with Echart Tolle, 3.5 crore followers across the world watched or downloaded it. His books are translated into 33 languages across the world and they are bestsellers. There is even an article in Newsweek in 2009 by Lisa Miller ‘We (Christians ) are all Hindus now’ and the Harvard Pluralism project talks about how Hindu concepts have deeply seeped into this nation (US). How could all these people miss what you have learnt, how could they have missed your infinite wisdom?
Your leadership is also needed to stop the lies of the ‘fanatics’ of Sanatana Dharma. These ‘fanatics’ are lying to the Hindus that it is through Sanatana Dharma that most advanced inventions have been made to the world — the concept of zero, plastic surgery, gravity, chess, the Chakras, the Ayurveda, the martial arts that Chinese/Japanese follow, the binomials, etc — and that it led to most prosperous civilisation with 25-30 per cent of world GDP for millennia until the 1700s, when the British were being alleged to have plundered $45 trillion and murdered more than 100 million in just three or four decades alone.
They are spreading lies that according to British records from the 1700s, Sudras were the most prosperous community in the nation and that the nation’s Gurukul education system had zero discrimination. In fact, they are saying that more Sudras are educated than Brahmins in the Tamil Nadu Gurukul system according to British records! It must be that these ‘evil’ fanatics following ‘evil’ religion went into the British Museum and manipulated British records! On a popular website, they have given literally hundreds of quotes extolling Sanatana Dharma, which they claim are from the topmost thinkers, scientists and philosophers of the world. Do not believe them.
What’s more, the ‘fanatics of Sanatana Dharma’ are spreading lies that most caste-based discrimination faced in India is in the Church, more than any other religion. They are spreading lies that the Church, which is unable to address this discrimination, is trying to make up for it by demanding reservations to the converts from the followers of ‘evil’ Sanatana Dharma. They say a casual search on the Internet shows rampant discrimination against Dalits, particularly in Tamil Nadu and allege that you are fabricating lies. How could this be true?
Even Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, BR Ambedkar and Swami Vivekananda were wrong enough to vehemently oppose the spread of Christianity in India by missionaries who could have easily gotten rid of this ‘evil’ Sanatana Dharma and upheld humanity and human equality. Did you know what Gandhi said? He said, “Stop all conversions in India, it is the deadliest poison that ever sapped the fountain of truth.” If he had power, he added, he would legislate to stop all conversions in India. Ambedkar said that conversion is a denationalisation.
It is ‘heartening’ to know your late father’s administration saw the demolition of many temples, some even more than 100 years old. His stint also saw the coming up of several churches, many of them illegal, including the one at a thorium-rich mountain land.
Please let me know how I can help you in your sacred crusade. The world needs your leadership. Today, it is two billion followers of this ‘evil’ Sanatana Dharma and tomorrow it could be three billion followers. We do not have much time. I look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
Satya Dosapati
The writer is a US-based activist who has played a critical role in the introduction of paper trail for India’s Electronic Voting Machines called VVPAT. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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