KHNA’ s call for Hindu Unity

(This is the full text of the speech by KHNA (Kerala Hindus of North America) Chairman Udayabhanu Panickar at Pranav Nagar on July 1, 2007 during the inauguration ceremony of the fourth Kerala Hindu Convention.)

In the early seventies, we the first generation immigrants from the land of the enlightened, the land known for thousands and thousands of years as bhaaratvarSh, landed here in the USA with little finance, a strong mind, a power full hart and hard work as our investment. (Of course a lot of us got that hart in trouble by eating a lot of flesh.) But, we survived, we prospered, we, almost everyone become somebody.

As many other first generation immigrant community, we lagged behind in our spiritual efforts. In the course of the quest for survival and struggle to bring up a family, we did not have enough time to peruse in that direction. We were also not fully equipped for that kind of a challenge. Even the efforts we made lacked much of the power to establish a good base, as most of us were not experts or experienced in our Spiritual Science. Our limited knowledge were even tainted and influenced by the western religions and culture. A lot of our Spiritual Theorems got diluted and corrupted and a lot of us believed those corrupted ones to be true. Some of us believed that our Spirituality is not good enough. Even while we were back home, a good number of us got over exposed to the western culture and religion and under exposed to our Spirituality. Above all we had our petty and silly differences which prevented us from making a real effort in educating our children others and ourselves about the real values of our Culture and Spirituality.

A lot of people think that our Spirituality lags behind the religions of the world, or at least they are only on a par with those Semitic Religions. But that is not the fact. I refuse to even think that “The Science of The Absolute”, as Nataraja Guru named our Spirituality, lags behind any religion. Our Spiritual Science is full of resources to strengthen ourselves and empower us to prosper in every aspect of life anywhere in this world and beyond, most certainly even beyond heaven.

A lot of damage has been done to the reputation of our history and to the minds and self respect of our children through the school systems of this country in the name of “true history” by the so-called experts and intellectuals on our history, Culture and Spirituality. Most of those “so-called and self styled experts” and intellectuals were people like us, the immigrants; and those who came here in the disguise of education and stayed on to become self styled experts on our Spirituality & history, pluralists, secularists and some of them even evangelists. In fact they are all self-styled experts who has no knowledge of any of the Great works of our Spiritual Science, “The Science of The Absolute”, or our Culture or our “real history”.

Thanks to American Hindu Foundation for taking the first step in correcting the wrongs done to our Culture, History and Spirituality by the so-called experts through the California School textbooks.

In our younger years, we learned from the school history books that our country of origin became free in 1947. But it looks like our land of origin is still under the rule of western forces, Financially, Culturally, Spiritually and even politically. Look at the Multi-National companies flourishing there. Look at the Cultural and Spiritual enslavement through TV, Movies and other Media. Look at who owns those Media Houses. You will really be surprised. Look at the political structure of the country. Look at the who is who of the government that rules the country which should be called bhaaratvarSh. Look at the two rupee and one rupee coin the Government brought out with an icon of a western religious symbol on them. The influence began thousands of year’s back and it is still in force. More influencing forces are added to it on a war footing. You can see proof of it in the activities of groups such as “Joshua 2000”, “Mandate 2000”, “Harvesting the crop of souls” and statements made by the leaders of such and other evangalizing institutions. Even some of the evangelists’ wants to operate their evangelization institutions right in side our temples.

They have hundreds of such institutions right by the side or very close to our Temples. Most of it are built either on the land gotten from the ruling elite of the time, be it the kings of the past or be the present day politicians of the left and the right political alliances, or on the land grabbed by them under the pretext of secularism, minority benefits or religious freedom.

The money and matter we donate to our Institutions of Spirituality is for the service to the poor. But look what is happening! Major part of it are stolen by politicians or diverted to people who don’t believe in our Spirituality, and even to the people who tarnish our Spirituality day in and day out trying to propagate their believes and ways to our people.

We were made to believe that our ancestry was and is divided. That believes actually divided us into religions, chaathur varnyam, castes and sub-castes. We discriminated against our own people thinking that some of us are inferior and some of us are superior. This division made us hate and distrust each other. The wounds of that division are still with us even in this land. We can still hear the echoes of the demeaning and insulting remarks even here in the USA made by our own people against our own people. WE MUST, I emphasize very much WE MUST over come this. And we have to see that more divisions are not created.

Luckily we have a good number of spiritual personalities who re-educated us on our Spiritual Science, “The Science of The Absolute”. I like to mention the names of two such Great people whom I consider to be the representation of the parabrahmmam in this universe. They devised ways and means to create the unity and friendship we need. They did it with there own life. But, it is a shame that we even argue and create friction and division within our community in their name. Those two great people were Shree Narayana Gurudevan and Shree Chattampi Swamikal. There are many more. But I only bring out these two names as I can relate to them more than others in that list. I grow up with some of the people who knew both of those Great Rishi personally. And they told me how great friends and comrades those two were and what a great brotherly relation they had.

Let us follow the ways those two shown us. Let us learn the Spiritual Gems they left for us. Let us not fight in their name. I can tell you with confidence that if we can learn the essence of at least daivadeShakam, the simplest of Shree Narayana Gurudevan’s Spiritual Gem, our unity will be very easy to be achieved.

We need Unity and we need it soon. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of separation and segregation to the sunlit path of unity for us. Now is the time to lift our community from the sinking ship of disunity to the forefront of the spiritual awakening based on equality among all of us?

Now is the time for us to make a real effort for unity. Now is the time to forget the petty differences of caste and regionalism. Now is the time for us to come out of the clutches of the dividing forces and join together. It is the time for laying down a strong foundation for a real unity of our community for the future of our children and our samskrithi in this land of Freedom, Liberty and Opportunity.

This is also very much applicable to our land of origin. It is the time for all our people there in Keralam also to unite.

But there is something that I must say to you all, in the process of gaining our unity and rightful place we must not be guilty of wrong deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for unity by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred for people who are opposed to us. We must forever conduct our struggle for unity on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative endeavour for unity to degenerate into any kind of injustice to others. Or we must not indulge in any kind of violence physical or physiological. But at the same time, we must oppose every effort to degrade and tarnish our Culture, our Spirituality and our GOAL OF UNITY. We must oppose every such effort with all our might and defeat them, here and back in the land of our origin. Never hesitate a bit.

As the events pass by at this Pranav Nagar, the venue of the Convention, for the next three days, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead towards the goal of ours, a united, friendly and service oriented community, which will be willing to help the ones in need, but also ready to question the wrong doings of anyone, within or without. We cannot turn back. Let us make a promise to ourselves that we shall not turn back and we will unite.

My dear friends, I have a Vision, rather a dream, a dream where all our people, will treat each other and others with love, respect and equality. I have a dream that all others will treat us also with love, respect and equality. I have a dream that soon we will be able to learn and let others learn our Spirituality, “The Science of The Absolute”, and understand its’ true meaning with the help of correct interpretation. I have a dream that soon we will be able to let the world know the true value of our Culture and Spirituality. I have a dream that the helping hand we extended to the fifty poor students back in Keralam for their higher education will continue and grow into a good source of education for the poor of our community there. This is my Vision for KHNA and I hope you all have even better vision than mine. With my limited ability and tiny capacity, I tried to make a little move in this direction. I hope the future leaders of KHNA shall make much more and real progress and move on to higher levels of achievements.

I urge you all, who are here and all those who are not here to join together and learn our Spirituality, “The Science of The Absolute”, the Brhmavidya Shatram, and create the Unity we need and do the service our poor brothers and sisters back home needs.

Thank you all.

(I am indebted and great full to the great civil rights leader Mr Martin Luther King for portions of this speech.)

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