Are Gujarati people Naive?

Whenever there are religious sentiments in Gujrat, one allegation media makes is because Gujratis are naive - anybody on the name of religion exploits feelings of Gujratis and engages them into criminal activities; or robs them.

And people who look for sympathy likes to believe this and thinks that they are naive. But most of the businessmen in India are Gujrati. They are enterpreneus. Most travellers from India are Gujratis. Every country where there are Indian; there are definitely Gujratis. They are practical; very concious in using money. And don't lef themselves exploited.

This is not to consider them better than any other race or lingustic group. But this is to show that they are not that naive that any simple person can exploit them.

But with all these qualities there are other factors too;

- Gujrat did not have direct british rule as much as other part of India did; Baroda, Rajkot, Kutch, Junagadh, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar all had kings. And Britishers started ruling India from Madras and Culcutta side and Gujrat was saved because of Maratha rule.
- Being coastal area it was always engaged with various other travellers and traders
- Moslems attacked Somanath in Gujrat before any other hindu temples in India
- Gujratis think that India had always had to suffer in terms of foreign invasion; why India can not fight back?
- Gujrat has little or no influence of communists so the poisonous anti-hinduism thoughts do not find a place here
- Gujrat is proud of Indian culture and proud of Hindu way of life
- Gujrat lives harmoniously with all the casts - there are no upper/lower cast clashes in Gujrat as much it is in UP or Bihar

It is natural need that a human needs to feel proud of their own heritage - whether dissident of queen victoria or some adivasi. Our heritage is Aryan/Hindu/Vedic heritage. Any attempts to defame this heritage/tradition/culture is nothing but to giving in to western/islamic thoughts. And its better to die than live like a looser.

To feel their own pride, Gujratis welcomed the swadhyay movement (like other sects) wholeheartedly. There was no exploitation; people did that because they wanted to. They only did the Satyagraha before and now they are doing swadhyay. If any other group in India is believing in recreating the vedic history they will have to do what Swadhyay does - whether it is done under the name of Swadhyay or not that is different matter.

Poeple say- Pj. Dadaji started work in Gujrat - because Gujratis are naive. This is baseless allegation; because Gujratis wanted to carry on some work and Pj. Dadaji guided them. If there is period "after" Swadhyay (I hope there will never be), people will continue working to bring the vedic culture back.

Why Swadhyay work started in Gujrat?

Lord Krishna chose to live in Gujrat - in Dwarka - when leaving from Mathura. Krishna left his material body in Gujrat - near Somnath.

Pj. Dadaji says - we should find "God" from where he has left us. Hence, he started this work by going to meet people in Saurashtra (then not Gujrat). He chose 19 post-graduate youngsters who could understand his vision and went to poor villages to meet those - abandoned from rest of India.
Gandhiji asked youngsters to go live in villages because he said India lives in villages. But his work to get independence from Britishers did not allow him to concentrate fully on such contructive work to uplift the villages. And still there were many youths who migrated to villages and after few years realized the lack of facilities in villages and the sacrifices they and their families have to make to move to villages. Govt. was not so keen developing such programs (or incentives) for youths to migrate to villages.

At such times, Pj. Dada provided a feasible and practical solution to visit villages on regular basis w/o compromising with your own life and family; but still getting the work done in villages. The need of going to villages has been realized by many thinkers but Pj. Dadaji put that into a right framework that people could easily follow. Pj. Dadaji gave this prayog a name- Bhaktiferi.

These villages went through the natual cycle of evolution; they progressed materially and spiritually and Lord Yogeshwar became center of their life. They implemented prayogs like Swadhyay Kendra, Yuva Kendra, Mahila Kendra, Ghar Mandir, Yogeshwar Krushi, Amritalayam. We should go and ask only these villagers for their feelings.

Who would they give credit for all that happened in their village? It would be selfish to think that God is within us so let's give credit to ourselves.

Later in 2002-2006, some journalits are blaming that Swadhyay work was started in Gujarat because Gujarat is rich and prosporous. We can't believe such allegation if we go and see the villages in Saurashtra where the work was started. Also, Saurashtra was not part of Gujrat then; And the work started parallely in Maharashtra too; and Maharashtra is equally rich if we compare city areas of both states. Ironically in 40s and 50s - Pj. Dadaji started giving pravachans (discourses) in Bombay and Bombay was part of Gujarat. People coming to pravachan were gujaratis.

To believe that Pj. Dada had some kind of materialistic motive in 40s-60s to start work in Gujrat is nothing but foolishness; if he had such materialistic motive then he has better philosophy then many other so called saints and he could have made his own place among such and collected enough funds publicly. But he never did that.

Instead he made a harder choice to go to villages to build relationship - he went where there was no money. He went where there was no fame either. He went where there were no facilities of electricity, gas, water, bathroom. Buses were not going there.

Why did he choose all these? To think that there will be profit of some crores of rupeees after I die? Which businessman in the world would think this was great plan? No one! but still our journalists and columnists think that this was Pj. Dadaji's plan to get money out of rich gujrat.

THE Work.

T = Thought
H = Hunger
E = Emotion

In this movement, there was hunger of thoughts and emotion. We believe in the vedic saying "Aa No Bhadra Kruthavo Yanthu Vishwathaha" (Let noble thoughts come to us from all over the world). Its never shame to learn noble thoughts from anywhere - whether its different culture, enemies or even mountains, occeans, birds or animals. Noble thoughts make noble humans and Noble means Aaryan.

Our hunger for Emotion (BHAV) is inspired by Geeta - budhabhaav samanvita - God likes those who are thoughtful and emotional. Thoughts alone are dry and emotion alone is foolishness.

This work - the swadhyay work - taught people to combine thought and emotions. Emotions make life sweeter. Pj. Dadaji gave examples of Rishi Kanva who at the pinnacle of vedic knowledge (gatasun gatasuncha nanu sochanti pandita) cries like a baby when his foster daughter Shakuntala leaves Ashram to go to her husband Dushyant.

Even Ram cries when Seeta is kidnapped showing his love even though he is avatar of God himself.

Emotion has found a spiritual value with intellect in Indian religions and Swadhyay tried to upbring these two qualities in people. That's why it is THE work.

* Intellectual debates are arranged for youths in Youth Kendra/DBT
* Discussions are carried out in Shibirs regarding culture, historical events and current lifestyle
* Elocution competitions are arranged during Geeta Jayanti
* Street plays are performed (by thousands of team throught the world) at various places during the week of Janmashtami that combines current events, human values and messages of being self-dependent and recognizing the power of god within one-self rather than finding outside
* Bhav prasangs are shared in various events to recognize the emotions of people
* Emotions are showed towards each other in meetings
* Importance is given to the relationships developed within people working together rather than the output of the work
* Youth learn to "stay together" rather than staying together to learn cultural ideas
* Religious tolerance and tolerance towards different believes is grown in the swadhyay atmosphere

Is Krutisheel a temporary title or permenant?

Sometimes people think that these titles are permenant like being Engineers and Doctors. Once one is Swadhayayee, he is always swadhyayee or once one is Krutisheel, he is always Krutisheel. But is it so?

What is permenant? Throughout once life, may be name/body/degrees are premanent in very non-philosophical way or for practical purposes. Once a Chaggan Patel is always Chaggan Patel. But his beliefs are not! his actions are not. Once a smoker is not always a smoker. Once a drunkard is not always a drunkard.

Positive side is - you can quit bad habits and become a good person.

Negative side is - your good habits start becoming boring and you want to try all bad things.

So, a swadhyayee today may not be swadhyayee tomorrow. Pj. Dadaji says - one is not swadhyayee if he is going to quit in future. You can't be swadhyayee from 10 to 12 PM! Well, its true ideally. But unfortunately there are enough incidents that people - once torch-bearers - of swadhyay movement have turned their back and not only that - they are all out there defaming their own work. Should we call them swadhyayee anymore? should we call them krutisheel anymore?

Who is Krutisheel?

One whose 'sheel' (character) is 'Kruti' (action)

One who is engrossed into 'Kruti'.

One who offers 'Kruti' to God along with Patram, Pushpam, FalanToyam... .

Pj. Dadaji gave this word to those working for God in various prayogs. And visit http://www.swadhyay.org for description of such prayogs. This word is given not distinguish one from 'swadhyayee'. It is misconception to understand 'krutisheel' as a level higher up than 'swadhyayee'. Because Pj. Dadaji wanted to bring out divinity from within and spread the humanity towards all. So, its very important to understand the value of being 'human' before segregating people according to their race, religion, casts, sects or beliefs.

So, we are all 'humans' before we are 'hindu', 'christian', 'muslim' or 'swadhyayee' or 'krutisheel';

Rather than using these terms for segregation it should be used more for statistical purposes. Like, there are X number of krutisheels working for Prayog Y.