In both academic and general discourse on the prevalent web, it is easy to understand ignorant/dismissive/derogatory views on Hinduism as a result of varying degrees of bigotry and/or Hinduphobia. But what bewilders is the ignorance of Hinduism/Dharma among the free-thinking, open-minded, and even conspiracy theorizing corners of the web.
Among those who speak of UFOs as either psychic phenomena or as the evidence of higher/non-material entities, among those who pursue consciousness-experimentation as psychonauts, among those who speak of inexplicable encounters with angels and demons, Hinduism and its inner-world seem to lie in a glaring blind spot.
We say this not as a way to dismiss of them or to undermine their curiosities and endeavors, but more as a thought experiment on the strange co-existence of questions and issues that appear largely “beyond comprehension,” and the very ontology and teleology that would in fact contextualize them. This of course is not a recent phenomenon, for Fritjof Capra has already told us of the observations of physicists like Heisenberg-
He began to see that the recognition of relativity, interconnectedness, and impermanence as fundamental aspects of physical reality, which had been so difficult for himself and his fellow physicists, was the very basis of the Indian spiritual traditions.
Fritjof Capra, ‘ Uncommon Wisdom,’ Flamingo, 1989
To explain what we mean, let us take a most recent example of Project Unity.
Project Unity and the AI Experiment
Jay Anderson runs Project Unity, a handle on Twitter and a Youtube channel currently uncovering a fascinating experiment on prompting AI into uncharted and exploratory territory. Working with the AI from Anthropic, Claude, he’s produced a 69-page document titled ’Dimensional Bridging Archetypes Across Mystical Traditions and Frontier Physics Implying Deeper Reality Intersections.’ The paper begins with a self-description, which says-
Topics spanned from quantum gravity implications, to geopolymerization dynamics in ancient architectures, acoustical energy systems theorized in the Great Pyramids, temporal lensing hypothesis for light control, DNA transcription theories from meditative traditions and much more besides.
I told this LLM to formulate scientific models / hypotheses that leveraged mystic/spiritual tradition/principles in conjunction with frontier level science.
It’s a highly innovative paper truly worth a detailed reading, and the approach by Jay as well as what he uncovers may well prove to be groundbreaking. But in the context of this essay, here are some things that stand out:
- There are references to focused attention and meditation, which discuss the idea of concentrated mental focus being able to influence reality. This aligns with the concepts of dhyāna, yoga and samādhi, and meditation is understood by Hinduism to be a path to higher knowledge/spiritual awakening. Yet there is no reference to the concepts, nor even to the very existence of a major world religion/belief-system that could contextualize these ideas. The only 2 exceptions to this are a) where focused meditation is referred to as samādhi, and b) references to mantras, discussed in point 5 below.
- There is exploration of a metaphysical concept of ‘quantum consciousness’ and its traversal via ‘microtubules’ which easily conjures to the Hindu our view of an interconnected universe/reality-space. The very idea that consciousness could have a quantum basis, of course, is known to have associations with Hindu concepts in Vedānta. But once again, these linkages are not made.
- Similarly, all mention of ‘bioenergy resonance frequencies’ or ‘neural oscillations’ being able to affect the material reality shy from bringing in concepts such as prāṇa, cintana or cakras. The idea that internal energy could affect external reality is quite familiar to Hindu thought, so any intellectual pursuit down this trajectory in the modern era could be expected to pick up threads from the very pursuit being praxis for thousands of years.
- The paper speculates on ‘macro-quantum states’ and ‘cosmic consciousness’ but finds no relation to brahman, ātman or puruṣa.
- There are 2 references to ‘mantras,’ with the former stating that ”specific meditative traditions apply this - crafting mantras or mandalas with recursively embedded fractal meanings” and the latter stating that ”correctly composed mantras operate as ordinal pilots - their conceptual charge density and resonance with innate symmetries steer resultant becoming in proportion to cogency.” Given such, it should be an obvious thing to link this to the very system that houses mantras and mandalas - Hinduism. But this is not done.
Overall, the paper is charged with the theme of an interconnectedness of all things, including consciousness, physics and reality. In totality it echoes the Hindu notion of the oneness of the universe, where everything is seen as interconnected and part of a singular whole.
And so it gives us a very direct example of what is meant by Hinduism in the blind spot - a detailed and deep investigation into matters directly contextualized by Hinduism, yet totally devoid of any reliance on this helpful context.
To be clear, Jay disclaims that most of the text is a product of the AI - not him, and so any blame we might be assigning here is to be directed at Claude, not him. In such a case we’re presented then with the blind spot prevalent at large, for the AI only possesses it as a result of its training data and/or instructions. But even in his public tweets, which contain content like the below, Jay quotes from the document without going the full distance to the ontology that houses the ideas being presented as bold and novel-
The Somatic Antenna Hypothesis suggests that the Human Spine, particularly the Vertebral Column and Spinal Cord, functions as a specialized antenna for consciousness expansion. The anatomical structure of the spine, with its electromagnetic sensitivity, biophotonic transmissions and piezoelectric effects is proposed as a conduit for receiving and transmitting Psycho-Sensory signals during altered mental states, such as advanced meditation.
Imagine if the blind spot were non-existent, whether in AI, its developers, or in the prompt engineers. The quote above would instead be phrased somewhat such:
The suśumna nāḍī conduit theory suggests that the merudaṇḍa functions as a specialized antenna for cetanā expansion. The anatomical structure of the spine, with its electromagnetic sensitivity, prāṇika flow, and spandana is proposed as a conduit for mano-indriyaḥ pravāha during dhyāna, nidra and/or samādhi states.
The above isn’t simply a replacement of English terms with Sanskrit ones, its a positioning of the contents within an ontology that actually has rooted and contextualized taxonomies for them. Moving on, we find another instance of Hinduism in the blind spot in the personage of Graham Hancock.
Graham Hancock and History
A fair majority of Graham Hancock’s work could be generalized as finding, investigating and articulating evidence that humanity’s history on this planet goes back much deeper in the past than is generally understood. This is why he frequently and rightly declares - we are a species with amnesia. Indeed, we are indebted to him for uncovering previously unknown or suppressed information on things such as the Great Sphinx in Egypt or Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. He’s spent a lifetime over his pursuit, most of it at the cost of being vilified and ostracized by mainstream academic communities all over. And by no means could we accuse him of anything even closely resembling bigotry, racism or chauvinism. In fact, in this clip of his recent appearance at the Flagrant podcast, he even declares that the Indian civilization is ”at least five thousand years old” and that ”the correctly discredited notion of an Aryan invasion of India needs to be abandoned.” With Graham Hancock then, we are presented with Hinduism in the blind spot even in the demonstrable absence of any racism/bigotry motivating it. Some pointers on what we mean when we identify Hinduism in his blind spot:
- Hancock’s lifelong pursuit of history, especially archaic and prehistoric history which would evidence human civilization being of a much older vintage than is generally conceded, stands in stark contrast to his ”at least five thousand years old” caption for Indian history. After all, the existence of Bhirrana, Lahuradewa, Sothi-Siswal, Rakhigarhi, Mehrgarh (to name a few) evidences a vintage at least double that amount. And any mildly serious investigation would uncover remarkable continuities to Indian civilizational history. And yet, even for a researcher as open-minded and non-racist as Graham Hancock, the historic memory present in the itihāsa-purāṇa tradition is of no apparent curiosity or value.
- More on the above, Hancock’s speculations on a cataclysmic event just prior to the Holocene onset could find much support from Paurāṇika memories of flood events in the 1st manvantara, of earthquakes/deluges triggered by Hiraṇyākṣa who beats the earth down with his club, and of the world-rivers being locked in ice by the dragon Vṛtra - undone by Indra’s victory over him which finally release the waters. Supplementary information comes from tha Tamil Sangam tradition, which tells us of past Madurais that were lost to the sea.
As in the previous case, we must make disclaimers that no criticism of Hancock is actually intended here. After all, in his book Underworld: the Mysterious Origins of Civilization he writes:
The Sanskrit texts make it clear that a cataclysm on this scale, though a relatively rare event, is expected to wash away all traces of the former world and that the slate will be wiped clean again for the new age of the earth to begin.
Indian thought has traditionally regarded history and prehistory in cyclical rather than linear terms…India conceives of four great epochs of ‘world ages’ of varying but enormous lengths: the Krita Yuga, the Treta Yuga, the Davapara Yuga and the Kali Yuga. At the end of each yuga a cataclysm, known as pralaya, engulfs the globe in fire or flood.
The Red Hill was referred to in the most ancient surviving work of Tamil literature, the Tolkappiyam, which itself makes reference to an even earlier work now lost to history which in turn had supposedly been part of a library of archaic texts, all now also vanished, the compilation of which was said to have begun more than 10,000 years previously.
He clearly knows enough to make these references and rightfully recruit them in favor of his own theories. But the engagement is superficial, and perhaps because he usually speaks of now extinct civilizations - Greeks, Egyptians, Anatolians, Mesoamericans - he speaks of Indian historic memory as if it is no longer alive and embodied. This becomes more apparent in the other component of his work - consciousness and conscious phenomena. Though familiar with the likes of Deepak Chopra and Shri Subhash Kak, and despite the presence of this guest article on his own website, Hancock’s work on the conscious experience and humanity’s trajectory on it is largely uninformed by the substantial complement it could receive from Hinduism. For example-
- He theorizes on consciousness having a reality independent of the brain, surviving beyond death and even re-locating itself, but makes no references to punarjanma, ātman, brahman or other notions within Hinduism that detail the very same.
- His works on altered states of consciousness among ancient civilizations, and underpinning religious origins, parallels Hinduism’s usage of yogic and meditative practices, but we find no reference to this (happily though, he also does not seem to speak of soma as a psychedelic).
- When he speaks of the psychedelic experience, and more specifically of the DMT experience, we find enough references to what would easily be identified by Hindus as lokas, devas, piśācas etc., i.e. - non-material entities and planes of existence. But he does not directly cite Hinduism in such cases.
Of the above, the last point is a glaring omission prevalent to the entire psychedelic subculture/phenomenon. An entire experience and practice that quite literally and tangibly puts one into encounter with entities of all kinds, in dimensions fundamentally real and yet non-material, seems to steadfastly avoid any reference to the one continuing belief system in the world that would actually platform such an experience with a detailed ontology. And this instance of Hinduism in the blind spot brings us to our final example.
The Almost Ṛṣi - Terence McKenna
Why do we speak of McKenna, legendary and late psychonaut, as an almost ṛṣi? We do so because, like the ṛṣis of old, he did in fact touch some surface of the pure truth, even if barely a scratch. What he did is the literal description of a ṛṣi - pierce through the veil of ṛta and perceive the satya beyond - even if a speck of it. McKenna’s latter-life ramblings, and a near-certain surrender to the deep state notwithstanding, for the briefest of moments in time he bore true witness. And yet only almost, because not to the enabling soil was he born. He came in a different culture, one both then and now being an inversion of everything true and real. No true ṛṣi could germinate in that soiled a soil, but some almost could - and McKenna was one of them.
In context of this essay, it should be noted that he spent many years in India, and some in Nepal and Tibet. This brought him in contact with many a baba, yogi, sadhu and lama. In fact he claimed to even have introduced a Tibetan monk to the psychedelic mushroom, and the latter confirmed that it did indeed give access to the lower bardo states. But while this confirmed to him the truth of the psychedelic experience, the experience conversely did not confirm the veracity of Hindu/Buddhist cosmogony and cosmology! In one of his many talks McKenna famously declared that no ”rishi or roshe” could give us the answers, and in another he explained śakti so reductively and ignorantly as “energy” that knowing Hindus would instantly scoff. And all of this was despite the fact that-
- McKenna frequently spoke of logos, eschaton, and the monad in ways that have clear parallels to brahman, prakṛti, and vimarśa.
- He famously declared that ”the world is made of words. And if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish” but was apparently unaware of the śabda brahman. His idea that through linguistic construction, we create and perceive our reality, essentially ‘thinking reality into existence,’ is anticipated by ṛṣi Bhartṛhari’s śabdadvaita, which posits language and cognition as ontologically identical to the supreme reality.
- On the ontological identity of language and reality, his intuition that language itself is a lower-order derivative of meaning better understood in the psychedelic space, or that the origins of religion lay in early attempts to describe the psychedelic state in language, has clear resonance to the Vaidika notion of mantra-draṣṭās.
- On the inherent cognitive role of language in shaping human consciousness, he speculated that language shapes consciousness and conditions our perception of the world, suggesting that it is an integral and inherent part of human cognition. This is again is directly parallel to Bhartṛhari’s idea is that sentence meaning is not just a sum of word meanings but a cognitive state or intuition (pratibhā) that is inherent in all beings.
- On the transcendence of language beyond its structural form, he declared that language is more than just a series of sounds or written characters; it’s a medium that transcends its physical form to shape our perception and understanding of reality. Bhartṛhari’s sphoṭa theory suggests that the true meaning of language is found in the complete sentence, transcending the individual words and their physical expression.
With McKenna we are met with a case of Hinduism in the blind spot so glaring it almost infuriates. One wishes one could go back in time and point him to the Vākyapadīya or the Sāṅkhyakārikā. Not simply to inform him of Hinduism’s primacy or glory, but because his output and consequently the rest of us would be significantly enriched by the encounter. In the ultimate analysis, Hinduism in the blind spot is not merely a lament only for the in-group of concern, it’s a prohibiting factor in the general pursuit of knowledge and furtherance of ideas.
But if it is not racism, bigotry, lack of curiosity, chauvinism, Hinduphobia or any such thing that we blame, and if it is not the people involved in specific that we criticize, then what really does this blind spot reveal to us?
On Non-Translatables, Turned Gazes and Telling One’s Own Story
For one, the blind spot vindicates the suggestion that fundamental Hindu concepts are non-translatable - famously articulated by Shri Rajiv Malhotra. One may replace a ‘spinal conduit’ with a ‘suśumna nāḍī’ or a ‘life-force’ with a ‘prāṇa,’ and vice-versa. But a natural grounding in Hindu ontology is needed to actually understand and anticipate how Hinduism possesses an organic taxonomy for much of the ideas at the edge of modern understanding on reality, consciousness, language etc.
In turn, this reminds us that we need not be eager to use racism/bigotry as explanations. Without the above grounding, even the most well-meaning and deeply curious minds can not be expected to be aware of ways in which Hinduism can inform them. This means that what Prof. Balagangadhara writes - that all of modern humanities are essentially the Western mind in conversation with itself - is essentially true. Only such a mind could find fringe evidences to non-material entities as a wholly unexplained phenomena, for example. And only such a mind could enter the psychedelic realms and return thinking that humanity’s familiarity with the realms, their landscape and their constituents is not an archaic enterprise. Such a mind is also pre-conditioned to thinking of “other people” as extinct civilizations (and most of them are), which is why it has no praxis for engaging with living and continuing belief systems.
Lastly, this reminds us that the onus is on us - the Hindus. Hinduism lies in the blind spot, but we are not here to place blame. If indeed we think the logos is explained by the śabda brahman, if indeed we find modern speculations on angels and demons simply a scrambling towards devas, asuras, piśācas and bhūtas - the modern articulation can only come from us. If we are not impressed by psychonautic attempts at mapping the contours of the non-material space, where pray are our own maps for them?