Abstract
The idea of a charismatic guru is the Archimedean standpoint of the HIFMs. Max Weber’s classic stance on charisma is that of a specific revolutionary force in history, dependent upon social enchantment. Recognition of the power of charisma is the central aspect in the social and psychological dynamics of charismatic authority.
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Notes
- 1.
Furthermore, Schjoedt et al. (2011) also proposes that there are cognitive mechanisms—sender’s charismatic abilities affect recipients’ neural response and subjective experience in interpersonal interaction.
- 2.
Traditionalization is looked at as the nemesis of charisma, which as per Palmer (1988) is responded to by charismatic leaders through encouragement, acquiescence, displacement, and resistance. Two other aspects added by Roy Wallis are performance and responsibility to keep the enchantment alive.
- 3.
The notion of a ‘charismatic gift’ in the Weberian sense of a quality of authoritative inspiration is linked to a Maussian concept of the gift as breaking down distinctions between persons and between persons and objects (Coleman, 2004).
- 4.
The Mother was born on 21 February 1878 in Paris as Mirra Alfassa to affluent parents. She is said to have had divine experiences since childhood and often went into a trance. In 1906, Mirra Alfassa formed a small group of seekers in Paris called the ‘Idea’. Mirra Alfassa’s first meeting with Sri Aurobindo was in 1914, when she accompanied her husband Paul Richards from France on business to Pondicherry. In 1920, she arrived back in Pondicherry to settle there permanently. From 1926, Mirra Alfassa, who had herself assumed discipleship of Sri Aurobindo, assumed more responsibility of the yogic guidance of the sadhaks. She began by collaborating with him in the publishing of Arya, which was the first point of many of Sri Aurobindo’s important works, and later established the Sri Aurobindo International Centre for Education in 1952 and Auroville in 1968. In 1962, she went into solitude till her passing away in 1973.
- 5.
Sri Aurobindo was born on 15 August 1872 in Kolkata and at the age of seven he was sent to England to study with his two older brothers. Later, he joined the King’s College, Cambridge, on a senior classical fellowship to study classics and literature as well as the curriculum of the Indian Civil Service. However, he did not graduate there but passed the Tripos in the second year. Furthermore, he did not qualify for the Civil Services as he did not attend the horseback riding exam. In 1893, on his return to India, he entered the State Service of Baroda and was employed in various administrative positions by Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad. He studied Bengali and Sanskrit in Baroda, and he says in his biography that his thirteen years in Baroda were those of self-culture, literary activity, as well as some silent political activity. In 1906, he came to Kolkata as the Principal of the Bengal National College, but resigned soon after, and from 1906 to 1910, he was actively engaged in political activities. In February 1910, he withdrew to a secret retirement in Chandernagore and in the beginning of April sailed for Pondicherry in French India. In the then French colony of Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo began his spiritual work. His arrival there also marked an end of his active involvement in Indian politics and the Nationalist Movement. In 1914, after four years of silent yoga, he began the publication of the philosophical monthly Arya. Most of his more important works, especially those published since in book form, appeared serially in Arya.
- 6.
They were: George Hale, who was Swami Vivekananda’s host in Chicago; Mrs. George Hale, who took into her house a stranded stranger from Chicago roadside and befriended him ever afterwards; Professor J. Henry Wright, who made possible Swamiji’s entry into the Parliament of Religions as a delegate; Mrs. Ole Bull, Swamiji’s host in Boston and a most loyal friend who supported his cause; Mrs. J. McLeod, a lifelong loyal American friend and a helper of his cause; Sister Christine, a dedicated American disciple who consecrated her life for serving Swamiji’s cause in India; Captain J.H. Sevier, his English disciple who, along with his wife Mrs. H.H. Sevier, founded and nurtured the Advaita Ashrama in Mayawati at the insistence of Swami Vivekananda; J.J. Godwin, who took down in shorthand and transcribed many lectures of Swami Vivekananda now embodied in the Complete Works; and Sister Nivedita, who was his spiritual companion (Belur Math, 2009).
- 7.
The fourth successor Yogiji Maharaj was born in Dhari Saurashtra in 1892. Later he joined Shastriji Maharaj in Bochasan and was subsequently appointed to preach the Akshar Purushottam philosophy in villages. In 1953, he inspired three followers in London to start a weekly satsang, and in 1955, he visited Southern and East African countries with the objective of ‘reviving Hindu dharma among Asian Indians’. He consecrated the first Swaminarayan Sanstha temple in Mombasa, Kenya, and later worked towards initiating many youth into the ascetic fold in India and overseas. It has been documented that in 1970, on his return from a visit to Nairobi, Kenya and Islington, North London, several youth returned with him to become ascetics. He passed away on 23 January 1971, bequeathing the charge to Shastriji Narayanswarupdas or Pramukh Swami as he is now popularly known. In simple kathiawadi language (a dialect of Gujarati), he was instrumental in ‘spreading’ the Swaminarayan message to youth and children worldwide, inspiring the key hagiographical work, ‘Life and Philosophy of Shree Swaminarayan’ by H.T. Dave and Harikalpataru, a Sanskrit text extolling Swaminarayan’s divine episodes by Achintyanand Swami Brahmachari. He himself wrote the work ‘Akshar Tirth’, extolling the glory of the shrine Akshar Deri in Gondal. He also wrote a detailed letter to a devotee containing the essence of the work of Shastriji Maharaj titled ‘Vachanamrut’ which later came to be known as Yogi Gita owing to the superior quality of interpretation therein (Dave, 2000).
- 8.
Pramukh Swami Maharaj or Shastri Narayanswarupdas was born in Chansad near Vadodara on 7 December 1921. He was named Shantilal by his parents who were themselves staunch disciples of Shastriji Maharaj. During childhood, he engaged in listening to folktales of deities in his village. In 1938, he received a message from Shastriji Maharaj, urging him to join the fellowship. Responding to this call he left home and in 1940 he was initiated as Narayanswarupdas Shastri in Akshar Deri in Gondal by Shastriji Maharaj. In 1948, he was appointed as the head of the Sarangpur temple, and in 1950, he was appointed as the administrative lead of the Swaminarayan Sanstha (the president) instructed to work under the guidance of the spiritual head Yogiji Mahraj, which he did until 1971, when Yogiji Maharaj passed away and he assumed the successorship.
- 9.
To maintain the functioning of the Trust, an elected body was constituted in 1952 which functioned until 1960. Later it was caught up in litigation and a civil court in Bombay appointed a receiver to take over the administration of the Sansthan. The receiver functioned till August 1984 when the 22-member Board of Management was appointed by the Maharashtra Government to take over, with an executive officer in charge. Since then, the functioning has been stabilized thus, with the headquarters at Shirdi and an office in Mumbai for liaison purposes with the State.
- 10.
This is a group made up of predominantly ex-members of Brahmakumaris and is highly critical of what they allege to be the increasing worldliness and corruptness of the university hierarchy. On their website they have declared that Brahmakumaris has become a ‘Ravan Rajya’—demoniac world, where pomp, show, and grandeur are given preference over godly knowledge. A number of prophetic failures, the prominent one being that of world destruction, were instrumental in Brahmakumaris shift in world orientation and the Advance Party schism in the 1970s. Effectively, the outcome has been that the Advance Party has re-interpreted the millenarianism. While accepting the importance of Dada Lekhraj, the Advance Party claims that he was only one chariot or earthly manifestation of God. Rather, his business partner Sevak Ram was the one who was the corporeal medium of Siva. The story of Adhyatmik Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya (AIVV) or the Advance Party is narrated thus: Sevak Ram helped in setting up the Om Mandali along with a certain Geeta Mata. He eventually left because of certain differences with Lekhraj and died in 1942. From 1942 to 1969, the deity Siva continued to speak to the world through Dada Lekhraj. In 1969, when Dada Lekhraj died, the Advance Party claimed that Siva manifested through one Virendra Dev Dikshit and not through Sister Gulzar as claimed by Brahmakumaris—as Siva could not technically mount a virgin. Dixit, on the other hand, is said to have become aware of his role as the corporeal medium of Siva after he became disenchanted by Brahmakumaris and in his in-depth study of the ‘murlis’ he is claimed to have revealed that their Raja Yoga understanding was not complete. Debarred from Brahmakumaris, he then settled in his native village Kampil in UP from 1982 onwards and therein began to promulgate his spiritual insights. The party has effectively created their own version of the millenarianism.
- 11.
A typical jnana yagna lasted for seven days and focused on two texts—one of the shorter Upanishads or a section of an Upanishad covered in one-hour lectures in the early morning and one chapter of the Gita over one-and-a-half hours every evening. The first jnana yagna was held in Pune in 1951 and lasted for about a hundred days. Gradually, as the number of devotees increased, the centres multiplied and the demands on the Guru grew in proportion, the number of days of the yagna were reduced and eventually fixed to a standard one week. This continues to be the tradition of Chinmaya Mission even today.
- 12.
The story of the rock memorial construction has several episodes of opposition. The Catholic fisher community wanted the installation of St. Xavier’s cross there, and the Kanyakumari temple Devaswom Board claimed that the rock was its property because of the footprints of the temple deity perceived on it. The local governance of Ramnad district wanted the statue of Raja Sethupathi alongside Vivekananda as the king had helped Swami Vivekananda during his travails abroad. Bhaktavatsalam, the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu and Humayun Kabir, the Union Cultural Affairs Minister, were also not in complete favour of the rock memorial (Parameswaran, 2000).
- 13.
From this time, she adopted the name Mata Amritanandamayi given to her by her brahmachari (monastic) sons.
- 14.
Consequently began the development of an ashram on a rocky wasteland on the outskirts of Bangalore in Udaypura, which is now the international headquarters of the organization.
- 15.
Social metaphor is defined as the symbolic insertion by the HIFMs of the social mandate into the largely faith repertoire which characterizes their vision and mission. This then translates into the actual work of social service and action which they undertake.
- 16.
The year 1950 was a turning point in the organizational history for the following reasons: the group decided to come to India, and they did so as a group of 400 who travelled from Karachi to Okha port in a steamer and from Okha to Mount Abu by train; renamed themselves as members of the Prajapita Brahmakumari Ishwariya Vishwavidyalaya (Brahmakumaris) or Brahmakumari World Spiritual University while still retaining trust status; and shift in world orientation from world rejection and isolation to active proselytization and world service.
- 17.
Ashcraft (2005) has also proposed that the ‘new’ has elements of anticult behaviour which needs further exploration.
- 18.
See Brown (2010) for a commentary on three classical Hindu thinkers Sankara, Udayana, and Ramanuja—belonging to two juxtaposed philosophical schools for a discussion on design arguments, that is, the question of design in the universe and its implications for theism.
- 19.
Paranjape (2009) has used terms such as ‘Gnosis’, ‘gnoseology’, and ‘border thinking’ to describe those knowledge systems that are on the margins of or outside the world colonized by Western modernity.
- 20.
The teachings of Swaminarayan and the subsequent teachers—Gunatitanand Swami, Pragji Bhagat, Shastriji Maharaj, Yogiji Maharaj, and Pramukh Swami form the syllabi of the Satsang examinations held by Swaminarayan Sanstha. Hence, the text corpus encompassing the teachings is very well defined. Some of the main texts are Shikshapatri, Vachanamrutam, Vedras, Swamini Vato, Shri Harililakalpataru, Satsangajivan, Bhaktachintamani, Nishkulanand Kavya, and Shri Harililamrut.
- 21.
Although the term sampradaya has many connotations, in the context of BAPS it is used interchangeably with the meaning of sect.
- 22.
Adi Sankaracharya, to whom is attributed the formation and establishment of the ‘math’ traditions that continue till date (and which prove to be the repositories of ancient Vedic knowledge in its pure pristine form), was born in Kalady, Kerala, to Aryamba and Sivaguru in 786 AD. As the legend goes, he was spiritually inclined since childhood and underwent training in philosophy under the teacher Govindapada Acharya in village Omkarnath. His forte was the nondualist proposition, the Advaita thought, which he developed and established through debates and discourses with scholars of the dualist, monist, and qualified monist schools during his sojourns or intellectual pilgrimages. Eventually, from the geographical landmark of Kashi he initiated disciples and established six ‘maths’ (monasteries) across the country to propagate nondualist philosophy. Sankaracharya is essentially responsible for the development of the Nirguna Bhakti trend.
- 23.
As a prolific writer and mystic philosopher, Sri Aurobindo penned several works, including letters, poems, diary writings, and philosophical renditions. His main works are The Life Divine and Savitri (the epic poem). Others important works include: The Synthesis of Yoga, Letters on Yoga, Records on Yoga, Essays on the Gita, The Human Cycle-Human Unity-War and Self-Determination among others.
- 24.
Brands are identification marks, and for institutions they are like signature statements—literal and symbolic. HIFMs deploy meditative and spiritual techniques and modify them with their own signatures as a point of connect with society as well-being is the premium gained by the recipients. These meditative and spiritual techniques are marketed (spiritual marketing) as brands, which become representational icons of the HIFMs. Brand creation is a mark of proliferation.
- 25.
Most followers of HIFMs in India are from the middle class, generally middle-aged and older adults in the working sphere, residing in urban areas. The proportion of women adherents is slightly higher, and there is a large majority of Hindu adherents. In general, the education levels are high and followers belong to privileged social class. The class superiority, and also the generational peculiarities of IFBO adherents, finds certain parallels to “New Age” adherents/aligners (Pandya, 2012). With respect to gender in particular, HIFMs function as enclave communities where women are able to reproduce faith norms. Higher proportion of women alignment is also due to their historical conformism with Indic eschatology, ritualizations, and interdictions—which now take the form of contemporary yet traditionally rooted spiritual alignments. However, a more in-depth analysis of the gender lens is required to understand the feelings of belonging, the real respect of women for the HIFM obligations, and the ensuing creations of subjective/objective identities vis-à-vis their male counterparts (ibid., 2012). Beneficiary profiles of HIFMs social services resemble those of general public welfare user profile in terms of finan-cial/economic status (Pandya, 2012).
- 26.
Based on a study of Puttaparthi as the sacred city of Sathya Sai, Srinivas (2010a, b) further draws on sociologist Daniele Herview-Leger’s contention that globalization of religio-cultural groups is linked to the problem of identity construction as it leads to ‘novel forms of religious sociability’. The harnessing of spatial imagination towards increased devotion rests on the Taylorean concept of the social imaginary where large groups of people imagine ‘how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations’.
- 27.
Beckerlegge (2004) further proposes that these iconographic representations reveal an unresolved tension between symbolism designed to inculcate social activism and constant allusions to an ideal of renunciation pre-eminently associated with the role of the ascetic.
- 28.
Kim’s (2010) paper essentially looks at how a non-Western tradition responds to its framing within ‘religion’, beginning from the premise that the category religion is constitutive of a Western episteme and that this in turn supports discursive formations and teleologies which are often assumed to be universal. Through ethnographic encounters it has been highlighted how discourses on religion have been mediated by specific Swaminarayan practices such as temple building. Swaminarayan temples have been emphasized as multivalent structures responding to both public expectations and personal devotional desires. The temple, or mandir, defines the ways in which its publics—that is, its followers, visitors, guests, and even critics—will inhabit its spaces. And, yet, the mandir is also physically and figuratively grounded in multiple histories and epistemologies and supported by its own normative ideals, categories, power relations, and discourses. In other words, the Swaminarayan Mandir, in spite of its structural solidity, is an evolving and flexible structure, separable neither from its devotional moorings nor the historical and political contexts in which it is embedded.
- 29.
Srinivas’s (1999a, b) thesis is based on the cult of Shirdi Sai Baba, the holy mendicant/saint (fakir/sant): a paradigm which was associated historically with non-urban locations; in later years, the incarnation (avatar) is to be found associated with suburban and urban sites. The urban topos of Bangalore is studied through the root paradigms of the Saibaba cult. The guru is seen to have an elective affinity with the constructs of the metropolis and its citizens.
- 30.
Huffer (2010) says that rationalist neo-Vedantic theism of this-worldly worship dominated Hindu religiosity (and American ideas about Hindu religiosity) between 1820 and 1965. The advent of multiculturalism after 1965 encouraged immigrants to adopt and valorize their native cultures and religiosities, creating hybrid or hyphenated identities. The relaxed immigration policies of 1965 had a massive effect on the nature of Hinduism in the United States, effectively transforming it from a narrow neo-Vedantic masculinized interpretation to a more diversified interpretation that integrates the feminine. The integration of the feminine (in terms of ordinary women, goddesses, and female avatar-gurus) transformed what was initially a distinct form of American Hinduism into an Indianized cosmopolitan Hinduism that much more closely resembles its Indian counterpart. The influx of Indian Hindus after 1965 diminished America’s reliance on Hindu texts, missionary accounts, and the neo-Vedantic interpretations of the initial waves of Hindu gurus; it created a dialogue between Western interpretations and ‘authentic’ Indian ones. While often a site of contentious debate, this dialogue ultimately serves to increase discourse and fuel the continuous reinterpretation and vivification of Hindu beliefs and practices in the American religious landscape.
- 31.
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Pandya, S.P. (2019). Guru Agency: Combining Charisma, Teachings, and Proliferation. In: Faith Movements and Social Transformation. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2823-7_2
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