Although we have come to associate the swastika with one of the most diabolical and insidious regimes in collective human memory, it is actually a symbol that one sees frequently in the ancient world...I saw it portrayed in the Buddhist temples in Vietnam and Thailand, and it was also in evident in India.
On our trip to India, our guide Vivek told us that the Hindu people are Aryans, not Indians, and the swastika is the holy symbol of their teachings and points the way towards a coherent and sacred life.
When asked to explain further he said that the Hindus think of us as living for 100 years and each quadrant of the swastika represents a 25 year period of life and practice. Thus, the first 25 years are spent in the ashram studying, learning and praying, laying the foundation for the balance of one's life...a sacred life in service to the gods. Vivek is quick to point out that although there are 330,000,000 gods and goddesses in their pantheon, there is only one Creator, the Creator of us all.
The next 25 years are spent in community, marrying and raising children and nurturing the next generation. From 50-75 one devotes one's life to the community and the world, making it a richer and better place, and from 75-100 one then returns to the ashram for contemplation and prayer before becoming one with the Divine once again. And so the circle is complete.
How could this symbol have been so cruelly distorted? How do we go from this to the notion of a blond and blue-eyed "Aryan race" whose domination of the world presumed the complete elimination or slavery of those who were not the same? It defies the imagination that a symbol so holy could have become its diametric opposite and that this lie could have been so willingly and completely swallowed by an entire nation, leading to heartbreak and suffering beyond the human imagination and to the break down of all that we have come to understand as "civility", "goodness", and "kindness", all that is of the light and holy.
On our trip to India, our guide Vivek told us that the Hindu people are Aryans, not Indians, and the swastika is the holy symbol of their teachings and points the way towards a coherent and sacred life.
When asked to explain further he said that the Hindus think of us as living for 100 years and each quadrant of the swastika represents a 25 year period of life and practice. Thus, the first 25 years are spent in the ashram studying, learning and praying, laying the foundation for the balance of one's life...a sacred life in service to the gods. Vivek is quick to point out that although there are 330,000,000 gods and goddesses in their pantheon, there is only one Creator, the Creator of us all.
The next 25 years are spent in community, marrying and raising children and nurturing the next generation. From 50-75 one devotes one's life to the community and the world, making it a richer and better place, and from 75-100 one then returns to the ashram for contemplation and prayer before becoming one with the Divine once again. And so the circle is complete.
How could this symbol have been so cruelly distorted? How do we go from this to the notion of a blond and blue-eyed "Aryan race" whose domination of the world presumed the complete elimination or slavery of those who were not the same? It defies the imagination that a symbol so holy could have become its diametric opposite and that this lie could have been so willingly and completely swallowed by an entire nation, leading to heartbreak and suffering beyond the human imagination and to the break down of all that we have come to understand as "civility", "goodness", and "kindness", all that is of the light and holy.