Seeking, Challenging and Finding Guru Ravidas
Like many American kids. I juggle multiple identities and growing up was a balance in navigating them. My peers saw me as “the Indian” kid, blissfully unaware of the massive diversity that term covers. My parents hail from India, but from distinctly separate communities and jaatis. Growing up, I felt unable to fit into a neat category.
Yet in my school, other students would confidently assume they know the exact box I fit in. A lesson on Hinduism inevitably led to questions about caste. Our schools taught it as a simple, rigid and linear model – something far removed from my experience, and I never knew what to say. For the majority of my early childhood, I stayed away from my culture and beliefs for this reason, refusing to embrace something that seemed forced upon me.
Against this confusion, it was my grandparents who motivated me to undergo the yagnopavoit sanskar (holy thread ceremony). I finally gathered the confidence to study my identity, to contextualize this ancient tradition with my unorthodox background. I looked into figures of unconventional backgrounds who embraced their faith even as they came from no neat categories or communities. Among a long list of saintly rejects, I found Guru Ravidas Ji.
Guru Ravidas Ji was born into the Chamar community of northern India, a relatively underprivileged jaati, who were often denied access to the traditions and rituals of mainstream Hinduism. Despite his obstacles, he maintained a pure, transcendent form of devotion to the formless Brahman. He challenged prevailing rituals and tradition, advocating for an inclusive Sanatana Dharma that reveres each individual as a form of God, irrespective of their background, caste, or creed.
Learning about him changed the way I understood and practiced Hinduism. As opposed to following rituals and absorbing prayers in language I didn’t understand, I actively questioned the faith around me. Later on I realized that in doing so I was following in a well worn Hindu tradition of seeking, exploring, challenging – traditions that have been integral to the faith’s flexibility and rejuvenation through the ages.
Inspired by Guru Ravidas, I attached meaning to the unknown, and used that newfound understanding to pursue dharma through recontextualizing tradition, just like he once did. In many ways, that spirit drew me to CoHNA, an organization that seeks to bring Hinduism into the 21st century by challenging the world’s outdated notions of Hinduism.
Guru Ravidas is important to me because he reconnected me with my faith, turning my shame into a matter of pride. Clearly, he represents the idea that all Hindus, all followers of dharma, can come together under one banner to bring our traditions, culture, and faith to the modern era, regardless of the background or identity that the world says defines us. Guru Ravidas wasn’t a forgotten poet, but an inspiration.
At a time when followers of dharma are being attacked across the world, let’s remember the spirit of Guru Ravidas Ji. As we suffer external attacks from xenophobes and radicals, we cannot let the sins of historical divides continue to tear us apart, allowing a wave of hatred to wash over the shared traditions we all adore.
Guru Ravidas inspired generations of dharmics to turn to personal bhakti and believe in Oneness. That legacy lives on through our work in developing the Oneness of our community, a unity that truly represents the spirit of our beliefs.
“Jaati paati puchhe nahi koi, hari ko bhaje so hari ko hoi” (No one asks for community or status; one who prays to Him belongs to Him) – Guru Ravidas Ji
Jaikara Guru Ravidas Ji Da!!!
(The author, Sagar Patel, is a high school student and a CoHNA youth volunteer.)
- authored by Sagar Patel