WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.919 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are 00:00:02.919 --> 00:00:05.500 going to challenge a concept that I think most 00:00:05.500 --> 00:00:08.300 of us, especially in the modern world, sort of 00:00:08.300 --> 00:00:11.339 consider a gold standard. And that is interfaith 00:00:11.339 --> 00:00:14.099 dialogue. Exactly. It's a phrase that sounds 00:00:14.099 --> 00:00:16.519 incredibly civilized, doesn't it? It does. It 00:00:16.519 --> 00:00:19.280 evokes a very specific image. I always picture, 00:00:19.480 --> 00:00:22.399 you know, a round table, maybe a conference center 00:00:22.399 --> 00:00:24.780 somewhere. People from different religions, they're 00:00:24.780 --> 00:00:27.399 all politely nodding at one another. You have 00:00:27.399 --> 00:00:29.879 your tea. I have mine. You stay in your theological 00:00:29.879 --> 00:00:32.659 lane. I stay in mine. And we just agree to be 00:00:32.659 --> 00:00:35.359 nice. Right. It's safe. It's sanitized. It's 00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:38.060 what we call tolerance. But the stack of research 00:00:38.060 --> 00:00:41.799 we are unpacking today suggests that this version 00:00:41.799 --> 00:00:46.219 of dialogue, this polite, guarded exchange, might 00:00:46.219 --> 00:00:48.579 actually be a little superficial. Or at least 00:00:48.579 --> 00:00:50.399 it's not the only way to do it. And for that, 00:00:50.500 --> 00:00:52.859 we're traveling back in time today, about 600 00:00:52.859 --> 00:00:55.659 years, to the Valley of Kashmir. We're going 00:00:55.659 --> 00:00:57.640 to look at a radical experiment in how to bridge 00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:00.700 the gap between two totally different worldviews. 00:01:00.700 --> 00:01:03.700 And the central figure here isn't a diplomat. 00:01:03.700 --> 00:01:07.379 He's a mystic. And he didn't use polite conversation 00:01:07.379 --> 00:01:10.480 to bridge that gap. He used something much, much 00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:13.900 heavier. He used the concept of death. This is 00:01:13.900 --> 00:01:16.590 the Deep Dive on Nandrishi. also known as the 00:01:16.590 --> 00:01:19.150 Elimdar or flag bearer of Kashmir. And we're 00:01:19.150 --> 00:01:21.549 basing this conversation on the fascinating research 00:01:21.549 --> 00:01:25.030 of scholar Abir Bashir Bazaz, specifically his 00:01:25.030 --> 00:01:28.209 work on negative theology. And just to set the 00:01:28.209 --> 00:01:31.370 stakes here. Bazaz's argument is that Nun Rishi 00:01:31.370 --> 00:01:34.349 didn't just preach coexistence. No. He practiced 00:01:34.349 --> 00:01:37.390 interfaith translation. And that is a much messier, 00:01:37.430 --> 00:01:39.489 much more dangerous, and honestly a much more 00:01:39.489 --> 00:01:41.950 effective game than what we usually see today. 00:01:42.370 --> 00:01:44.650 Translation is the key word there. We aren't 00:01:44.650 --> 00:01:46.530 talking about swapping words in a dictionary. 00:01:46.849 --> 00:01:48.469 Not at all. We are talking about translating 00:01:48.469 --> 00:01:51.209 your entire soul into the language of the other. 00:01:51.549 --> 00:01:54.250 So let's set the scene. If we drop into Kashmir 00:01:54.250 --> 00:01:57.730 in the late 1300s. What are we walking into? 00:01:57.890 --> 00:02:01.069 It was a moment of just absolute seismic shifts. 00:02:01.150 --> 00:02:03.170 You have to imagine the ground literally moving 00:02:03.170 --> 00:02:06.230 beneath people's feet. For centuries, Kashmir 00:02:06.230 --> 00:02:09.330 had been this incredible intellectual powerhouse 00:02:09.330 --> 00:02:13.169 of Hinduism, specifically Shaivism and Buddhism, 00:02:13.389 --> 00:02:16.349 a real center of Sanskrit learning. But by the 00:02:16.349 --> 00:02:18.789 14th century, the political structures were collapsing. 00:02:18.870 --> 00:02:22.889 And you have the rise of the Muslim sultanate. 00:02:22.969 --> 00:02:25.430 So the king is now a sultan. The entire political 00:02:25.430 --> 00:02:28.050 order has just flipped. Exactly. And with that 00:02:28.050 --> 00:02:30.629 political flip, you get a new religion. Is Islam 00:02:30.629 --> 00:02:33.930 becoming the dominant political force? But, and 00:02:33.930 --> 00:02:35.889 this is crucial, the research highlights that 00:02:35.889 --> 00:02:38.430 there wasn't just one type of Islam arriving. 00:02:38.650 --> 00:02:41.129 It wasn't a monolith. Right. The sources distinguish 00:02:41.129 --> 00:02:44.050 between the elites and the vernacular. Let's 00:02:44.050 --> 00:02:45.849 start with the elites. Who were they? OK, so 00:02:45.849 --> 00:02:48.219 these were the immigrants. Think Persian Sufis, 00:02:48.219 --> 00:02:51.099 like the Kuberwiyah order. These guys were the 00:02:51.099 --> 00:02:53.539 cosmopolitan intellectuals of the medieval world. 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:56.219 They came from Central Asia, they spoke Persian, 00:02:56.360 --> 00:02:58.080 and they headed straight for the royal court. 00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:00.099 They were the high church equivalent, if you 00:03:00.099 --> 00:03:02.180 will. So these are the top -down guys. They hang 00:03:02.180 --> 00:03:04.500 out with the sultan, they focus on Islamic la 00:03:04.500 --> 00:03:09.280 shara, and for them, being Muslim is about being 00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:12.020 distinct from the locals. Precisely. Their whole 00:03:12.020 --> 00:03:15.110 project was about boundaries. We are Muslims. 00:03:15.310 --> 00:03:18.270 You are non -Muslims. Here is the line. Cross 00:03:18.270 --> 00:03:20.590 it if you want to be saved, but otherwise, stay 00:03:20.590 --> 00:03:23.150 over there. Yes. They brought a kind of potted 00:03:23.150 --> 00:03:26.449 plant version of Islam, keeping it in the soil 00:03:26.449 --> 00:03:29.069 of Persia, just moving the pot to Kashmir. They 00:03:29.069 --> 00:03:30.530 didn't want to get their hands dirty with the 00:03:30.530 --> 00:03:32.909 local culture. And then on the complete other 00:03:32.909 --> 00:03:35.729 side of the spectrum, you have Nun Rishi. The 00:03:35.729 --> 00:03:39.150 vernacular, the little tradition. Nun Rishi wasn't 00:03:39.150 --> 00:03:41.789 an immigrant. He was born in a village in Kashmir 00:03:41.789 --> 00:03:46.090 around 1378. He didn't hang out in courts. He 00:03:46.090 --> 00:03:48.569 walked the forests. He didn't speak Persian. 00:03:48.729 --> 00:03:51.590 He spoke, and more importantly, he composed poetry 00:03:51.590 --> 00:03:54.509 in Kashmiri. That seems like a small detail. 00:03:54.610 --> 00:03:57.169 But in that context, speaking the local language 00:03:57.169 --> 00:03:58.990 was a political statement, wasn't it? Oh, it 00:03:58.990 --> 00:04:01.250 was a radical claim to authority. By speaking 00:04:01.250 --> 00:04:03.569 Kashmiri, he was saying, God speaks your language, 00:04:03.650 --> 00:04:06.550 too. He established the Rishi Order, which was 00:04:06.550 --> 00:04:10.129 an indigenous Muslim ascetic movement. But, and 00:04:10.129 --> 00:04:12.550 here is the kicker, he's so entangled with the 00:04:12.550 --> 00:04:15.430 local traditions that even today he has two names. 00:04:15.590 --> 00:04:18.009 The Muslims call him Shaikh Lalam, teacher of 00:04:18.009 --> 00:04:20.490 the world, and the Hindus call him Sahazanand, 00:04:20.569 --> 00:04:23.689 the bliss of the natural. There is a legend in 00:04:23.689 --> 00:04:26.009 the source material that just perfectly captures 00:04:26.009 --> 00:04:28.490 this entanglement. It involves Lal Dede, the 00:04:28.490 --> 00:04:31.470 famous Hindu mystic. I think this story really 00:04:31.470 --> 00:04:33.930 sets the tone for everything else. You absolutely 00:04:33.930 --> 00:04:36.930 cannot tell Nun Rishi's story without Lal Dede. 00:04:37.050 --> 00:04:41.029 She was a wandering yogini, a real giant of Kashmiri 00:04:41.029 --> 00:04:43.689 Shaivism. And legend says that when Nun Rishi 00:04:43.689 --> 00:04:46.810 was an infant, he refused to breastfeed. From 00:04:46.810 --> 00:04:49.569 his own mother, yeah. He wouldn't eat. The family 00:04:49.569 --> 00:04:51.269 was distraught. They thought the child was going 00:04:51.269 --> 00:04:53.670 to die. And then Laldeh enters the scene. Right. 00:04:53.750 --> 00:04:56.389 A Hindu ascetic enters a Muslim household. She 00:04:56.389 --> 00:04:58.910 picks up the baby Nun Rishi and whispers to him, 00:04:59.029 --> 00:05:01.490 You are not ashamed to be born, so why are you 00:05:01.490 --> 00:05:04.970 ashamed to drink? And then, in this incredibly 00:05:04.970 --> 00:05:07.649 potent, almost shocking image, she offers him 00:05:07.649 --> 00:05:11.050 her own breast. And he feeds. That is, wow. A 00:05:11.050 --> 00:05:13.810 Hindi yogini literally nursing the future Muslim 00:05:13.810 --> 00:05:16.129 saint of Kashmir. It's so intimate. It's the 00:05:16.129 --> 00:05:19.230 foundational myth of Kashmiri pluralism. It's 00:05:19.230 --> 00:05:21.790 saying that his spiritual DNA, his vitality, 00:05:21.790 --> 00:05:25.269 it flows directly from the Hindu past. He isn't 00:05:25.269 --> 00:05:27.689 erasing the old religion. He is imbibing it. 00:05:27.790 --> 00:05:30.389 He is nourished by it. And this gave him immense 00:05:30.389 --> 00:05:33.269 credibility with the common people. Which brings 00:05:33.269 --> 00:05:36.550 us to this concept of translation. Because Nandrishi 00:05:36.550 --> 00:05:39.269 didn't just borrow milk. He borrowed language. 00:05:39.329 --> 00:05:42.209 Yeah. Bazaaz talks a lot about this term sahaja. 00:05:42.430 --> 00:05:44.990 What does that mean here? Sahaja is a Sanskrit 00:05:44.990 --> 00:05:48.670 word. It means innate or spontaneous. In the 00:05:48.670 --> 00:05:51.529 local spiritual ecology, it meant the truth that 00:05:51.529 --> 00:05:53.589 you were born with something natural, not forced 00:05:53.589 --> 00:05:56.829 by rituals. It's the water, not the bottle. And 00:05:56.829 --> 00:06:00.089 Nun Rishi does something audacious here. He takes 00:06:00.089 --> 00:06:02.589 the Sanskrit concept and applies it to the Quran. 00:06:02.829 --> 00:06:05.930 He calls the Quran the sahaja Quran. Which changes 00:06:05.930 --> 00:06:08.529 everything. If the Quran is sahaja, then it's 00:06:08.529 --> 00:06:11.069 not a foreign import from Arabia. Right. It's 00:06:11.069 --> 00:06:13.110 an awakening of something you already have inside 00:06:13.110 --> 00:06:15.709 you. He's telling the Kashmiri peasant, you don't 00:06:15.709 --> 00:06:17.589 have to become an Arab or a Persian to follow 00:06:17.589 --> 00:06:19.829 this path. This path is already in your blood. 00:06:20.050 --> 00:06:22.110 He even gave the Prophet Muhammad a new title, 00:06:22.189 --> 00:06:25.089 didn't he? He called him the first rishi. That 00:06:25.089 --> 00:06:28.850 is bold. Taking the prophet of Islam and categorizing 00:06:28.850 --> 00:06:31.910 him as a rishi of Vedic sage, that feels like 00:06:31.910 --> 00:06:35.170 it would upset the orthodox elites. Oh, the elites 00:06:35.170 --> 00:06:38.129 hated it. But for the common person, it was a 00:06:38.129 --> 00:06:40.810 masterclass in translation. By calling Muhammad 00:06:40.810 --> 00:06:43.689 a rishi, he validates Islam through the lens 00:06:43.689 --> 00:06:47.029 of the ancestors. It creates a genealogy. It 00:06:47.029 --> 00:06:49.870 does. It says, look, this new message is just 00:06:49.870 --> 00:06:53.470 the latest chapter of our own story. It's interreligious 00:06:53.470 --> 00:06:56.149 entanglement at its best. He's refusing to let 00:06:56.149 --> 00:06:58.329 the religions be separate categories. Okay, so 00:06:58.329 --> 00:07:00.129 he hooks them with the local language and these 00:07:00.129 --> 00:07:02.860 familiar concepts. But once he has their attention, 00:07:03.139 --> 00:07:06.579 the actual message he delivers is, well, it's 00:07:06.579 --> 00:07:08.480 heavy. Yes. This is where we get to the negative 00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:10.339 theology. This is the core of the Zaz's research. 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:12.620 So why negative? Is he just being pessimistic? 00:07:12.620 --> 00:07:14.399 Is this about being depressed about the world? 00:07:14.620 --> 00:07:17.720 No. Negative here doesn't mean bad or sad. It 00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:21.639 refers to the via negativa, the negative way. 00:07:22.019 --> 00:07:24.420 It's a theological method where you try to understand 00:07:24.420 --> 00:07:27.720 the ultimate reality, God, truth, whatever you 00:07:27.720 --> 00:07:30.379 call it, by stripping away everything that it 00:07:30.379 --> 00:07:32.529 is not. You clear the deck. You clear the deck, 00:07:32.550 --> 00:07:35.350 you negate the finite to find the infinite. And 00:07:35.350 --> 00:07:38.110 for Nun Rishi, the ultimate tool for clearing 00:07:38.110 --> 00:07:40.949 the deck was death. The sources say his poetry 00:07:40.949 --> 00:07:44.110 is obsessed with death and the void shunya. Why 00:07:44.110 --> 00:07:47.110 focus on that? Why not paradise or blessings 00:07:47.110 --> 00:07:50.209 or how great God is? Because blessings and rituals 00:07:50.209 --> 00:07:52.709 divide us. My rituals are better than yours. 00:07:52.769 --> 00:07:55.009 My heaven looks different than yours. My God 00:07:55.009 --> 00:07:58.230 has a beard, yours has many arms. Exactly. But 00:07:58.230 --> 00:08:01.839 death, death is the great equalizer. Nunon Rishi 00:08:01.839 --> 00:08:04.540 realized that if you strip away the labels, Hindu, 00:08:04.759 --> 00:08:07.819 Muslim, Brahmin, outcast what is left, we are 00:08:07.819 --> 00:08:09.759 all temporary. We are all going to die. There 00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:12.439 is this one shruk. That's what his verses are 00:08:12.439 --> 00:08:15.000 called, right? Shruks. Yes. Shruk implies a knot. 00:08:15.529 --> 00:08:17.610 They are like riddles you have to untie. Right. 00:08:17.709 --> 00:08:19.589 They aren't meant to be consumed easily. You 00:08:19.589 --> 00:08:21.949 have to chew on them. So there's this one shirk 00:08:21.949 --> 00:08:24.329 about shop closing. Yeah. It really stuck with 00:08:24.329 --> 00:08:26.470 me because it feels so modern. We're all so busy 00:08:26.470 --> 00:08:28.990 doing our thing. The shop closing metaphor is 00:08:28.990 --> 00:08:31.930 haunting. He compares human life to a bazaar. 00:08:32.210 --> 00:08:34.750 During the day, it's loud. It's busy. People 00:08:34.750 --> 00:08:37.230 are trading, cheating, arguing over prices. It 00:08:37.230 --> 00:08:40.710 feels so important. The hustle. Right. But then. 00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:45.019 Evening comes, the shutters go down, the shopkeepers 00:08:45.019 --> 00:08:48.639 leave, and the marketplace is just empty. Like 00:08:48.639 --> 00:08:51.320 water absorbed by new clay vessels. Yeah. That's 00:08:51.320 --> 00:08:53.240 the line he uses to describe how death takes 00:08:53.240 --> 00:08:56.320 youth. It just sucks it dry. It's about the suddenness 00:08:56.320 --> 00:08:58.779 of the end. He's forcing the listener to confront 00:08:58.779 --> 00:09:01.539 the fact that their business, their ego, their 00:09:01.539 --> 00:09:03.960 status, their religious arguments is all going 00:09:03.960 --> 00:09:06.529 to vanish when the sun sets. But isn't that just 00:09:06.529 --> 00:09:08.570 depressing? Hey, everyone, nothing matters. We're 00:09:08.570 --> 00:09:10.830 all dust. How is that a bridge between people? 00:09:10.929 --> 00:09:12.929 Usually we try to build bridges on hope, not 00:09:12.929 --> 00:09:15.470 despair. That's the genius of it. If we are all 00:09:15.470 --> 00:09:18.149 dust, then why are we fighting? If I admit that 00:09:18.149 --> 00:09:20.110 I am nothing and you admit that you are nothing, 00:09:20.190 --> 00:09:22.450 we suddenly have something profound in common, 00:09:22.570 --> 00:09:25.450 our shared fragility. It levels the playing field. 00:09:25.669 --> 00:09:27.950 It reminds me of that phrase the sources mentioned, 00:09:28.190 --> 00:09:30.929 die before you die. That sounds like a riddle. 00:09:31.179 --> 00:09:33.659 It is, and it's a concept found in both Sufism 00:09:33.659 --> 00:09:37.120 and Buddhism, which Nand Rishi harmonizes perfectly. 00:09:38.259 --> 00:09:42.299 Die before you die means dismantling your ego 00:09:42.299 --> 00:09:45.519 now. While you're alive. Don't wait for physical 00:09:45.519 --> 00:09:48.139 death. Kill your greed, kill your pride, kill 00:09:48.139 --> 00:09:50.580 your tribalism while you are still alive. So 00:09:50.580 --> 00:09:52.360 it's an active process. It's not just waiting 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:55.379 for the end. Yes. He writes, death is a sweet 00:09:55.379 --> 00:09:57.580 drink without which you shall not heal. Without 00:09:57.580 --> 00:10:00.139 which you shall not heal. That flips the script. 00:10:00.649 --> 00:10:03.570 Usually we think of death as the sickness. He's 00:10:03.570 --> 00:10:05.889 saying the ego is the sickness and the awareness 00:10:05.889 --> 00:10:08.590 of death is the medicine. It's a call to kenosis, 00:10:08.809 --> 00:10:11.629 self -emptying. If you empty yourself of you, 00:10:11.809 --> 00:10:14.750 you make room for the divine. And in that empty 00:10:14.750 --> 00:10:17.830 space, a Hindu and a Muslim can actually meet. 00:10:17.950 --> 00:10:19.649 Because the walls of dogma have been knocked 00:10:19.649 --> 00:10:21.970 down. The walls which are built by the ego, yes. 00:10:22.539 --> 00:10:24.580 Now, this wasn't just mystical navel -gazing, 00:10:24.620 --> 00:10:26.940 though, was it? Bazaz argues that this negative 00:10:26.940 --> 00:10:29.620 theology had real -world political teeth. He 00:10:29.620 --> 00:10:32.340 calls it negative political theology. It was 00:10:32.340 --> 00:10:34.179 incredibly political. You have to remember the 00:10:34.179 --> 00:10:37.379 context. You have sultans building massive monuments 00:10:37.379 --> 00:10:40.320 claiming divine right. You have elites hoarding 00:10:40.320 --> 00:10:43.100 wealth. When Nun Rishi comes along and says, 00:10:43.279 --> 00:10:46.179 all of this is fleeting, the void is coming for 00:10:46.179 --> 00:10:48.460 everything, he is delegitimizing their power. 00:10:48.679 --> 00:10:50.720 It's the ultimate reality check for a dictator. 00:10:51.340 --> 00:10:53.600 You can't really intimidate a guy who's already 00:10:53.600 --> 00:10:56.039 focused on the void. Exactly. There's a poem 00:10:56.039 --> 00:10:59.299 where he describes the palaces of the rich. High 00:10:59.299 --> 00:11:02.100 walls, guarded gates, turning the poor away. 00:11:02.179 --> 00:11:04.539 They look so permanent. Right. But then he fast 00:11:04.539 --> 00:11:07.120 forwards the tape. He says, I saw those same 00:11:07.120 --> 00:11:09.899 palaces in ruins and now people are growing cotton 00:11:09.899 --> 00:11:11.919 over them. Cotton growing over the ruins of the 00:11:11.919 --> 00:11:14.559 palace. That is such a specific, humble image. 00:11:15.039 --> 00:11:17.740 Nature reclaiming the monument. It tells the 00:11:17.740 --> 00:11:20.070 peasant. Don't be intimidated by the sultan. 00:11:20.190 --> 00:11:23.330 His power is dust. And it tells the sultan, watch 00:11:23.330 --> 00:11:26.870 out. It's a critique of power rooted in the apocalypse. 00:11:27.370 --> 00:11:30.029 He also redefines what a true believer is. Yeah. 00:11:30.090 --> 00:11:32.210 And he does it in a way that seems designed to 00:11:32.210 --> 00:11:34.730 bypass the religious gatekeepers. This is the 00:11:34.730 --> 00:11:38.110 poem, He Alone is a True Muslim. Now remember 00:11:38.110 --> 00:11:41.809 the elites. To them, a true Muslim follows Shari, 00:11:42.009 --> 00:11:46.570 wears the right clothes, prays in Arabic. Nandrishi 00:11:46.570 --> 00:11:50.419 says, no. A true Muslim is one who conquers anger, 00:11:50.620 --> 00:11:53.779 one who conquers greed, one who shares his food 00:11:53.779 --> 00:11:56.519 with the hungry. Which are virtues that a Buddhist 00:11:56.519 --> 00:11:58.740 monk or a Hindu peasant would immediately nod 00:11:58.740 --> 00:12:01.620 along with. Exactly. He shifted the definition 00:12:01.620 --> 00:12:04.960 from tribal identity to ethical substance. He 00:12:04.960 --> 00:12:07.240 made it so that a non -Muslim could look at a 00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:10.200 Muslim and recognize shared values rather than 00:12:10.200 --> 00:12:12.399 just seeing a foreign conqueror. I want to go 00:12:12.399 --> 00:12:14.360 back to the poetry itself for a minute. You mentioned 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:16.279 these are knots. They aren't linear lectures. 00:12:16.779 --> 00:12:19.220 Bazaz highlights a couple of metaphors that are 00:12:19.220 --> 00:12:22.379 really... Well, they're tricky. One is the pomegranate. 00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:24.500 The pomegranate and the fire. It's a complex 00:12:24.500 --> 00:12:26.600 image interpreted by the critic Rahman Rahi. 00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:29.379 Imagine a child who wants to steal pomegranates 00:12:29.379 --> 00:12:32.320 from a tree, but it's dark. Okay. So to see the 00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:34.340 fruit, the child lights a bundle of grass. Okay, 00:12:34.399 --> 00:12:36.320 so he's shedding light on the prize. Makes sense. 00:12:36.519 --> 00:12:38.399 But the fire gets out of control. It threatens 00:12:38.399 --> 00:12:40.879 the whole orchard. And suddenly the child is 00:12:40.879 --> 00:12:43.600 stuck. He has the desire for the fruit, but he's 00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:46.440 created a disaster, and now he's terrified of 00:12:46.440 --> 00:12:48.580 the return journey home. Afraid of the punishment. 00:12:48.659 --> 00:12:52.669 Yes. That feels like a metaphor for everything. 00:12:53.070 --> 00:12:55.450 We want the fruit, money, power, pleasure. We 00:12:55.450 --> 00:12:57.250 burn things down to get it, and then we're left 00:12:57.250 --> 00:12:59.710 staring at the ashes, terrified of the consequences. 00:13:00.129 --> 00:13:03.190 It captures the anxiety of existence. It's not 00:13:03.190 --> 00:13:06.029 a comforting, here's the answer poem. It's a 00:13:06.029 --> 00:13:08.370 poem that forces you to feel the tension between 00:13:08.370 --> 00:13:12.590 your desire and your inevitable end. And then 00:13:12.590 --> 00:13:15.250 there's the crow. That one felt very visual to 00:13:15.250 --> 00:13:17.590 me. The crow shedding its feathers. Imagine a 00:13:17.590 --> 00:13:19.929 bird standing there and all its beautiful plumage, 00:13:19.990 --> 00:13:21.710 the things that let it fly, the things that give 00:13:21.710 --> 00:13:24.330 it shape and identity, just fall off and pile 00:13:24.330 --> 00:13:27.789 up at its feet. That is a stark image. A naked 00:13:27.789 --> 00:13:30.950 bird. It's the shedding of the self. The feathers 00:13:30.950 --> 00:13:33.830 are our pretensions, our titles, our I -ness, 00:13:33.870 --> 00:13:36.509 I -am -that. When you face the truth, the nothing, 00:13:36.649 --> 00:13:39.370 you lose your feathers. And Bazaz calls what's 00:13:39.370 --> 00:13:42.389 left the form of the nothing, Shunyakar. Right. 00:13:43.090 --> 00:13:46.610 Nandrishi says that when life, zoo, and greed 00:13:46.610 --> 00:13:50.509 blob finally the stage, what remains is the form 00:13:50.509 --> 00:13:52.950 of the nothing. It implies that our true reality, 00:13:53.230 --> 00:13:56.710 our sahaja state, is what's left when the frantic 00:13:56.710 --> 00:13:59.450 noise of living stops. It's the silence after 00:13:59.450 --> 00:14:01.889 the song. So bringing this all together, we have 00:14:01.889 --> 00:14:05.210 a mystic who used the local language, bridged 00:14:05.210 --> 00:14:07.990 the gap with Hindu philosophy, and used the terrifying 00:14:07.990 --> 00:14:10.789 reality of death to level the playing field. 00:14:11.100 --> 00:14:13.059 between the powerful and the poor. That's a great 00:14:13.059 --> 00:14:15.899 summary, yes. Why does this matter to us sitting 00:14:15.899 --> 00:14:19.200 here today? We aren't in medieval Kashmir. But 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:21.639 Bazaz seems to think this Nundurishi model is 00:14:21.639 --> 00:14:23.980 actually urgent for us. It is urgent because 00:14:23.980 --> 00:14:26.649 our current model of tolerance is failing. We 00:14:26.649 --> 00:14:28.289 built a world where we tolerate each other, but 00:14:28.289 --> 00:14:30.769 we don't engage. We just ignore the differences 00:14:30.769 --> 00:14:33.409 to keep the peace. Bazaz calls what Nonarishi 00:14:33.409 --> 00:14:35.809 did interreligious entanglement. Entanglement 00:14:35.809 --> 00:14:37.429 sounds messy. It sounds like something you get 00:14:37.429 --> 00:14:39.350 stuck in. It is messy, and that's the point. 00:14:39.490 --> 00:14:41.750 True pluralism isn't about ignoring differences 00:14:41.750 --> 00:14:43.929 or building walls. It's about being willing to 00:14:43.929 --> 00:14:46.250 translate your sacred concepts into the language 00:14:46.250 --> 00:14:49.179 of your neighbor. Nandrishi wasn't afraid to 00:14:49.179 --> 00:14:52.000 let his Islam be contaminated. And I use that 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:54.320 word in a positive way, the way a scholar would. 00:14:54.500 --> 00:14:56.960 He wasn't afraid to let it be contaminated by 00:14:56.960 --> 00:14:59.379 the Hindu worldview. He risked his own purity 00:14:59.379 --> 00:15:02.279 to make a connection. Yes. He suggests that if 00:15:02.279 --> 00:15:04.639 we only speak our own theological language, we 00:15:04.639 --> 00:15:07.340 are just shouting into the void. But if we translate, 00:15:07.460 --> 00:15:10.299 if we say, okay, I call it monotheism, you call 00:15:10.299 --> 00:15:12.299 it the void, but let's look at what we both fear. 00:15:12.659 --> 00:15:16.580 Death. Suffering. Fragility. That's where you 00:15:16.580 --> 00:15:18.419 find the connection. That is where you find the 00:15:18.419 --> 00:15:20.980 sahaja, the innate connection. It's moving the 00:15:20.980 --> 00:15:24.019 conversation from my doctrine versus your doctrine 00:15:24.019 --> 00:15:27.360 to we are all in the same sinking boat. Or to 00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:30.039 use Nun Rishi's metaphor, we are all in the same 00:15:30.039 --> 00:15:32.379 shop and the shutters are coming down. So how 00:15:32.379 --> 00:15:34.320 do we want to treat each other in these final 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:37.039 minutes? That is a powerful question. It shifts 00:15:37.039 --> 00:15:39.799 the stakes completely. It makes kindness urgent. 00:15:40.019 --> 00:15:43.019 It does. It reminds us that religion at its best 00:15:43.019 --> 00:15:46.480 isn't a fortress. It's a bridge. And sometimes 00:15:46.480 --> 00:15:48.820 the only way to cross that bridge is to leave 00:15:48.820 --> 00:15:51.980 your heavy armor, your ego, your rigid definitions 00:15:51.980 --> 00:15:55.480 behind. Bazaz uses a great phrase for this. Apophatic 00:15:55.480 --> 00:15:58.379 boldness. The boldness to speak about what cannot 00:15:58.379 --> 00:16:01.340 be spoken. And the boldness to cross frontiers. 00:16:01.799 --> 00:16:04.559 Nun Rishi negated the power structures of his 00:16:04.559 --> 00:16:07.279 time to open a space where a Hindu yogini could 00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:09.799 be the spiritual mother of a Muslim saint. That 00:16:09.799 --> 00:16:12.039 is a radical act of love. It's much harder than 00:16:12.039 --> 00:16:13.860 just sitting at a conference table sipping tea. 00:16:14.100 --> 00:16:16.360 So here is the challenge for you listening today. 00:16:16.740 --> 00:16:18.860 We often think of understanding someone else 00:16:18.860 --> 00:16:21.480 as learning their facts. Oh, they believe X, 00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:25.659 Y, and Z. But Nun Rishi challenges us to go deeper. 00:16:25.820 --> 00:16:28.460 He challenges us to translate. What would it 00:16:28.460 --> 00:16:30.500 look like for you to translate your core beliefs 00:16:30.500 --> 00:16:32.419 into the language of the person you disagree 00:16:32.419 --> 00:16:35.700 with most? Not to convert them. And not to lose 00:16:35.700 --> 00:16:38.240 yourself. But just to find that innate ground 00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:40.539 beneath all the arguments. If you stripped away 00:16:40.539 --> 00:16:43.179 the labels, the politics, and the jargon, and 00:16:43.179 --> 00:16:46.179 you were both just facing the nothing, what would 00:16:46.179 --> 00:16:48.720 you say to each other then? It's a scary question. 00:16:49.399 --> 00:16:53.700 But as Nandrishi would say, it's a sweet drink 00:16:53.700 --> 00:16:56.039 without which you shall not heal. Couldn't have 00:16:56.039 --> 00:16:58.169 said it better. Thanks for taking this deep dive 00:16:58.169 --> 00:17:00.509 into the mystic world of Kashmir with us. We'll 00:17:00.509 --> 00:17:01.450 catch you on the next one.