S.N. Goenka: Conservative or Radical?

Goenka read Dayananda Saraswati’s foundational treatise, Light on the Meaning of Truth, when he first came in contact with the Arya Samaj. He was too young to fully understand the thrust of Dayananda Saraswati’s big ideas at the time. Nonetheless, many of the concepts he was exposed to through his experiences with the Arya Bal Sena came to dominate his outlook, even later in life after he became a teacher of the meditative practices taught by the Buddha. While he was too immersed in his devotional practices to take on the idea of a God that was nondual and beyond qualities, he was drawn to the social and historical messages of the Arya Samaj.

Goenka appreciated Swami Dayananda Saraswati’s method of assessing traditional Indian ideas and texts through intellectual critique, and to some extent he took on the Arya Samaj’s critique of caste ideology and women’s rights. For instance, on several occasions he attempted to have low-caste members of the community invested with a sacred thread—a ritual traditionally reserved for the higher castes—at the Arya Samaj temple. He himself—to the dismay of his family members—chose not to undergo this coming-of-age initiation ritual, a mark of caste identity. He also participated in attempts to “reconvert” or “purify” Indian Muslims. He was an advocate for the education of women, including his own young bride-to-be, and pushed back against norms of child marriage within his community. In his autobiographical writings, Goenka characterized himself as rebellious in this respect, even “rebellious by nature.” But it was rebellion in a profoundly conservative context. Because these activist engagements were dismally unsuccessful, he considered them to be youthful folly, and he remained quite conservative until the end of his life. Nonetheless, he would build on these early reformist sentiments later in life when he took on more radical ideas and practices that were not particularly popular among his more conservative family members.

An excerpt from Daniel Stuart’s S. N. Goenka: Emissary of Insight (Lives of the Masters), in which the author examines how Goenka’s early years shaped his later mission. Future posts here will look more deeply into this work, and we hope to have Daniel on the Insight Myanmar Podcast as well to discuss his new book.