Asia is not a predefined fixity; it is a journey of co-realizations and pluralizations. Similarly, social theory is not unitary; it is a plural process of reflection on the dynamics of self, culture and society. But much of social theory as it rules in the academic corridors of Europe, Asia and the world is Eurocentric. But now there is an epochal need for realizing social theory as part of a planetary conversation. While some may look at it in terms of the rise of Asia and the decline of Euro-America, the challenge is not to replace one ethnocentrism and exclusivism with another but to make social theory a field of mutual learning and a dialogue of presuppositions. Dominant social theories from the West have their own presuppositions, for example, the presupposition about the centrality of power in Max Weber and Michel Foucault, and justification and application in varieties of critical theory, such as that of Jürgen Habermas. But these presuppositions are not universally shared as reigning presuppositions of self, culture and society. For example, in Srimad Bhagavad Gita, a text that expresses the spiritual traditions of India, it is written, “Sradhha Maya Ayam Purusha Jo Jat Sraddha Sa Ebasa: This Purusha [the human person] is characterized by sraddha—capacity for love and reverence—; one is who one loves or reveres.” These lines also offer some presuppositions about self, culture and society and urge us to realize that it is not only power but also sraddha (reverence or love) that characterize being human in the fields of self, culture and society. For a fuller realization of social theory there needs to be a dialogue between presuppositions of power and sraddha as important elements in the dynamic of self, culture and society, rather than a one-sided assertion and exclusion.

Theory is not only a noun but also a multiplex verb and it is not only activistic but also meditative. The practical turns in social theory—through terms such as linguistic, feminist and ecological—do help us realize that theory is both noun and verb. But they do not sufficiently cultivate the meditative side of such turns as their notion of practice is mostly activistic and is not related to processes of meditative co-realizations (see Giri 2012). In Asian countries the majority still travel on foot and we can cultivate the notion of theory as walking meditation. Many in Asian societies, such as our indigenous peoples, have a propensity to dance, so we can also cultivate theory as dancing meditation. Theory is not just an unconditional system; it is a conditional journey. We are invited to reflect upon and realize theories as walking and dancing meditations starting from our own location and dialogue with insights from our home and world.

We need to open classical and contemporary social theories which are predominantly Euro-American to multiple dialogues such as Asian dialogues, which then become part of planetary conversations (see Connell 2007; Comaroff and Comaroff 2012). In planetary conversations we take part in a dialogue without privileging our a priori ethnocentric point of view and open ourselves, our locational insights and presuppositions, to mutual interpenetration, sharing, questioning and transformation. While much East-West dialogue is still imprisoned within the existing logic of a priori fixation and an unconscious colonial constitution of our globe, planetary conversations seek to transform these to conditions of mutual dialogue and an interpenetration of presuppositions.

Following this brief prelude, we will begin this dialogue with the concept of the self. In Asian countries there is a notion of self as a field that is not static but dynamic (Clammer 2008). It is a field of flows, of many rivers and streams. Our self is like the rice field. It is a field where chi, dynamic energy, flows. From both the Confucian and Kashmiri Saivism traditions we get a view of dynamic energy and consciousness. Recent social theory from scholars such as Pierre Bourdieu also emphasize the significance of field in understanding society. Srimad Bhagavad Gita also talks about the yoga of the field and the knower of the field. While Bourdieu’s conception of field is primarily socio-political, in Gita the concepts of field and knower of the field are both socio-psychological and socio-spiritual. It is enriching to have mutually transforming dialogues between these conceptions of the field and thus deepen our conceptions and realizations of self, culture and society as fields (see Das 2010).¹

Self is neither a peak nor a cliff.² In individualism self is looked upon as a cliff. But in Asian traditions and cultures there is a relational view of self which is, at the same time, ecological and transcendental. Self is the meeting point of the horizontal and the vertical.

Individualism is at the root of modern social theory and society. But a dialogue with Asian traditions helps us realize the transindividual dimension of individual and the transocial dimension of society. In his discussion of the work of Thai social thinker and Buddhist social theorist Sulak Sivaraksha John Clammer (2008) tells us that Sivaraksha helps us in understanding that individuals have a transindividual dimension. In the words of Clammer: “In much the same way that Louis Dumont has argued that Western individualism has its roots in Christianity and that the consequences of this individualism are profound for the arrangement of society and assumptions about how relationships within it work, so Sulak is arguing for a ‘trans-individualism’ that arises from Buddhist roots, and which has profound implications for the ordering of society” (2008: 190).

In modern Western society and modern sociology both individuals and society are conceptualized and realized in isolation from Nature and transcendence, they are imprisoned in isolated black boxes that Dallmayr (1998) calls “Enlightenment black boxes.” Dialogue with Asian traditions enables social theory to conceptualize and realize individuals and societies as at the same time part of Nature and transcendence. There are also streams in Western traditions that look at individuals and societies as in a relationship with Nature and Transcendence but modern social theory has not nurtured itself with such streams of vision and practice. For example, in Goethe we find ways of going beyond the modern Enlightenment black box and realize self and society as part of Nature and transcendence, but modern sociology has followed Newton rather than Goethe (Uberoi 1984). But border-crossing dialogue can contribute, for example, dialogue between modern social theory and Asian traditions of practice and reflection can contribute to creative memory work and the retrieval of traditions of a non-dualistic relationship between individual/society and Nature and transcendence.

Daya Krishna, the pre-eminent Indian philosopher, tells us: “Society need not be considered the last term of human thought. The centrality may be restored to the human individual who, then, may be viewed as the nucleus of the social cell from whom all creativity emanates or originates. In this perspective, then, society would be conceived as a facilitating mechanism so that the individual may pursue his trans-social ends. Instead of art, or religion, friendship or love being seen as the lubricating oil for the functioning of the social machine, the machine itself would be seen as facilitating the emergence and pursuit of various values” (Krishna 1993: 11). In many cultures, including Indian, the social does not have the same ultimate status as it has in modern Western society and socio-religious thought. The social in Indian thought does not have a primal significance and it is considered an intermediate field and an ideal society is one which facilitates our realization of potential as Atman, soul. Daya Krishna calls it an Atman-centric approach and contrasts this with the socio-centric approach not only in the modern West but also in religious traditions such as Christianity. But one also finds a socio-centric approach in certain aspects of Confucianism, which accords primary significance to social relations and not, to the same extent, to processes of self-realization. Both approaches have their own limitations, what Daya Krishna calls the “two predicaments”—the Atman-centric predicament and the socio-centric predicament. The socio-centric predicament does not give enough space to self-realization, while “Atman centricity leads a people’s attention away from an active concern with society and its betterment” (ibid.: 23). To overcome the one-sidedness in these approaches Daya Krishna links them to a new realization of freedom, while Sri Aurobindo (1962) links them to evolutionary transformations, transforming the very constitution of the individual and the social beyond their present-day dualistic constitutions.³

From the point of view of this aspiration to overcome Atman-centeredness or self-centrality and socio-centeredness we can look at Asian traditions in new ways. Take, for example, the case of Buddhism and Confucianism, two major Asian traditions of discourse and practice. In its reflections on humanity Confucianism focuses on webs of relationships while Buddhism emphasizes the need to transcend the limits of social relationships, particularly anthropocentrism. But both traditions have gone through many inner debates and contestations between them, giving rise to movements such as Neo-Confucianism, which urges us to pay simultaneous attention to webs of relationships and a nurturance of self-realization in our quest for human realization (Dallmayr 2004: 152–171). According to Tu Wei-ming, Neo-Confucianism involves a “continuous deepening of one’s subjectivity and an uninterrupted broadening of one’s sensitivity” (quoted in ibid.). It also involves a “dynamic interplay between contextualization and decontextualization. Hence, the self as a ‘center of relationships’ finds itself simultaneously in the grip of an ongoing decentering or displacement […] Just as self-cultivation requires self-overcoming, so cultivation of family and other relationships demands a transgression of parochial attachments such as ‘nepotism, racism and chauvinism’ and ultimately a transgression of narrow ‘anthropocentrism’ in the direction of the ‘mutuality of Heaven and man and the unity of all things’” (ibid.: 164).

Thus in neo-Confucianism there is a simultaneous attention to social relationships and a deepening of subjectivity, which helps us go beyond the one-sided emphasis on either society or self. We find a similar emphasis on emergent sociality and self-realizations in neo-Vedantins such as Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo who urge us to cultivate creative relationships between self and society with an additional cultivation of the divine along with and in between. We can also find the resonance of similar concerns in Gandhi and Tagore. So it is helpful to cultivate further dialogue between Neo-Confucianism and Neo-Vedanta. This, in turn, calls for dialogue between Confucianism and Vedanta and not only between Confucianism and Buddhism. The dialogue between Confucianism and Vedanta has not yet been undertaken and for the making of a new world order it is helpful for us to undertake this. For example, Confucianism is concerned with harmony but in the conventional manifestation of harmony in traditional China this can be hierarchical and anthropocentric. In the conventional articulation of harmony in Confucianism there may not be enough realization of the challenge of establishing harmony between humans and non-humans, society and Nature. Vedanta, with its concern for the unity of all life, can help Confucianism to realize this as Confucianism’s emphasis on proper social relationships and its vision and practice of Tian-Xia—All Under Heaven—can make help us make Vedanta more social. For example, the Vedantic concern with unity of life should be practiced in the realm of social relationships, which in the traditional social order are dominated by caste and gender exclusion. Both Confucian harmony and Vedantic unity face the challenge of transforming hierarchy, monological domination and the authoritarian construction of unity.

Harmony and unity help us to come together with and beyond the traps of domination and exclusion. This is suggested in the vision and practice of lokasamgraha from the Indic tradition, which has a Vedantic root in a very open and cosmopolitan sense. Lokasamgraha is spoken about in Bhagavad Gita as a challenge to us to realize the gathering of people as not only a public gathering but also a soulful gathering. In modern social and political thought and practice, we are used to the vision and practice of a public sphere and we can realize and transform this as a field and practice of lokasamgraha, simultaneously public and soulful. Lokasamgraha is a field of mutual care and responsibility and it is a challenge at all levels of human gathering—from dyadic associations, institutions and movements, to the triadic and beyond, such as family, community, nation and the global order. In our present phase of globalization and the challenges of global responsibility via such trials as climat...