FB Discussions - Village Rituals and Modern Science.

November 8, 2015 at 2:19pm ·

When my village people remove dishti with chillies and salt, I suffer from disbelief. When elsewhere the same is described as 'cleansing the aura', I give it a hearing.
How deep is our lack of faith in our own people and in our own practices, until the white man repackages and returns it to us.

15 Comments

 

Suraj Kumar Yeah, most of the time the people who were stripped from their original religious world view and culture, and forced to see from the lens of scientific world view through our education. Once seen, it is impossible (for me at least) to not see such native practices as "maybe they have coincidental benefits which they discovered and due to which they worship those elements like chillies and lemons". There are ready made mantras in the scientific faith like "correlation is not causation" which everybody chants and says "whatever these savages do, can't be as informed as us with our cool tools and techniques to understand the world better" ;)
 

Suraj Kumar But, like Zombies, the people of the scientific faith don't see they are self destructive. They OBVIOUSLY act informed by their scientific world views and have OBVIOUSLY destroyed the planet collectively. Even though the faith has discovered a beautiful fact that the observer can affect the observed, the scientific establishment completely and conveniently discards such truths that conflict its faith and continues to keep the method of making material observations. Even though the faith has discovered a beautiful fact that there is always unpredictability everywhere (euphemism for "free will" or "spirits" as other cultures called it), they continue to keep the "way of life" not in accordance with such discoveries that conflict the faith's superstitions - ie., they make repeatable observations. Even though the faith agrees that industrial revolution and Green revolution would not be possible without Science, they neatly discard the effects of the Industrial revolution and Green revolution on the material living planet and its inhabitants and say that it is "bad science". How is this any different from other male-dominated religions?

Right now, scientists are bombarding and killing ocean life by the billions. BILLIONS. And they say "correlation is not causation". Chant after me: Unholy energy! Unholy God's particle! "Correlation is not causation".

 

Ekta Agarwal True, I was quoting this to somebody the other day when I came to know about cleaning aura, etc via salt / fire. :) But even that is not from the white man - it came from our surrounding Eastern cultures. Packaging matters, I guess, plus we never appreciate ours, true with people, culture, practices, etc

 

Aparna Krishnan It indicates our deep disdain for things from our soil, or of people. And there may lie the answer to many questions.

 

Ekta Agarwal It is not disdain, some part of it is natural too [Ghar ki murgi daal baraabar (even daal is expensive now, though :) )]. Plus there is the inherent issue of our education system not having been created with local ethos in mind, it was a blind copy of an alien culture. I think that caused the rot, more than anything else. I do not think people feel deep disdain, but the disdain is inculcated slowly and steadily through the education system. The real cleanup is needed there. Schooling is necessary, rather training is necessary, and morals and values have to be inculcated and this is the job of the education system, but our system was never designed for that, hence the conflicts we see around us.

 

Sethuraman Pasupathy The simple thoppukaranam which we do wherever we see a vinayakar image is now repackaged as super brain yoga!

 

Gyan Mitra Every 'HINDU' ritual has simply advanced natural science. That salt can correct toxicity in a defined situation is never discussed by western science because they cannot create a model to explain it with their concepts. Can you eat food without salt ? That some foods tastes nice with just a bit of salt should tell you that the food quality has improved. Our tongue has analytical properties.

 

Gyan Mitra Negative auras ride on negative energy which may even be metaphysical partly. Salt shorts the negative energies, and frees the afflicted person. Kumbh Mela is also about correcting negative energies and healing nitrate toxicity in the body.

 

Gyan Mitra Our Brahmins are unable to explain our rituals and practices in the language of the Westerner. They have convinced us that we are useless and that any grand idea has to come from the West. But many ideas are simply taken for free and patented and sold back to us at extremely high cost. Also we believe that unless we pay a high cost, it has no value. And so we buy TURMERIC extract capsules :) In our good country, we have an academic mafia who will not share with us very grand knowledge which can transform suffering of millions in just a few years. There is incredible knowledge locked up at the I.I.T. Bombay Chemical Engineering Department for almost two decades. Shrimati Aparna Krishnan would not have been complaining today had it been deployed.

 

Gyan Mitra Did you know you can grow food with SALT as fertiliser ? It is possible if you reduce NITRATE to very low levels. Actually irrigation is needed to dilute salts to the level needed by a food crop. Chemical fertilisers are salts and so irrigation is necessary to dilute salts. If we did not use chemical fertilisers, and improved water quality, then only moisture is needed to grow local seeds into food.

 

Aparna Krishnan How does Kumbh Mela work ?

 

Gyan Mitra The SADHUS are invited to take the first dip. They smear ash on their body. The water has a natural reaction which transforms poison to medicine. The SADHUS get the maximum benefit. Later, those who follow for the dip get the residual effect. Nitrates in their body get cracked reducing pollution. So 'sins' get washed out with the dip. The dip takes place on AMAVASYA when healing rays of the moon are absent. This helps in cleaning out the nitrate toxicity. ( I will find out more details and let you know )

 

Leslie Maree Luther My father used to tell me that the authority is always from out of town.

 

Gyan Mitra This is because locals quarrel with each other so an outsider is invited to sort out the issues.

 

Kiranmai Allam Cleansing the aura is scientific explanation. Everything is good if it is done with scientific explanation.

 

Gyan Mitra Western Science and protocols cannot explain most Nature processes. If they did know, there would be no use of FOSSIL FUEL, no chemical fertiliser and pesticides and no ALLOPATHY.

 

Kiranmai Allam Still western sciences has contributed greatly in development of human life ,whatever quality of life people are enjoying because of contribution of western science.Science is science we can't divide it as eastern or western.Anyhow whatever I want to say is if we do Some there should be proper reason for it ,myths and beliefs take us nowhere .Sometimes it leads to superstitions.

 

Kiranmai Allam Science has done wonders and it will do more wonders in future.To progress in life we need rational attitude and scientific temper.

 

Kiranmai Allam It's science which has explained how nature works ,science has removed the ignorance ,otherwise we had still become scared of nature as primitive man used to do.

 

Gyan Mitra No doubt Science as we know it has created great material progress but the downside is immense pain for millions. Science provides short term gain with long term pain. Global warming and air pollution is due to using FOSSIL FUEL which robs oxygen from the air and returns toxic NOx and heat. Natural Science can ensure that FOSSIL FUEL does not spoil air quality and does not warm the environment. Eastern Science from INDIA is different because Nature is better understood. Western Science does not even have clarity on what is meant by clean water and advocates the use of toxic chemicals to 'clean' water. I am speaking about reality here and now with learning from our Traditions and Culture. To the Western trained eye, it may appear to be mythical and superstitious. Western Science rules so we are being patient. One day it will collapse and then they will look to the East.

 

Rajesh Pandey Education has to be rooted in local ethos, which not being the case presently, makes an educated person misfit in his / her native community.

 

Gyan Mitra If primary education is in ENGLISH, then local ethos has no place.

 

Shyamala Sanyal Also old survival skills are dying. Artisans are vanishing. Present education only fit for desk jobs

 

Rajesh Pandey I keep wondering, how much of such traditional knowledge will be lost in our generation itself, as we failed to learn the same from our parents (busy as we were in our individual rat race), and have already lost some when our grandparents passed away.

 

Chitra Sharan The need to deconstruct and find reason itself is a fundamental difference between western education and traditional systems - traditional ones are rooted in faith, oral history and respect for the knowledge and the Guru. If these are followed today one is termed as superstitious and blind in their faith.