FB Discussions - The place of religiousness

" You would be surprised, but it is true that the study of The Bhagvad Gita is mandatory for every student joining Seton Hall University in New Jersy (USA), The course is titled 'The Journey of Transformation'. And sadly in our country the language of the Gods that is best suited to the computer scripting when proposed to be made compulsory is being opposed tooth and nail by our so called intellectuals, free thinkers and secularists. If we in India make stury of the Bhagvad Gita compulsory, all hell will break lose, and every intellectual, writer, scholar worth his name would fight it out in the name of secularism, "
 

Vidyasankar Sundaresan Everything about this is true, except that phrase about "best suited for computer scripting". That is a misunderstanding of both Sanskrit and computer languages.

 

Aparna Krishnan yes - and that is irrelevent also in this post imo !

 

Aparna Krishnan but why are we educated indians so insecure and defensive and apolegetic and strung up about our heritage ? is it only because we were colonized ? 

 

Vidyasankar Sundaresan The pains of decolonizing our minds. This process makes people on both sides of such arguments very insecure!

 

Aparna Krishnan yes actually. both sides are defensive and highly strung.

 

Karthikeya Sivasenapathy Aparna Krishnan because bhagavath Gita is not everyone's heritage including me .

 

Ansu VT Seton Hall is a Catholic affiliated university which has many religion based courses. 'The Journey of Transformation' is one such course. This is news from 2008 Seton Hall Magazine. See page 9. https://blogs.shu.edu/.../2008/03/winter-spring2008.pdf

 

Suraj Kumar One of the reasons why Maharishi Mahesh Yogi left India. You can teach someone who doesn't know, but you can't teach someone who thinks he already knows.

 

Aparna Krishnan I have no idea why he left. 1. All the more reason to bring back people into the fold. 2. Its only the EnglishEducated who have or feign disdain for their roots. Ordinary people are rooted in a simple religiousness.

 

Mohammad Chappalwala Aparna Krishnan In some of your posts you fall into the same trap as the right wing wants the public to. This claim of know all being superior is being done by followers of all religions and their text, language is the superior

 

Vidyasankar Sundaresan :-) Sanskrit is the language of the Hindu gods, Arabic of Allah, Hebrew of Jehovah and Aramaic of the Christian god. Simple solution! With no claims to superiority or any hierarchy.

 

Aparna Krishnan i see Mohanned. Yes. But I did not mean it that way at all. About the superiority of any text or religion over any other. I was addressing the defensiveness of the EnglishEducatedindian about anything traditional and hoary. The Geeta does have a sublime message, but we will not allow it into schools. I partly understand that we are a multi religious community and need to be sensitive - but the reactionariness of this community of EnglishEducated goes beyond all this.

 

Mohammad Chappalwala yes there are subtleties but Vipin is not seeing that

 

Aparna Krishnan I think Vipin Sharma is seeing that clearly. He is not positing one religion over another. He is simply referring to the defensiveness of the EnglishEducatedIndian that I am, I think.

 

Mohammad Chappalwala i think this is subtle right wing propaganda

 

Mohammad Chappalwala ALL texts are only for the elite, the one who tills, makes his own roof, hunts and knows how to live with the land dont need any text

 

Aparna Krishnan some of my positions match what the left says, and some what the right says. I need to stand with my own understanding even if it is also mouthed by those I differ with on other counts. Left or Right.

 

Aparna Krishnan Of all texts beings redundant is an oversimplification. I stand by Charaka and Sushruta and the Geeta. My neighbours are illiterate, but they know the details of the Mahabharata as I do not.

 

Mohammad Chappalwala yes that proves that there can be oral traditions too

 

Aparna Krishnan true. All existm and need to co-exist.

 

Mohammad Chappalwala like the factory and the farm

 

Aparna Krishnan i did not say that !!

 

Aparna Krishnan like the potter and the farmer and the local priest also.

 

Mohammad Chappalwala Yes i know that the reason this co-exist understanding

 

Aparna Krishnan meaning ?

 

Mohammad Chappalwala the local priest is the problem

 

Aparna Krishnan well, if my neighbours do not feel so, i will reserve my opinion. He is a simple soul in the neighbouring village who ties the amulets and sometimes asks for a hen for a more detailed intervention. there is also a brahmin priest further away, also simple.

 

Aparna Krishnan the immediate gangamma priest is the local SC washerman. Lowest within the SC caste hierarchy, but most important as far as his priesthood goes !!

 

Vidyasankar Sundaresan Actually, I feel most of us have inherited a colonial prejudice against our ministers and priests, whether it is a local temple pujari (brahmin or otherwise) or a mullah. Most of them are very good people, with only good will towards their fellow human beings, even in the big cities.

 

Aparna Krishnan Probably.. We are deeply colonized in ways we cannot even see.

 

Karthikeya Sivasenapathy Vidyasankar Sundaresan why will Hindu gods not understand Tamil ? Are they also having a national language of the gods ?

 

Karthikeya Sivasenapathy Aparna Krishnan not only religion geetha is not the culture of South Indians, north east 7 states , Punjab Sikhs , Jammu and Kashmir plus orissa , etc . Than take tribals , Dalits , Muslims , Christians etc, I don't know how you got trapped in this . Take the village you are working will geetha help them or education of Macaulay

 

Aparna Krishnan I am only an observer. I am not a reformer, I gave up that mantle long ago. I see that my village equally incorporates both Krishna and Gangamma, and that is the reality I am presenting.  That they have the ability to absorb all over aeons, and still hold their own. Yes, they do not 'know the Geeta', but in their philosophises i see the eternal truths in the vedanta. I suppose the vedanta was built out of these eternal wisdoms of this land.

 

Mohammad Chappalwala like i have heard that Arabic is the best language and the language is of "GOD"

 

Mohammad Chappalwala similarly we can subsititute "your" language in Vipin's post and still it will read the same

 

Karthikeya Sivasenapathy Geetha does not mean Hinduism . Geetha is trying to project vaishnavite philosophy and supremacy of Krisha who is no God to anybody I know . Idyll notice right wingers always preach only geetha and krishna or Ram why not Muruga ? Karuparayan ? Muniapan ? Mariamman ? Valli ? Shiva ? No they will not the Hindutva brigades only God is Vishnu and they will go all possible to convert all of us . 

 

Aparna Krishnan I see things as my village neighbours do. That has become a habit. To them traditionally Bharatam (Mahabharata) has been as central as the Gangamma jathra. And Krishnamurthy is revered as deeply as Yerpachchamma. I think the Indian way is to rever all, accept all divinity and in that sense win over and never get vanquiched. The Naidus and the Malaa (SC) continue with their animal sacrifices to Gangamma while revering a local saint Brahnaiyya garu who advocated not killing animals.

 

Siva Vats Bhagavad Gita, brahma sutra and the Upanishads are called prasthana traya - the three exits to after life. The old and new testaments and the holy Quran are not so viewed. They are viewed by most as guides on how to live in this world whose reality is suspect in the prasthana traya. Those who will fight on this very comment need to read and understand all the said scriptures first. When they do so there will be only silence and no fight.

Siva Vats Illanai illalum vendal eentradutha thai vendal cellathu avan vair chol. Means, the one lacking wealth is not sought even by wife and mother and his views have no value. Till China became rich Chinese was only formally a language of a veto holder in the UN. Now Chinese language and culture, as those of the wealthy, are studied in many countries.

Gita, Brahma sutra and Upanishads deal with reality of Life, also called God with the name "I am". Old testament calls God "I am that I am". Jesus said "I am light of Life" and the Holy Quaran refers to name of God as "An" which translates as "I am". World known by knower "I am" in mind is projected outside mind and withdrawn into memory in mind in every moment "now". Can anyone see world of past or future moments outside their mind ever?

Science and History create in mind their model of a permanent world, by recall of memory and expectations of the future in the mind, as ideas. Their models are imagined to be outside the minds of human beings as a reality; this asserted reality is suspect in some Eastern religious thought. Yet predictions with models of science (though not always of history) come true in the present moment now. That is why models in sciences and histories created by the wealthy are taught in schools and colleges, including in educational institutions of the "have nots".

The "have nots" lack the power of wealth to create more accurate models after reaching the frontiers of the sciences and histories based on the research of the wealthy. Without scientific and historical models replacing dogmas in religious thoughts of the "have nots" the science of person "I am" will not develop in the terminology of the wealthy.

The science of Person "I am" was a true science in the past, but now it is a religious text with dogmas which are not reconciled with the terminology of science. The religious scriptures were true in terminology of Person "I am" but are unable to give predictions which models of modern science do. History is more of subtle foreign policies of the wealthy and is less the issue on hand.

Religious scriptures are used by "have nots" as divine laws to govern their bodily behavior and for the brutal enforcement of subaltern behavior on others, especially women, The so called divine laws are in their application misguided dogmas but are called divine religious edicts. Tyrants used to be afraid of going against them. Now democratic power invites mob madness if it goes against them. Science cannot explain that madness. But science of person can do in terms of predispositions and latent tendencies. Chinese party workers altered predispositions of people in China, even if brutally over some. It covered a whole generation. Doing it democratically requires study of Science of Person which goes beyond scientific models that ignore the predispositions and latent tendencies with which human beings are born.

 

Vipin Sharma You have summed it up very nicely, China under Mao Xe Dung right from the year 1949 when he brought about the so called cultural revolution by killing millions of the aristocratic classes and political opponents in his country and establishing Communism, and drawing an iron curtain so that the world could not peep inside China. It was his iron discipline that started bearing fruit after his death in 1976 when China slowly opened up to the world. It was the next twenty year period when China worked on its infrastructure development and opened up the country for the world to come and manufacture whatever they wanted, roads, ports, warehouses, electricity, water and no Communist regulations in free economic zones of China was a great leap forward for the Chinese economy and today China has become an economic superpower. They have worked hard for it and it is very difficult to emulate their amazing economic feat because a country like India needs at least next twenty five years for large scale infra development and to deal with the red tapism and bureaucratic hurdles, creating a mind set for doing business and most importantly minimizing the menace of corruption. But it is true that if a person lacks wealth his words and ideas are of no value at all even to his wife and mother. This is the physical part, now on the meta physical side, India remains the leader despite the fake Gurus who have mushroomed all over India and the gullible sheeple who follow such frauds. But the fact remains that India remains a treasure house of spirituality and it is the ill fortune of Indian people who are running after the consumerism and glamour of the West rather than making the best use of the storehouse of spiritual wealth that India symbolizes. And yes you are very riught when you say that throughout the history, it is the rich who have ruled and made laws for the masses and as Voltaire had very aptly put it The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor and nothing much has changed over the centuries. Very well summed up by you as to why the influence of the 'haves' continues to be immense upon the 'have nots' the fight goes on.