Fw: REBIRTH: Documented Modern Scientific Evidence of Rebirth: Reinc
Murali posts: "....There were references to reincarnation in the old and New Testaments. In A. D. 325 the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, along with his mother, Helena deleted references to reincarnation contained in the Bible. The second council of Constantinople, meeting in Ad. 553, confirmed this action and declared the concept of reincarnation a heresy. Apparently, they thought this concept would weaken the growing power of the Church....
Rajiv comment: Digestors like Carl Gregg love precisely this kind of claim. Everything they digest from dharma is said to have be already in early Christianity. It was lost due to politics over centuries. So now we are merely claiming back what was ours to begin with.
Unfortunately, many people think they are doing themselves a favor by advocating this - also Jesus lived in India, Parmahansa Yogananda follower's claim that he
equated Brahman = Christ....
The point is that these ideas were marginalized in Christianity for a reason - their incompatibility with Nicene Creed. You should understand why my target is
this Creed per se. You cannot allow them to selectively import certain dharma ideas without working out the implications which topple their whole edifice of
exclusivity.
My point here holds for karma being accepted by many americans today, yoga, sacredness of earth, etc. One cannot pick and choose a few items here and there and digest them - rendering dharma redundant and its integrity compromised.
Raj asks:
"People who hold such "sameness" views regarding reincarnation in the bible need to be first clear about: "What" reincarnates? We know it is the Atman that
goes through the birth-death-cycle. We have the entire
Karma-Reincarnation phenomenon fully explained in our Dharmic
traditions. Do the Abrahamic traditions have anything that is equivalent
of Atman? Soul is NOT Atman. Soul CANNOT reincarnate. There is
nothing in there about Karma - unless we compel ourselves to find it
like Theosophy/Steiner/SRF folks do.
If at all reincarnation was there in the bible as suggested, it is just one more example of a Synthetic Unity of parts borrowed/stolen from elsewhere without bothering to properly understand and integrate into some existing system....
Rajiv comment: This is why in BD and various talks I explain that
atman is non-translatable and should be used as is in English. Not only
does soul not reincarnate, its relationship with God differs from the
atman-Brahman relationship in major schools of dharma; animals do not
souls where animals have atman and even plants do."
Prashanth wonders:
"Such confidence. I am sorry but you talk as though you know for a fact the there is an atman and a soul. I can never grasp how you can know such a thing exists."
Rajiv comment: The discussion and works we are dealing with concern TRUTH-CLAIMS of various traditions. Meaning we are comparing and contrasting what X and Y
claim. I dont think you can prove ANYTHING in the realm of metaphysics using conventional notions of proof. We cannot prove karma theory or Original Sin, we cannot prove (or disprove) heaven/hell or reincarnation. But we are here to examine how they differ and what the implications are.
If you want to inquire into whether atman exists or soul exists as a philosophical inquiry, I suggest a more productive use of your time would be to enroll in a curriculum on philosophy...."
Sameer responds:
Two remarks - firstly, the influence of Dharma on the west
predates Christianity. For example, the Yogi Kalyana who accompanied
Alexander on his way back, and took Samadhi in Persia, made a deep
impression on the Greeks. Also, there was a Buddhist monastery in
Alexandria, if I recall correctly.
Rajiv comment: Indeed I am compiling influences in various periods.
The pre-Christian influences are several - Buddhists brought the first
bells to the Middle east which became church bells (Jewish temples did
not have bells); monkhood went from Buddhism to Christianity (again not
from Judaism); and so forth. But it does not negate my claim of more
recent influences, does it?...
Sameer-2: As regards westerners "merely claiming what is theirs to begin with", it
must be pointed out that truth belongs to no one, it cannot be limited.
Even if it is lost, it will be rediscovered. It does not belong
exclusively to India either.
Rajiv comment: Nobody denies this, but what does it have to do with my thesis? But people should have the grace to acknowledge the sources they have been inspired by.
Sameer-3: The SRF view of
Christ is the same as that of Yogananda and his Guru, Swami Yukteswar;
it is described in Yogananda's well known autobiography. Yogananda
claims to have personally communed with Christ ... these are matters
which one cannot judge without personal experience.
Rajiv comment:
...and a similar claim if often made by followers of Sri
Ramakrishna citing his own words. But the interpretation of 'Christ' by
these men differs from that of the Church. They simply use the term as
the western equivalent of Brahman, so the equation of Christ = Brahman
merely amounts to Brahman = Brahman by definition. This is a tautology,
nothing more. This is precisely why I introduce history centrism as
my category, because neither Parmahansa Yogananda nor Sri Ramakrishna
would accept a history centric notion of Christ as being the same as
Brahman. Of course you can call the truth by many names, but in the
process of renaming you must not alter its meaning. That point seems to
be missed in the above post.
Ramesh posts:
Rajiv: You can download it...
Rajiv closes with:
"In chapter 2 of BD, Nicene Creed's incompatibility with dharma is explained using several points of difference, such as:
- One life only vs. karma-reincarnation
- everyone is inherently Original Sinner vs. we are all originally divine (i.e. Christian Good News vs Hindu Good News)
- Infinite
gap between God and man that cannot be bridged by humans and hence
dependence upon historical prophets is unavoidable vs. humans beings are
sat-chit-ananda & have the innate capacity to experience God here
and now without recourse to any absolute, unique historical event.
- History
centrism of prophets turns into absolute dependence upon Bible +
Priesthood (in Catholicism) and Bible (in Protestantism), thereby
yoga,mysticism, meditaton technologies and other adhyatma vidya did not
develop as paths.
- etc.
Whether reincarnation is scientific or not, and whether it is valid or not, the purpose of the above thesis is to point out the difference wrt Nicene Creed. Too often a point from BD gets used to take off in a debate that is independent of it and hence a diversion..."
Koenraad Elst responds to Murali's original question:
"At most a handful, and never as the normative teaching. ...
Jesus goes against this hypothesis. There were all kinds of beliefs doing the rounds in the Hellenistic Middle East, and only some of these crystallized into Christianity, other were emphatically rejected.
At any rate, the belief in reincarnation is *logically* incompatible with Christianity, which sees death [as] the cardinal problem of human existence. That much it has in common with Veda, Avasta, Daoism, which all glorify a vaguely defined value called [immortality]. But typical of Christianity (much less so for Islam and even Judaism, which follows the same creation story) is that it
explains mortality as punishment for original Sin. This creates the need for salvation from sin and hence from mortality. The Christian Messiah (unlike the
original Jewish Messiah, expected to come and restore the Kingdom of David) has to save us from sin and thereby from death. So, the birth and resurrection of Jesus only make sense within a framework that defines death as the central problem of human existence. Such is not the case at all in the reincarnation doctrine, where death is ephemeral, an illusion. In Jainism, Buddhism and the crypto-Buddhism that makes up much of post-Buddhist Hinduism, death is not the problem but is in a sense the hoped-for solution; while immortality is the problem, meaning the endless return to life.
The Vedic seers, like the Hebrew sages and the Daoist "immortals", saw life as a good thing, to be cherished and prolonged. Christians partly agree, only they don't mean this life, tainted by irreducible sin, but a glorified life in
Christ, whatever that may be. But the reincarnation beliefs, or at least their Shramanic versions (contrasting with those of many tribes the world over who believe in reincarnation and welcome it, or see it as a prize to be won) see life/incarnation as a burden from which we must free ourselves....
> In A. D. 325 the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, along with his mother, Helena deleted references to reincarnation contained in the Bible.<
Conspiracy theory. The editing of the Bible was a complex process, pretty much complete before Constantine....
>The second council of Constantinople, meeting in Ad. 553, confirmed this action and declared the concept of reincarnation a heresy. Apparently, they thought this concept would weaken the growing power of the Church.....The early Church fathers had accepted the concept of reincarnation. The early Gnostics-Clement of
Alexandria, Origen, Saint Jerome, and many others -believed that they had lived before and would again (pp 35-36).<
Untrue of most, perhaps true of Origen, but rightly repudiated by the Church. If its doctrine was to make sense, the free-floating ideas of reincarnation had to
be rejected as logically incompatible. Christ's resurrection loses its [unique] and salvific charcater if we all resurect anyway through reincarnation.
....The
Gospel peddlers in Kandhamal have nothing to do with a third-century heresy, they teach a religion solidly wedded to the non-belief in reincarnation.
The only possible Christian belief in reincarnation is one that also doesn't fit your polemical needs, viz. the one peddled by the Jehovah's Witnesses .... that there is no soul capable of leading a dismebodied existence. In their view, you disappear completely when you die, and Christ after his Second Coming will revive you in your physical
body so that you can live forever on this physical earth. On condition that you are among the saved ones, the others will remain dead and non-existent forever. So, the saved ones will reincarnate exactly once, after the Second Coming, and the others never.
Incidentally, the title of this thread is rather mixed up. "Modern scientific evidence of rebirth" and "reincarnation was in the Bible" are two wholly different issues. The second one is a truth claim that happens to be mostly
untrue, the first one is a call to seek the truth experimentally. Given the cornerstone value that most of you accord to the doctrine of reincarnation, it seems to me that it [should] be in your interest to invest massively in proving it scientifically. Among other things, it would blow (serious, doctrinal)
Christianity away. "
Koenraad Elst responds to another question from Sameer:
"> I'm interested in what exactly Jesus about reincarnation ... can you give a reference.
>
Jesus, to the extent that we know him through the Gospel, never expounds on reincarnation. Hanging on the cross, speaking with the "good murderer", he assures him that they will see each other in Heaven. This may be taken literally or as a figure of speech, but it belongs in the then-common Hellenistic view of a soul surviving death and going places in the afterworld, without any hint at
reincarnation.
In John 9:3, Jesus refuses to feed the apostles' speculation that the blind-born child was paying for its own sins or for those of its parents: "Neither he nor his parents, but through him God's works have to be revealed."
.....The Jesus you have to deal with, is the one peddled by the missionaries, streamlined
into Church doctrine. And there, we see not only an absence of reincarnation belief, but compelling reasons to reject it.
There are plenty of post-Christian New-Agers and New-Agey borderline Christians who try to combine a lingering belief in a saving Jesus with a trendy belief in
reincarnation; they are our counterpart to the sameness-preaching moron Swamis. They don't do it as a strategy to mislead Hindus or so, they really mean it. But they too are mistaken: you can have reincarnation or you can have Christianity, but never both.
Innocent as they may be in their motives, they do find a place on the U-Turn curve. They are usually not the kind of people who will raise chauvinistic objections to the whole idea of borrowing Indian beliefs, but they feel that if the reincarnation doctrine is true, and if saints and seers have existed in all continents, then they must have been aware of reincarnation. Ergo, if Jesus really was (leave alone the Son of God) an exemplary wisdom teacher, then he too must have been aware of it and taught it."
Arun shares:
"....The best work that I have found is "20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" by Ian Stevenson, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville. It has 7 cases from
India, 3 from Sri Lanka, 2 from Brazil, 7 from native Alaskans, and 1 from Lebanon. These are supposed to be representative of 200 cases the author has investigated first hand.
As a physicist I would say that there is no evidence of means of persistence of information about the individual after death that can make it innate knowledge to the next body somewhere else.
Further, I don't think karma needs reincarnation to work. The consequences of every action visit someone or the other; and it is only our clinging to our individuality that makes us want the consequences to visit the same individual as committed the action. It also suits our notion of justice...
To try to put a metaphor around it - the tree is the One, and this I is but a leaf. This leaf is shed and another leaf grows - it is a foolish conceit that this I-leaf was reincarnated as this other leaf. We need this illusion because without it, from the common perspective, the nature of the universe seems very bleak. The connection between this leaf and that leaf and all other leaves is
the tree. The consequences of this leaf is expressed in varying degrees in the other leaves."
Raghu comments:
"I am not sure where the idea of an Individuated (i.e., separate) soul arises from. Neither the Yoga Sutras ( i have more than a passing familiarity with it) nor any Buddhist sutras imply a personal soul. they do speak about the impacts of Karma. This does not need great esoteric frame works to understand. Biologically, i carry the Karma of all my ancestors (apes and beyond too as Bill Bryson says in his book); psychologically i carry all the impacts of my
parenting and growing up, sociologically i carry all the conditioning of my society. Spiritually the i can not exist if i have to discover this realm!..."
Viswa responds to Arun:
"The tree-leaf analogy is .... precisely what our dharma indicates about our relationship with the ONE. I am just a ‘leaf’ and so are others, and all belong to the ONE.
The only difference is, as our shastras indicate, we will all blend into the ONE after death. Having read his Upanishads thoroughly Tagore was one very persistent believer in this life after death. Very consistently, through his songs (especially Brahma-sangeet) and poems, he talked of his blending into the ONE after death. "
March 19
Successful event at Univ of Toronto
Yesterday's event announced in the attached invite was a great
success. It was organized by some academic scholars who are amongst the
best known in the field...
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March 21
March 21
March 21
March 22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISme5-9orR0&feature=youtu.be
Jitendra responds:
"The director of this film is Evan Grae Davis. If you google ... you will see a lot of links who really he is. ...
link with his connection to christ lutheran church.
Rajiv comment: BI has a lot of material on Lutherans, including a
whole chapter. They are amongst the most active in generating and
spreading atrocities literature, so this factoid is just another one of
hundreds...
March 22
Fw: [RISA-L LIST] Pluralism Conference cfp
... From: Franklin M.J. M.J.Franklin@...> To: risa-l@... Sent:
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 12:55 PM Subject: [RISA-L LIST] Pluralism...
Rampersad posts: "Indian Pluralism and Warren Hastings’s Orientalist Regime 18-20 July 2012, University of Wales Conference Centre , Gregynog, Powys.
Plenary speakers include Dr Natasha Eaton (King’s College, London ); William Dalrymple; Professor Carl Ernst ( University of North Carolina ); Professor Daniel White ( Toronto ).
The aim of this conference is to provide a more complete and multidisciplinary picture of the amateur Orientalists of the Hastings circle and the politico-cultural significance of their work. Jones sought similitude between West and East, and part of this overarching project was to stress the compatibility of Hindu and Islamic mysticism. There was an imperialist ideological dimension here; it was a means of aligning the regime's need to appear both neo-Brahmanical and neo-Mughal....."
Rajiv comment: The bit about William Jones is the standard stuff
glorifying him. Someone should point out to them the facts about Jones
revealed in Breaking India in the early chapters - about how
Jones was obsessed with the Biblical Noah's sons as the races of
humanity and tried to fit Hindus into that Biblical schema. His project
had the over riding dimension of making "new" discoveries of
civilizations fit into the Bible's idea of races...
March 23
Pondicherry Uturner from Germany: a case study
Rajiv Malhotra posts:
"At the recent seminar on BD in Pondy (video yet to be uploaded), an
interesting episode occurred when a German lady stood up during Q&A
and said: after living in Pondy for 22 years as follower of Sri
Aurobindo, she had gone back to Germany and got re-baptized as a
Christian.
[this is a related video]
This was a precious moment for my research and I
wanted to capture it on camera with her permission, especially since she
was being very candid and explicit. She made a long statement on her
experiences and reasons, which will become one of my case studies for
uturns. (Somehow, the Indians at the event were embarrassed and wanted
to hush up and "move on" but she and I wanted to discuss this at greater
length.)
....
Notice how she argues that digestion is for the
"higher good". I have had similar explanations given to me by many
"friends of dharma" over 30 years. This included one lady in Princeton
who was a very interesting uturn case on digesting dharma into "western
science" and who got recognized by Templeton Foundation, and this has
led Prof. Mary Evelyn Tucker to produce a highly acclaimed TV series on
the cosmos that is having an impact. All Hindu cosmology is removed!
The German uturner wrote as follows:
I'm
always amazed, how close Christian perception and Sri Aurobindo's
vision of the perfect world are and the description of the evolving
divine plan behind it all. Opposed to Advaita (at least Shankara), Islam
and Buddhism both these philosophies (to avoid the word 'religion')have
their aim neither in a blissful void nor in a promising paradise above,
but in the realization of a new earth and a new creation, a new human
race as a reflection of the Divine Himself. Different images and
terminology, but the core, the 'essence' is the same. Just to mention
two examples: take 'Sin' for 'Death' and 'Purgatory' for 'Sadhana', God
for Love. Although one should never impose the concept of one belief or
ideology on another, as Rajiv put it in his talk, the similarities are
striking! .....
I entered into a profound
discussion on this subject with the local priest of 'Notre Dame des
Anges', Pondicherry and now here, in Tiruvannamalai, where I'm staying
near the ashram, with the the priest of 'Grace and Compassion'Convent.
To my surprise both of them showed great interest in my survey and
comparison of Indian spiritual wisdom and Christianity and asked me to
come back and continue our conversation. Fr. Savarinmuthu here had spent
4 years at the Vatican and is a doctor of theology. He told me with a
cunning smile, that he had always dreamt to explore the life and
spiritual wisdom of different ashrams in Tamil Nadu(in disguise of
course!), but never had had the time to do so. Both
priests are secretly craving for spiritual experiences and a deeper
knowledge, the wisdom behind the written word, they confessed. You won't
believe, the one in Pondy even admitted quite openly that he sometimes
is overwhelmed by doubts(during the eucharist! Ouch!)that what he is
doing and preaching is the Truth and that he is battling with
contradictions inside himself and the dogma of the CC. Interesting!
I
feel deep compassion and sympathy for them, because they are pushing
towards a greater Truth, yet are bound by a petrified dogma and stagnant
institution. They try to remain loyal , but at the same time wish to break free.
...Anyway, I promised to come back with some books or
excerpts, as they have only very little time to read. My priestly friend here would even like to study Rajiv's book. If you still have one spare copy left, he would be truely greatful!
......
By
the way, maybe not all spiritual U-turners kick their Indian masters
but try and introduce something new and more valuable into their own
traditional framework of belief in order to widen and transform? Toxic
spikes are the weapons of the old world I feel and not necessary at all.
There is nothing to defend and nothing to fear, everything is heading
for a greater aim. There is a saying 'You are what you eat' - there may occur a subtle up-lifting of the western dogma, from the ferocious tiger to the gentle beauty. Christianity
will never be able to devour Indian spirituality here in India, that's
for sure, as it is a silent minority. In the West, to the concern of the
institutional churches, Christianity is gradually declining, giving way
to the interest and followership of Indian scriptures and gurus. Indian
wisdom may get twisted, misinterpreted, adapted to western thinking and
slowly devoured, but it will never totally disappear: like
medicine it will be digested and assimilated of the body ('tiger'), but
for its (body's)good and its transformation into something NEW and
'Suprascripture'(my own new creation:). In the end the act of devouring
may turn out to be an act of the Divine and nothing of the little ego,
its petty fears of extinction and its national pride. .....When contrasts meet distinction
doesn't necessarily have to dissolve, both elements can exist side by
side, like in a child, which is the mixture of both his parents, in
genes, looks and character, without his parents having to disappear."
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Ravi comments:
"It is mind boggling what extreme individuality can do to a nice person's
views on someone else being eaten up. At the core of the Christian
message as spread historically is the idea of bypassing cultural
diversity for the "one Kingdom Under God" (brilliantly articulated in BI
& BD, & also by Arun Shouries detailed readings of Christian
scriptures & effects).
This kind of culturing still seems to survive robustly in otherwise
compassionate & intelligent westerners who think nothing a host
culture being a "sacrificial lamb" for the "Greater Good" ... of their
own culture, which somehow is supposed to translate to "universal good"."
Rajesh notes:
"I believe the German lady has given a great hint as to why she made the U-Turn. She says: "What
is lacking with them and most of the common clergy, no matter of which
denomination, is the direct spiritual experience and the vision of the
Truth, which is a fact indeed and no illusion."Many
Christians who have a difficulty personally perceiving and experiencing
the Divine in Christ, look towards Dharmic traditions to teach them
methods of how to touch the Divine. They want to experience also. The
lady learnt all she could with Sri Aurobindo. Then she went back to
Germany and let her be re-baptized. Now as a Christian, she can
superimpose her knowledge of the Divine on to Christ, and thus use the
same methodology to experience Christ as she learnt for experiencing the
Divine through Dharmic ways. During all this time, she was
simply learning a new perspective how to view Christ and also Dharmic
"technology" on how to "reach" him! The target had remained Christ for
her the whole time.She could never manage to transfer her
"loyalty" to Dharmic names for the Supreme! ...
If one were to
notice this involvement of the Westerners with Dharmic spirituality, in
it they will always refer to the Supreme in general using terms like
"Supreme", "Divine", "Bhagwan", "Ishwar", "Paramatma", etc. All these
ways to refer to Him are generic. One can always superimpose these onto
Jehovah or Christ, etc later on. Moreover this imagery is not
idol-worship! However what these Westerners may hesitate to touch in Hinduism with
a long pole, would be Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma, Durga, Ram, Krishna, etc.
Meditating on these images would cause them discomfort....
Rajiv comment: Rajesh has captured the uturn psychology well. I go
into extensive detail in the book. The western identity is history
centric. It was never abandoned even in the depth of the person's love
for Hinduism, guru, India, or whatever. It was merely set aside
temporarily, perhaps in the unconscious. At a later date it pops up and
resurfaces and then its uturn time! Many such persons do not have a
premeditated goal to return to Christianity. They are open to new ideas
but the loyalty to the deeply ingrained sense of collective western
history runs too deep to go away easily. Real transformation has not happened even after decades of dedication to a Hindu guru or movement. The
uturn moment is when (due to a combination of circumstances and forces
which I discuss in detail) there is an internal conflict between whats
been learned new from dharma versus old western ego that pulls back. In
cases where the latter wins, there is the uturn..."
Dwai responds to Rajesh:
"In response to rajesh's post, in my experience with iskconites, they have simply replaced their native abrahamic faith with a dharmic one. The tendencies and
psychoses associated with the abrahamic still exist quite strongly nonetheless..."
Arjunshakti adds:
"I see Iskcon as a trojan horse after interacting with them since childhood. I've seen their paintings of krishna turn from Indian to European and its not surprising that they often say that Krishna was not an Indian even if he was
born there.They dont even class themselves hindus but only when they need donations or are in trouble like in Russia presently they suddenly become hindus.For years they have been trying to break away Vaishnavism away from Hinduism.They class Jesus as a great Vaishnava but attack other Gurus like Vivekanada and others."
Ravi responds:
"While the criticisms may be valid to a point, the situation is far more
complex than articulated by the personal experiences on certain
aspects/people of ISKCON. Calling it a "Trojan horse" seems a bit too
far, as is extrapolating from a few personal experiences to a whole
movement.
It it's original thrust it seems to have gone furthermost in getting
devotees/followers to dissolve their existing identities to take on the
"dvija /reborn" new personality based on Vaisnava sampradaya
traditions.
A movement has to be in constant interaction with the societies it
lives in, & it should be more a comment on Western Universalism's
attempt to digest ISKCON when we see the "traditionalists" vs the "new
liberals" trying to get to lead the movement as we see now..."
Sumant comments:
"It is also quite telling how often these U-turns are followed up by an immediate commercial venture - a "project", starting a "Christian meditation" organization (which purges all references to the dharmic
traditons from where these techniques were learnt), "research" that is
very often (very well) funded by organizations with a Christian agenda.
All of these are merely the Church in a different garb. The narrow,
exclusive and divisive agenda of the Church stays intact in all such
endeavours. Plus they also yield very real, material and
career/commercial benefits. The spirit of sadhana, of the ego-less pursuit of self-enquiry - which is the raison d'etre of the dharmic
techniques and an intensely personal pursuit - is discarded in this
process and is replaced by the egoistic domination that the Church
seeks, albeit in a more insidious form."
Rajiv shares an update:
".... The German Uturn lady is now watching my various videos on YouTube and writes to me: "Thank
you Rajiv for all your interesting videos! I'm learning more about
India and western & eastern spirituality through your talks than
during the last 30 years of my life in and outside the different
ashrams." However, I don't expect that this will reverse her uturn, though it could slow it down..."
[on 'mutual respect' ]
March 23
What is a genuine religion?
Naidoo comments: I will never regard Christianity, Islam and Baha'i as genuine
religions. In fact I have serious difficulties with all five religions
born in the Middle East....
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Rajiv responds:
BD does not want to be over-ambitious in opening a certain kind of debate. It does not want to rush ahead and foreclose opportunities. First we must get to the forums where difference can be discussed seriously and candidly.
Only then can one begin to argue whats true and false.
For now, BD merely wants to assert that truth-claims (not the same thing as truths) differ in very serious ways. Even winning our own leaders on this point is very difficult. Right here in Toronto I came across a popular interfaith
Hindu who is so full of this "sameness" stuff. Very smooth talker, nice guy, full of humor, kindness, gentle body language. But he slipped out when I explained that such interfaith positions of sameness by Hindus are one-sided
because others do not ascribe to them, and that our interfaith representatives need to undergo serious training because they are unqualified to speak for us. The large gathering at the temple applauded, but he left..."
bluecupid asks:
"If a religion says that Hindus are going to hell and that "idol worship" is shirk, how is it that Hindus can respect that religion?
Rajiv response: we have explained several times before that "mutual" respect means that if the other party wont respect us, we do not have to respect him. It is not "unconditional" respect I offer but mutual. That is why hitler, bin laden, ravana, etc do NOT deserve respect under the "MUTUAL respect" principle - because their exclusivity disrespects others."
Surya adds:
"There is no paradox. We cannot let people get away with 'unless you prove us wrong, yours cannot be right'. Here is the argument, according to these people: (1) Our truth claim is X and your truth claim is Y. (2) X and Y are incompatible - both cannot be true at the same time. However, both can be false. Logical conclusion from the above definitions of X, Y is: (X AND Y) is always false. From this, it is true that X cannot be True unless Y is False. It follows that "unless you prove us wrong, yours cannot be right". Are these people correct then? No, the argument is not complete. Argument is incomplete because they are not showing a crucial but implicit premise. They are missing a crucial premise in the argument and that crucial premise depends on who is making the argument. If they are framing the argument, they add the implicit premise "X is True" because that is their truth-claim. The conclusion then is "Y is False". If you are framing the argument, you add the premise "Y is True" because that is your truth-claim. The conclusion then is "X is False". Each party reaches a different conclusion because they have different implicit premises, their respective truth claims. The only thing one can say for sure is that both these truth claims cannot be true at the same time. We both can agree that we have incompatible truth claims. We also can agree that we cannot prove our respective truth-claims. Now, we have the choice to acknowledge this explicitly and engage each other with mutual respect. If you hold that your Truth claim is the Truth, thus concluding that my truth claim is False, I could do the same from my end. Claiming that your truth-claim is true without evidence is exclusivity. This is going to keep us from engaging each other with "mutual" respect. This is the basis behind the concept of Mutual Respect explained in BD...."
Shaas notes:
"Just considering the meaning of the term "religion" already distinguish "true religion" and mere superstition. Latin Re-ligare means binding back, binding back to the source
If a "religion" just talks but fails to actually give the experience of Self-realization, fails to connect to Âtmâ or Brahman, it does not deserve the name "Religion"."
Rajiv comment: Balagangadhara's book "The Heathen in his Blindness" revolved on the very point that Latin 're-ligare' is not the same thing as Christian 'religion' even though the Christians (mis)appropriated) the Latin term. So one cannot go to the Latin meaning of a term and use that to interpret a later phenomenon where it was misapplied.
Analogy: Yoga gets misappropriated to denote "Christian Yoga" where it gets a new meaning. Centuries later comes a scholar who uses the Sanskrit notion of yoga to interpret Christianity. That would be wrong."
March 25
Atrocity literature- Important paper that disproves commonly held no
Subrahmanya shares: In this paper, the hypothesis that skewed-sex ratio in India is due
to sex-selection is shown to be wrong. The authors state that 80% of the missing female's may be explained by other reasons....
March 25
March 25
Re: How Simple Ideas Lead to Scientific Discoveries
Sumant shares:
"As a follow-up to my earlier mail, I would have thought technologists
from Silicon Valley - Vinod Khosla, Vin Dham, Arun Netravalli, Gururaj
Deshpande and many, many others - would be interested in helping with
such a project. The original Sanskrit texts are extant, as are
translations, what's needed is research by mathematicians, packaging and
dissemination of these discoveries to the common man - more so to
Indians themselves.
It'd be nice to hear from Rajiv on what the attitude of the Indian
millionaires, particularly wealthy Indian technologists, has been
towards his multi-volume project on science and technology contributions
of India."
Rajiv comment: Without mentioning any names, most NRIs who made it
big do not want to rock the boat by challenging western universalism, as
WU is the framework they function in and in terms of which they made
their billions. Most also lack the time and interest to study dharma
beyond the superficial Deepak Chopra cocktail party buzz.
Those few who are interested, tend to be active in some Sangh related group. This makes them vulnerable to the foll. tendencies:
-- many are hiding their involvement in public due to Sangh disrepute and guilt-by-association;
-- most have spent their past few decades focused on serving as a satellite to India-based politics;
-- most of the funding went to build temples, about 800 large ones,
costing multimillion dollars each, with minimal discourse on the topics
we discuss here - many temples wont even allow such a lecture in their
premises for fear of crossing the boundaries of "sameness".
-- only very recently and suddenly (thanks in large part to my
writings/talks) have they become aware of school, academic, media, think
tank biases in the US; and started refocusing their priorities in this
direction;
-- they are inadequately educated on the issues at stake, and tend to
quote third parties to impress each other, i.e. there is a lack of real
kurukshetra encounters which are necessary to get trained. Mostly behind
the scenes work at gatherings of "like-minded people"...
-- Nevertheless, many very dedicated individuals do exist and they are
doing their best under tough circumstances. I am delighted to know
several of them. But their own resources are very limited."
Another followup comment by Rajiv:
"I would add the Indian National Congress to the above
list of civilizational groups entering politics. Gandhi did not want
Congress to rule India after independence, and wanted it to remain a
grass roots organization to rebuild Indian civilization from the
villages up. It was Nehru's out-of-control ambition for personal
political power that turned Congress into a substitute for British rule.
Politics is not bad or unimportant, and a nation does need
good politicians and political institutions. But my point was that in addition
there also need to be individuals and groups devoted to civilization
that remain outside politics for a number of reasons: not getting
tainted with the ups and downs inevitable in politics; not becoming
subordinate to short-term political goals; not becoming turned into
tools for politicians' egos..."
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