RMF Summary: Week of January 3 - 9, 2013

This first thread has a lot of deep discussion and will be covered in depth in a separate post.
January 3 (continuing discussion)
Re: Sanskrit Dictionary : Amarakosha and MW dictionary Comparison
Dhirendra is just mouthing off statements randomly without offering any explanations for his claims. (1) To protect the wild-life is modern times Scientific...
 
January 4 (continuing discussion)
History of India recommendation
Please suggest a one or maximum two volume history of India ( in English) for a Westerner who knows very little of India. Thanks in advance!...

We continue to list books cited by contributors. Follow the original thread in the e-Group or see last week's post for more references. There is also a discussion with 'Dhirendra' in this thread (as in the previous thread).

Umesh:
Veer Savarkar's book, 'Six Glorious Epochs Of Indian History'  is a commentary "not a history in its academic sense”on the significant events and periods in our national life, taking a broad survey of the growth and survival of our Hindu race. In a way this attempt of Savarkar has been singular, barring few honorable exceptions.
The general trend of the Histories, written, read and taught in schools and colleges have been one of eulogizing the foreigners ...

Surya:

History Of Ancient India (portraits Of A Nation), 1/e

 By Kapur, Kamlesh, Published: December, 2010

Book description:

The history of India has been written and rewritten several times, each time with a different context. Historical narratives act as a powerful vehicle of culture and tradition from generation to generation. Therefore it is essential to give an authentic narrative of India's past using all the new evidence which has surfaced through archaeological excavation in the Indus-Sarasvati region. Researches in the field of ecology, natural history and genetics have given us enough pointers enabling us to write a fairly accurate history of Ancient India. This book ties up all this new evidence with the internal evidence from the literary sources....

[Passing on Author's clarification:
The book covers the time frame from 7th Millennia B.C. to 1000 A.D....]
 
Jaideep:
K. D. Sethna's "Ancient India in a new light". This is history of India from the remotest references to Prithu Vainya (Megasthenes' Dionysus), upto the Guptas and Satvahanas.

In the first part, it shows that the Puranic Chronology is fully consistent internally as well as with the writings of Al Beruni, Megasthenes, Hiuen Tsang, etc. It also critiques the modern chronology placing the Mauryas in 300 BC and puts Guptas there instead...

... PPS: As far as the history of the Rigvedic period goes, please also read Shrikant Talageri's "The Rigveda and the Avesta: The final Evidence", 2008. And please read it cover to cover....

Carpentier adds:
"...In the light of a recent Nat Geo genetic survey which traces the ancestry of many North Indians to Central Asia, there is now a claim that it "proves" that Aryans did indeed come from Central Asia (after getting there from Africa) and came to India, presumably bearing the Vedas and Brahmanism with them. This is of course a wild telescoping of dates as it assumes that the "Aryans" came to India around the usually bandied about date of 1500 BC, when in fact Central Asian migrants might have come some 50 000 years ago, assuming that they did not go the other way and migrate from India to Central Asia. This shows how much people tend to stick to established ideas once they have decided that anything that contradicts them is inspired by "Hindutvadi" communal and chauvinistic religious notions" 

January 4 (continuing discussion from January 3)
Swami Vivekananda becomes Masculine Nationalist
The author is trying to connect recent sexual crimes to Hindu nationalism. Taking the aggression out of masculinity Sanjay Srivastava (Professor of Sociology...  

E-group owner posts links to responses to this article published in 'The Hindu'
Moderator's Note: Multiple posts combined:]

Ram shares:

A reply by Shri.Aravindan Neelakandan [Co-Author with Rajiv of "Breaking India"] on CentreRightIndia 

Desh shares his take:
http://www.drishtikone.com/gobbledygook-analysts-reverse-hatred-and-targeting-culture-will-not-solve-indias-rape-problem/
 
[also recommend Sandeep Balakrishna's response on sandeepweb].


Sandeep posts:
More views on women by Swami Vivekananda can be found in Nivedita's book "The Master as I saw him" [this seems to be the full text]

 "... He held with unfaltering strength, that the freedom to refrain from marriage, if she wished, ought to be considered as a natural right of woman. A child, whose exclusive leaning to the devotional life was already strongly marked before she was twelve, had once appealed to him for protection against proposals of alliance that were being made by her family. And he, by using his influence with her father, and suggesting increased dowers for the younger daughters, had been successful in aiding her. Years had gone by. but she was still faithful to the life she had adopted, with its long hours of silence and retirement; and all her younger sisters were now wedded. To force such a spirit into marriage would in his eyes have been a desecration....

    The Swami was not unaware of the existence of social problems, in connection with marriage, in all parts of the world. "These unruly women," he exclaims, in the course of a lecture in the West, "from whose minds the words 'bear and forbear' are gone for ever " He could admit, also, when continuance in a marriage would involve treachery to the future of humanity, that separation was the highest and bravest course for husband or wife to take. In India he would constantly point out that Oriental and Occidental ideals needed to be refreshed by one another. He never attacked social institutions as such, holding always that they had grown up out of a desire to avoid some evil which their critic was possibly too headstrong to perceive. But he was not blind to the over-swing of the pendulum, in one direction or the other..."

Ravindra shares:
"There is an age old festival, called Madana Trayodashi, that does for women what Kadva-Choth does for men. The festival for one reason or other has been forgotten in most parts.

On this day husband prepares scented waters with which he would bathe his wife followed by Pooja..." 


Vanita questions:
"Don't you think Western/Eastern is another binary divide. Does it not make sense to think in terms of what is good for us at this time within the overall context that we are exposed.  I think we are now exposed to many more multinational and multicultural issues that transcend our colonial baggage in to day's shrinking world. "

Rajiv's comment:
"The above attitude is well addressed in BD. Please read it first. Its a moron attitude of cop out, laziness, tamas - in the name of lofty "we are all one" - so you dont have to understand the choices or worldview and their tradeoffs. Enough has been written/said in response already. Please read that, and THEN we can spend time taking it further."


Kundan responds to Vanita (so well written, it's tough to excerpt, but will try)
""Being Different" and "being the radical opposite of the other" are two different things. The former comes from an extensive exploration of the cosmology of different worldviews and systems; the latter comes from a simplistic portrayal of an epistemology that has not transcended binary divides.

The Indian world view transcends and integrates binaries. The western worldview (sans the experiences of some mystics who were persecuted and not allowed to come into the mainstream by the Church) is embedded in many different binaries like spirit/matter, body/soul, mind/matter, God/world, mind/body, subject/object, etc. Even postmodernism (which incidentally has been massively influenced by Buddhism and Vedanta, though not explicitly acknowledged) that challenges some of these binaries ultimately end up in promoting and espousing subtler binaries.

When I write the above, I am espousing a prominent difference between the Indian and the Western civilization. If I were stating things like rational west/intuitive east, Cartesian West/Wholistic East, I would have been operating under the western cosmology and epistemology that has not transcended binaries--... When we speak of our difference, being mindful of the space that goes beyond the binaries, we liberate ourselves from the ill effects of an orinetalist exercise and do not operate in the same framework that we are critiquing.... "

[thanks to Sunthar for his efforts in the thread below. He also also compiled Rajiv Malhotra's works, which will be perma-linked on this site soon]

January 5

Chinese Non Translatables
..."There are more than 35,000 Chinese words or phrases that cannot be properly translated into the English language. Words like yin and yang, kungfu and fengshui. Add to this another 35,000 Sanskrit terminology, mainly from India. Words like buddha, bodhisattva and guru."

Different people in different times and different places, think and discover different things. That was bad news for Germany, so Leibniz and Hegel urged the Germans to use only German already established concepts and annotate them with "chinese" or "indian". This way, the world looked and felt to the Germans as if it was German. Hence the idea, that ONE
civilization can replace all others and will never miss a thing.

Language hegemony: It's shengren, stupid!
By Thorsten Pattberg, China Daily, November 25, 2011

If you are an American or European, chances are you've never heard about shengren, minzhu and wenming. If one day you promote them, you might even be accused of cultural treason. That's because they are Chinese concepts.

They are often conveniently translated as "philosophers", "democracy" and "civilization". But they are none of those. They are something else. Something the West lacks. And since foreign concepts were irritating for most Westerners, they were quickly removed from the books and records in the past and, if possible, from the history of the world dominated by the West. In fact, German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel once remarked that the East plays no part in the formation of
the history of thought.....

Rajiv's comment: 

The author of the article below, Thorsten Pattberg, was introduced to me via Sunthar. We then sent Thorsten a gift copy of BD. Thorsten wrote... "After having read your excellent work "Being Different", I immediately had to
change text passages of my "East-West dichotomy" and included you as one of the most influential promoters of Eastern thought. A new edition will be published by Beijing Foreign Language Press in March 2013. The FLP is a very prominent publisher in China. May I kindly ask you for a "blurb" for my book? A blurb, according to the FLP, is a brief statement of three sentences or so which comments on my book in a positive way."

I sent him a blurb for his book as requested. He also wrote the following to Sunther: "I will feature 'Being Different' on my little website, and help to spread the word."

... No wonder my critics at AAR ignored this issue although its so loud and clear in the book."

January 5

North America's only Chair of Hindu Studies collapses
Rajiv shares some bad news:

T.S. Rukmani had the distinction of occupying the Chair of Hindu Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, which was the only permanent academic chair specifically designated for Hinduism in north america. Its donor community had insisted in a practicing Hindu scholar as occupant, and provisions were made for this up front.

Now that Prof. Rukmani has retired (and I just chatted with her a few minutes ago), things have fallen apart. The university has reclassified it as a "line appointment" to be made under normal "university policies". This is jargon for saying that their own selection committee will select whosoever they choose. The Hindu community gets sidelined and reduced to the role of "adviser" which is not binding and is merely appeasement to try and get more money.

Numerous other chairs have fallen prey to similar destinies, after the initial appointment retires ...  Typically, they get hoodwinked because of their own weakness - to impress the whites, to get their names in prominent announcements, to boost their stature as "leaders" who are working for "the good of Hinduism".

I say this because history keeps repeating itself. I have been giving lectures on this problem since the mid 1990s, trying to offer my services free of charge as consultant to negotiate long term agreements that will withstand, and to ensure the right appointments are made...

... But this has nothing with with what ought to matter: The ability to produce game-changing discourse that challenges the incumbent positions and incumbent power structures in ways that will invariably be unpopular. That would require competence, creativity and courage beyond the local leaders. The university side is far stronger intellectually, in negotiation sophistication, and most of all, they understand this weakness of our local leaders.  They know how to play "good cops".

The rest, as they say, is history (repeating itself). So dont get fooled each time you come across yet another group that pops up and makes grandiose announcements. "

January 7

Oh No! We ended up with Synthetic Unity!  

Nitin shares:

Interesting blog on huffington post. Looks like this NY Times best seller author has read the Integral vs Synthetic unity of BD.

... We believe, first, that we are separate from God (if we believe in God at all). Our Deity, we are told, separated us from Him when the world was created, because of the unworthiness of our species...

Second, we believe we are separate from each other. Generally, we use a softer word. We are individuals, we say. And so, in the cultures of the world's western nations especially, it is our individual rights that have become paramount....

Third, we believe we are separate from life itself ....

Has anyone noticed that the systems emerging from these beliefs are not working? Not our political systems, not our economic systems, not our ecological systems, not our educational systems, not our social systems, and not our spiritual systems. None of them have produced the outcomes for which we have been yearning.

Actually, it's worse. They have all produced exactly the opposite..."

RMF Summary: Week of December 16 - 22, 2012

This first thread is quite an important one with lots of insightful discussions where contributors debate Rajiv ji, and in turn, respond to his followups. Please read the original thread in its entirety, given the nuances in this delicate debate. The thread starts of a video discussion of Hindu identity in the west (USA), where the students ask some frank questions that has resulted in some deep Q&A in this post.
 
December 16 (New Thread)
Important video: My debate/panel with Hindu American youth on identi

This is an important video to watch. I am glad the lady representing Brahma Kumaris preached the standard "sameness" ....

Thakare responds:
"...  1.) The concepts of Brahmakumari are the core of "vyashti sadhana". Sadhana done for personal spiritual upliftment.
2.) Mr. Malhotra's form of sadhana currently is "samashti sadhana". Sadhana done for society at large.
3.) One cannot do samashti sadhana if one is weak in vyashti sadhana. ...

Even Mr. Malhotra explains to the BK lady that what she is talking about is general vyashti sadhana (who am I, peace etc) but the need of the hour is to fight adharma through samashti sadhana. Hindus are ignorant about their own identity thus are confused about the term sadhana itself. Do NOT be egoistic but be firm."


Rajiv comment: 
"I have no problem with such organizations that pursue self-realization of the individual through strictly the inner journey, what I call adhyatma-vidya. In fact I have great respect for the true sannyasi.

But then why do many of them send representatives to speak at a panel on youth identity? Why do such gurus and their followers go to educate students and householders in a manner that is inappropriate for those stages of life. Why are they confused in their own minds about the difference between dharma for different varnas and different ashramas. They live (or claim to live) as sannyasins (stage of life) and brahmins (varna). But 99% of those they teach are not in this category. So its medicine meant for themselves as individuals which they are distributing to the general public.

I ask many of them embarrassing questions like: Why are you raising funds for your organization, working so hard to expand more centers and get more followers, etc. if your pursuit is for your own self realization?

My point is that there is massive hypocrisy. What is lived is not what is being taught in most cases. The teaching is like an iPod reciting mechanically the words that create some lofty impression. The harm caused is that this confuses the general public who revere such guru movements as their supreme authority. Notice how confused the students start out in the panel. Their parents and most lay Hindus are likewise. Where did this come from, and who is accountable for this?

The buck stops at the doorstep of the gurus. They need to be re-educated for modern times."


Narendra comments:
"One cannot be both a Dharma guru and a moksha guru. They are incompatible. One requires complete renunciation and the other renunciation of selfishness only. This is probably why Sanyasis were separated from Grahastas. Sanayasis are not meant to talk/advise about  life they have not experienced. As Prof Kundan in Florida discussion mentioned, we need to develop a dharmic ego/identity  (integration of ego/soul) before striving for Moksha or go straight to mountains and not interfere with dharma process. I have two gurus. A 'Mokha Guru' (self- realized?) who initiated me with a 'Moksha mantra" which  I chant only during my meditation. I have a dhrama guru or a mentor. I  chant 'Dharma mantra' such as 'love, courage,patience etc...' most of the free time to create a stable ego and motivate me in dharma. .."

NV responds:
"In my limited experience, I have found that jivanmuktas do not ask one to give up one's dharma in life. In fact they make one stronger to deal with life. It is wrong to think that moksha and dharma are at loggerheads. Nobody is going to attain any moksha by giving up his/her commitments and responsibilities in life. The sadhus do renounce married life among other things. But I have seen them delve into the problems of householders and guide them in their worldly destinies. As Rajivji pointed out very eloquently in one of his videos (the one with the Brahmakumari), most of us are not going to attain moksha in the near future and it is our duty to protect  Hindu dharma so that it exists to help us in our future lives!.."

Ashay has a detailed post that Rajiv notes as important and responds to:
"This debate is interesting because it gets at the core of what is called neo-Hinduism. I am also alluding here to the recent post where Rajiv mentioned that the attacks on BD by Rambachan and so on, parallel the attacks on Vivekananda. I approach this issue with mixed feelings for while I do support Rajiv's cause, I think Vivekananda as the architect of neo-Hinduism is atleast
partially responsible for the confusion caused by the 'guru movements'. Let me explain how.

1. I think the BK lady articulated what has now become the grand narrative of modern Hinduism. Its origin lies in the so-called Schopenhauerian ethic which has influenced many Vedantic scholars, including Vivekananda. In the 'Philosophy
of the Upanisads', Deussen, one of Schopenhauer's disciples, remarks along these lines: "The Bible teaches that we must love our neighbour. But why should we? Because, the Upanisads say, your neighbour is your own self."...

2. This has now become also the position of Vedanta. The Christian critique of Vedanta is that it is too selfish in that one strives for one's own self-realization and does not care about the world. Intellectuals such as Vivekananda used the Schopenhauerian ethic to address this problem. To be Brahman means to realize that everything including oneself is Brahman and thus to serve the world as Brahman. From the former realization proceeds the latter action. What the BK lady said and what thakare_parvata has elaborated is the same thing. This has unfortunately become the modern self-understanding of Hinduism....

3. Based on my reading of Vivekananda's speeches, I think that he not only endorsed but was probably one of the authors of this narrative. Furthermore, he (or his followers) have wrongly claimed this view to be that of Sankara which I
have attempted to differentiate below. I do realize that many people on this forum have the utmost reverence for Vivekananda and so I would like to clarify that my intention is neither to give offence nor to show disrespect. Neither is
my distinction between Vivekananda and Sankara's ideas based on the same reason as Rambachan's who takes issue with Vivekananda's privileging of mystical experience over scriptural authority...

4. I completely agree with and appreciate Rajiv's efforts to formulate a distinctive laukika Hindu identity instead of this warm and fuzzy spiritualism that dominates Hindu thought today. In this endeavour it would be useful to understand how Sankara's views differ from Vivekananda's. In the Adhyasa-bhashya, Sankara has distinguished between pramana-prameya-vyavahara which is the pre-reflective fight-or-flight kind of responses common to all living creatures including humans, and a reflective, identity-based sastriya-vyavahara which is specific to humans...

5. Of course, Sankara was categorical that jnana is superior to karma and moksa is realized only through jnana. Sastriya-vyavahara, based as it is on worldly identities, is also a form of avidya but that does not mean, as Arjuna found out
in the Gita, that everyone is eligible for jnana. Every living being automatically undertakes the path of karma but only a privileged few can tread the path of jnana. Sankara explains in the Gita-bhasya that the pravrtti-dharma assigned to varnas and asramas is relatively inferior and meant for worldly and
heavenly prosperity only, but when it is selflessly performed, it leads to sattva-shuddhi. This sattva-shuddhi makes one eligible for nivrtti dharma, i.e., the path of jnana leading to moksa. This serial ordering of pravrtti and nivrtti
is relevant even today, only the pravrtti-dharma that addressed varna and asrama identities in the traditional world needs reinterpretation and readjustment to address a Hindu identity for the modern world. I regard the BD as part of the sastric efforts to construct an identity relevant for our times.

6. On the other hand, Vivekananda, and many other modern Hindu intellectuals including the BK lady, see nivritti as the basis for an ethical pravrtti. This is following the Christian model where God's will is seen as the basis of worldly ethics. All that the modern Hindus did was to replace God's will with
nivrtti and claimed, following Deussen and such-like, that it is a more appropriate basis for morality and therefore superior to Western religions. But this has only Christianized us and made us more susceptible to digestion. In Sankara's model this order is reversed. Pravrtti has its basis in the sastras and not in nivrtti. In our case that means we must first have a sastric, i.e., a worldly understanding of a Hindu identity that is reflective and scholarly, and selflessly profess this meaning in everyday life. This way we attain sattva-shuddhi and then, and only then, do we become eligible to make the idealistic claim that Hindu identity is only another form of ignorance and move
beyond it to realize ourselves as the soul or whatever else.

7. Just as colonialism encouraged certain interpretations of varna/jati, so did it encourage an understanding of religion as selfless service to humanity based on a non-denominational, divine self-realization, and a corresponding disregard towards the intellectual interpretation of tradition. Vivekananda was as much a victim of this shift for he dismissed, as did Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the argumentative aspect of Vedanta as 'intellectual gymnastics'. Such thinking has
caused great harm to the tradition and has produced the current crop of anti-intellectual gurus and matas. But there is nothing hypocritical about them performing the activities Rajiv mentions. When you take their model of religion into consideration, as explained above, it makes perfect sense. So my answer to Rajiv's question regaring the current confusion among Hindus, 'where did this come from, and who is accountable for this?' would be not the gurus but this
anti-intellectual paradigm that they follow....

Rajiv's response: 
First I agree with Ashay that SV co-founded modern Hinduism, which its critics call neo-Hinduism. This had many good and bad things in it. Sameness was one of its curses that we live with today. This was due to SV and others having difference anxiety from below. But it also did many good things - unifying various diverse schools, modernizing it in line with new science and other developments, which is not anything wrong and our tradition calls for this evolution. ...NOTE; BD unifies dharmas without also including Abrahamic religions in the same fold. This is where the pioneers failed last time around. In unifying Hinduism the arguments became too generic and could not differentiate other religions. If you get this point, you will appreciate why the BD project is so challenging to do and why BD can make a big difference if it is understood: HOW TO SHOW UNITY OF DHARMA IN A MANNER SUCH THAT IT SHOWS DIFFERENCE WITH ABRAHAMIC FAITHS. But there is a SECOND truth that I am concerned about. Rambachan is a member of a school of social constructivism that is basically undermining Hinduism in total. Not Rambachan himself is not rejecting Hinduism in total, but those who use the arguments and base established by this school end up claiming that:
Hinduism = Hindu Nationalism = Fascism = Exploitation of minorities, dalits, etc. I am in the middle of writing a short book arguing against this school that was started by western Indologists and now is very popular amongst many Indians.  These two truths correspond to two camps and we must fight both.  

Surya adds:
"By serial ordering, what you are saying is that good dharmic living leads to antah-karan-suddhi.  This in turn facilitates jnana.  You contrasted this to neo-Hindu idea of jnana leading to selfless service and see that as undermining tradition.  You called it Schopenhauerian ethic, suggesting that such ethical thought was alien to Indians.

Some questions to you:  In your view of tradition, are there no benefits to the laukika life of an Advaitin as he aspires for liberation?  Are there no benefits to his society?  Are laukika life and adhyatmika life unrelated to each other?  Do liberated Advaitins have anything more to their life than just be world-renouncing sanyasis?..."

Rajiv's response:

I agree with Surya and have issues with the person he responds to. The theory that "tat tvam asi" as basis for ethics in Hinduism was started by Schopenhauer and taught to Vivekananda by Duessen, was promulgated by Paul Hacker, the German missionary-Indologist, and spread by other western Indolgists. Then Rambachan started adding philosophical depth to it. This and many other attacks on Vivekananda that followed from the same school of anti-Vivekananda...

... welcome others who have something concrete to offer during the next 30 days to contact me offline. In particular I need those well versed in Vedanta literature by Shankara as well as his critics..."

 

Arun shares a link and comments: "I do not know how much clearer SV has to be, April 8, 1900, San Francisco " Rajiv's response: "There is a distinction he makes between Jesus and Christianity. He sees Jesus on par with enlightened masters that we are familiar with, and at the same time criticizes Christianity as an institution that does live up to the true Jesus. Many modern Christians also say similar things: "We believe in the true Jesus, not the Church." My question remains: How did Swami Vivekananda validate Jesus based on third-person accounts in the Bible? When pressed philosophically, those who teach whats being called "Christian Vedanta" (and now the "Vedanta" portion is being dropped and its being digested into a Neo-Christianity of sorts), like to say that they re-imagine Jesus in light of Vedanta, and not as taught by the Church. ... These new Christians go through various stages of digestion: .... So church as institution comes back, reborn with Vedanta digested. Many such movements are starting. In fact, the Vatican is looking the other way...   Somewhere along the way, Hinduism-Buddhism get rejected using various arguments, a combination of: A) theology (that without the historicity of Jesus such faiths can at best be preparations for Christianity); and B) social sciences (citing caste and other abuses as reason to reject)...." Jalan has a detailed response, which we only excerpt below. "    Any grand commentator on scriptures may appear to some as creating a "new version" of them (neo-vedanta, neo-Hinduism, etc.) Whose interpretation to believe, whose commentary to consider authentic?     An Apta, on the authority of their first hand experience/realisation, is the only competent interpreter. A scholastic/intellectual analyst of scriptures is not competent to overrule an Apta's interpretation/commentary on the scriptures. The question is if RK/SV qualified as Aptas. Better still, can we think of someone who qualifies as an Apta and who overrules SV/RK version or is it just "intellectuals" who are beating their chests? ....     [Ashay] writes: "...Deussen, one of Schopenhauer's disciples, remarks along these lines: "The Bible teaches that we must love our neighbour. But why should we? Because, the Upanisads say, your neighbour is your own self." He thus saw the Upanisads as complementing the Bible." This line of argument is wrongly being ascribed to SV...  ... "The Christian critique of Vedanta is that it is too selfish in that one strives for one's own self-realization and does not care about the world." I would be very sad to see someone actually buy such a shoddy and meritless critique. (And of all the peoples in the world this coming from the Christian, whose only motive power is seeking an eternal heavenly pleasure garden and avoiding eternal damnation and hell-fire! Irony cannot go farther.) "One's own self realisation at the cost of the world" is perfectly antithetic to SV's message. [Ashay] would do well to research better and come up with EVEN ONE SINGLE QUOTE where SV even alluded at such an idea. On the other hand, try these:         "May I be born again and again and suffer thousands of miseries, so that I may worship the only God that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls - and above all my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, and of all species is the special object of my worship."         "If you seek your own salvation, you will go to hell. It is the salvation of others that you must seek and even if you have to go to hell in working for others, that is worth more than to gain heaven by seeking your own salvation."    .... I also disagree with Shri RM that SV proposed sameness in religions out of difference-anxiety from below - there is nothing in the known life - action or words - of SV that shows he suffered from such an inferiority-complex as to generate this anxiety. On the contrary, the sameness that SV professed was to aggressively debunk the very exclusivity and history-centric creed that the Abrahminic religions claim as truth. It was certainly not anxiety-driven. He spoke from a position of strength alone, hardly diluting Hinduism. After being really impressed with the BD revolution, I had many times wondered whether what SV said in 1893 in Chicago to the American audience, surrounded by the superiority and exclusivity claim of Christianity, was in fact amiss; that it in any way compromised the status or principles of Hinduism. I concluded otherwise....It also deflated the Christian agenda which was prepared only for words of hatred and not for a message of inclusiveness - they ran like headless chicken and in response to this unexpected attack of love, could only mumble and prattle senselessly. Their defeat was clear and conclusive. Is such an aggressive dharma-sangat sameness missing the point? I guess not. ...Just because foolish Hindus could translate anything in a defensive and escapist way, being victims of their own tamasik tendencies, we must not start to denounce the source. It is the self-same Hindus who would quote the Gita in a most twisted fashion to justify the inaction and cowardliness that it clearly tries to demolish. What we are asking for now is something unreasonable - that what someone says must carry the same message and be interpreted consistently across ALL space-and-time points, all contexts, all audiences and societies. This is unfair. Just like Shri RM, SV was also engaged in the samashti sadhna serving the cause and purpose of Hinduism - the former used the sameness route while Shri RM is using the BD route, each being appropriate in the respective spatio-temporal environs to which they belong/-ed. Both sameness of SV and BD of RM are attacking/controverting the same exclusivity claims of Abrahminic  - the contradiction is only apparent. At the same time, I do personally believe that in the inter-religious encounter - and equally/more importantly in the intra-Hinduism forums - our position today must be based on the Being Different principles and not the sameness principles. "  Rajiv responds to Jalan: "Abhishek Jalan disagrees that SV proposed sameness in religions out of difference-anxiety from below... My response: Please note the following quote from SV: "Truth came to Jesus of Nazareth, and we must all obey him. But the truth came to the Rishis of India - the Mantra-drashtas, the seers of thought - and will come to all Rishis in the future, not to talkers, not to book-swallowers, not to scholars, not to philologists, but to seers of thought." (Complete Works, volume 3, p. 283.) In his Collected Works.... In his Collected Works, vol. 7.... First I want to have someone verify these references as I am rushed for time and have not checked lately to make sure. [Dear reader: please contribute here if you can] But regardless, I can find similar references in SV's writings and much more directly pro-Jesus/Bible teachings by his followers. My issue with such remarks is as follows: How does SV know what "state" Jesus had? Most of the Bible is third-person accounts by various onlookers, making it smriti, which cannot be equated with first-person accounts of rishis... ... This message opened the door slightly, which others later flung wide open. Swami Prabhavananda who was sent by the RK Mission to lead Vedanta Society in USA in the early 1900s, was a big factor in making this new kind of Vedanta that was de-contextualized...... small sample of whats being propagated in the name of Vedanta by both Hindus and Judeo-Christians alike: http://americanvedantist.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Vol_10_No_2.pdf ...[more refs snipped for brevity] ... BD does NOT want to find common ground among dharma traditions in a broad/generic way (like we all believe in love for mankind) that includes Abrahamic faiths as part of the dharma family or vide versa. In other words, the differences must be non-digestible into Abrahamic frameworks or the digestion must undermine those frameworks. .." Jalan responds: " I almost entirely agree with Shri RM. I would still like to clarify as below: None of the quotes or the objections actually show difference anxiety from below, something which I think even Shri RM concedes. SV did believe in what he said and it was not driven by some flawed psychological/social condition. RK had meditated on JC for a long period ..... SV is not comparing Bible to the Vedas but yes he is indeed comparing JC with Rishis.... I do not think that admiring JC and a few sublime parts in the Bible makes you Christian - and it is hardly anti-dharma.  At the same time I do completely agree that: such nuances and subtleties may be lost on normal Hindus that do not invest too much time in understanding their own tradition or others' and coupled with the grand Church machinery that has aggressive designs and the weak status of Dharma, there is a clear danger of digestion if Hindus start to parrot it. Hence it should be avoided by everyone including the Hindu leaders. digestion as propounded by Shri RM is something phenomenal and needs to be urgently addressed. This is a great service to Dharma, similar to what earlier great Hindu leaders like SV have done. Shri RM's idea of unifying the Dharma schools/religions/traditions while at the same time maintaining their distinct identity against the Abrahminic religions and their dharma-viruddth principles is a pioneering effort and merits full appreciation and support, from the ordinary Hindu and the leadership. (Someone conversant with statistical analysis could see that this is conceptually similar to the ratio of within-group and between-group variances being the true statistic of difference.) .." Sandeep responds: "Later in life, Swami Vivekananda felt that Jesus may have been a fictional character but he continued to believe in him because Ramakrisha, when questioned about the veracity of Krishna-Gopi tales, had told him that the people who created such myths must have had some divine perception (bhava). His inference about the fictionality of Jesus was based on a dream he had in Dec 1896 while returning from Europe and Asia.  The text that follows is based on Nivedita's account... Vivekananda : "....On the whole, I think old Rabbi Hillel is responsible for the teachings of Jesus, and an obscure Jewish sect of Nazarenes — a sect of great antiquity — suddenly galvanized by S. Paul, furnished the mythic personality as a centre of worship. "The resurrection, of course, is simply spring-cremation. ..." Kaushal comments: " I am not a scholar in this field. But, after reading text in this blog and our experience(3-4 years back) at Pune Ram Krishna Mission Office, now I realize that how much true this digestion theory is. The Pune based Ram Krishna Mission is under control of Christian Missionary.  It seems that, Christian missionary has planted their own men in charge of the mission. The head of center wearing saffron dress was more aware of Jesus and Bible than Puran and Upnishad, The Library was full of Christian books.." Rohit adds: "This is the modern way of destroying a temple and building a church over it.  Apparently, missionaries have realized that buildings and institutions themselves are valuable assets. A similar incident happened at the Universities in Tirupati - a Christian vice-chancellor decided to secularize the universities by removing anything to do with Hinduism..."   Mokashi responds to a previous comment: " "I wonder whether the validity of Rama and Krishna could also fall prey to such a query" The divinity of Rama and Krishna follows from what are known as pramaana texts and not from meditation or experiences. This concept of pramaana is outside the scope of discussion, but is followed rigidly by more traditional scholars..." Rajiv's response:  The above view represents the Paul Hacker school... I disagree that the role of experience has caused sameness. BD emphasizes experience (adhyatma-vidya) over history-centrism. In fact the abrahamic religions do not allow knowing God bypassing the history centric canon and relying upon a higher state of consciousness. Such a state is not easy and cannot simply be proclaimed arbitrarily. There are processes, tests, pre-requisites. Thats what is missing in Judeo-Christianity, hence the craving to digest this from us." CR responds: " .. The concept of pramana comes from the principle that the nature of a thing is what the thing itself is, and not something that is dependent on the mind and intellect that sees it. A pramana is that which reveals the thing in its own intrinsic nature. In the case of Sruti, which speaks about the knowledge that is Self-established (svatah-sidhha), the Sruti reveals the Truth by reflection of the Self-established Truth that exists in one's Self when the obstructions to seeing it in the form of mental impurities are removed. > SV and RK popularized that Vedas are notes of "experiences" > of Rishis which is at odds with what they are viewed in > tradition before. This is wrong. Swami Vivekananda never spoke of the the truths mentioned in the Sruti as products of experience. On the contrary, he compared them to the law of gravity which exists whether people discover it or not. The Rishis, said SV, are like the discoverers of the law of gravity. How does this raise the status of experience over the eternal truths revealed by Sruti? ... In the Christian world, the practice of religion is seen as merely holding on to some articles of faith rather than in obtaining direct communion with the Divine through 'experiencing here and now'. I think this is what Rajiv-ji is emphasizing with these words below. ." Vish adds: "This is the best rendering of the 'Bhagawad Gita' for the 'Kurukshetra' of our times! The clarion call from the original Geeta and from Vyaasa himself, has always been crystal clear - "Rise up when Dharma is under siege". ...There is a huge lack of "Poorva Paksha" in those who box the Geeta into a tool to advance their own ideology, without first inviting all rich thoughts into the theatre and then only allowing the one with the merit to cream to the surface. .... We were always called to provide a "Raksha" for the Dharma by keeping it alive. Dharma was also shown symbolically as a Bull completely strong and rooted when on four legs, but pitiful and tot erring when reduced to a single weak one."   December 17 (Continuing Thread) Hindi Edition of Being Different As some of you may know,Hindi version of Shri Rajiv Malhotra's pioneering book,'Being Different' will be published in a few months. The English version was a best seller... [lots of great comments that suggest titles. here is the latest sample, sent by Srinath]: "Not an extensive title, but closer in translation to the English "Being Different - an Indian Challenge to Western Universalism" might be: Dhaarmik Bhinnataa - Pashchimee Aatyantikataa kaa Bhaarateeya PratikshepaN " December 17 (New Thread) The importance of Being Different Venkat shares a video:  Dear Friends Please watch this short video (thought provoking and humorous) .of a few generations of Indians in the US and how they lose their identity It... December 18 (continuing thread) Rajiv's new blog on FirstPost. Please read Rajiv's blog on FirstPost (an Indian blog). This is the 3rd blog on FirstPost. This one reiterates Rajiv's demands for rhetorical changes in... Arun posts: "> Claim 3: Only Christianity is the true religion. > Argument: Historical evidence shows that Jesus resurrected after crucifixion. This is proof for his divinity. Christianity is the only religion that can offer proof for its truth claims. Therefore, those claims are true. Therefore, Christianity is a true religion. Excellent layout of the argument. The American Founding Fathers, who were more deists than Christian, accepted the idea that: Claim 4: Religious truth-claims cannot be decided. Moreover toleration has the implication that one side has the upper hand and permits the other side to exist, and this is inconsistent with liberty. And therefore mutual respect was necessary. PS: Wiki: Deism is the belief that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of God, accompanied with the rejection of revelation and authority as a source of religious knowledge. " Maria adds:  "Surya, You are right that egalitarian thinking is wasted on Christian 'fundamentalists', who stick to the fundamentals, but less and less people are enamoured by these fundamentals, and that's where Hindus can have influence. The Time article quotes some 'fundamentalists', but also asks "Is Bell's Christianity” less judgmental, more fluid, open to questioning the most ancient of assumptions on an inexorable rise? And ends on a positive note with a quote of Bell: something new is in the air...." December 19 (continuing post) Myles Collier of Christian Post Dear Rajivji: What a wonderful response to the questions from Myles Collier of Christian Post! What you have started is similar to what Adi Shankaracharya did... Latest comment by Mohan: ".... These conversations really inspire us. I hope we find youngsters dare enough to do such. (In Samskrita Bharati Tamilnadu 11 of us in early 20s 'abandoned'  our homes, lucrative career just for Bharata Mata seva.But we require Quantity too (of course quality also)..."  December 20 (New Thread) Discussion at Vidya Bharati Foundation: Youtube audio Could some one provide me an alternate video/audio link on the talk made by Dr.Rajivji at Vidya Bharati foundation, May 2012 at Canada. I could find that the...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO9qCeA640E Rajiv's response: It works fine if you wear headsets. Most of the talks on Youtube we posted require wearing headsets. December 21 (New Thread) Christian missionary activity in AP Suketu posts: People it is my misfortune to inform you that unofficial Christian population of Andhra has reached over 30 percent. I am not exaggerating, this is from...    RD99 responds: "Conversions are mostly confined to andhra regions and not telengana.It is business strategy to form a NGO and get funds from europe, in the name of conversions,and lead a  comfortable life.  Late YSR  was instrumental in introducing funding for christian piligrims similar to HAJ subsidy.His son Jagan languishing in jail won recent by-elections, because SC converts voted 100% to him deserting traditional congress..."