Digestion versus Inclusivism

This is one more in our series of blogs on digestion - what it is, and what it isn't. Here, we have a question from a western scholar who has rejected proselytization, and wants to know:
- the difference and similarity between 'inclusivism' and digestion. 
- and haven't some schools of thought in dharma always digested some other schools to yield what is today called Hinduism?

The responses and discussions are quite important. For example, it's pretty stunning that attempts to discredit Vivekananda, and brand Hinduism as some colonial construct, have continued since the 1890s - when Vivekananda enlightened the west, after which the holes in history-centric Christianity were permanently exposed. For a more complete answer to such attempts we will have to await Rajiv's new book 'Indra's Net: Defending India's philosophical unity'.

November 2013

Karl asks:
QUESTION 1:
"...categories/typologies used in interfaith forums to classify forms of dialogues and attitudes toward the "other"...:  exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism.
...
Do you see any similarities or differences between "inclusivism" and "digestion"? In what ways?"

Rajiv comment: 
"This is a good question.

I do not consider the standard academic classification of inter-religious postures into the three (exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism) to be adequate. I am aware that this classification is normative in the classroom. First of all, these are not mutually exclusive of one another because often a given person's attitude is a muddled combination of more than one of them. He might be exclusive on certain points and inclusive in others, for instance.

But more importantly and to the point of your question, Digestion is an outcome that can result from many starting postures including these three postures. An exclusivist posture like Protestant Nicene Creed based denomination explicitly rejects Hinduism and yet appropriates yoga into Christian Yoga. They do so by distorting those aspects of yoga that would not be digestible. So exclusivism can also lead to partial digestion. Similarly, Inclusivism and Pluralism are each prone to culminate as Digestion of Hinduism. My point is that the 3-way classification does not go deep enough as these three are surface positions where the encounter starts but does not end.

SPECIFICALLY, INCLUSIVISM IS NOT AN END STATE BUT AN INTERIM STATE. IT IS AN UNSTABLE STATE OF TRANSITION. The Christian spouse of a Hindu finds inclusivism convenient, and family/friends on both sides can get a period of peace because it can seem that there is no problem. But in fact they have just set aside the hard issues of differences rather than deal with them. So later on, I find in most such cases, problems surface. They would be better off extensively discussing differences up front, and reaching some sort of "deal" consciously rather than pretending there is no issues because they have slogans to chant from both sides."

QUESTION 2:
"Would you agree that what you define as "Hinduism" has also been, and will maybe always be, a locus of digestion of its own? Would you agree that "digestion", as you define it, has taken place within the work of various and great Indian thinkers without them caring much about giving proper acknowledgement to their sources, even sometimes completely modifying the nature of the material they incorporated? (For example, one could try to prove this point by showing how some Buddhist notions were absorbed and reformulated in Vedantic terms, without acknowledgement, even under the cover as one might say. ...) Or would you think that this is impossible?

If it did happen, what do you make of this phenomenon in regard to your own quest of identifying "digestion" in other traditions?"

Rajiv comment: "Yes, there is continual intra-dharma digestion-like process going on, BUT with one critical difference: The source does not get destroyed as in the case of digestion by Abrahamic religions due to their exclusivity claims, and their mandate to take over "100% market share of souls" in the world. The doxographers in India (I refer to them extensively in my forthcoming book (Indra's Net)) were cross-appropriating from one another and kept the debates and purva paksha vibrant all the time. This is how innovation took place. This is why Hinduism has always been dynamic, continuous and yet connected with its sources (whether explicitly acknowledged or not).

Borrowing without harming the source is a good thing. It is how humanity advances by learning from each other. But in Digestion per se, there is no trace of the source left - as Pagans getting digested into Christianity.

There is another important distinction between cross-borrowing among dharma traditions and Abrahamic digestion of others: As BD shows

there are important common tenets across most dharma systems and hence when they borrow the foundation is robust enough for this to happen with mutual respect.  

In history centric religions, the digestion must remove every trace of whatever disagrees with this absolutist and exclusivist historical grand narrative. Hence the latter is invariably destructive..."

Karl's followup:
"....I share your disappointment with the terminology (or typology) used in interfaith forums. ...

As for your views on digestion, if I understand your point, the problem lies in the power struggles generated by the Abrahamic faiths who always tried to impose their views and now try to absorb whatever is attractive in other systems. ... Coming from [], disillusionment with the Church and with other Christian missionaries is deep rooted.

...I am doing my [] research on Indian doxography. .."


Rajiv comment: The best evidence that Indian doxography did not lead to digestion (in the sense of digestion by the west) is that the systems incorporated or borrowed from by a given doxogrpher have continued to survive independently and separately as themselves, in most cases. For example, many Vedantins assimilated ideas from Samkhya but Samkhya flourishes as its own system. Similarly, Gaudapada got Madhyamika Buddhism ideas but nobody has destroyed Buddhism in the process. In other words, cross-learning was not destructive as it was in the case of history centric religions. I am trying to put your attention back on to history centrism."


Kundan adds:

".... your paper [] .... it is quite clear that it is inclusivism that bothers you...inclusivism has bothered the likes of Hacker and Halbfass and numerous other authors who are invested in a social constructivist approach of showing that Hinduism is colonial construct.

The reason why it bothers people who are opposed to inclusivism is the philosophy of Vedanta, which basically brings into its fold anything and everything which is in the universe and beyond—including the so called negative or demoniac forces.

Interpreted from the fundamentalist point of view, the nondual Vedantic philosophy makes the dualistic worldview of Nicene Creed Christianity a subset. This subordinated status is not acceptable to the Nicene Creed because of which the proponents of Vedanta have been under constant line of fire, including an attempt on the life of Swami Vivekananda (please see “On Himself” by him) who is considered to be the chief protagonist of the Vedantic thought in the west. After the fundamentalist Christians were not successful in killing him, they bandied to deconstruct and delegitimize him in western academia, mostly by spreading canards. In every era new ways were devised to do so—the latest is the philosophy of social constructivism under which people like Halbfass, Richard Kind, Brian Pennington, Andrew Nicholson, etc fall. Paul Hacker is actually the father of them all in the modern times. However this scholarship can be traced to the likes of James Mill.

...You have actually taken the battle of de-legitimizing the inclusivism of Vedanta even further—you have taken it to the pre-colonial times. ...you have taken the works of Sadananda and Jitatmananda, fifteenth and sixteenth century Vedantins, to show how inclusivism is based on a fraud (you give the name doxography). So basically, you and your ilk will go to everywhere in Indian thought where an attempt is made to bring existence, universe, cosmos, under the canopy of Oneness, because this threatens the exclusivism and the exclusivity of the Nicene Creed.

Now coming to your questions, if there is a difference between inclusivism and digestion. Rajiv ji has answered how the inclusivism of Nicene Creed becomes problematic when it engages with dharma traditions. Let me answer the question from the Vedantic perspective:

From the Vedantic perspective inclusivism is not digestion. Why? When Vedanta came to the West, it did not promote a singular and homogenous idea. When it spoke about Oneness, it spoke about diversity as well. It created a perfect harmony between Oneness and diversity. It spoke about its own truth but it did not invalidate the truths of Christianity. It did not inculturate to take over Christianity and push Jesus from the pantheon of the divine beings. .. It did not wean away Christians from Christianity but made an effort to make them better Christians—yes, in that wake, it did not dwell on the differences because of which we have “Being Different” now. Vedanta, explicitly and implicitly, did not harm Christianity. It did not go on a conversion drive.."

Let me take the following question (#2)

First and foremost, the thesis of this question itself is flawed. This is again based on the “construction of Hinduism” theme. If my understanding is correct, this will be refuted in Rajiv ji’s upcoming book. In the meantime, if at all you want to change your views, I am sending you a paper titled “Swami Vivekananda in Western Academia.” You can see for yourself the truth which makes you formulate your question in the above manner."

Manish adds a game-theory based thought

"..

// For example, many Vedantins assimilated ideas from Samkhya but Samkhya flourishes as its own system. Similarly, Gaudapada got Madhyamika Buddhism ideas but nobody has destroyed Buddhism in the process.// --- This is a quote from RM (below mailchain)

-- this sounds good and noble...but it has come at a great cost...since so many competing schools of thought are allowed to co-exist, there is no central theme, or a unified civilisational weltanschaaung (''UCW"), in our civilisation that binds people together...even how our people assess threats from enemies is not a uniform process, so our enemies have always found it easy to divide, make inroads and defeat us...

Rajiv comment: The example in the following sentences is a counter productive diversion away from the point that has already been expressed well above .




Manish provides a couple of options:

.... Option A: Take a misplaced pride in notions of nobility even if it means you are never able to forge your own UCW, and therefore are left vulnerable -- even predisposed --- to being decimated by other not-so-noble civilisations who have forged a UCW of their own.

Option B: Be pragmatic, dump all notions of nobility and recognise the stark reality that the civilisation that invariably wins is the one with a UCW (not necessarily the more noble one), which will conquer you and then force its unified civilisational weltanschaaung down your throat.

Game theory suggests that you are better off with (B). In other words, if you don't develop your own UCW, you will end up being subservient to an alien UCW. In either case, you have to have a UCW. So, why not one which is your own UCW?

Rajiv comment: The flaw with the above is seeing the philosophical exchanges among dharmic worldviews as a matter of "nobility" (whatever that might mean). The discussants in India saw their enterprise as a quest for truth, not a political quest.

Seeing in dharma terms, the deficiency being pointed out concerns kshatriyata in the kurukshatra of discourse. My new book (Indra's Net) has a long chapter in the end that gives my solution to this dilemma: how to remain true to our quest and at the same time not be weak and vulnerable to infiltrations/digestions. The problem I address is that we must remain open and yet pre-empt these attacks. Stay tuned..." 

Karl responds to Kudan:
"...I am not bothered by "inclusivism", not even by "exclusivism" or "pluralism". I am more prone to think like Mr. Malhotra on the issue, meaning that I believe that the categories are somehow superficial, at most that they are mental attitudes appearing in some circumstances and not in others..."
 
....you wrongly label my intentions and my work by putting it into some boxes pre-existing in your own worldview. Unfortunately, it does not capture the reality and appears to be a good example of "adhyâropa" (अध्यारोप)...

I have nothing to do with Christianity or any Abrahamic faiths .. as a matter of practice (sâdhana - साधन) I am guided by the Karma Kagyü Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.
...my view (darshana - दर्शन) can hardly be defined by a single word, or concept, or any substantiation like an "ism". It is certainly not a "religion", not even a cultural phenomenon or some kind of a national identity. At best, it is nothing standing by and of its own.

I am in fact struggling to understand the worldview of those who find it relevant to reify their (relative) identity with such concepts as "ism" or"religion". Especially when these people claim to understand the such deep views as the one found in Vedânta for example. It appears to me as a really "relative" understanding indeed.

To continue, as a scholar, I reject the use of the word "religion", sometimes even of "philosophy". What we call "religion" today is in fact the end of "religion" as it have been understood and lived by most traditions in the past (see Wilfrid Cantwell Smith)." 

[to be continued ...]
 

 

RMF Summary: Week of April 2 - 8, 2012 - Part 2

Here is part-1 of the summary for the week. April 5 Christian and Hindu Good News - Original Sin and satchitananda Vinod posts: "While discussing Being Different with a Hindu friend of mine who is interested in both Indian and foreign knowledge systems, he pointed out that in his understanding, Original Sin and the concept of satchitananda are one and the same. The former is only a pessimistic view of looking at the cup as being half empty rather than half full. The latter is a more optimistic view of looking at the same glass as being half full. Is such an argument tenable?" Rajiv comment: Its stupid to equate self as original sinner with self as originally divine. Thats the whole point of making history centrism the central piece of my argument. Many evangelical scholars in the 1800s started this idea of equating. Then many foolish Hindu scholars started to promote this type of sameness. The consequence is that well meaning persons like you are confused today. I cannot afford the time to summary BD here. I did enough work writing it. Now you must do some work reading it. If you have not read it then its unfair to ask me such a question." Renu adds: "....Original Sin is very well entrenched in the Christian minds and so is the existence of Hell; scares them a lot! ...Very few are free of guilt in this system. In fact many conditions like dysfunctional relationships, broken families, children out of wedlock are a result of these ideas that are drummed thru classes into innocent heads from an early age. So is the idea of achieving Heaven by converting other persons; it does not occur to them that if the Almighty wanted someone to be a Christian then their help would not be needed by the Super power! The understanding of Christianity in India is very faulty --we have been told to see good [and same in all] so we do just that-- need to live in a Christian country to see the reality." Venkat posts: "Equating original sin with satchitananda is untenable. They are exactly antithetical. What exactly is original sin? As Nietzsche correctly stated, Christianity regards the acquisition of knowledge as the original sin of man (Genesis 2:17, 1 Corinthians 20-21, 26-29) thereby making any reasonable exploration of natural phenomena that characterize human existence impossible. In other words, the Christian position is one against acquisition of knowledge. One becomes a Christian by denying knowledge, admitting that any pursuit of knowledge is terrible, and then getting oneself redeemed if one had indulged in such a pursuit inadvertently. Most Christians, liberal or otherwise, educated or not, are ignorant of what original sin actually means. Your friend is no different as far as his understanding of this foundational belief of Christianity is concerned. Malhotra does an outstanding job of articulating what original sin is and how that foundational premise is incompatible with the dharmic approach to moksha etc. He specifically underlines the fact that in Christianity redemption from original sin is always a gift from above and is not an outcome of individual endeavor. In dharmic traditions it is exactly the opposite: one does not attain moksha either by denying knowledge or by exclusively receiving it as an accidental gift from above. For example, Sankara, in his Vivekachudamani (verses 13-15) emphatically asserts that knowledge (the pre-requisite to moksha) can only be obtained through atma-vichara and not as a gift...." April 6  Indian Christian working on misappropriating yoga into Christianity A news item relevant to Rajiv'ji writings: ************************ This monk gives yoga a Christian makeoverPaul Aims At Union Of Soul & God With Jesus In... April 6 On PBS - Asian and Abhramic religion Sourabh shares: This was on at our local PBS yesterday. I missed it as it played late at night. It followed NOVA. Has anyone seen it? Any opinion on the show? The website... [Link to a related video] Rajiv comment: Would like to know what it says (probably about sameness, exotic faith, etc.) and also who contributed to the content and story line. Ravi responds: "This made a decently big splash in the Indian e-community last year. If I recall, it had a better-than-usual portrayal of the distinctiveness of Hindu & other Dharmic faiths, and had a "much talked about" segment when the camera took viewers on a tour of a major temple in Washington DC area, and did some Q&A. Rajiv comment: I wonder if the "distinctiveness" was from the dharma lens and whether it pointed out Abrahamic "issues" - like history centrism. Otherwise, its just the fashionable distinctiveness as in pop culture where one music genre or cuisine differs from another, but its all "relative" and no logic to either."  Partha says: "The story-line of the program is presented here: Some excerpts - the attempts to show the sameness (comparing belief systems/ practices in Dharmic faiths with the Abrahamic faiths) can be seen here. Some of the statements (Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence based on the Jain religion) are inaccurate as well: Sameness: We also explore the Buddhist and Sikh practices and rituals, finding differences yet discovering surprising similarities with the Abrahamic religions...... Diana Eck comments voice-over: “It’s interesting having Hindu immigrants in America today because they bring something with them that’s distinctively American, a theology of religious pluralism.” Simply inaccurate (Ahimsa Paramo Dharmaha/ Dharma Himsa Thathaiva Cha referenced in the Mahabharatha)..." April 6 My blog: The tiger and the deer This is a new web site that caters to world affairs focusing on the BRICS countries' differences with the West. shivadeepa posts: ".... interesting article on 'Yoga and Judaism' that seeks to find 'deep ties between Yoga and Judaism'. This has some positive and respectful ideas about Yoga, but the equivalencies don't seem to be clear. e.g. the idea of replacing the sacred vibrations of Sanskrit with Torah reading, and the last couple of paras indicate a possible attempt at digesting Yoga into Judaism. Rajiv comment: There is a Hindu-Jewish group in AAR that champions this kind of equivalence. Many Jews entered ISKCON from the 1960s on, but most have uturned later. While Hindus are gradually becoming aware of Christians digesting hinduism, the trend is at least as aggressive with Judaism. Their favorite method is to use Hinduism to revive and reinterpret Kaballah and attribute all sorts of new meanings to it. They even claim non-translatable sounds in Hebrew that can replace as mantras. .... why is there a need of a separate Jewish identity based on birth, i.e. bloodline? Answer is history centrism. Judaism started the history centrism which Christianity and Islam took further. .... A good example of the popular use of Kaballah for digesting Hinduism into Judaism: April 6  Digestion via Self-Realization Fellowship This book purports to be written by Parmahansa Yogananda, but published long after his death. (Surpicious?) I tried unsuccessfully to gain access to the original manuscript. Another spinoff from Parmahansa Yogananda is the famous Swami Kriyananda, highly celebrated in India as a great guru. he, too, espouses sameness using the teachings of Parmahansa Yogananda. I practiced the kriya yoga system of SRF when I lived in San Diego in the 1970s. So I know them and do appreciate many things I benefited for my sadhana. But just as post-Vivekananda the RK Mission and its affiliates (unintentionally) facilitated the digestion of Vedanta (first into generic perennialism, then into "western" thought...) so also Parmahansa Yogananda's teachings have accelerated the fashion of digestion into "new, liberal Christianity". Hence the attacks by various folks like we saw at Patheos.com who feel that the differences I discuss deny that the same things already existed in Christianity. People, please decide: If you dont mind Hindus getting digested into Christianity (conversion being one of the many methods), then stop complaining at what is going on. Let it just happen. In fact, join in to facilitate the inevitable. You might even make some money, fame, prestige along the way like many others have. But if you find it important that dharma's distinctiveness is important to retain, then dont get mixed up with the lure of being digested. This involves a lot of study and understanding first. Only what you embody yourself can be projected externally into whatever your calling is. April 6 BI thesis and interventions via the UN After Sri Lanka now India in trouble,UN asks to repeal AFSPA   Rajiv: In BI I discuss the role of western churches like Lutherans, etc. in grooming and appointing people like Christof Heyns in posts where such decisions get made. April 6 Peter Heehs (American Historian in Auroville): Another U-Turner? Karthik posts: "One Peter Heehs, an American historian who has apparently spent the last 41 years in Pondicherry, was denied a visa extension by the GOI this year. Apparently this followed his publication of a controversial book containing speculations about the relationship between Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Now it looks like the "usual suspects": Ramachandra Guha, Romila Thapar etc. are ganging up to pressure the government against revoking his visa, in the name of "freedom of expression" and other high-minded ideals...." Rajiv comment: I met him a few times since the 1990s. Had a big fight the very first time we met, when i explained the appropriations and biases. But then we both moved on... Lately he got into trouble with certain people over his book (by Columbia U P) which I have read. This matter has polarized the Sri Aurobindo followers into 2 fighting camps. I no longer want to get "used" in this fight... Been there, done it...." Manas asks: "Speaking of double standards, some years back, communist terrorists in Nepal burnt down an entire Sanskrit university. How many Thapars, Guhas, Pollocks, etc, then raised voices of protest? How many petitions did these eminences take out?..." April 6 Re: Wall Street Journal Article on Swami Vivekananda's Influence.. Karthik posts: A very flattering article, but it may be interesting to trace the incidence of U-Turns among the various figures cited here as influenced by SV. ...  ....Re-reading it again, I am reminded of how the American academe (and popular culture) have consistently portrayed the life of J.D. Salinger. They cite him as a genius, a literary icon who changed the face of American writing. Yet, all the biographies I have come across refer to a period in his life when, after 1965, Salinger became "reclusive, anti-social, and hermetic." The implication is that he had psychological issues that made him a misanthropist, and caused him to shut himself away from the society that once celebrated him in New York. April 6 Digestion of Advaita, Shaivism Surya posts: See below how "Christian Advaita" is presented .  See the contortions of language to squeeze these incompatible ideas together.  "Christian experiences God not only through Jesus but in the human face of God."   "Advaita has a place in Christian experience via Jesus' awareness of his Advaita with the father." As BD points out, unbridgeable gap between God and human is bridged only through the Prophet.  Allowing direct experience would undermine primacy of prophet and the scriptures.  Once you allow direct experience, thus bypassing essentiality of Jesus and the scriptures, what is the need for Christianity?   Thus, Christian experience of God is ONLY "via Jesus' awareness of his Advaita with the father." Taking Advaita as is from Dharmic knowledge obviates the need for Christian alternative.  Hence the need for the tiger to digest the deer. That explains why "Liberal Christians" and "Emergent church" are desperately after absorbing Dharmic knowledge.... The recognition of limitations of language and the need to import Sanskrit words is also proposed below.  Purpose, as is made clear below, is not a better understanding of Dharmic knowledge and its acceptance, but to facilitate presenting Christ-consciousness as Christian Shaivism.  Thus, keeping Sanskrit words intact but not the context of Dharmic knowledge from which they are extracted, still facilitates digestion. ------------------------------------------ Christian Advaita: ----------------------- "Drop all ideas -- especially all Christian ideas (and before you respond, please just read/listen ... I'm here to help enhance faith/relationship/knowing truth .... not to diminish or challenge or debate). ... http://peterspearls.com.au/radical.htm The Christ and Advaitic Experience:  ------------------------------------------------ "The Christian experiences God not only through but in the human countenance of Jesus whose face is the human face of God....  ... advaita has a place in the Christian experience as in that of Jesus himself: the Christian shares in Jesus’ awareness of his advaita with the Father. This is Christian advaita." http://peterspearls.com.au/ccadvaita.htm The Shaivic Christian: ----------------------------- "Can the Christian experience be expounded – not falsely – in these terms, given, as we know, that Christian vocabulary cannot adequately express Christian experience? Can these Sanskrit terms become the vehicle for a theology which leads to the knowledge of the Christ who exceeds all that can be said of him? (or, the Christ-consciousness that exceeds all that can be said of it?) This attempt will be the beginnings of a Shaiva Christianity or a Christian Shaivism." http://peterspearls.com.au/shaivism.htm" Rajiv responds: The site referenced below is illustrative of hundreds of such movements run by Westerners who started their stage-1 journey with teachings of Ramana Maharshi, which they learned (already in diluted form) second to fourth hand via Nisargatta Maharaj, Papaji, Ramesh Baleskar and an assortment of other instant Indian gurus and pseudo-gurus. Later they mapped these ideas on the new frameworks by western uturners like: Eckhart Tolle (who I met in the 1990s), Adyashanti (via Zen), Adi Da (follower of Swami Muktananda who initiated the young Ken Wilber and later there was a big clash of Adi Da/Wilber super-egos), among others. The digestive tract is very long, with many such enzymes along the way helping to 'break down' the source till it disappears into the new DNA. April 7 Indian archeology. Chocka asks: ..... Where will you put this in your classifications of digestion? Rajiv comment: An interesting documentary on archeological findings. I am troubled that they cannot take Hindu claims (not myths are referred to but itihas) at face value even as claims. Because such claims definitely topple Biblical history claims or at least exclusivity, the archeological findings are being interpreted as some sort of extra-terrestrial work. The result is that either (1) it gets mixed up with all other UFO nonsense and sidelined to the margins, or (2) credited to aliens rather than Hindus. In the latter case, this alien origin of Hindu 'myths' is similar to the foreign origin of Aryans - in both cases Hinduism's own accounts of the past are seen as really the work of outsiders be they foreign aryans or aliens from outer space. We should utilize the hard facts of archeology and develop our own interpretations rather than getting sucked into others' interpretations..." Kundan shares: "I have read Graham Hancock's "Underworld: The Mysterious origins of Civilizations." He is shown at the beginning of this documentary. I will not be too surprised if he is at the man behind the documentary. As it is, the mainstream historians and archaeologists were going after him for contending the dates of the archaeological remains off the coast of Poompuhur and Dwarka to 9600 BCE and 6000 BCE respectively; now that his work is being linked with aliens and ETs, it will get further discredited in the academic community. It is quite possible that he himself is linking it. In the "Underworld," he came up with these dates by corresponding the depth at which these ruins were found with inundation maps that have been prepared for the world through complex computer calculations at various stages during the Post Glacial floods (the contention of Geologists is that after the Last Glacial Maximum, ice caps and glaciers around the world melted at a rapid pace leading to massive floods that inundated coasts around the world). If the post glacial flooding is true, then the inundation of  "Kumari Kandam" as described in Sangam literature is a distinct possibility--Sangam says that the first meeting was held in a city called Tenmadurai and the second at Kavatapuram, both of which have gone under water. The geologists contend that there were massive flooding that took place between 10,400 BCE and 8,600 BCE and many Tamil scholars say that first gathering of Sangam took place around 9600 BCE. The last of the post glacial floods took place between 5700 BCE and 4900 BCE and Sangam scholars say that the second Sangam took place 3700 years after the first one. There is a close correspondence between when Tenmadurai and Kavatpuram would have gone under water and occurrences of post glacial flooding. Graham Hancock took the help of local fisherman in the exploration off the coats of Tamil Nadu. His wife, Santha, is conversant in Tamil--she is of Tamil origin raised in Malaysia. The local fisherman speak of many ruins along the coast of Tamil Nadu. The fisherman know about this because they find schools of fish around these ruins--the fish need protected area to rest. The seabed off the coast otherwise is quite flat. The marine wing of the Archaeological Survey of India need to take these local folklore seriously and explore the coast. Graham Hancock says that the local fisherman were able to take him to the exact spot of the ruins. Emboldened by finding ruins in correspondence with the local itihasa, I think he has come up with the alien theory because the Tamil story is that Shiva and other gods were present at the first Sangam. Instead of using their names, he is saying that in those days the humans were in contact with the aliens. Unfortunately it does not help the dharma cause. ..." April 7 Do mappings with good intentions lead to digestion? Swami Vivekananda mapped akasha as ether at a time when ether was well-established in physics. Later physics rejected the notion of ether altogether. Where did that leave Hindu cosmology and the notion of ether? In hindsight it would have been better to leave akasha untranslated - as something that is not only physical, anyway, and hence cannot be mapped to a purely physical model. But when SV did this, the intention was to make Hindu cosmology more mainstream, more popular, more credible. But such a mapping meant that there was no longer any need to investigate into akasha, once ir was rendered redundant and replaced by ether that mainstream people already knew. This trend is very popular among scholars of dharma who are genuinely trying to show how "scientific" their tradition is. .... mapping of Sri Aurobindo's taxonomy to modern neuroscience - done with utmost respect: ....side effect is that once enough such mappings get perfected, he becomes redundant - a museum piece. On the other hand, neuroscience is very powerful and one must utilize it. So what can one do to have the benefits without this pitfall? Possible approach: How about doing neurological research actively using Sri Aurobindo's taxonomy directly? Keep his terms alive. Let researchers have to re-read what he said and try to figure it out better and better over time - just like we did not put the term yoga in a museum by substituting something like exercise, prayer, gymnastics, etc. I am illustrating my point using Sri A as one example. The same ought to be done to utilize the taxonomies of Kashmir Shaivism, Sankhya, and various other systems. Also: Do not try to collapse them into one another - that too is a reductionism which causes potential loss of experience contained in those terms. Sanjos responds: "Since I am the author of the blog article  you posted below, I'd like to clarify that the intent of the article was actually the opposite.  In other words, I was hoping that the digestion goes the other way - that modern neuroscience discoveries can be explained through the Integral Psychology of Sri Aurobindo.    In order for Sri Aurobindo's model to be accepted, one would have to be able to explain every possible neuroscience discovery using the extensive psychological insights given by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in their works and that is what I am attempting. Rajiv comment: Thanks for writing that your goal is digestion in the reverse direction. That is also the goal of most advocates of dharma. But they end up dishing out the dharma into small bits that are digestible, quite the opposite of their noble intentions. ....the problem may be formulated as follows: X gets mapped to Y hoping that X will prevail over Y, i.e. it will digest Y. Under what circumstances will that happen, and what factors will make the opposite happen? One taxonomy/paradigm will prevail and digest the other, so the question is what determines which one will prevail. Like any other systematic inquiry, you cannot 'imagine' the answer or base it on wishful thinking. You must gather data on similar situations and see what happens and why. This is what I have been doing for 20 years. Why did RK Mission (following a similar strategy to yours) end up on the sidelines while its treasure trove of dharmic ideas got digested for a century? It was not lack of good intentions. It was a lack of purva paksha of the other party in the intellectual encounter, especially a lack of understanding the mechanisms of digestion One simple principle is: In cases where the other party is a religion (not neuroscience), the one that retains its history centrism (always exclusive by definition) prevails unless unless the other side has something non digestible into the history centrism. This is logical and also supported by evidence of what has actually happened. This is how inculturation works across the heathen world: bring Jesus' history centrism together with village deities and symbols into 'sameness' perception; but gradually you get the village symbols and rituals digested into the HISTORY CENTRISM OF JESUS. What if the other party is science and not anything to do with history centric religion? Here a key factor is that westerners are stronger than us by 50 to 1 in their scholars' quantity, quality, persistence, availability of funding and institutional apparatus for dissemination. In stage-2 of uturn they use folks like you to remove the context of the source tradition - what I have termed 'de-contextualization'. Much of Auroville and Pondy have been doing this for the past 40 years.....Again many of our folks are great facilitators and get rewarded by arriving on the world stage.....(Auroville's own Aster Patel being a prominent person.) In parallel there are those working on stage-4 which is to denigrate the source as inferior, the "caste, cows, dowry, sati, Godhra violence" variety of stereotypes that are all over the place, like carpet bombing in the media. All this culminates in stage-5 where the "new" discoveries by the west are re-exported back to India. Hence we see Andrew Cohan, Harold [Howard?] Gardener, Stephen LaBerge, many of Templeton Foundation's researchers... Since you are interested in Sri Aurobindo's works: You must understand how he is already getting digested into Wilber and through that into Integral Christianity led by Father Keating in collaboration with Wilber and Cohen. .... Hint: What you need to develop is: The non-digestible core of Sri Aurobindo, i.e. that which causes the reductionist western paradigm to crash when Sri A is ingested.  April 7 Blog: Dharmic Gaze Rohit's blog. Here is the link. Blog is dedicated to Being Different. April 7 Another digestion Dhiru posts: Another 'Digestion of Dharmic' idea has come from Ms. T. M. Luthermann (author of "When God talks back:Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God") who has written a piece in the Opinion page of WSJ April 6, 2012 under the heading: "when the Almighty Talks Back". He writes: "And yet people also report that when they pray in this way, they begin to experience God's presence in a personal way, something that is comforting and  empowering..." Rajiv responds: "Rajiv comment: Feeling God's immediate presence is something many Christians claim to be part of Christianity since very long. Many early Christians did express such feelings. So if you go too far and deny any such presence, you will not be taken seriously by Christian scholars. God is intimately felt in many Christian writings. That is not the point of difference. The point is that one can be intimate but in a dualistic sense. God "responds directly" fine, but its two distinct persons interacting - man and God. What is lacking is "aham Brahamasmi" and "tat tvam asi" type of integral unity. In synthetic unity there can certainly be close communication among the parties. The second difference is that history centrism makes God change the rules (called covenants) through some historically unique event, making that event NECESSARY to believe in. This event is the basis of exclusivity claims. So maybe God talks to a person directly, but even so his conversation does NOT allow the person to bypass Jesus as the exclusive mediator in history.."  April 8 in India Greek philosophers Maria posts: .... an interview with the Woodstock School Principal Dr. Jonathan Long about education in the Pioneer. He talks about the philosophical dimension, but mentions only Greeks. Unfortunately the interviewer did not draw out more from him. April 8 Is Jesus a mythical figure- Nice debate in CNN.com today. http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/07/the-jesus-debate-man-vs-myth/ Rajiv comment: It is irrelevant to my work whether Jesus existed historically. I am concerned with Christianity as a belief system promulgated and controlled by a powerful institution. As long as there is (1) a powerful church, which (2) demands the absolute belief in the historical Jesus as part of its overall Nicene Creed (i.e. the canon of history centrism), and (3) a large portion of powerful people adopt this as their worldview, that is the working definition of Christianity on which I am reversing my gaze. .... A big deal would be if the beliefs of a large majority of Christians changed such that they no longer regarded Jesus' historicity as real, or at least they considered it as unimportant. That would be a revolutionary mind shift. The domino effect would be: (a) No historical savior. (b) Hence no such thing as Original Sin. The Nicene Creed would unravel instantly. (c) Hence the old myths comprising the gnostics, pagans, gospels (those included and those left out by the Council of Nicea) would become free from the bondage of history centrism. (d) Then there would emerge the possibility of a different kind of universalism in which what BD describes as the desert civilization would not be the foundation. (e) Using the rishis' paradigm of the forest civilization, one would then be able to reinterpret the old stories of mystical experiences in the biblical lands, including allowing a place for Jesus as an archetype (NOT historical and certainly not exclusive). (f) This would be Christianity digested into Sanatana Dharma, with various people having their own mythic figures to imagine as deities and as their ishta-devatas. (g) Devatas are not historical persons, but intelligences-divinities to whom we humans give concrete images for our convenience of access. If we can imagine a given intelligence-divinity in form-x then it is equally valid (and equally relative) for someone else to imagine it as form-y. This is why Hinduism accepts village deities that are local and distinct forms, because such a local form of deity is the collective imagination and itihas of that community. Jesus would similarly be the local deity of certain people, respected as such, but not the Son of God or exclusive intermediary, or grantor of the church's franchise. Bottom line: It is dangerous to jump ahead directly to 'g' based on wishful thinking, ..." Ram argues: "...I see no reason to accept non Christian elements in this formula. The Christianity we are dealing with is mostly a creation of the last 2,000 years by western Europeans (Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Spain, Scandinavia etc) and to some extent the United States and Canada. Therefore I would advise rejection of any pre-Christian philosophy, writings, theology, legal systems, theology, culture on the part of Christians. Specifically, I see they have no claim to the stories and theology of the Old Testament, which are really Jewish mythology and scriptures. I would advise rejection of Christian claims to the heritage and achievements of the pre-Christian Greeks. Plato, Aristotle, the Greek idea of democracy, Greek thought, are NOT for Christians to colonize as their own. I would advise rejection of Christain claims to the heritage and achievement of the Romans, who were nearly all non Christian and before the supposed coming of Jesus. I would advise rejection of Christian claims to the heritage of the Mesopotomia early civilizations of Ur, of later civilizations of Babylon, the Persians, Crete, the north African cities, and the entire Mediterranean area before the Christian era. I would advise rejection of the Christian claims to the heritage of Egypt, claims to the heritage of the Scandinavian nations of Sweden, Norway etc. Strip these away from the western Christians and they are left with very little. The bulk of the Nicene Creed (creation story, Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden, talking snake, original sin, coming of the messiah are all Jewish) is gone, all the thoughts of the  Romans and Greeks and their institutions have to fall away..." April 8  Digestion - The pagan roots of Easter (Guardian) Venkat shares: "The pagan roots of Easter By: Heather McDougall, Guardian, UK, From Ishtar to Eostre, the roots of the resurrection story go deep. We should embrace the pagan symbolism of Easter. Easter is a pagan festival. If Easter isn't really about Jesus, then what is it about? Today, we see a secular culture celebrating the spring equinox, whilst religious culture celebrates the resurrection. However, early Christianity made a pragmatic acceptance of ancient pagan practises, most of which we enjoy today at Easter. The general symbolic story of the death of the son (sun) on a cross (the constellation of the Southern Cross) and his rebirth, overcoming the powers of darkness, was a well worn story in the ancient world. There were plenty of parallel, rival resurrected saviours too. The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake, and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. One of the oldest resurrection myths is Egyptian Horus. Born on 25 December, Horus and his damaged eye became symbols of life and rebirth. Mithras was born on what we now call Christmas day, and his followers celebrated the spring equinox. Even as late as the 4th century AD, the sol invictus, associated with Mithras, was the last great pagan cult the church had to overcome. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life...."   Rajiv comments: "This is well known: many pre-Christian elements including symbols, rituals, ideas and even philosophies got digested into Christianity. At the same time the source cultures suffered what amounts to cultural genocide. I point this out to audiences where they wonder, "whats wrong with getting digested?" One day, if the fashin of digestion continues, it is entirely plausible that Divali will be celebrated as a Christian "festival of lights" with sermons about bringing the light of Jesus into your life to dispel the darkness of Satan"  Manas adds: "...This is already happening in many Christian institutions in India. And it applies not only to Diwali but also to various other Hindu festivals, cultural mores, performing arts, dharmic literature, etc. One example: The dharmaram college, a Christian seminary based in Bangalore is very active in devising methods for digesting Hinduism into Christianity... Incidentally, Indian media reports this sort of blatant chicanery in positive light, as if, to use Rajiv'ji analogy, the deer getting eaten by the tiger is a good thing." April 8 Indian Gov's Documentary about Jesus in India Bluecupid shares: This is the GoI's official documentary about Jesus in India; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9w-xJfSOyc&feature=related...

RMF Summary: Week of March 19 - 25, 2012

March 19

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: Milanda Panha is a famous work of Buddhist literature that was supposedly compiled in the first century BC. The work is a dialouge about the Buddhist doctrine between the Bactrian Greek King Milinda and Buddhist monk Nagasena. 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... March 21 Review: Lanka and BI http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2012/03/20/breaking-india-and-the-fig&#92; ht-at-unhrc-about-the-llrc-report/... March 21 Call for papers: BEING DIFFERENT Panel at Waves, 2012 Waves 2012 will be held on July 13-15 in Univ of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. They are planning a few panels with the BD themes. A few scholars (from USA and... March 21 BI - 'Beef is a basic Dalit food', said Kancha Ilaiah [Rajiv comment: While the western world itself campaigns against consumption of red meat on health grounds, it exports the exact opposite to India using intermediaries like this one named in BI.] March 22 Atrocity Literature and counteraction Vinod shares: ....I came across an instance of atrocity literature on Facebook today, and felt compelled to respond back to my Syrian Christian friend from school ... 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. http://christs-oreland.org/content/view/385/110/ " 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." 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.... 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 Book Review from Toronto Here is another recent book review of "Being Different"published in Toronto. ... 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..."