Sunday 11am on MSNBC television panel
I will be on the Melissa Harris Show at 11 am (Eastern Standard Time) on MSBNC.
February 18 (continuing discussion from previous week)
Raghu responds to Surya (pls see last week's post):
I like your response. However, I think we also have to look at
minds that are conditioned by the teaching and the social constructs
that the teaching implies.
A Hindu mind seems
to have two characteristics that are important in this context. One the
ability to accept different ways, and the other to act from a sense of
generosity. These are civilization-ally more advanced than mono cultures
of thought and hierarchical political control. Over the years, it has
turned into a passivity. This passivity was leveraged to great advantage
by Gandhiji, but it has also led to a glorification of non violence.
The non violence of Gandhiji was very powerful, it s not afraid of
confrontation or of being violated.
Thatte responds:
".......why the tendency of all religions are same seems to pervade amongst a number of people - Hindus and non-Hindus..
In my analytical model for a religion, (and by the way, this
is applicable to all religions) the outer layer is comprised of rites, rituals,
festivals and practices. ...The next layer is comprised of values. Values dictate how one
lives in a society. Since most religions
claim to promote harmony in the society the
values tend to be very similar.
For example, the key values of Hinduism are:
1.
Truth (Satyam)
2.
Purity (Satva Shuddhi)
3.
Self- Control (Brahmacharya)
4.
Non-Violence (Ahimsa)
5.
Charity (Danam)
6.
Forgiveness (Kshama)
7.
Detachment (Vairagya)
Different religions may emphasize certain values more than
others. But, by and large these values
are professed by all religions. This is where most people stop and take a
position that all religions are same...."
"The tiger and deer metaphor comes to mind. It is the nature of tiger to be predatory. Deer is better off understanding this and behaving accordingly..."
February 18
Excellent critique of Romila Thapar
Venkat posts: ...Wagish Shukla ... details how Romila Thapar relies on translations of Sanskrit texts and distorts the meanings to suit her line of thinking.
February 19
Evangelical Christian group helps sue California school over yoga
Ravi shares a link:
http://www.guardian
Karthik responds:
"A highly relevant passage from the article:
Ann
Gleig, the editor of Religious Studies Review and assistant professor
of religious studies at the University of Central Florida, said in an
email that two groups have continually asserted that yoga is inherently
religious evangelical Christians, and some Hindus who want to
preserve the practice's religious influences.
"So
both of these
groups, which have very different agendas, ironically support each other
in an historically flawed construction of yoga as an essential
unchanging religious practice that is the 'property' of Hinduism," Gleig
said.
{It
is Gleig's analysis that is flawed by essentialization. She considers
the Christian category of "religion" to be equivalent to, and
interchangeable with, Hindu traditional utilization of yoga as a
"religious" practice. In Hindu spiritual traditions, yoga is one of many
techniques by which the truth of man's ultimate unity with the Supreme
can be verified, empirically, at a personal level. Christian religion
does not allow for man to unite with the Supreme, and only permits
communion with the Supreme through specific intermediaries and
institutions. Hence, any technique which may verify an idea inherently
blasphemous within Christianity (direct personal experience of unity
between man and the Supreme)
does, in fact, stand in direct opposition to Christianity. Yoga may not
be anybody's "property" but it can never, ever be practiced by religious
Christians without blaspheming the very foundations of their religion,
i.e. the Nicene Creed.
Gleig's
canard that a religious practice must be "unchanging" in order to
remain the "property" of a particular religion, is another example of
her flawed understanding. Hinduism is not history-centric, as Abrahamic
religions are. The wealth of our knowledge system isn't static, it's
always evolving; but for all that, it remains
our own, and the credit isn't up for grabs.}
Andrea
Jain, assistant professor of religious studies at Indiana
University-Purdue University Indianapolis said that the forms of
yoga commonly practiced in the US are the result of the mix of colonial
India and euro-American physical culture.
"In fact, postural yoga has been shown to be a successor of fitness methods that were already common in parts of Europe and the United States
before postural yoga was introduced," Jain said. "So we could think of
postural yoga as a 20th century product, the aims of which include all
sorts of modern conceptions of physical fitness, stress reduction,
beauty and well-being, these things were not present in pre-colonial
traditions of yoga at all."
{According
to this Andrea Jain, "conceptions" of physical fitness, stress
reduction, beauty and well-being were completely absent from
pre-colonial India, and hence could not have played any role in
inspiring people to practice yoga in pre-colonial Hinduism. Instead,
because these "aims" existed only among people of colonial India, Europe
and the United States... ITSELF a dubious and highly problematic
claim... then any technique applied to fulfill such "aims", no matter
what its origins, belongs only to those who experience it in pursuit of
those "aims", and not to those who originated it.
These postural forms of yoga include Ashtanga yoga, which was introduced in the early 20th century.
"Unless
we
want to argue that contemporary American culture and its valorization
of physical fitness, beauty and health, modern conceptions of those
things are religious values, then we really can't identify yoga
as religious," Jain said. "We certainly can't identify it as essentially
Hindu."
{Andrea
Jain casually transfers attributes from the subject of her argument
(Americans steeped in a culture that valorizes fitness, etc.) to the
object of her argument (Yoga itself). Is it her faint hope that no one
will notice this rather sloppy and intellectually dishonest
sleight-of-hand?
If
I use a fountain pen, not to write but to stab people to death... is it
now no longer a writing instrument? Is Louis Waterman (the inventor)
now a weapon-maker? Or is Louis Waterman to be deprived of all credit
for inventing the fountain pen at all?...
As
a child in India I would watch Mickey Mouse cartoons, and "identify"
with the character Mickey Mouse in terms of other, pre-existing "mouse"
representations in my own culture... such as the more familiar Mouse
from the Panchatantra fable, who freed the pigeons from the hunter's net
out of cleverness, loyalty and compassion. ... Does this mean that Mickey Mouse is
no longer quintessentially American but Indian? Does MY experience (as
the "subject" experiencing Mickey Mouse) count for more in defining what
Mickey Mouse is, than Mickey's (the "object"s) intrinsic origins? }
Manas posts:
"Ann Gleig, one of the academics quoted in that piece is
associated with a group called, "Modern Yoga Research" which includes
Mark Singleton, one of the primary exponents of the
not-Hindu-but-is-Euro-American-Christian "postural"-yoga thesis.
Singleton's name has previously come up in this forum. Singleton is also
associated with a notorious Hardvard academic's sidekick and this
"modern yoga research" group has been endorsed by this sidekick in the
e-list he runs. In a recent AAR conference, Singleton presented a paper
titled, "Christian Influences in the Development of Modern Yoga". A
search in this forum archives will provide more information on these
dangerous nexuses and their agendas."
Rajiv comment: I agree fully. I wish more persons were informed as the person who posted this. We have too much uninformed opinion and forwarding the same stuff to look important - that is counter productive.
I have known of Singleton's work for many years which only recently started becoming public this way. Too many Hindus continue to support such works. The co-editor of his forthcoming book infiltrated Vivekanandra Kendra's yoga camp, took lots of notes and recordings which her web site proudly says will be used to expose yoga gurus. The very same folks who find my works "too controversial" to promote and claim they dont have funds to support it either, line up in awe when they welcome such visitors and scholars. The decadence within Hindu leadership is amazing. These are termites who have caused the decay. Because I point this out openly in order to warn others from joining such bandwagons, I am branded.
Rajiv comment: I agree fully. I wish more persons were informed as the person who posted this. We have too much uninformed opinion and forwarding the same stuff to look important - that is counter productive.
I have known of Singleton's work for many years which only recently started becoming public this way. Too many Hindus continue to support such works. The co-editor of his forthcoming book infiltrated Vivekanandra Kendra's yoga camp, took lots of notes and recordings which her web site proudly says will be used to expose yoga gurus. The very same folks who find my works "too controversial" to promote and claim they dont have funds to support it either, line up in awe when they welcome such visitors and scholars. The decadence within Hindu leadership is amazing. These are termites who have caused the decay. Because I point this out openly in order to warn others from joining such bandwagons, I am branded.
Koenraad Elst responds to Karthik:
Recap for comment 1: "....So both of these groups, which have very different agendas, ironically support each other in an historically flawed construction of yoga as an essential unchanging religious practice that is the 'property' of Hinduism," Gleig said.
... In Hindu spiritual traditions, yoga is one of many techniques by which the truth of man's ultimate unity with the Supreme can be verified, empirically, at a personal level."
Patanjala Yoga Sutra, known till Shankara as a branch of Sankhya or simply as Patanjala Darshana, defines yoga in an atheistic way. "Yoga is the stopping of the motions of the mind" is a purely technical definition. The next verse, "Then the seer rests in himself", defines the goal of yoga as "isolation" (kaivalya), i.e. of consciousness (purusha) from its objects (sensory perceptions, desires, memories, intellection, all belonging to the less or more rarefied reaches of nature/prakrti). In both phrases, there is no God in the picture, He has nothing at all to do with the goal of yoga.
Patanjali makes a practical concession to the believers among his readers by saying that "devotion to God" is one of the preparatory stages of yoga. He defines God/Ishvara exactly like radically atheist Jains define their liberated
souls, namely as a desireless purusha; so it remains highly uncertain that "God" as currently understood is meant. At any rate, he refuses to make this special purusha somehow the goal of his yoga. Yoga does not revolve around an external being called God, but is purely a matter of relating to yourself, viz. totally sinking into yourself and forgetting about the world and the "tentacles" of consciousness into it.
When modern Hindus speak about yoga (and they speak about it a lot but practise it very little), they have a distorted view of it, inflected by what has been
the dominant stream in Hinduism for centuries, viz. theistic bhakti (devotion). "Unity with God", whatever that may mean, is a concept from bhakti/sufism and also adopted by some writers on Christian mysticism. But it is completely absent in historical yoga as defined by Patanjali.
Yoga is very much part of Hindu civilization, but is not the property of contemporary God-centered Hindus.
I am currently finishing a booklet for the greater public on the external enemies of Hinduism. It will make me very popular among Hindus. But next, I want to write a similar booklet about the internal enemies of Hinduism, or is other words: what is wrong with the Hindus... it will certainly make me many enemies among Hindus. They don't like a Westerner criticizing them, though I have most of it from Hindus themselves. At any rate, if Hindus don't make a systematic diagnosis of the problem, someone else has to do it. And the current (sentimenal and confused) Hindu bhakti notion of "God" is certainly a big part of the problem.
Recap for comment 2: " ... Andrea Jain, assistant professor of religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis said that the forms of yoga
commonly practiced in the US are the result of the mix of colonial India and euro-American physical culture.:
> "In fact, postural yoga has been shown to be a successor of fitness methods that were already common in parts of Europe and the United States before postural yoga was introduced," Jain said. "So we could think of > postural yoga as a 20th century product, the aims of which include all sorts of modern conceptions of physical fitness, stress reduction, beauty and well-being, these things were not present in pre-colonial traditions of yoga at all."
This supposed expert Andrea Jain is simply parrotting a very recent theory. She is plainly wrong, for yoga in the sense of meditation is very ancient, and was given a synthesis (of pre-existing views) by Patanjali. As for postural yoga, it dates back at least to the Nath yogis, who started in maybe 1100 AD, before Muslim rule in the Ganga plain, when the British were nowhere in the picture and America as a state didn't even exist yet.
Unlike Patanjala Yoga (meditation) the more recent postural Hatha Yoga is indeed directed to relaxation and fitness. Hatha Yoga classics promise you a lustrous body and concomitant success with the opposite sex -- not quite the goal of Patanjala Yoga, but very much the goal of Madonna and millions of other American yoga practitioners. But whatever may be the worth of that, Indians invented it themselves, long before British conceptions of fitness could (marginally) influence it."
... In Hindu spiritual traditions, yoga is one of many techniques by which the truth of man's ultimate unity with the Supreme can be verified, empirically, at a personal level."
Patanjala Yoga Sutra, known till Shankara as a branch of Sankhya or simply as Patanjala Darshana, defines yoga in an atheistic way. "Yoga is the stopping of the motions of the mind" is a purely technical definition. The next verse, "Then the seer rests in himself", defines the goal of yoga as "isolation" (kaivalya), i.e. of consciousness (purusha) from its objects (sensory perceptions, desires, memories, intellection, all belonging to the less or more rarefied reaches of nature/prakrti). In both phrases, there is no God in the picture, He has nothing at all to do with the goal of yoga.
Patanjali makes a practical concession to the believers among his readers by saying that "devotion to God" is one of the preparatory stages of yoga. He defines God/Ishvara exactly like radically atheist Jains define their liberated
souls, namely as a desireless purusha; so it remains highly uncertain that "God" as currently understood is meant. At any rate, he refuses to make this special purusha somehow the goal of his yoga. Yoga does not revolve around an external being called God, but is purely a matter of relating to yourself, viz. totally sinking into yourself and forgetting about the world and the "tentacles" of consciousness into it.
When modern Hindus speak about yoga (and they speak about it a lot but practise it very little), they have a distorted view of it, inflected by what has been
the dominant stream in Hinduism for centuries, viz. theistic bhakti (devotion). "Unity with God", whatever that may mean, is a concept from bhakti/sufism and also adopted by some writers on Christian mysticism. But it is completely absent in historical yoga as defined by Patanjali.
Yoga is very much part of Hindu civilization, but is not the property of contemporary God-centered Hindus.
I am currently finishing a booklet for the greater public on the external enemies of Hinduism. It will make me very popular among Hindus. But next, I want to write a similar booklet about the internal enemies of Hinduism, or is other words: what is wrong with the Hindus... it will certainly make me many enemies among Hindus. They don't like a Westerner criticizing them, though I have most of it from Hindus themselves. At any rate, if Hindus don't make a systematic diagnosis of the problem, someone else has to do it. And the current (sentimenal and confused) Hindu bhakti notion of "God" is certainly a big part of the problem.
Recap for comment 2: " ... Andrea Jain, assistant professor of religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis said that the forms of yoga
commonly practiced in the US are the result of the mix of colonial India and euro-American physical culture.:
> "In fact, postural yoga has been shown to be a successor of fitness methods that were already common in parts of Europe and the United States before postural yoga was introduced," Jain said. "So we could think of > postural yoga as a 20th century product, the aims of which include all sorts of modern conceptions of physical fitness, stress reduction, beauty and well-being, these things were not present in pre-colonial traditions of yoga at all."
This supposed expert Andrea Jain is simply parrotting a very recent theory. She is plainly wrong, for yoga in the sense of meditation is very ancient, and was given a synthesis (of pre-existing views) by Patanjali. As for postural yoga, it dates back at least to the Nath yogis, who started in maybe 1100 AD, before Muslim rule in the Ganga plain, when the British were nowhere in the picture and America as a state didn't even exist yet.
Unlike Patanjala Yoga (meditation) the more recent postural Hatha Yoga is indeed directed to relaxation and fitness. Hatha Yoga classics promise you a lustrous body and concomitant success with the opposite sex -- not quite the goal of Patanjala Yoga, but very much the goal of Madonna and millions of other American yoga practitioners. But whatever may be the worth of that, Indians invented it themselves, long before British conceptions of fitness could (marginally) influence it."
" This lie is now popping up in many places. Looks like this is the currently favored strategy to break up Asanas from the larger Hatha Yoga (and that in turn from Hinduism).
The overall story goes like this: Hatha Yoga Pradipa (HYP) is the founding text of Hatha Yoga and is 500 yrs old. HYP mentions only a dozen or so seated poses.
The rest and more advanced poses are recent invention. In fact, they were invented in 20th century under the influence of militarism & British physical culture. The pioneer of this was Krishnamacharya, the guru of BKS Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois and others. .... Ergo case established and we can reclaim what is really ours after putting it through due scientific process to clear it of all undesirable
cultural/religious/superstitious baggage.
We are going to hear a lot more about "Modern Yoga", "Postural Yoga". The story is of course garbage and it has any number of holes:
1.HYP is dated to 500 yrs based the usual fraudulent methods.
2. Sri Krishnamacharya himself credited a Yogi living in Himalayas for teaching him Yoga. (Incidentally, one of the sons of Sri Krishnamacharya, Desikachar seems to crave western approval & money. He and his son keep dishing out whatever nonsense western "yogis" want, like Yoga is not religious etc)
3. HYP itself acknowledges there more poses than the dozen or so it describes in detail. This is in line with Indian tradition where only the important points are given and rest left to the living tradition or pupil's effort. Quite
different from western patent driven approach where the goal is claim as much for oneself as possible.
4. Within Hatha Yoga asanas themselves are quite preparatory. The real deal is pranayama, bandhas etc. So it is stupid to expect HYP to devote all the space to a minor aspect.
5. Vedantins condemned the focus on body that Hatha Yogis fall into. Traditional sannyasins in orthodox mathas practice hatha yoga.
6. Ayurveda uses asanas in treatment for various disorders. Traditional dance poses are closely linked to some asanas.
So on and on.
This story seems have started with Mark Singleton's book Yoga Body. Singleton seems to be church funded. He is very well published in all the right places Oxford University Press etc (which probably are held directly or indirectly by the church as well). He teaches at St. John's College at New Mexico, a Christian institution. Take a look at his website (http://modernyogaresearch.org/people/dr-mark-singleton/), it's a real master piece of deception. A casual observer will think he is very sympathetic to
Yoga/India and not understand why we should be critical of his work..."
Ram notes:
"....We won't accomplish much by circular debates within
this forum. We may educate (and frustrate) ourselves in the process and provide necessary ears and eyes for Rajivji, but members should be encouraged to individually bring open pressure on systemic forces bent on expropriating,
abusing, denigrating, or marginalizing the wisdom and achievements of India.
Since joining this forum and reading Rajivji's book "Being Different", I am encouraged to be more assertive in speaking up and defending what's mine!..."
Srinath asks:
"What should Andrea Jain have said? A lot of Indians might offer up similar analyses in the hopes of diffusing criticism that Yoga is religious, which could serve to turn-off American Christians. Indians are usually very eager to enhance Western acceptance of India and Indian philosophies as we have been looked down upon by the West for so long, and perhaps water-down concepts to make them more acceptable..."
February 19
Digesting the gurus
Rajiv posts: The ... Huffpost blog criticizes westerners who look for "eastern gurus". This type of rethinking is quite a phenomenon for a few decades now. They turn away from the source and replacing it with westerners as the new source. Note how the two authors are now the
gurus, with their own marketing programs. Note that all their spiritual leaders" are these uturned people - see list at the bottom of the blog where they are selling them. All this is justified using a quote from Ramana Maharshi. If the purpose is to be one's own guru, why are Ed and Deb selling their own products? It is just one kind of guru replacing another. Yet out folks go ga-ga when they see such people showing their "sympathy" for Hindu dharma. There is one thread someone on how exciting it is to see some harvard people studying kumbh mela. ...Amazing inferiority complex. Yet they love to organize events with fancy themes like "decolonizing Hindu Studies". Nothing really changes after participating in 20 years of hundreds of such events - because its fake and meant to impress.The tiger says that he loves the deer. The stupid deer takes it as a great compliment."
