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 January 9 - 15, 2013

January 9
My encounter with Brian Pennington at the recent AAR
Rajiv Malhotra: I am posting below my report from the recent American Academy of religion annual conference where my book BEING DIFFERENT was the subject of a special panel discussion. The account below deals with just one of the three panelists, Brian Pennington, the man who wrote the book, "Was Hinduism Invented?" The panelist I respect most is the one who offered the most serious counter position to BD based on evidence and arguments. That was Rambachan. Of course, I disagree with his argument that Swami Vivekananda violates Hindu tradition. But there was no smear, ad hominem or personal issues raised in his talk. ...The organizers of the panel did a great job promoting BD, as this kind of open discussion ultimately leads to better flow of arguments in both directions. The tragedy is that a scholar like Pennington failed to take BD's thesis seriously and, instead, focused on personal attacks against me. Please read the following account and judge for yourself.

Pennington spent his talk making an all-out personal attack against me. I was unqualified to be given this honor by academics, he stated. Calling me a Neo-Hindu and someone suspected in the academy of having links to Hindutva politics, he spewed several personal allegations ...  I was later informed that one man had used his laptop to tape it, and had later transcribed the audio...

Pennington started by caricaturing me. He branded “Rajiv Malhotra as the internet personality who spared eminent scholars no insult, or as the fire breathing self-proclaimed public intellectual who haunts academic meetings poised to dominate Q&A with angry challenges complete with data and dismissive rejections of their interpretations…”  He positioned Being Different as “his latest attempt to intervene in the academic of religions”, and went on to admit with great aplomb:

“I would confess to accepting this invitation to participate in this forum out of some curiosity … [in order to encounter] the globe-trotting nemesis of academics … [because nobody has challenged academic works] as vigorously and directly as Malhotra often has. This is after all a self-trained scholar who single handedly accomplished what no credentialed scholar of Hinduism has yet been able to accomplish - making RISA world famous. So we thank him for that.”

....

"Malhotra has previously likened the system of academic credentials to a caste system… [and] explicitly labeled the practices as a peer review cartel. … Malhotra … has further accused the academy of intellectual corruption and cronyism and demanded a free market in the depictions of Indic religious traditions in which activist groups scrutinize scholars work on both India and the West …employing their own knowledge of India and her intellectual traditions.”

.....

Next Pennington showed his own agenda, stating that the “ready identification of these two things – India the nation state and India the ancient civilization  ...Umm … To me the association is troubling,” because he was suspicious of “the political uses of such a work.” He went further as said:

“What I do see is a project that is imbued with the identification of India with the Sanskritic and Hindu tradition, an identification that really disallows the association of any individual or community that does not identify itself in these terms.” He was disturbed by what he saw as an attempt to “construct an authentic Hindu”.

In other words, at the heart of this anger is his problem with associating Indian civilization and India as a nation. This deep trouble was the focus of his influential book, Was Hinduism Invented? In that book the main culprit is Swami Vivekananda because he more than anyone else had “invented Hinduism”.

Pennington was upset that Islam is hardly mentioned in Being Different, even though the book makes clear up front that it deals specifically with a comparison between dharmic and Western civilizations, respectively, and explains why Islam needs its own separate comparisons with each of these two. As the typical White Man facing the burden to save Indians, Pennington was worried that,

“there is no doubt his work could be useful as a device to delegitimize the political subjectivity of the Christians and Muslims [along with other] marginalized and ignored communities in India.”

His final remark was to chide the organization that had invited me to the panel: “I remain somewhat puzzled about why the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies would honor this work with a serious discussion, when Christianity features as a fairly invisible presence in this work.” And he concluded with a patronizing gesture “I would hope that we could have a frank and respectful and collegial discussion about all those things.”

I wish he had addressed the main themes in the book. Not whatever else he wanted to superimpose on me and the book"

Sandeep responds:
"Someday in the future, as Indian universities improve in quality, lets hope India produces an army of well-funded (non-marxist) academics who understand Hinduism better, who have access to the latest facilities and are able to publish their books without any impediments.
... This debate will then shift to the "Indian academy of religion"

Rajiv's response: 
I have promoted this idea for 20 years. Easier said than done. Infinity Foundation held 3 major world conferences on religious studies in Delhi with opinion leaders across the political and ideological spectrum. Lots of passion, resolutions, etc. No action in the end...

For now I want to focus on producing new discourse that challenges old hegemonic discourse, and on debating my work with serious scholars, so as to take it further amongst readers who have the required level of commitment and background to follow the issues. " 

Narasimhan writes:
"From a perusal of Pennington's writings I find that he treats Islam with kid gloves and is almost as apologist. This quite contrasts with his fierce attempt to deconstruct Rajiv Malhotra. One should take it as a measure of the success of Being Different. " 
.
Surya briefly reviews Brian Pennington's book:
" ... BD demolishes the foundation on which his career was erected.

As readers patiently, and painfully, labor through his book "Was Hinduism Invented?", they will find that it is deeply wanting in coherence of thought and focus leading to the purported end of proving that Hinduism was but a fiction of 19th century Hindu activists.  

After promising to expose this fiction, Brian's book meanders through a sundry of unflattering Western accounts, articles or letters in (a couple of) domestic magazines in 19th century India, trying to sift for peculiar social practices and religious customs of Hindus. How do they all tie to his final purported end?  They do not.  That is the purposeless, laborious meandering through irreverent historical accounts while hopelessly conflating ideals with practices.  Is there a clincher?  Nope,  just the hope that the tired reader succumbs to his hypothesis that Hinduism is a fiction of 19th century Hindu activists.  Personally, I could not shake the feeling that Brian Pennington used the excuse of proving his hypothesis to unleash a vindictive narrative against Hinduism.  

It is truly reprehensible that Brian Pennington lobbies the "Indian nationalist" bomb to quash BD.  Can he show what the basis is for such a claim?  I did not quite count but felt that the word Christianity showed up more frequently than the word Hinduism in Brian Pennington's book that is supposedly about Hinduism. There is greater evidence to say that his motive is to establish supremacy of Christianity at all costs.

Now, here comes the book BD by Rajiv Malhotra that recognizes the folly of conflating ideals with practices.  It takes the world-views of Dharmic traditions and contrasts them with Abrahamic religions by walking the readers through a 4-dimensional space of (1) history-centrism, (2) integral unity vs. synthetic unity, (3) attitude towards complexity vs. rigid order, (4) non-translatable concepts (described in original Sanskrit works).

BD shows how Dharma traditions show their cohesiveness and commonness, an identity, that is established not by homogenizing them, but by separation of the group from Abrahamic religions.

... In so doing, BD shows why there is no need to homogenize dharma traditions in order to have a familial identity.  That is a true blow to the works of Western Universalists like Brian Pennington.  In fact, BD explains why Western Universalists can only see such cohesiveness as lacking in cohesion or coherence.  For the Western Universalist, if Hinduism is not a homogeneous jello then it has to be incoherent jumble.  The problem for Western Universalists is not just that they have not the right level of zoom.  They failed to get the right scenic view of the world of religions and traditions by stepping outside Western Universalism.  

So how should we on the forum read Brian Pennington's outbursts at the conference against BD and Rajiv Malhotra?  Considering that there was not a single argument against the contents of BD, it is an expression of sheer exasperation."

Carpentier comments:
"Pennington reflects the defensive-aggressive strategy in use by much of the globalized western-trained academic community. It claims to be objective, unbiased and universal and denies that quality to any other school of thought. An illustration of that way of thinking is the present "multi-cultural" (which in fact means a-cultural) mainly leftist notion of any national society in which no element should be given priority over others. For instance a European society (say France) should not be defined by its leading historical characteristics because that would be "discriminatory". ...For similar reasons the present government of Russia is under intense attack and condemnation in most of the West for being "Russian" and not a "multi-cultural" open society with a "global secular" free market identity. In fact it should be only a market because as Maggie Thatcher memorably said when she was in power: there is no such thing as society (and she was not a leftist but liberals and neo-mrxits agree on this)."

The thread below elicited many responses. 
January 9
How to be Dharmic?
Sudhir asks questions: 
I wanted to put this question up for discussion. I am encountering a strange antagonism from my relatives with regards to the idea of Dharma and how it is perceived within and outside the rashtra as defined by Bharat. This question arose from Bharat- India argument on the mainstream media.

The problem is such:

I am trying to life a dharmic lifestyle after being re-educated after reading BD and after following various bloggers who have a gift of writing well on thoughts which are Indic in origin. ... My wife and a few relatives find this too much and ridiculous. Perhaps it is. Perhaps its not. Trying to live the right way our forefathers expected a dharmic person would is my personal effort at trying to do my bit for dharma.

Do you experience this 'klesha' within your family and extended circle [?]

Another question is how to bring up children in the west who would look up to people like Swami Vivekananda as role models and idols?   .."


Rajiv's comment: 
This question ... is coming sincerely from the heart. It deserves serious responses from members...Issue is a common one: What to do if one's family/friends circle is
not aligned towards one's dharma and this creates tensions?

Sandeep responds
Dh"Practicing Dharma does not mean you must mimic ancestral rituals blindly.  It was this problem that Sri Aurobindo cited when he said people get stuck in "old forms". 

Some person several hundred years ago started "dainik sandhya" because he had some intuition that it might help him go inwards.  That doesn't mean you might also benefit from it.  You have to find what suits your personality.  The goal of Dharma is to go within and find your Atman.  You may be better off joining some contemporary Yoga school ...
...
Not every child is bound to become "Dharmic".  Some people are not cut out for it.  If you force the child into something they don't like, they may rebel against you later and turn atheists for the rest of their lives.  Take the case of Vikram Gandhi, who was immersed in religious practices of the Arya Samaj while growing up in New Jersey, but lost interest in it after growing up.  Now he has made a movie Kumare on fake Gurus.  (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIXNjDcOLWU&feature=player_embedded)

Therefore, one has to gauge the personality of the child to find what is the best path.  The child is more likely to be attracted to poetry, literature and dance rather than dry philosophy and discursive ethics. 
...

The best way to mould a child is to become a different person yourself.  If they sense a positive change in you, they will naturally come to you for guidance.  " 

Shambu suggests:
".. Practice kula-aachaar (as much as one may, no matter where you live) - at least daily snaanam, dyaanam, and vyaayaamam are must; details (if one desires) may be learned and taken up - they may be very involved yama-niyama-aasana-praaNaayaama- etc.
    Eat mita (limited) and hita (beneficial) food suited to your work - most of us don't fight wars and therefore saatvic food is all that we need - mita hita aahaaram. You become what you eat.
    Serve the needy without expecting any return (not even puNya) - starting from those near and dear - don't make a project of saving the penguins on the Antarctica and ignoring your own family. Do some neighborhood sevaa once a week at least - such as feeding the homeless right off your backyard...
    Donate (thinking that "this is not mine - na mama) to the deserved - daanam to those with paatrataa. Don't give to the devil (cf. figure out who is devil and who is not).
    Do weekly, paakshik, or maasik 24-hour upavaasam, such as on Fridays, Ekaadashi, etc. - don't eat or drink anything, but work as usual and reflect on all there is - jeeva-jagat -Ishwara connections. Being near That One Truth is upa vaasam. upavaasam is a great cleanser of the body and the mind as well. amaavaasyam ("Sun and moon living together"), eclipse times, sandhyaa times etc. are highly beneficial for being in upavaasam.
    Visit temples and be a part of some poojaa monthly, quarterly, or at least annually. Go on a teertha yaatraa annually - visit holy places and gather holy company. They all add to your dharmik living. Don't dismiss it as mere rituals - you won't know what you miss unless you do these for a few years and find out yourself. You will find great people and noble friends if you seek - satsangatve nissangatvam...
    Don't get into any fad or rigidity to the point of imposing your way on others - including work, play, sandhyaa, or poojaa. Balance life. Be vulnerable. "I am this or that, I am doing all this" etc. must not be in your head.
    Live first, then (only) teach - svaadhyaayam first followed by pravachanam - svaadhyaaya pravachanaabyaam na pramaditavyam. Our traditions place the guru who is aachaarya way up.
   ..."


Nagaraja says:
"...Guidelines recommended Sri Shambhu Shastryji are fairly pragmatic and can be put to practice even in our modern-day circumstances. However, I don't agree with Sri Sandeep who rejects Sandhya vandanam as useless today but upholds yoga
practice. I don't think such dichotomous generalizations would help. In my opinion, what you should practice should be decided by yourself and Sri Shambhu's post provides guidelines that help in making such choices. My suggestions centre around how to ease-in Dharmic practices (whatever you choose) into your daily life without much friction from family and relatives..." 

Siddharth shares:
"...As far as drawing children to dharmic way of life is concerned, if i were a child i would catch and appreciate anything that appeases me in my regular course of life, i will then try to look deeper and deeper and end up having developed a certain perspective. For example , while studying public administration i came across Maslow's hierarchy theory, studied it, what drew me towards the indian philosophy is when i came across the idea of 'PANCHKOSHA' in one of the discussions in this group. I loved it so much that i ended up studying several other aspects of indian philosophy and i am in a state of constant learning. One cant make a child do something, you will have to draw him in such a way that the child appreciates it on its own and develops an urge to delve into it." 

[several other interesting responses around Vahanas of Hindu Deities, Panchatantra stories (which are great!), etc. read the original thread. It may be worth your while].

January 10
Promoting RM's Books and Ideas On Swami Vivekananda's Anniversary

I am promoting RM's Books and Ideas On Swami Vivekananda's 150th Birthday Anniversary by distributing 10,000 copies of a pocket calender. I believe it is an effective way to generate awareness of RM's work. I hope to repeat this several times this year.

For thos interested in doing the same in your area...I am attaching a pdf and Correldraw files of the final version of the Pocket Calender.

The Correldraw file can be used by the printers. Please check with RM before you print or change it.

It is inexpensive to print. It cost me Rs 7500 for 10,000 copies. 

I can send samples to anyone interested in India. For those interested in printing more copies, Please contact.... [see egroup for contact information].

January  11
Subra posts:
The Samudra Manthana story in Hinduism appears to be a key metaphor to describe order & chaos in BD where the Amrit (nectar) that comes out of the churning the ocean represents 'order', and the accompanying poison, the 'chaos and disorder'. In multiple online forums, Shiva's drinking of the poison is equated to Christ's crucifixion to proactively save humanity from original sin. Some Hindus have equated Shiva's act as one of collective salvation from sin, feeding the myth of sameness. Reading Chapter 4 of BD again (I quote from the Amazon-Kindle copy), indicates that this interpretation is incorrect.

1. Firstly, BD notes:
"....The story of the Samudra-manthana is not intended to be taken literally.
Indeed, the ultimate uncertainty of knowing how the universe came about is given
eloquent expression in the famous 'Hymn of Creation' ..."

whereas History-Centric Christianity requires Crucifixion, resurrection & its implications of collective salvation to be literally and absolutely true, with no room for alternative explanations.

2. BD also rules out equivalence to a story in the 'book of revelation' where 'satanic disorder' has to be absolutely vanquished:
"...In one such story, Lord Shiva himself consumes the fierce, dark and bitter poison first churned up from the ocean. He does so in order to overcome it, leaving the nectar to others. But significantly, Shiva makes this choice both out of knowledge (of the poison's deadly effect) and love (for those who might suffer harm) – not out of any dark, destructive passion. Furthermore, he is able to transmute the poison not by ejecting it but by incorporating it in himself. . .. needless to say, this is but a hypothetical scenario; the good versus evil dualism of Judaism and Christianity is absolute."

3. The section below appears to give the interpretation of 'why Shiva drank the poison':
"... Disorder serves as a source of creativity by preventing order from becoming fossilized. The Lord is not only the creator of the universe (as Brahma) and the maintainer of its order (as Vishnu) but also the one who ultimately dissolves it
(as Shiva). The dissolution makes room for the next cycle of creation. At the spiritual level, Shiva, the Lord of Yoga, aptly assumes the appearance of chaos to facilitate the dissolution of bondage to the falsehoods in our minds – making
way for new creation..."


Rajiv's comment: 
I thank the person for the post blow. He points out a serious
example of digestion at work right under our nose, i.e. the attempt to digest Shiva into Christ. And many foolish Hindus are buying into such nonsense, imagining that this is helpful to us. What this digestion does is to incorporate Shiva as a subset within Christ, such that Jesus' history centrism remains
intact and all that we know about Shiva becomes part of Christ. Please oppose this ploy staunchly. This is why I wrote BD to make our people vigilant.

Surya responds:
"Following differences should be raised:
(1) Original sin affects only descendants of Adam. It has no bearing on the life as lived on Earth - only saving people from Hell in the after life. Shiva saved all life forms, in this life, on Earth.
...
(4) Original sin transferring to others is a violation of the doctrine of Karma. Original sin absolved by sacrificing Jesus is also a violation of the doctrine of Karma. One cannot bear the consequences of another's karma.
(5) Shiva is not Human. He prevailed by holding poison in his throat and not swallowing it. Jesus was sacrificed and he paid for original sin of other's with his own life. We are told that Jesus has not saved all humans even with his own death." 

Lok comments:

"You mentioned "The dissolution makes room for the next cycle of creation"
What is the next circle of creation?
Evolution is the progressive manifestation of the different powers and aspects of the Divine.
.... The progression is striking and unmistakable.

The above comment is written by Sri Aurobindo ..."


Chittaranjan responds:
"In Aurobindo, there is both a deep philosophy having its source in Sanathana Dharma as well as an element of the Nietzschean Overman that is not based on, nor is supported by, the Hindu tradition. In Hinduism, evolutionary progression
pertains to an individual that walks the path of dharma; it does not pertain to the collective whole....." 

January 11
A theater review
Arun posts:
Something to look at, and check:

It's not often that you go to the theater these days and find yourself excitedly questioning and rethinking your reactions. Self-examining art, after all, has become such a cozy genre in itself that it rarely startles.

But "Ganesh Versus the Third Reich," the remarkable production that opened this year's Under the Radar festival of experimental theater, never lets you settle into passive acceptance of anything it does. It's a vital, senses-sharpening
tonic for theatergoers who feel they've seen it all.

Even the title of the show — created by the 25-year-old Back to Back Theater of Geelong, Australia — inspires shivers of discomfort. Ganesh, the elephant-headed Indian deity, takes on Hitler's Germany? That sounds like a Hollywood head trip
that might once have been marketed to stoner college students, an audacious fantasy that traffics in wild jokes and political incorrectness...."


Vamsi responds:
"... To give you a bit of back ground, there was a huge outrage of the Hindu community in Melbourne,Victoria, Australia when this play was screened for the first time in 2011. After some pressure from political parties and Victorian Multicultural council, they invited some Hindu leaders to see the play and then give their opinion. Accordingly i was invited to see it and I was flabbergasted to see the level of ignorance and in sensitiveness about Hindu principles, Hindu deities and Hindu scriptures. Myself and other Hindu groups, submitted our strong reservation against the play, You could read more about it in this link of Forum For Hindu Awakening,  
1) 2)

                                        

After seeing the play, there were some strong objections that we raised against the play. The play directors went back on many promises with us, they deceivingly got a so called Hindu Guru (of western origin) in Melbourne,Victoria, Australia to endorse this play publicly and used his statement as a PR exercise against the protests of around 13 Hindu organizations, due to which the already split Hindu community in Victoria was further split and opinions divided. below are some of the objections, which we raised against the play."

January 11

Re: Swami Vivekananda becomes Masculine Nationalist
Sandeep shares a link:
Prema Nandakumar responds to Sanjay Srivastava in a Hindu op-ed:

He gave us back our dignity

Does one write deliberately as a woman or man when taking up pen and paper? I do not know. But right now, I am writing as an Indian woman. The Indian woman who has held up the torch of cultured living for millennia through self-sacrifice, incredible feats of physical and mental endurance and abiding compassion. I know that the pen is a sacred object; if used unthinkingly as Sanjay Srivastava has done (The Hindu, Op-Ed, “Taking the aggression out of masculinity,” January 3, 2013), it might do more harm than good to the position of women in India.

Two portraits have been constant companions in my longish life as a housewife and writer. They have both infused in me the needed strength to face life despite scores of disappointments, frustrations and tragedies. One is the figure of Bharat Mata, rider on the lion, as though telling me: are you a weakling? You are as strong as this land, endowed with hurrying streams and gleaming orchards. Never give up! I learnt the connection between nature and the Indian woman when I read Sita say in Kavisamrat Viswanatha Satyanarayana’s Sri Ramayana Kalpavrikshamu that she has no fear of rivers and forests. Is she not the child of Mother Earth?  ..."


January 12 (continuing thread from March 2012)
Holi Digestion

Digestion of Holi is happening at a rapid pace and it is now gone global. Please see this: http://TheColorRun.com/

The main "fun" aspect of Holi -throwing colors- got disconnected, secularized and now it has been digested.

In an earlier discussion on this topic of "Holi Digestion" (message 2343), it was about Americans participating in our celebration. In that context Rajivji had stated:

Rajiv comment: ... The issue at hand is not about digestion, but about potential distortion. Digestion would be if (as in the case of yoga) mainstream Americans were appropriating Holi into some kind of festival claimed to be their own - as they did with Halloween. But the examples cited do not apply to American digestion of Holi, rather they concerned Indians in USA morphing their own symbols and festivals - i.e. difference anxiety from below.

..."

 
January 13 
article by Tavleen Singh on the biases of Delhi's literati & chatter

Kaajal shares link. I also recommend her latest book Durbar published last month by...

January 13 (continuing discussion from December 25)
Christmas origins -- digested others
What better time to scrutinise Christianity's insatiable and insidious digestion of pre-Christian festivals to come up with Christmas (please see the...

Raj shares a link and comments: " I came across this comprehensive site which convincingly argues that many pre-existing pagan archetypes were digested to construct the Christ Myth: www.POCM.info  The key archetypal ideas were quite common, like powers and miracles attributed to various pre-christian deities, including virgin birth. So, it is entirely possible to digest these ideas to come up with the Christ myth. "... (unless the author Paul Hourihan is known to be genuinely Dharma-friednly)...." A genuinely dharma-friendly person, who understands dharmic concepts properly and knows the true history of Abrahamic religions, will not entertain haphazard, self-serving comparisons. If one understands the difference between Atman and Abrahamic ideas about soul, no further honest comparison is possible. A dharma-friendly person would explain how Atman & Soul are profoundly different. But this author uses the terms interchangeably. The author's website is full of familiar "sameness" talking-points and subtle western triumphalism that takes the form of a new kind of White (Wo)Man's Burden - of spreading Eastern Wisdom which was earlier controlled by Brahmin men. Westerners have used the same argument about yoga, ayurveda, Buddhism etc. Note what Anna Hourihan says:.." Krishna wrote the site and notes their response: "...Your web site says the ideas of Vedanta have been heard before, specially in Christianity. The idea that Vedanta reflects what is already in Christianity is laughable. Vedanta and Sanatana Dharma pre-date Christianity by thousands of years; why are you hinting the way you do? There is no need to say all religions are the same - in fact, they are not. This does not mean disrepsect to Christianity or other religions. There is a need to realize that Hinduism is different than other religions, and is a profound thought process which is much more complete and holistic than Christianity. There is  no history centricism in Hinduism which is a great feature, and an elegant way of explaining the concept of God to lay human beings. If you want to equate anything with Hinduism, please reflect exactly what Christianity is borrowing from Hinduism. I would love to see some honesty of purpose in these writings. Reply from Anna Hourihan: I appreciate you pointing out some information on our website that may not be correct. I'm not aware that anywhere on our website it says that Vedanta borrows from Christianity. In fact, as you state, the reverse is much more likely especially if Jesus was in India for the 12 years that are unaccounted for in his life. Would you please point out where on our website you saw this information?.... The point about all religions being the same, refers only to the underlying truths that are there in all the religions. How they are expressed are different according to the time, country and culture. Again if you can point out where you saw this I would very much appreciate it. ..."  Surya responds: "Well said. We should push people who use sameness argument to clarify what they mean by it: identicalness or similarity in certain aspects.  DO NOT let them equivocate. ... If two religions A and B are the same and A came first, then B is merely a restatement of A and hence unnecessary.  B is merely a duplicate. If anyone claims sameness, ask them why they would not go with the original and drop the duplicates. Even Hindus who bring up sameness should be asked this.  If they truly believe Christianity and Islam are the same as Hinduism, why do they not go tell folks of those religions to drop duplicates and go with the original Hinduism? ... You cannot have mutual respect just by focusing on what is common.  Mutual respect requires acknowledging differences openly and acknowledging that, while no more than one religion can be true, no one religion  can be shown to be true."

January 14 (continuing discussion)

Oh No! We ended up with Synthetic Unity! see link shared by Nitin.

Maria writes:
"Neale Donald Walsch wrote:
"How has it comes to pass that we have created an entire world that is so violent on so many levels?

... Walsch does not mention that this idea of onenessâ is there (only) in India's ancient religious tradition. It would be the right time for Hindus and especially their leaders to stress on this fact in a big way in India and abroad and bring it into mainstream. The Dalai Lama said at the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, Already as a youth I was impressed by the richness of Indian thought. India has great potential to help the world. Will Hindus dare to say that dogmatic religions are the problem worldwide and Dharmic religions offer the solution?

Hindus also hesitate to mention that this belief (conviction) in unity has beneficial aspects on their society. They dont see that India is doing amazingly well in relation to other countries. I met recently several western tourists who are stunned by the incredible accommodation of others by Indians in crowded places or on the road everywhere. If Indians ever discover road rage, half of them would be dead in no time, an American said. And in case our liberal friends on this forum will react now that India is in no position to lead the way and start listing all the atrocities happening in India, please figure in the population density and imagine how US would be faring if they had 3700 million instead of 315,,,
...

In India it is at present not easy to get anything positive about Hinduism published. When I once wrote an article on the basics (fundamentals) of religions and naturally Hinduism looked best, Life Positive considered it too sensitive a subject.
...
Incredible India! Here you have living gods and you want to import dead ones only because Indian tradition is taboo for a certain influential section of society."

Manish writes:
"
...this is what Malcolm Muggeridge wrote about what the British did to India --

“As I dimly realised, a people can be laid waste culturally as well as physically; not their lands but their inner life, as it were, sewn with salt. This is what happened to India. An alien culture, itself exhausted, become trivial and shallow, was imposed upon them; when we went, we left behind railways, schools and universities, statues of Queen Victoria and other of our worthies, industries, an administration, a legal system; all that and much more, but set in a spiritual wasteland. We had drained the country of its true life and creativity, making of it a place of echoes and mimicry.”

Very very few of the 1200 million Indians have any idea what serious damage colonialism has done to them; on the contrary, we often come across Indians who still believe that British Raj was the best thing to have happened to India.

Cry, my beloved country!" 
Lok responds:
"There are elements in Hinduism which are eternal and imperishable and so cannot be digested. Sanatan Dharma cannot be digested. Those parts that can be digested are perishable and not eternal. Those parts are the forms not
the substance of Hinduism. The decline of India was caused by to much emphasis on the forms than on the substance.  Those things should be discarded like waste matter to liberate the substance."

Rajiv comment: 
...There are two errors in the post.

He assumes that true discourse cannot be digested into false discourse. If that were the case, discourse on integral unity would not be possible to digest into synthetic unity. The whole problem we face is that discourse on integral unity is being digested into synthetic unity, discourse on truth is being digested into falsity.

We have said this MANY times before: Digestion is always selective. it appropriates what fits and rejects what does not, and hence it distorts the integral unity (or truth) by breaking it into parts....

The deer is never taken whole and made into a part of the tiger. Such a statement as the above post lacks understanding of the terms like digestion that he uses.

Secondly, truth and discourse about truth are two different things. People's understanding of it gets destroyed, not the truth itself. When Krishna says that we must fight adharma that threatens dharma, it is not that dharma as a set of tenets could be destroyed. he means that society would no longer be dharmic. Similarly, we are discussing discourse here and not the truth itself. When we say a certain tenet gets digested, we imply that the consensus of peoples' beliefs and what they follow no longer respects that tenet.

The attitude that says "maybe all humans have discarded the truth but it is still the truth" allows one to can escape having to deal with the situation."