BD and Management
Srini posted:
"Found an interesting article in today's Hindu on the state of current management students in India being fed on western curriculum and being neither good at it nor having any original ideas for Indian conditions.
and another which aims to involve Vedic and Buddhist management principles into IIM Ranchi curriculum. Hopefully they'll keep the source references intact."
Vijendran responds:
"The irony is that the US/European universities like Harvard are introducing Bhagawad Gita as a part of the standard texts for their MBA programs, while the Indian IIMs are stuck with the western ideals! .."
Rajiv comment: Indian universities are also teaching BG in IIMs. ...The problem is different.
Indians
are borrowing spirituality from the west which the west appropriated
has from India - this is called stage 5 of Uturn, the Pizza effect.
Hence, [Howard Gardner?] teaches multiple intelligences at Tata, Infosys
and other corporate houses even though we have more profound versions of
it in dharma; Andrew Cohen and Eckhart Tolle type of frauds impress
Indians because they see it as "Made in USA" spirituality. Many secular
folks I know in Delhi who are outright embarrassed by things Hindu,
flock to such events because its cool. In the same way, its cool to get
"sufi" teachings even though the same or deeper versions are found in
Hinduism."
Maria posts:
"I feel the problem is the inferiority complex that the British have
successfully instilled, by making those, who suffer from it, actually
feel proud to be superior to the Indian masses by being so western, plus
the atmosphere in independent India, where those people had great
influence and ancient wisdom still is taboo for part of the ˜elite, and
they let westerners run away with it. I really wish that Rajiv's books
can change this.
One example. In note 11 of the unity chapter Rajiv mentions Pribram, Grof, Bohm... the Intern. Transpersonal Association organised a conference in Mumbai on the convergence between science and ancient wisdom. Grof, Pribram were there Bohm via video, plus Capra, Sheldrake, on the other side Swami Muktananda (Grof's guru), Dalai Lama sent message, Parsi priest, Jewish rabbis, Bede Griffiths and many psychologists. In the flyer it said that the conference was purposely held in India as Indian wisdom provides a consistent background for the new emerging paradigm of everything as an interconnected Whole.....However, I don't remember any Indian scientist there (only later I realised that it might have been ruinous for a scientist to go to a conference, where Swami Muktananda was a presenter). Yet apart from science, which may be considered ˜lay science, the Indian psychologists did not take it up, who easily could have done so. They continued teaching their western psychology and allowed the westerners to develop it into a branch of '˜western' psychology.
....I was asked to write a chapter for a compendium for German psychology students on '˜the yoga of the Bhagavad Gita as a form of transpersonal psychology'. That means, the origin was not hidden from the beginning. But since Indians did not appropriate their own knowledge, there were no Indian theories regarding psychology, India's wisdom is not projected, as for example Tibetan Buddhism is, it became a free for all and the temptation to build one's career is there. I met several foreigners who feel that Indians don't understand their heritage.
Another example, during NDA regime MM Joshi (HRD minister) proposed research into 20 aspects of India's tradition, like on shaiva siddhanta, etc. I read about it in TOI, yet the article was ridiculing and denouncing it as saffronisation. I guess nothing came out of it.
Actually, Rajiv, I don't feel Eckhart Tolle is a fraud. He stumbled on a change in consciousness and then tried to integrate it and he partly used his Christian background....he said that since this transformation happened to him, he does not feel like a westerner anymore. He feels like an Indian. He considered it a wonderful thing that Indian wisdom is spreading now to the west. I don't think, he is aware of it being insidiously digested.
Apart from Sufism, Buddhism (preferably from abroad) is also an in thing among the elite. I was surprised that when Thich Nhat Hanh came to Dehradun..."
One example. In note 11 of the unity chapter Rajiv mentions Pribram, Grof, Bohm... the Intern. Transpersonal Association organised a conference in Mumbai on the convergence between science and ancient wisdom. Grof, Pribram were there Bohm via video, plus Capra, Sheldrake, on the other side Swami Muktananda (Grof's guru), Dalai Lama sent message, Parsi priest, Jewish rabbis, Bede Griffiths and many psychologists. In the flyer it said that the conference was purposely held in India as Indian wisdom provides a consistent background for the new emerging paradigm of everything as an interconnected Whole.....However, I don't remember any Indian scientist there (only later I realised that it might have been ruinous for a scientist to go to a conference, where Swami Muktananda was a presenter). Yet apart from science, which may be considered ˜lay science, the Indian psychologists did not take it up, who easily could have done so. They continued teaching their western psychology and allowed the westerners to develop it into a branch of '˜western' psychology.
....I was asked to write a chapter for a compendium for German psychology students on '˜the yoga of the Bhagavad Gita as a form of transpersonal psychology'. That means, the origin was not hidden from the beginning. But since Indians did not appropriate their own knowledge, there were no Indian theories regarding psychology, India's wisdom is not projected, as for example Tibetan Buddhism is, it became a free for all and the temptation to build one's career is there. I met several foreigners who feel that Indians don't understand their heritage.
Another example, during NDA regime MM Joshi (HRD minister) proposed research into 20 aspects of India's tradition, like on shaiva siddhanta, etc. I read about it in TOI, yet the article was ridiculing and denouncing it as saffronisation. I guess nothing came out of it.
Actually, Rajiv, I don't feel Eckhart Tolle is a fraud. He stumbled on a change in consciousness and then tried to integrate it and he partly used his Christian background....he said that since this transformation happened to him, he does not feel like a westerner anymore. He feels like an Indian. He considered it a wonderful thing that Indian wisdom is spreading now to the west. I don't think, he is aware of it being insidiously digested.
Apart from Sufism, Buddhism (preferably from abroad) is also an in thing among the elite. I was surprised that when Thich Nhat Hanh came to Dehradun..."
bluecupid responds:
"....Maria, traditional Indian philosophies are used as psychological and self-help models by many Indians who are either dikshit in traditional sampradayas or otherwise active in one Hindu sect or another. Daily sadhana (practice) of japa, dhyana, kirtan, puja etc are often cited as means to rid one of
depression, anxiety and other mental/emotional woes. You find this even in the ancient texts themselves such as the Bhagavat Purana which at the end of its many stotrams often cites which particular mental/emotional ailments the stotram
will "cure" if recited. These are not "incantations" as such for the stotrams themselves often contain philosophical theories, psychological/self-help advice and positive affirmations.
The Indians how have lost touch with this are the ones who are not availing themselves of the info, but there are many millions of Indians who are very active practicioners of the same."
depression, anxiety and other mental/emotional woes. You find this even in the ancient texts themselves such as the Bhagavat Purana which at the end of its many stotrams often cites which particular mental/emotional ailments the stotram
will "cure" if recited. These are not "incantations" as such for the stotrams themselves often contain philosophical theories, psychological/self-help advice and positive affirmations.
The Indians how have lost touch with this are the ones who are not availing themselves of the info, but there are many millions of Indians who are very active practicioners of the same."
A couple of comments suggest that India adopt the Japanese model since 'they digested western management into their fold'. Rama asks:
"...is this not hypocrisy? We are fighting to keep our Dharmic
princilpes without being digested by others yet cheering Japanese when they study other philosophies and reproduce it with a japanese tone. Did I miss something?"
Rajiv comment: I did not see cheering on his part - merely pointing that there are other application of digestion as well. The Japanese have done it, too."
princilpes without being digested by others yet cheering Japanese when they study other philosophies and reproduce it with a japanese tone. Did I miss something?"
Rajiv comment: I did not see cheering on his part - merely pointing that there are other application of digestion as well. The Japanese have done it, too."
Arun:
"Do the Japanese pretend that what they have learned is original and exclusive with them?
The problem is not with the Christian West learning dharma. It is with them turning around, claiming to be the original, and proceeding to put India into the museum.
... The violin originated in the west but is also incorporated into Indian classical music. We do not then turn around and start calling the use of the violin in western music as derivative from India. We do not insist that without our music you are damned.
Rajiv comment:
Excellent clarification, Arun. Digestion is destructive and not to be equated with ordinary cross-cultural borrowing."
BVKS shares:
"1. This is concerning the challenge of 'Non-Translatables' in BD.
2. Griffith (in 1870) translates Valmiki's term <'Sita-apaharana> as '˜The Rape of Sita'
3. And the justification was as follows: My first object has been to reproduce the original poem as faithfully as circumstances permit me to do. For this purpose I have preferred verse to prose. The translations of the Iliad by
Chapman and Worsley nay, even by translators of far inferior poetical powers are, I think, much more Homeric than any literal prose rendering can possibly be. In the latter we may find the '˜disjecti membra poetae' but all the form and
the life are gone, for '˜the interpenetration of matter and manner constitute the very soul of poetry.' I have but seldom allowed myself to amplify or to condense, or omit apparently needless repetitions, but have attempted rather to give the poet as he is than to represent him as European taste might prefer him to be. ..
4. And critics go to defend it saying: The Griffith Ramayana is a literary work, not a scholarly one....
5. About Griffith: Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith (born on May 25, 1826, UK) translated Valmiki Ramayana in to English. The completed work appeared in 1870, published by E. J. Lazarus & Co. in Benares, and Trubner & Co in London.
...
6. Translations are acts of courage. As Victor Hugo noted: '˜When you offer a translation to a nation, that nation will almost always look on the translation as an act of violence against itself.'.."
[The post below has many responses. We will cover this in a separate post as part of Chapter-4 BD]
March 13
March 14
March 14
March 15
March 18
March 18
Chandramauli shares: ....I sense a cognitive dissonance between the mental state of being a physicist and being, at the same time, a dharmic seeker. Arun's proposed metaphor sounds more like an attempted resolution of this personal conflict than a plausible solution to the karma-reincarnation conundrum.
Being a technologist myself I am not immune to this type of mental conflict. However, as a dharmic seeker, I like to think that science is yet to arrive upon a frontier that adhyatmic knowledge (not mine; those of our rishis) has already covered in a manner that vak cannot embrace. Time, I suspect, will keep adding perspective.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2007/04/new-experiments-with-quantum-entanglement-suggest-that-reality-might-be-overrated.ars
March 18
"Do the Japanese pretend that what they have learned is original and exclusive with them?
The problem is not with the Christian West learning dharma. It is with them turning around, claiming to be the original, and proceeding to put India into the museum.
... The violin originated in the west but is also incorporated into Indian classical music. We do not then turn around and start calling the use of the violin in western music as derivative from India. We do not insist that without our music you are damned.
Rajiv comment:
Excellent clarification, Arun. Digestion is destructive and not to be equated with ordinary cross-cultural borrowing."
BVKS shares:
"1. This is concerning the challenge of 'Non-Translatables' in BD.
2. Griffith (in 1870) translates Valmiki's term <'Sita-apaharana> as '˜The Rape of Sita'
3. And the justification was as follows: My first object has been to reproduce the original poem as faithfully as circumstances permit me to do. For this purpose I have preferred verse to prose. The translations of the Iliad by
Chapman and Worsley nay, even by translators of far inferior poetical powers are, I think, much more Homeric than any literal prose rendering can possibly be. In the latter we may find the '˜disjecti membra poetae' but all the form and
the life are gone, for '˜the interpenetration of matter and manner constitute the very soul of poetry.' I have but seldom allowed myself to amplify or to condense, or omit apparently needless repetitions, but have attempted rather to give the poet as he is than to represent him as European taste might prefer him to be. ..
4. And critics go to defend it saying: The Griffith Ramayana is a literary work, not a scholarly one....
5. About Griffith: Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith (born on May 25, 1826, UK) translated Valmiki Ramayana in to English. The completed work appeared in 1870, published by E. J. Lazarus & Co. in Benares, and Trubner & Co in London.
...
6. Translations are acts of courage. As Victor Hugo noted: '˜When you offer a translation to a nation, that nation will almost always look on the translation as an act of violence against itself.'.."
[The post below has many responses. We will cover this in a separate post as part of Chapter-4 BD]
March 13
March 14
March 14
March 15
March 18
Chandramauli shares: ....I sense a cognitive dissonance between the mental state of being a physicist and being, at the same time, a dharmic seeker. Arun's proposed metaphor sounds more like an attempted resolution of this personal conflict than a plausible solution to the karma-reincarnation conundrum.
Being a technologist myself I am not immune to this type of mental conflict. However, as a dharmic seeker, I like to think that science is yet to arrive upon a frontier that adhyatmic knowledge (not mine; those of our rishis) has already covered in a manner that vak cannot embrace. Time, I suspect, will keep adding perspective.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2007/04/new-experiments-with-quantum-entanglement-suggest-that-reality-might-be-overrated.ars
March 18
I am glad that Koenraad Elst picked up on Meera Nanda's hypocrisy which I followed for over a decade, including in meetings and interactions with her. ...
At that time Nanda was unemployed and desperate to get funding from somewhere - a mercenary and not ideologically driven. If i had the funds I could have engaged her if I chose. Thats when I suggested to her that Templeton people have lots of money to throw away at scholars who say the right things. Next thing I now she was selected for Templeton grant
and given a high visibility as an "indian/hindu" voice on science and religion. She used the platform to lambast anything to do with dharma on grounds of "scientific inquiry". On the other hand, she spares Protestantism (because the Templetons are Protestants) and tries to argues that they are very rational and scientific, while Hindus are superstitions and dangerous.
So my sense of Nanda is that she did not convert to Protestantism as Elst inquires, but that she merely joined the mercenary army. Sepoys for hire!
I also know that her hatred with hinduism started early in life when she felt that her hindu in-laws ill treated her. ...
The academy, Church, and other "Breaking India" forces find her useful to cite as a reference in works that get widespread readership in college classrooms."
March 18
Four kinds of attacks on BD...
Rajiv Malhotra summarizes the response to BD:
We have seen support from many directions - both insiders of dharma and outsiders. (Just yesterday I had a great one hour radio interview that will be aired in 2 weeks, with a host (white male) who absolutely loved the thesis and emphasized its importance as part of leadership training.)
But there are also a defined set of critics shown below, of which the first three deserve response.
For #3, a good example is one Harmeet Singh roped in by Steve Farmer's Eurasia egroup, who is being promoted by that camp:
Frankly, I find 1, 2 most intellectually stimulating to respond to. 3 is important just because they exist and should not go unresponded.
As for #4, the less attention given to them the better. Many of their criticisms are simply pedantic, issues of copy editing errors .... My discussion with non-Hindus = "interfaith dialog" = bad thing to do = PROOF of my being anti-Hindu = other ridiculous extrapolations...
At that time Nanda was unemployed and desperate to get funding from somewhere - a mercenary and not ideologically driven. If i had the funds I could have engaged her if I chose. Thats when I suggested to her that Templeton people have lots of money to throw away at scholars who say the right things. Next thing I now she was selected for Templeton grant
and given a high visibility as an "indian/hindu" voice on science and religion. She used the platform to lambast anything to do with dharma on grounds of "scientific inquiry". On the other hand, she spares Protestantism (because the Templetons are Protestants) and tries to argues that they are very rational and scientific, while Hindus are superstitions and dangerous.
So my sense of Nanda is that she did not convert to Protestantism as Elst inquires, but that she merely joined the mercenary army. Sepoys for hire!
I also know that her hatred with hinduism started early in life when she felt that her hindu in-laws ill treated her. ...
The academy, Church, and other "Breaking India" forces find her useful to cite as a reference in works that get widespread readership in college classrooms."
March 18
Four kinds of attacks on BD...
Rajiv Malhotra summarizes the response to BD:
We have seen support from many directions - both insiders of dharma and outsiders. (Just yesterday I had a great one hour radio interview that will be aired in 2 weeks, with a host (white male) who absolutely loved the thesis and emphasized its importance as part of leadership training.)
But there are also a defined set of critics shown below, of which the first three deserve response.
- Rick Santorum supporter - Christian who adheres to ideas like Nicene Creed: Complaint is that I am being one-sided by not pointing out the flaws of caste and the benefits of Christianity.
- Christian or Jew who has adopted a post-turn form of Judeo-Christianity - into yoga, Christian Centering Prayer, nondual metaphysics, Wilberism, etc: Complaint is that my explanation of dharma also applies to Christianity, so the differences I give are not really there. Many Western scholars in the academy are likely to say such things. To which I have to respond with the uturn evidence showing that the "New Christianity" they refer to is largely an older era's appropriation of dharma. Also, this New Christianity is on the fringes and will have to one day wage a war against Christianity as propagated by the Church for centuries.
- Secular, leftist, Marxist - anti-Hindu, suspicious that any support for dharma = Hindutva politics: These folks are seldom well informed at the level of #2 above. Debate turns into a shouting match.
- Hindu radical/extremist who wants to hit out for personal reasons...
For #3, a good example is one Harmeet Singh roped in by Steve Farmer's Eurasia egroup, who is being promoted by that camp:
Frankly, I find 1, 2 most intellectually stimulating to respond to. 3 is important just because they exist and should not go unresponded.
As for #4, the less attention given to them the better. Many of their criticisms are simply pedantic, issues of copy editing errors .... My discussion with non-Hindus = "interfaith dialog" = bad thing to do = PROOF of my being anti-Hindu = other ridiculous extrapolations...
