08-04-2008, 11:12 PM
rajintl wrote:
Mayurav,
For better or for worse, (I think better, you think worse), the old caste system which acted as a stabilizing factor or a glue is long gone. The change has occured, and the only question is how we fashion a new society for the future. We can construct something good, by learning from everybody, even the West, as there are so few good things in this world, that we should not inhibit ourselves from picking the good from everywhere, and build a truly universal society (which was and continues to be an american dream), and which will be very much in keeping with our own best traditions as Hindus and Indian(while we purge the more questionable traditions). Clearly, one of the most important components of this universal society will be to have abilities to protect ourselves and our identity. Either we construct, or we self destruct. Choice is ours.
----------
we have to build a new society borrowing good things from others, as long as it serves our national goals. What our national goal should be can be up for debate, but religion and mukti have been the national goal for thousands of years.
What you call universal society, I would call Hindu society <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->. If all the people in the world are neatly slotted into their own castes and all of them recognize "Ekam sat viprah bahuda vadanti" then we will truly have a harmonious world. The reason I am still enamored by caste is the endogamy it provides. It is a way by which society can dictate who can marry whom. I am strongly influenced by this observation of Swami Vivekananda.
from "The Vedanta.."
Quote:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->If I have another opportunity I will talk to you about these; but let me tell you now that the ideas behind our marriage system are the only ideas through which there can be a real civilisation. There cannot be anything else. If a man or a woman were allowed the freedom to take up any woman or man as wife or husband, if individual pleasure, satisfaction of animal instincts, were to be allowed to run loose in society, the result must be evil, evil children, wicked and demoniacal. Ay, man in every country is, on the one hand, producing these brutal children, and on the other hand multiplying the police force to keep these brutes down. The question is not how to destroy evil that way, but how to prevent the very birth of evil. And so long as you live in society your marriage certainly affects every member of it; and therefore society has the right to dictate whom you shall marry, and whom you shall not. And great ideas of this kind have been behind the system of marriage here, what they call the astrological Jati of the bride and bridegroom. And in passing I may remark that according to Manu a child who is born of lust is not an Aryan. The child whose very conception and whose death is according to the rules of the Vedas, such is an Aryan. Yes, and less of these Aryan children are being produced in every country, and the result is the mass of evil which we call Kali Yuga. But we have lost all these ideals â it is true we cannot carry all these ideas to the fullest length now â it is perfectly true we have made almost a caricature of some of these great ideas. It is lamentably true that the fathers and mothers are not what they were in old times, neither is society so educated as it used to be, neither has society that love for individuals that it used to have. But, however faulty the working out may be, the principle is sound; and if its application has become defective, if one method has failed, take up the principle and work it out better; why kill the principle? The same applies to the food question. The work and details are bad, very bad indeed, but that does not hurt the principle. The principle is eternal and must be there. Work it out afresh and make a re-formed application.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
and this from "East and the West"..
Quote:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The object of the peoples of Europe is to exterminate all in order to live themselves. The aim of the Aryans is to raise all up to their own level, nay, even to a higher level than themselves. The means of European civilisation is the sword; of the Aryans, the division into different Varnas. This system of division into different Varnas is the stepping-stone to civilisation, making one rise higher and higher in proportion to one's learning and culture. In Europe, it is everywhere victory to the strong and death to the weak. In the land of Bhârata, every social rule is for the protection of the weak.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think that caste should be introduced to the mlechchas missionary style. We Hindus need to proselytize aggressively. We need to accept our responsibility to civilize the world. A truly harmonious world will be a Hindu world.
Mayurav,
For better or for worse, (I think better, you think worse), the old caste system which acted as a stabilizing factor or a glue is long gone. The change has occured, and the only question is how we fashion a new society for the future. We can construct something good, by learning from everybody, even the West, as there are so few good things in this world, that we should not inhibit ourselves from picking the good from everywhere, and build a truly universal society (which was and continues to be an american dream), and which will be very much in keeping with our own best traditions as Hindus and Indian(while we purge the more questionable traditions). Clearly, one of the most important components of this universal society will be to have abilities to protect ourselves and our identity. Either we construct, or we self destruct. Choice is ours.
----------
we have to build a new society borrowing good things from others, as long as it serves our national goals. What our national goal should be can be up for debate, but religion and mukti have been the national goal for thousands of years.
What you call universal society, I would call Hindu society <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->. If all the people in the world are neatly slotted into their own castes and all of them recognize "Ekam sat viprah bahuda vadanti" then we will truly have a harmonious world. The reason I am still enamored by caste is the endogamy it provides. It is a way by which society can dictate who can marry whom. I am strongly influenced by this observation of Swami Vivekananda.from "The Vedanta.."
Quote:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->If I have another opportunity I will talk to you about these; but let me tell you now that the ideas behind our marriage system are the only ideas through which there can be a real civilisation. There cannot be anything else. If a man or a woman were allowed the freedom to take up any woman or man as wife or husband, if individual pleasure, satisfaction of animal instincts, were to be allowed to run loose in society, the result must be evil, evil children, wicked and demoniacal. Ay, man in every country is, on the one hand, producing these brutal children, and on the other hand multiplying the police force to keep these brutes down. The question is not how to destroy evil that way, but how to prevent the very birth of evil. And so long as you live in society your marriage certainly affects every member of it; and therefore society has the right to dictate whom you shall marry, and whom you shall not. And great ideas of this kind have been behind the system of marriage here, what they call the astrological Jati of the bride and bridegroom. And in passing I may remark that according to Manu a child who is born of lust is not an Aryan. The child whose very conception and whose death is according to the rules of the Vedas, such is an Aryan. Yes, and less of these Aryan children are being produced in every country, and the result is the mass of evil which we call Kali Yuga. But we have lost all these ideals â it is true we cannot carry all these ideas to the fullest length now â it is perfectly true we have made almost a caricature of some of these great ideas. It is lamentably true that the fathers and mothers are not what they were in old times, neither is society so educated as it used to be, neither has society that love for individuals that it used to have. But, however faulty the working out may be, the principle is sound; and if its application has become defective, if one method has failed, take up the principle and work it out better; why kill the principle? The same applies to the food question. The work and details are bad, very bad indeed, but that does not hurt the principle. The principle is eternal and must be there. Work it out afresh and make a re-formed application.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
and this from "East and the West"..
Quote:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The object of the peoples of Europe is to exterminate all in order to live themselves. The aim of the Aryans is to raise all up to their own level, nay, even to a higher level than themselves. The means of European civilisation is the sword; of the Aryans, the division into different Varnas. This system of division into different Varnas is the stepping-stone to civilisation, making one rise higher and higher in proportion to one's learning and culture. In Europe, it is everywhere victory to the strong and death to the weak. In the land of Bhârata, every social rule is for the protection of the weak.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think that caste should be introduced to the mlechchas missionary style. We Hindus need to proselytize aggressively. We need to accept our responsibility to civilize the world. A truly harmonious world will be a Hindu world.