<b>Pandits head abroad</b>
by Anil Sharma
The Asian Age
4 June 2007
On 4 June 2007 The Asian Age reported: The demand for Vedic Pandits is growing in Asia and the West. Experts who have knowledge of the Vedas, astrology, and special ceremonies are being sought by the countries of Mauritius, Thailand, Kenya, Germany, Holland, England, Australia, and the United States. Global Good News service views this news as a sign of rising positivity in the field of culture, documenting the growth of life-supporting, evolutionary trends.
The Asian Age reported, 'The increase in the demand for pandits has prompted the Sanskrit department of (the) University of Rajasthan to start three new diploma courses this academic session so that more people can get a degree in Vedic literature.'
Every day Global Good News documents the rise of a better quality of life dawning in the world and highlights the need for introducing Natural Law basedâTotal Knowledge basedâprogrammes to bring the support of Nature to every individual, raise the quality of life of every society, and create a lasting state of world peace.
Copyright © 2007 Global Good News(sm) Service.
This might be a weird but a practical & less intrusive idea.
Often one can see printed material in the bathroom stalls. Most of the time it is related to the local sports team, golf and such light reading stuff. For the truly "motivated" people to promote Indian culture, you could print out light reading material on culture and place take it with you to the stall and leave it there <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' /><!--endemo--> . Nothing heavy, just light. Do it once in six months or so :-) You might be surprised how many people would read the material.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prem_Rawat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-PPIVjcKzI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYrpeyG1yD8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evGYsPx66Uw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3TUnIaLOgM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-9nlcROP24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXfM_nU0rRY
Prem Rawat (b. Prem Pal Singh Rawat, Dec 10, 1957 in Haridwar, northern India) also known as Maharaji (formerly Guru Maharaj Ji) has been a speaker and teacher on the subject of "inner peace" since the age of eight, as well as offering instruction of four meditation techniques he calls Knowledge.[2][3]
Teachings
For more details on this topic, see Techniques of Knowledge.
Scholars have claimed that Rawat's teachings spring from the traditions of the Indian Sants, who praised the "Divine Name" for its power to save and dismissed all religious ritual. They emphasised inner spiritual experience, honour for the guru or Perfect Master as an embodiment of God on Earth, and surrender to God "who dwells in the heart."[69] Kabir, the 14th century Sant poet wrote: "Guru and God both appear before me. To whom should I prostrate? I bow before Guru who introduced God to me."[70][71][72] Rawat claims that the techniques of Knowledge he teaches, with the help and guidance of the Guru, will enable the practitioner to experience the divinity within.[73][74] His early teachings, which were essentially Hindu in origin, were described by Western religious scholars as lacking in substance, or as resembling a "Christian evangelical campaign."[75][76][77] Rawat himself, who frequently acted like the teenager that he was in public, was seen as immature and hence unfit to be a religious reader.[78]
After the split with his family, Rawat declared himself the sole spiritual authority in the Mission,[79] removed many of the Hindu beliefs and Indian trappings, and focused his teachings more on the experience of Knowledge.[80][81] Practitioners describe Knowledge as internal and highly individual, without social structure, liturgy or articles of faith, and say that Rawat teaches no beliefs or ethical practices.[82][83]
In 2005, Rawat further developed his teaching style by introducing The Keys, a program of five DVD packs which prepare the student for receiving Knowledge. The techniques are taught in Key Six, a multimedia presentation available in fifty languages. Rawat advises students that for maximum benefit the techniques should be practised daily for at least one hour.[84][85][86]
[edit] Personal
A U.S. citizen since 1977,[87] Rawat lives with his wife in Malibu, California. They have four grown children. He holds an Airline Transport Pilot License and has type ratings for a number of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.[88] His résumé lists skills in computer graphics, computer-aided design and the development of aviation software. He is listed as co-inventor on a U.S. patent for a world-time aviational watch.[89] He reports that he supports himself and his family as a private investor, and that he has contributed to the success of several startup companies in various industries, including software.[90]
Vedic slokas in Mp3 format from California
http://www.vedamantram.com/
Forwarded
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://in.news.yahoo.com/070825/43/6jwen.html
<b>Contributing to Middle East peace - through yoga</b>
By IANS
Saturday August 25, 10:56 AM
New Delhi, Aug 25 (IANS) Thousands of miles away from their homes, some 150 Israeli, Iranian and Arab youths are together learning meditation and yoga techniques in India which they hope will contribute to peace in the troubled Middle East.
<b>For the past 10 days, these young men and women from Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Jordan, Oman and Morocco have been based in the campus of the Art of Living Foundation in Bangalore. </b>
They are mostly in the<b> age group of 20 to 35. Most of them are Sunnis and Shias. There are also Wahabis and Jews, and a handful of Kurds too</b>.
After some initial hesitation, all of them, the Arabs and Israelis in particular, have got drawn to one another and attend classes and do yoga together, with help coming from an Arab woman teacher from the UAE, an Art of Living spokesman told IANS.
............
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<span style='color:red'>Ram-Ravan War II</span>
Tarun Vijay
What defines our Indian-ness? A passport or an emotional relationship that goes beyond any written document?
<b>India consists of two kinds of people. One who live her. And the other who live here. </b>The former respect the Constitution and the icons of the nation like the Tricolour and Ganga and Himalaya and her people as their own, same blood and flesh. This feeling of oneness is most thrillingly displayed when we see an Indian in a distant alien land â the warmth that moment exudes is indescribable or get ecstatic seeing Yuvi earning six sixers in as many balls. We get angry when any Indian falls or our airports are badly managed or we lose a war or a match. It's because we have stakes in the glory and the fall of our motherland and it goes beyond any boundaries of faith or caste or colour.
Our micro identities, like province, language, religion, way of worship or even an atheist viewpoint, all merge with one singular identity â India, a unifying force that celebrates diversities and abhors uniformity. That becomes our raison de etre to be called Indians. We love Homi Bhabha, Abdul Kalam, Annie Beasant or Gandhi, not because they wrote books and produced some scientific formulas or held high positions. They are great to us because of their devotion and perseverance to see India grow, for their efforts and passionate dreams enhancing our motherland's glory. We shared those dreams and saluted them without ever caring what's their faith or colour. Every Indian, who works for the nation in any unique way, becomes our hero. Naturally. No matter to which region or faith he belongs to.
Sunita Williams is not mobbed with love here because she stayed up there in space for a couple of months but because of the fact that in spite of her professional achievements she remembered her punya bhumi , the virtuous land of her ancestors, revered Gita and Ganapati, saluted memories of a land that spells light and warmth. We feel elated to see an Azim Premji and Lakshmi Mittal topping the list of wealthy people on this planet, though we never met them and get excited to see a Lagaan or Swades or Chak De , because those stories on the celluloid gave us an adrenaline of greatness about our nation. Who really cared about the religion or language of Aamir or Shah Rukh or Gowarikar or John? It's the idea of India and a shared feeling of respecting all that she represents that binds us together and not just that piece of cardboard called a passport and a name in the common voters' list.
<b>And there are those who just live here. Without any emotional attachment to their nation or her people. Like passengers in transit. </b>Their passports and the voter IDs are like transit boarding passes or 'visa on arrival', facilitating a life in their own world. Nation remains a shrunk, usable idea for their power and wealth. They erect statues in their 'honour', because they know none would bother after their demise. For them anything is good and worth doing if that serves their personal agenda to enjoy power and luxury. Hence they welcome alien infiltrators, feel no pain seeing their fellow Indians being ousted from their own homeland. If they find it convenient and beneficial, they align with those who powered politically Ram Temple movement and in next phase abuse Ram if that consolidates their political fiefdom. How does it matter if that offends millions who worship Ram? Respect and honour are reserved for those who would sever heads and bomb houses if hurt and offended. Rest can be taken for granted; they are not even vote banks. Hence even those who worship Ram and ask for a promotion or an election ticket, standing devotedly before His stone images, keep mum seeing abuses being hurled on their God. Ram shall never complain of course.
At a juncture when India is moving fast to earn wealth and new heights of strategic prowess, issues that could have been avoided and the nation's precious time saved, have been raked up by an intensely insensitive governance and its 'anti-everything good for the nation' Leftist allies. They have failed miserably in the states ruled by them- in West Bengal and Kerala. Their industrialisation, economic growth charts, minorities' development, law and order and poverty alleviation records show the lowest and weakest indicators. The way the Leftist government handled Singur agitation, killing helpless farmers and labourers described by the press as Jalianwala massacre, is not an isolated example of their bad governance. Yet they choose to jeopardise every opportunity of an Indian quantum jump.
In a nation's life, alienation and collective amnesia go hand in hand. But amnesia tinged with revenge is found in the Left-driven secular notions we are burdened to face. And here is a regime that not only conveniences those revenges but also forces a kind of selective amnesia on its citizens in its pursuit of power through vote banks of religion and caste. It forgets that the national life seeks energy from its cultural roots and tributaries of civilisational grandeur and pride. Besmirching those sources and humiliation of nation's core constituency is repeating the acts of foreign assaulters and horse-ridden robbers who had just one aim âto strengthen their marauding armies and enjoy the fruits of their adventures. The woes or sentiments of the people they rule or plunder never forms a detectible spot on their radar of concerns. Only the ruling elite that has a sense of blood relation with the ruled, can have an attitude that risks losses and invites pains to provide soothing regimen of laws and expressions that heal the wounds inflicted by the strangers and alienated. <b>The forced selective amnesia by the Left and its facilitation by the ruling conglomeration which is horribly blinded by the immediate goals of holding on to the political power has created a situation where Gods of the majority are the easiest targets to have some fun, and draw sadistic pleasure without fearing a backlash or reaction. In crude words those who fear death from the Islamists show off their brevity on Hindus by lampooning and defiling their icons of faith with semi-literate analyses. </b>
They create a sovereign plagiarist regime of myths perpetuating them through state apparatus and brutal falsification of facts. Demonising the ideological foes, de-contextualising the documents and finally making a society and her people dispossessed of their national treasures of wisdom and continuity are their identifiable goals. This they did in Africa, in New Zealand and Australia and the Americas. Now they are doing it here. With the help and active participation of the kith and kin of victimised people.
So, the declared atheists tell us, Ram is in every heart, why erect a temple? Ram didn't preach hate and violence why complain or cry if hit by others? You guys, the bloody criminals of Gujarat riots, have no right to demand justice, because you wear saffron, the colour of anti-minority violent mindset. And they, the secular have a right to align with those who did â84 riots and said, 'when a huge tree falls, the earth shakes'. They forget and force the nation to de-memorise that saffron had been the colour that defines India, from Mauryas to Shivaji and Sikh gurus. They change the syllabus to force a process of de-memorisation, use various mediums to repeat falsehoods too many times so that the traditionally-preserved truth is replaced by their recent constructions of new history and socio-political morality. Hence a meteoric pressure to delete Godhra and the bridge that Ram built. As if it didn't happen. No need to answer why fifty-nine lives of Hindu children and women and men were smoked out in that mobile inferno. And people spread out in more than eleven countries have continued to sing and write about the bridge of Ram since centuries, much before they learnt calibrating a metre.
Every single innocent life lost is bad and condemnable, whether Gujarat or Godhra but why paint death and pain in religious colours? And then there are lies, total lies and manufactured lies. And then what about Kashmir's refugees? Oh, Jagmohan drove them out of the Valley for political reasons! Can you get driven by any Governor against your will unless you are feared to death by midnight knockers? The Governor who provided a way to save half a million lives gets portrayed as the offender by secularists!
So don't speak for Kashmiri Hindus, who stand for India, but go talk to the Hurriyat who demand secession. Don't try to protect Ram Setu, 'what's sacred about it', but make the clan's memory spots as pilgrim centres of the nation. Nothing is honourable except the votes and the family.
We have been experiencing brutalities and humiliations to such long periods and have passed through the fascist Stalinist channels forcing fragmentation of our collective characteristics that gradually we see a trend to Islamise or 'brutally secularise' stray responses that put a reward on the head of a Ram-abuser. Nothing can hurt the Hindu cause more than such tendencies, as Hindu society has never internalised or approved extremism of any variety in language or actions. These outbursts are un-Hindu in nature. But nevertheless it must worry us as it shows an utter frustration with the state siding with offenders and finding that no decent protest seems to work.
Those who justify Naxal's violence (economic backwardness, corruption et al) and Osama's jihad (American bully, anti-Muslim policies, no cultural freedom to wear veils et al), would do well to study growing helplessness and accumulating anger amongst a large section of unorganised Hindus who are bewildered to see how a chief minister abuses their God and the 'friendly' central government having an alliance with it keeps silence, though it issued warnings and expressed deep displeasure on cartoons that weren't drawn in India.
We always wanted to live in peace. But who attacked us? From Qasim to Kargil? We saw our own people defiling Vande Mataram , a song for the nation, denouncing lighting of the lamp as an evil Hindu ritual, Saraswati project being dismissed as a myth propounded by Hindu communalists and goddesses on scotch bottles. Nothing new, or strange, but social dynamics needs more than a self-effacing crowd, hence the significance of sacrifices and a life beyond our own material realm.
We are told to tolerate and articulate our views in decent tones of an evening candlelight dinner. Be nice, you are not supposed to be violent; you are the inheritors of a great civilization. Do these worthies know about it though? Which of our great cilvilisational heroes pardoned a mischief-maker? Why do we celebrate Dussehra? Because it signifies a peace talk with the abductor of Sita?
Surely we got to fight through our means of Dharma and a resolve not to pardon the habitual offender within a democratically permissible framework of corrections and not through borrowed means that will never be accepted by the Hindu masses. But every thing has a limit. You can't stretch it too far. The truth invites wrath of the liars. Remember how novelist Elif Shafak faced the ire of the intolerant groups. Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel laureate, experienced the same harassment. No community and society has faced continuous torture and brutalities like the Hindus since last many centuries. And the nightmare is not ending even after a partitioned Independence.
<b>The war has been announced between those who live in Mother India and revere her as a living entity and those who live here treating the place as a platform. Accepting the challenge and taking it to the logical end is the only way left for every Indian, who may belong to any faith but respects the nation, which has provided space for every stream , including agnosticism. </b>
There is no other nation like ours, what stops us to prove worthy of her?
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/article...5,prtpage-1.cms
Why not the spiritual gurus target the USA prisons? Islam has been making inroads (and converts) among the prison inmates. Take a page from their play book.
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#269 above appeared in the ToI?
Haribol! Let there be light in the 10 directions..... <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo& --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
12-30-2007, 12:58 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-30-2007, 12:59 AM by Bharatvarsh.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Kabbadi Cops!
By: LIFS
Who would have expected kabaddi, the 4,000-year-old indigenous sport of India, to be taken up by Canadians - huge, powerfully built, mostly white cops no less? Kabaddi Cops, a short film by Greg Cote documents the amazing spectacle of white Canadian police officers - shorn of their uniforms and guns - clad only in shorts forming rings on the playing field, hands raised, moving as blithely as ballet dancers and yet as sleekly as tigers in the fierce kabaddi dance of raiders and defenders. It is the only non-Asian kabaddi team anywhere in the world.
Their opposing team? Young men from the local Punjabi community in Ontario. Yes, South Asian youth, sometimes misunderstood and troubled, are generally on the receiving end of negative police attention. Here the two teams are equals, each learning to see the other as real individuals and not just as troubled people or a feared authority.
Cote, who produced and directed the film, is himself a former police officer and was inspired by the efforts of Inspector Barry Dolan who in 2002 came up with the Police Kabaddi team to ease tensions and bring about harmony and trust between the police and the South Asians, after a protest against racial profiling at the Peel police station.
Dolan formed a kabaddi team of police officers from his department, street cops who knew nothing about kabaddi or South Asian culture. The team practiced hard on their days off, even in the snow in minus three-degree temperatures, and began competing in tournaments and festivals to the delight and surprise of South Asian spectators. As Dolan says, "The more time you spend learning about another culture, the more you grow to love it and respect it."
Kabaddi, which is a cross between rugby and wrestling, was quite a learning experience for the Kabaddi Cops. The team captain Constable Dirk Niles said, "I never knew it was bare foot, bare back, no mouth guard and running around out on the field." As one cop John McCallum comments in the film, "If a group of people who are mainly white like me can take on the masters of the game, I'm really impressed!"
According to Cote, the Indian Kabaddi teams are mostly locals, however from time to time professional players from India join the various teams: "The police team will be playing in various tournaments for a fourth consecutive year once the 2007 season begins. The police team has won about half of their games and lost about half. Not bad for a team with limited skills and experience compared to the Indian teams, some of whose players have played this sport all their life."
Cote says the film is his attempt to amplify the voices of a few officers attempting to bring about change within their own police department and to make police departments more user friendly for the visible minority immigrant. Kabaddi Cops showed recently at the IAAC Film Festival in New York where it won the best short documentary award and also won over Salman Rushdie: "The idea of a bunch of Canadian policemen learning kabaddi in order to integrate with the Asian community is something I wish to see!"
In recent months, Dolan has also formed a women's police kabaddi team. Says Cote, "The team and I have attended numerous tournaments, festivals and banquets. There is even a movement afoot to send the police kabaddi team to India and believe me, I will be there for that spectacle!"Â
http://www.littleindia.com/news/128/ARTICL...2006-12-12.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Kabaddi (chedugudu in Telugu and Tamizh) is huge among Punjabis in Canada, Peel region comes under GTA (Greater Toronto Area) and has many Punjabis.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Lucknow school trying to revive gurukul system </b>
zeenews
Lucknow, Dec 31: The Indian education system may be modelling itself on the West, but a school here is returning to tradition by trying to revive the ancient gurukul system.
The Kanchi Kamakoti Shankaracharya Ved Evam Vedic Sanskar Shiksha Kendra, set up five years ago on a sprawling area in Indira Nagar under the aegis of <b>Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati, has begun to show the results of its gurukul system. </b>
The first batch of its shishyas (disciples) will pass out and don the mantle of Vedic teachers. Interestingly, age is no barrier here as the youngest graduate Udit Awasthi is just stepping into his teens.
Udit was seven years old when he joined this gurukul. Today, he is teaching Sanskrit grammar as part of his internship here and many of his students are older than him.
<b>Five years of rigorous schedules conforming to the guru-shishya tradition have given a different outlook to the little scholar, who not only recites Sanskrit shlokas from the Vedas, but also speaks fluent English. </b>
Acharya S G Swaminathan, the head of the institution, said: âThe rules are strict. You have no TV, no radio and no other source of entertainment. Life is confined to studying and performing Vedic rituals. Students are not allowed to meet friends or relatives, including parents, brothers or sisters.â
'Their day begins rather early with a round of yoga, which is followed by lessons in ancient Hindu scriptures and rituals that go on throughout the day,â he said.
Swaminathan added: <b>âOur aim is to propagate and preserve traditional Indian ethos.â </b>
He says it was Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati who thought of establishing the gurukul.
âWhen the Shankaracharya visited Lucknow in 2000 on his way to the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, he wanted a few well-qualified pundits to accompany him for the rituals. He was disappointed by the response as most of those who were presented before him failed to pronounce the shlokas correctly,â Swaminathan said.
âIt was in the aftermath of that experience that he decided to set up a gurukul in Lucknow and appointed me to look after the place.â
The curriculum includes a fair bit of English too.
âOur goal is to produce culturally educated, intellectually enlightened and physically sound youngsters equipped to carry out Vedic rituals with perfection,â Swaminathan said.
âWe believe in keeping them free from stress caused by misguided and meaningless modern sources of entertainment. Our children live in pure and serene environment and are kept sanitised from unholy western influences.â
The students of the gurukul are not required to observe brahmcharya (celibacy) all their lives.
âThey are free to lead a happy married life, but they are told to remain celibate till they get married,â Swaminathan said.Â
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While there is an ongoing thread discussing the dangers of Islamic extremism in India, there are some wider issues which can also be discussed.
India, and its mainly Hindu citizens are facing economic cultural competition from four major sources. And discussion is certainly warranted. Note that I am distinguishing between West secular pop culture(which has Greco-Roman and Enlightenment, and some Christian influences) and purely Christian culture.
1. Economic & Socio-cultural Competition from Western secular popular culture:
While the West has some good ideas about civil liberties, social justice, let us not forget that absolute and utter liberty is not good for all citizens who then can not be cared for by the State. Liberty and Welfare should go together. We should be more like Scandinavia then say some right wing states in the US, without state mandated health insurance, etc.
2. Economic & socio-cultural Competition from Christianity:
Christianity has some good aspects to it, no doubt, like emphasis on charity and caring for one's fellow human being, but Christianity in competition with Indian ideologies in India is a pre-Enlightenment(European development of ideas of liberty, social justice) ideology which is anti-secular and anti-liberal. They oppose separation of Church and State, Women's rights to Abortion, and have a dated social and cultural view.
3. Economic & social-cultural competition from Political Islam:
Political Islam seeks to replace the existing Hindu dominated political and cultural landscape with a purely Islamist one. There may be more tolerant streams of political Islam, but they are not as strong in numbers as the more maintstream orthodox Wahabbi inspired thought-groups.
4. Economic & socio-cultural competition from Sino-Marxism:
Marxists and their Chinese compatriots want to weaken the dominant Hindu mindset of India to make room for a mindset which acknowledges Chinese pre-imminense in Asia, and makes room for the cultural desert of Marxism.
--------------
The above four are acknowledged sources of competition and have been spoken about by thinkers such as B. Raman, etc.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->-PART TV DOCUMENTARY SERIAL
Ancient India had a profound impact on the rest of Asia. Hinduism and Buddhism as well as concepts of architecture, aesthetics, dance, music and much mythology spread from India to several Asian countries. Except for the pioneering work of a few Indian historians, India has not paid adequate attention to exploring this glorious trans-national Indian impact.
To focus attention on the thrust of ancient cultural and religions connections between India and South East Asia, the internationally acclaimed creative team of Dr S Krishnaswamy and Dr Mohana Krishnaswamy, of Krishnaswamy Associates, Chennai, have brought out a <b>TV Documentary Serial titled "INDIAN IMPRINTS", covering five chosen countries â Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. After years of intensive study, they traveled extensively in the region, initially for research, and then for filming in three schedules, in 2006, filming more than a hundred ancient monuments and temples, reflecting the profound living Indian impact on that region. The serial, conceived on a massive scale, in 18 episodes of 25 minutes each, combines a gripping style with authenticity, interspersed with dance forms of the region, brief interviews with statesmen, artistes, Hindu Priests and scholars of those nations. It also takes you to remote Hindu temples, with live pooja of unbroken tradition of a thousand years in those far off lands! The serial is ready and is awaiting telecast at Prime Time on the National network of Doordarshan (watch for the date yet to be announced). </b>
Having received the prestigious LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD for Documentary Films, from the US International Film & Video Festival, in 2005 â the first Afro-Asian to be so honored in the four decades of that festival in Los Angeles â Dr. S. Krishnaswamy, Writer-Director, considers INDIAN IMPRINTS as the most ambitious, satisfying and monumental work of his career. The producer of the serial, Dr. Mohana Krishnaswamy, has collaborated with him in the meticulous research. Since its inception in 1964, Krishnaswamy Associates has produced several national and international award winning documentaries and TV serials devoted to Indian history and culture.
The Subject Consultant for INDIAN IMPRINTS is Prof Lokesh Chandra, a renowned authority, and Director of the International Academy of Indian Culture. The other members of the team include international award winning cinematographer, Madhu Ambat.
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Indian scholars intrigued on European outlook on Indian Religion
By Sandeep Datta, New Delhi, Jan.22 : The ongoing conference on Rethinking Religion in India in the capital, despite commencing on a promissory note on Monday, is making many Indian intellectuals skeptical about the outcome.
Many feel that the European scholars were finding it difficult to understand Indian religion in its true perspective.
"It's just a beginning. We hope from next year of the conference, the discussion will intensify. The whole discussion needs to take a proper shape in the due course of time only after that the structure and framework of discussions could be properly understood," said Prof. K.D.Tripathi of Benaras Hindu University.
"These people seem quite 'anxious' about understanding India and perhaps that's why they are eager to 'rethink' about religion in India. They are 'worried' about the exterior of religion and its repercussions. They are comparatively less concerned about the internal aspects of religion in India," said Prof.K.D.Tripathi of Benaras Hindu University.
"The route to our experience of Indian religion goes through language, art, music and literature. We can realize the significance of our religion from within," Prof. Tripathi said.
"The debate they are having today was all started in the 16th century by Sikh Gurus. In Granth Sahib, there is a distinction made between "Dheen" which is used in Islamic context. And, the word "Dharma" which is used in traditional Indian context," said Jasdev Singh, Director of the Sikh Human Rights Group in U.K.
"Indian academicians look more obsessed about proving to the white European about his grasp of European philosophy. They should instead spend more time studying the Indian reform movements," said Singh.
"It is a sad indictment of the colonization process of India that no conference is considered credible without the white European participants." he added.
Prof.Rajeev Ranjan Sinha, Head of the Department of Sanskrit Vidya and Dean Faculty of Shramana Vidya at Sampoornanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi said: "We cannot be expected to understand our religion through European eyes or viewpoint. Without understanding the intrinsic examples and sources of Hinduism it cannot be covered by European concept of religion."
"Hindu Dharma is not a mere ritual. In Europe, the belief and rituals are centralized and monistic. But Hinduism is diversified and it believes in pluralism. We must try to discover some alternative aspect in its own ocean," Prof. Sinha stressed after attending the first roundtable session I Janapada Sampada", said.
"Hinduism of Gandhi and of a native farmer both are covered by the word 'Hinduism' in Indian perspective" he added.
At the end of the second day's discussions, many felt that as of now the participants are trying to project their scholarly achievements but the visiting scholars are still far away from understanding Indian religion.
The conference is scheduled to last till January 24.
--- ANI
WHAT'S SO MYSTERIOUS?
I belong to an interesting and active mailing list in which the following comment was made:
it is an absolute miracle that India is still, for most part, a single country. When the Brits left, they had absolutely no hope for India. The differences of language, caste, clan, region etc, they believed, would eventually break India into a thousand pieces.
The statement had some support, with one person quoting Mark Tully as saying that "Butter chicken and cricket" hold India together.
But let me rebut that with some thoughts.
The idea that India would not hold together was a "British take" that discounts the role of the majority Hindu community in India in actually giving a sense of oneness despite the often quoted divisive issues (that are a leaf taken out from what the British
described)
Hindus, it was said, are divided by caste and other issues. And that story has been swallowed whole without digging deeper to see where there were fissures and where there are bonds. This is part of the failed sociology of India. There was a case of GIGO (Garbage In-Garbage Out - in terms of how a computer responds to any input) here that is likely to be set straight in coming decades.
The fissures of Hindu India were exposed and defined by the Brits and the educated elite, and everyone now marvels that there is a bond at all, and one more Brit (Mark Tully) is quoted to explain why there is a bond.
One factor that people continuously ignore and discount is that when Hindus were accused of being divisive on caste and communal lines, they (Hindus), for large part relented and accepted that these were true and initiated measures within Indian society to close the fissures. This was the effect of enlightened
Hindu leadership who insisted on a Hindu need to reconcile, and got a large proportion of Hindus to agree because they had no major ideological issues to stop them from agreeing withthe idea.
Nobody seems to mention that the empowerment of middle and lower caste Hindus and the acceptance of that by the vast proportion of higher caste Hindus including the so called "right wing" is leading to a form of Hindu unity that did not exist before. Nobody really wants to see what is openly apparent.
Most often, modern Indian accusations of divisiveness and extremism are an internal Hindu debate with Hindus accusing other Hindus of being that way. (secular vs rightwing) Divisive as that may appear, it remains an area of active debate and "work in progress" of healing and uniting India as a society. How come nobody notices and clings on to outdated British views?
Let us not imagine that there is nothing holding India together and the unity is just a mystery. That is a myth that is popularly propagated by Indian educated elite based on a British view of India. There is a lot binding India together. It seems a mystery only if you discount that Hindus exist in India. The problem may
really lie in both what the so called "Hindu right wing" say and what Ramchandra Guha says.
The "right wing" say that the history of India was distorted.
Ram Guha says that Indians stopped writing history after 1947. Indian history ends in 1947.
It was pointed out by someone as a curious fact that Europe has fewer languages and a single religion (Christianity), but yet consists of 30 odd countries.
I see this statement as a summary of some really deep and complex historic, social and cultural dynamics.
Most of Europe being Christian is the result of both Christianity (and Islam) being practised as "Only me and nobody else" religions.
On a another note I am not at all sure that the Christianity I learned in school in India is the same adversarial Roman Christianity that overran Europe. But it did overrun and and occupy Europe - effectively removing all pagan religions that predated Christianity.
When Islam plundered through vast areas of Europe, Christianity bounced back and virtually eliminated Islam from Europe, just as Islam had eliminated all other faiths in most of the lands that it overran.
But Christianity in Europe split into various factions that fought and fought and fought and fought until Europe became tired and eventually came up with
the treaty of Westphalia. That helped create "secularism" which means absence of religion, but in practice it means separation of Church from state, with the government (state) being secular.
But even a "common religion" (of many factions) did not stop internecine European conflict. Europe battered itself out of world domination and handed
the baton to the US.
India, with less commonality of religion and more linguistic variety is seen as fissionable and "ready to break" based on a Euro-centric view of what lack of common religion or common language should normally do to a land area based on the European
experience.
Valid as this argument may sound, this makes no effort whatsoever to check if there could possibly be other shared traits that have not been picked up by
an essentially Euro-centric view of society, religion and nations.
The fact is that such a commonality was repeatedly recognised and picked up and utilized by Shankaracharya, Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Aurobindo among others. But these names mean little or nothing from the viewpoint of the Macaulay inspired school education that Indian children get. Horror of horrors! Mentioning names like Shankaracharya and Vivekananda in school books might cause great discomfort (it is probably felt) to our Muslim and Christian brothers. It may break the secular fabric of the country to suggest that Hindus may have something to do with Indian unity.
Hence Indians go through life imagining that there is nothing unifying in India. The blinkered forces of needless and misguided "secularism" blunder on, being unable to pinpoint what holds India together.
01-25-2008, 08:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-25-2008, 08:32 PM by Shambhu.)
2. Belief in Reincarnation Spreads Hinduism in America
www.newsweek.com
NEW YORK, USA, January 24, 2008: (HPI note: this is an article from the latest issue of NEWSWEEK, January 28, 2008.)
Reincarnation is an increasingly mainstream belief. Madonna has said she's a believer. So has Kate Hudson. According to a 2003 Harris poll, 40 percent of people aged 25 to 29 believed they would return to earth in a different body after they die. Popular New Age movements such as Scientology and Kabbalah teach some version of reincarnation, and best-selling books, notably by the Yale-trained psychiatrist Brian Weiss and by the therapist Carol Bowman, have brought the concept into the American mainstream. This ancient belief, a core belief of more than 800 million Hindus, has been in the news.
Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University and a student of Hinduism, has an interesting theory about Americans' interest in reincarnation. As people become more prosperous and more educated, the idea of leaving the earth forever--even for heaven--has less appeal than the idea of coming back. "We all want the here and now, and reincarnation is about the here and now," Prothero writes in an e-mail. ((umm, dude..people who live self-indulgent profligate lifestyles will probably come back in a very difficult human situation, if human at all..Hinduism is not one of the "true religions" which parade around guaranteeing you this and that for no improvement on your part..))
Reincarnation would seem to be at odds with mainstream Christianity, the majority religion in the United States. Traditionally, Christians have believed that, after death, their body and soul separate temporarily only to be reunited, at the end of time, in the general resurrection of the dead. Belief in reincarnation presents logistical--not to mention theological--problems. If souls keep cycling back to earth, which body is theirs at the resurrection? What happens to all the other bodies they've inhabited? Prothero argues that the popularity of reincarnation correlates to a waning of belief in physical resurrection among Christians. That's why a third of Americans choose to be cremated these days, up from virtually none 30 years ago: they believe their souls are eternal, not their bodies. "Americans," Prothero says, "are becoming more Hindu."
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/hpi/2008/1/24.shtml#2
Teaching Hinduism in America can be a challenge
The Associated Press
Published: September 9, 2006
NEW YORK It took coming to America for 13-year-old Samyuktha Shivraj to understand what it really meant to her to be Hindu.
Since she and her family arrived five years ago, they've been more observant about practicing their faith than they were in India, Shivraj says. They regularly go to their temple in Queens, she's a member of the youth club there, and there are more conversations about what the prayers she's reciting really are saying.
"When I say those prayers now, I actually know what it means," the teen said. "It's not just a mundane ritual routine that I'm doing."
With an estimated 870 million followers around the planet and texts dating back thousands of years, Hinduism is one of the world's largest and most well-established religions. But with the vast majority of those followers still in India, there are parts of the world, such as the United States, where Hinduism is a relative unknown.
Estimates from the World Christian Database at Gordon Conwell-Theological Seminary put the number of Hindus in America at just over 1.1 million. That's out of a U.S. population nearing 300 million, making Hindus a tiny minority in a predominantly Judeo-Christian country with a vastly different theological tradition. That reality has created a challenge for Hindus here, and for their temples and cultural organizations, as they try to pass the faith on to a younger generation.
"To be Hindu in America is much more an intentional choice than it is in India," said Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies and director of The Pluralism Project at Harvard University.
"Even if you're first generation, you have to decide if you perpetuate it or if you just kind of let it go."
For Hindu temples in the U.S. it's meant taking on roles that temples in India would find very unfamiliar â such as community hub and religious education center â that Christian churches have long held.
At the Ganesh Temple in Queens, founded in 1977, there's a community center that people can use for weddings, performances and other events, educational activities from religious instruction to language lessons, and the youth club that Shivraj is part of.
Those aren't elements commonly found at temples in India, said Dr. Uma Mysorekar, one of the temple trustees. But in India, she pointed out, they don't need to be. When your parents, grandparents and all your extended family are Hindu, you pick things up and learn by taking part in the faith's rituals and traditions.
"We just observed and followed and never questioned," she said.
When Indian immigrants started coming to the United States in larger numbers, after the 1965 revamping of immigration laws, they carried their religious traditions on as best they could, meeting for prayers and worship at one another's homes, or renting public spaces, said Anantanand Rambachan, professor of religion at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.
The first temples started being built in the late 1970s â the Ganesh Temple among them â and construction continues to this day, as Hindu communities around the country continue to grow. But while those temples are designed like temples in India, the founders realized over the years they would have to operate differently than they do in India, Rambachan said.
That's because religious culture is different in the United States. The various Christian denominations separate themselves from each other and define themselves by the doctrines they follow, he noted, but Hinduism in India doesn't operate the same way. There, a single religion covers a wide spectrum of gods and beliefs.
In America, Hindus "are increasingly being challenged to articulate the Hindu tradition in a manner that places more emphasis on doctrine," Rambachan said. "People will ask, 'What do you believe?'"
Faced with that, temples and cultural organizations that had been working to make outsiders understand more about the faith realized they needed to help young Indian-Americans know what they believed, if the religion was going to be passed on.
"If we don't do our part, we will lose these youngsters," Mysorekar said.
"There was a lot of foundation we had to lay even to exist as Hindus among non-Hindus," she said. "Now it is for us to do the job within our own community."
They looked for inspiration at the institutions here, like the formal religious education of Sunday school classes, Rambachan said.
That wasn't the only inspiration, though. Around the country, some organizations have decided to use the method of that most American of summer pastimes â camp.
Shivraj spent a couple of weeks this summer helping her mother, a classical Indian singer, run a weeklong camp on Indian heritage, which included sessions on religion.
And in Rochester, New York, more than 150 children between the ages of 8 and 15 took part in the Hindu Heritage Summer Camp, where lessons in philosophy and religious practice were followed by swimming sessions and arts and crafts.
With a heavy emphasis on having college-age Indian-Americans leading the camp and teaching the younger attendees, camp organizers hope to pass on a solid understanding of Hindu philosophy and culture while still giving the children a fun summer experience.
"If we don't know where we come from and where we are," said Dr. Padmanabh Kamath, president of the camp, "we are lost."
___
On the Net:
Ganesh Temple: http://www.nyganeshtemple.org
NEW YORK It took coming to America for 13-year-old Samyuktha Shivraj to understand what it really meant to her to be Hindu.
Since she and her family arrived five years ago, they've been more observant about practicing their faith than they were in India, Shivraj says. They regularly go to their temple in Queens, she's a member of the youth club there, and there are more conversations about what the prayers she's reciting really are saying.
"When I say those prayers now, I actually know what it means," the teen said. "It's not just a mundane ritual routine that I'm doing."
With an estimated 870 million followers around the planet and texts dating back thousands of years, Hinduism is one of the world's largest and most well-established religions. But with the vast majority of those followers still in India, there are parts of the world, such as the United States, where Hinduism is a relative unknown.
Estimates from the World Christian Database at Gordon Conwell-Theological Seminary put the number of Hindus in America at just over 1.1 million. That's out of a U.S. population nearing 300 million, making Hindus a tiny minority in a predominantly Judeo-Christian country with a vastly different theological tradition. That reality has created a challenge for Hindus here, and for their temples and cultural organizations, as they try to pass the faith on to a younger generation.
"To be Hindu in America is much more an intentional choice than it is in India," said Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies and director of The Pluralism Project at Harvard University.
"Even if you're first generation, you have to decide if you perpetuate it or if you just kind of let it go."
For Hindu temples in the U.S. it's meant taking on roles that temples in India would find very unfamiliar â such as community hub and religious education center â that Christian churches have long held.
At the Ganesh Temple in Queens, founded in 1977, there's a community center that people can use for weddings, performances and other events, educational activities from religious instruction to language lessons, and the youth club that Shivraj is part of.
Those aren't elements commonly found at temples in India, said Dr. Uma Mysorekar, one of the temple trustees. But in India, she pointed out, they don't need to be. When your parents, grandparents and all your extended family are Hindu, you pick things up and learn by taking part in the faith's rituals and traditions.
"We just observed and followed and never questioned," she said.
When Indian immigrants started coming to the United States in larger numbers, after the 1965 revamping of immigration laws, they carried their religious traditions on as best they could, meeting for prayers and worship at one another's homes, or renting public spaces, said Anantanand Rambachan, professor of religion at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.
The first temples started being built in the late 1970s â the Ganesh Temple among them â and construction continues to this day, as Hindu communities around the country continue to grow. But while those temples are designed like temples in India, the founders realized over the years they would have to operate differently than they do in India, Rambachan said.
That's because religious culture is different in the United States. The various Christian denominations separate themselves from each other and define themselves by the doctrines they follow, he noted, but Hinduism in India doesn't operate the same way. There, a single religion covers a wide spectrum of gods and beliefs.
In America, Hindus "are increasingly being challenged to articulate the Hindu tradition in a manner that places more emphasis on doctrine," Rambachan said. "People will ask, 'What do you believe?'"
Faced with that, temples and cultural organizations that had been working to make outsiders understand more about the faith realized they needed to help young Indian-Americans know what they believed, if the religion was going to be passed on.
"If we don't do our part, we will lose these youngsters," Mysorekar said.
"There was a lot of foundation we had to lay even to exist as Hindus among non-Hindus," she said. "Now it is for us to do the job within our own community."
They looked for inspiration at the institutions here, like the formal religious education of Sunday school classes, Rambachan said.
That wasn't the only inspiration, though. Around the country, some organizations have decided to use the method of that most American of summer pastimes â camp.
Shivraj spent a couple of weeks this summer helping her mother, a classical Indian singer, run a weeklong camp on Indian heritage, which included sessions on religion.
And in Rochester, New York, more than 150 children between the ages of 8 and 15 took part in the Hindu Heritage Summer Camp, where lessons in philosophy and religious practice were followed by swimming sessions and arts and crafts.
With a heavy emphasis on having college-age Indian-Americans leading the camp and teaching the younger attendees, camp organizers hope to pass on a solid understanding of Hindu philosophy and culture while still giving the children a fun summer experience.
"If we don't know where we come from and where we are," said Dr. Padmanabh Kamath, president of the camp, "we are lost."
___
On the Net:
Ganesh Temple: http://www.nyganeshtemple.org
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Passing on the (Hinduism) Faith in the US
Teaching Hinduism to a younger generation steeped in Western culture is an ongoing challenge.
As reported in the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle, September 15, 2006
Fourteen-year-old Samanvitha Sridhar has a reason for choosing not to wear the "bindi" --Sanskrit for "drop", suggesting a person's mystic third eye -- on her forehead in public.
It has nothing to do with how she views her Hindu faith and everything to do with how non-Hindus react.
"There's very few Hindus in our community, and it takes forever to explain to everybody why I do some things," said Samanvitha, a freshman at East High School.
"And by not doing that, it just makes it a little bit easier."
For Samanvitha, it's one example of the challenge that some Hindu youths face while trying to maintain the traditions and customs of their faith in America.
With an estimated 870 million followers around the world, and sacred texts dating back thousands of years, Hinduism is one of the world's largest and most well-established religions. But with the vast majority of those followers still in India, there are parts of the world, such as the United States, where Hinduism is relatively unknown.
Estimates from the World Christian Database at Gordon Conwell-Theological Seminary put the number of Hindus in America at just over 1.1 million. That's out of a U.S. population nearing 300 million, making Hindus a tiny minority in a predominantly Judeo-Christian country with a vastly different theological tradition.
That reality creates a challenge for Hindus here, and for their temples and cultural organizations, as they try to pass the faith on to a younger generation.
"To be Hindu in America is much more an intentional choice than it is in India," said Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies and director of The Pluralism Project at Harvard University.
"Even if you're first generation, you have to decide if you perpetuate it or if you just kind of let it go."
For Hindu temples in the U.S. it has meant taking on roles that Christian churches have long held but that temples in India would find unfamiliar -- such as community hub and religious education center.
The Hindu Temple of Greater Wichita is a site for events ranging from worship to social outings to classical Indian dance classes.
And this month, the temple, at 320 N. Zelta, began holding its "Bal Vihar" religion classes for first-through eighth-graders. This is the second year for the bi-weekly classes.
The purpose of the class, according to Suparna Tirukonda, one of the teachers, is to educate youths about the various aspects of Hinduism: mythological stories, festivals and the deities.
The class is one example of how the local Hindu community tries to meet the challenge of passing on the traditions of the faith to young people.
It's a difficult challenge, she said, mainly because there are so few Hindu families -- about 200 -- in the Wichita area.
"Here, we do need to actively seek out our culture because it is not all around us," Tirukonda said.
That can mean that even young children, such as Tirukonda's 11-year-old daughter, Varsha, can be questioned about their faith.
Varsha, who is in sixth grade, said a few classmates will occasionally ask her about her beliefs.
"And then when I don't mention their God, they'll say I'm going to hell," she said.
Although such comments make her angry, she said, "I'll just tell them they can believe what they want to believe, and I can believe what I want to believe."
Growth of Hinduism in America
When Indian immigrants started coming to the United States in larger numbers, after the 1965 revamping of immigration laws, they carried on their religious traditions as best they could.
They'd meet for prayers and worship at one another's homes or rent public spaces, said Anantanand Rambachan, professor of religion at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn.
The first temples were built in the late 1970s, and construction continues to this day, as Hindu communities around the country grow. The Hindu Temple of Greater Wichita -- the area's only Hindu temple -- opened in 2002.
While most temples are designed like temples in India, the founders realized over the years that they would have to operate differently than they do in India, Rambachan said. That's because religious culture is different in the United States
The various Christian denominations separate themselves from each other and define themselves by the doctrines they follow, he noted, but Hinduism in India doesn't operate the same way. There, a single religion covers a wide spectrum of gods and beliefs.
In America, Hindus "are increasingly being challenged to articulate the Hindu tradition in a manner that places more emphasis on doctrine," Rambachan said. "People will ask, 'What do you believe?' "
Faced with that, temples and cultural organizations that had been working to make outsiders understand more about the faith realized they needed to help young people within the faith know what they believed, if the religion was going to be passed on.
And that's exactly what Hindu parents in the Wichita area are doing, said Ragu Tirukonda, president of the Hindu Temple of Greater Wichita.
Without those lessons, young people will "just assimilate with the mainstream culture, and I think they would have no roots later on."
Eventually, many would wonder: "'Who am I?' and there would be no answer to that question," he said.
Instead, children and youths need to understand their culture and what Hinduism means.
"I believe that's part of my responsibility to pass on to my kids," he said.
posted by mswinwood @ 10:07 AM
http://mwinwood.blogspot.com/2006/09/passi...aith-in-us.html
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