I can't work out where this set of posts might belong. But since the Templeton foundation was mentioned here, decided on this thread.
Post 1/3
These posts are essentially about what one particular person's writings have revealed about himself and where he stands vis-a-vis Hindoos. Consider it a case study into the minds of people who pretend to represent Hindu interests.
Naturally, my comments aren't important, but all the stuff in blockquotes is.
Some relevant excerpts from a comment at
bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/hindus-should-stick-with-tried-and-tested-methods-vijaya-rajiva/
Quote:Dr. N.S. Rajaram, on September 3, 2012 at 12:17 PM said:
[...]
As I see it (and I am a Hindu) Dr. Vijaya Rajivaââ¬â¢s post exemplifies the intellectual weakness and the insularity of Hindus going back at least to the time of the first Islamic invasions, which the Agamasa, Shastras and the like failed to analyze much less defeat. They will no more defeat the Islamic warriors today. This was noted by Al Baruni a thousand years ago and denounced by Sita Ram Goel and Ram Swarup in our own time.
(Sita Ram Goel and Ram Swarup's views on Hindoos' heathenism later in the post.)
Soldiers and common people laid down their lives defending their ââ¬Ëpunya bhumiââ¬â¢, but acharyas and panditas retreated from the scene (now in foreign lands) in smug insularity composing abtruse commentaries on the virtues of Agamas and other shastras.
Rajiva also writes: ââ¬ÅOf course, in his task (such as it is) he is handicapped by not being a Hindu. As the present writer has pointed out earlier he cannot with a straight face claim that the Vedas are apaurusheya (not of human origin). Nor can he extol the many complicated rituals both of Veda and Agama as his heritage. This strength [Sic: Or weakness? They better get rid of it. - NSR] belongs to the Hindus and they and they alone can carry the battle for the defence of what they consider is the land of the Veda.ââ¬Â
[Sic: History shows they have failed repeatedly, for a thousand years. This cannot be wished away. - NSR]
This is smug and insular. [size="4"]I as a Hindu[/size] can say with a ââ¬Ëstraight faceââ¬â¢ that [size="4"]I find nothing to ââ¬Ëextolââ¬â¢ in the ââ¬Åmany complicated rituals of the Vedas and the Agamas.ââ¬Â They are obscurantist relics that should have been consigned to the dustbin of history[/size]ââ¬â along with Gandhian ahimsa and Nehruvian pancha sheela.
(Oh, look. Another obvious Enemy of Hindu religion hence Hindus. Yet will claim to speak - but of course - from the position of "As a Hindu...". Probably because Hindus usually suspect only those who say they aren't Hindu.
But no need for Hindoos to get upset/angry/feel insulted. The dotaged dude obviously *deserves* the self-inflicted alienation. Which by nature is permanent and irreversible, btw <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='
' /> Can anyone even think of a better punishment? Didn't think so.)
What we need today are fresh attitudes, critical spirit and fighting qualities initiated by intellectual kshatriyas like Goel and Ram Swarup, carried forward by their disciples like Koenraad Elst. (I have differences with him and he with me, but that is part of this modern spirit.)
We need warriors today, not more ritualists and commentators. We have too many of them already. As it did a thousand years ago, India today is facing an existential warââ¬â a religious war for survival. Complicated rituals and Agamas will no more protect us today than they protected Hinduism from the Turks and Moghuls or Buddhism in Bengal and Bihar.
Kashmir, Bengal and Bihar (Mithila) that were once the strongholds of ââ¬Åcomplicated rituals, Agamas (and Buddhism)ââ¬Â are now become the springboards in this new war against Hinduism. I find this history more compelling than anything in any Agama or ritual, which I find meaningless and impotent against hostile forces.
My solution: place some of these scholars in some protected museum, and let kshatriyas and modern thinkers with an open mind carry on the business of protecting the punya bhumi. The old order has had its chance and has failed repeatedly. If it fails again, this punya bhumi will become mleccha bhumi and forever.
(By definition, kshatriyas are *Vedic*. Which means not only that they are ritualists themselves, but also that they are specifically the defenders of the religion of the Vedas, i.e. the upholders of the religion of Vedic rituals. Consequently, the term is far out of bounds for the likes of Rajaram - "Sorry" - seeing as how he has made his position on this matter quite clear and definite.)
[...]
(The past that did exist, the Islamic past ââ¬â none of us wants it to return. But return it will if we keep engaged in ââ¬Åcomplicated Vedic rituals and Agamasââ¬Â dear to people living in the past.)
[...]The past and its aberrations like meaningless rituals and commentaries are not what we need today in this existential struggle for survival. They never helped anyone but its perpetrators.
(Interesting christo-conditioned threat by Rajaram: that Hindus continuing their religion of Vedic (incl. Agamic/Tantric) rituals is essentially what brings on islam...
It's a pattern repeated by all anti-Hindus who call themselves Hindu only in order to hijack their target audience for their own visions.)
1. And *that's* why I use terms like Hindoos/traditionalist Hindus/Hindu heathens: to distinguish between actual heathens and the likes of such as Rajaram/others, who are anti-Hindoo - and generally anti-heathen - yet call themselves 'Hindu', though their ideology bears no resemblance to nor has continuity in the ancestral religion. These anti-Hindoos tend to call themselves Hindu solely because that's the only way they can hope to exert any influence on a Hindu audience, and hence manipulate these with their subversionist ideas.
Despite badmouthing all that is uh... "pagan" in Hindu religion, Rajaram was yet seen speaking on "paganism". As if *he* would ever know:
bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/paganism-and-the-sacred-n-s-rajaram/
This oddly seems to be a hobby among many de-heathenising, self-subverting Indians: to speak on "paganism" even when they sort of cease to be heathens themselves. Besides, outside of Hindu religion - assuming they know at least that one - they don't really know of any heathenisms. So why in the world they would then presume to open their gobs on general "paganism" is a mystery. (And no, reading "books" on the subject doesn't count.) E.g. the number of Indians who have any right to speak on Daoism or Shinto - which are both living heathen religions - is about 0. <- Clearly, I wouldn't even count those Hindu heathens who have close friends among traditional Daoists or even any Hindoos who are involved with/married to such Daoists.
2. Rajaram implied that Swarup and Goel's views on traditional Hinduism is identical to his own views on the matter: that they also consider it as being the handicap of 'Hindus' when faced with Hindus' enemies.
People can decide whether this is true for themselves based on the large amounts of stuff that Goel and Swarup have written. But reproducing here a few bits that I think is relevant to this very question:
a. In "Problems facing Hinduism" [color="#0000FF"]
Ram Swarup wrote[/color]:
Quote:Hinduism faces some grave problems that need serious attention:
[...]
F) [color="#0000FF"]Hinduism is ceasing to be a practising religion. Awareness of a larger God-life is becoming dim; worship, sadhana, japa, spiritual meditation and reflection are fast declining.[/color] In short, it is a situation painful for the lovers of Hinduism and pleasing for its enemies.
Swarup seems very much to be saying that Hindus' distancing themselves from their heathenism is one of the "problems facing Hinduism".
b. This next is taken from Sita Ram Goel's "HISTORY OF HINDU-CHRISTIAN ENCOUNTERS", Chapter 22: "Plea for Rejecting Jesus as Junk".
(perhaps still at
www.bharatvani.org/books/hhce/Ch22.htm, else check archive.org)
In his correspondence to a Dr. Callewaert, [color="#0000FF"]
SR Goel wrote[/color]:
Quote:You speak of purifying religion. We are trying to purify Hinduism by rejecting the monotheistic poison it has imbibed under the impact of Islam and Christianity. We are asking Hindus to be proud of their Gods and Goddesses, of their temples and icons, of their sages and saints, of their cultural and social traditions, in short, of all that the Biblical creeds denounce as polytheism, pantheism, idolatry and superstition. And we call upon Christians and Muslims to have a close look at Yahweh and Allah, the only saviour and the last prophet, at missions and dawah, in short, at every doctrine which sanctions exclusivism and aggression. Describing these calls as spreading hatred defies our imagination.
(In another letter from the same chapter, SRG even ends his letter with an extreme heathenism.)
The "we" used above is SRG speaking for VOI - which was mainly himself and Ram Swarup.
Note that the bits emphasised in bold in both Swarup and Goel's statements above are pretty much at 180 degrees from the vision for Hindus' future that Rajaram has and which he demands Hindus comply with: that Hindus dump their heathenism ("or else islam will get you").
SRG and Swarup were asking Hindus to remain unapologetic *heathens*, while asking christoislamics to analyse their ideologies and realise it's junk.
Indeed, besides insisting that Hindus continue their "polytheism" and "idolatry" - which includes "worship" [of the Hindu Gods, obviously] - to prevent Hinduism from succumbing to that "grave problem" of "ceasing to be a
practising religion", Ram Swarup moreover wrote a book called something(?) like 'Words/Names of the Gods' - apparently quite influential overseas - trying to popularise the notion that people
all over the world ought to be returning to the religions of their *own* ancestral Gods (i.e. returning to their own ancestral *heathen* religions). He was specifically promoting what's often described as "polytheism".
3. On this statement by Rajaram:
Quote:intellectual kshatriyas like Goel and Ram Swarup, carried forward by their disciples like Koenraad Elst
Tricky ground. How far Elst has been/remained consistent to the visions of Goel and Swarup, and whether all Elst's statements would get their stamp of approval if they were still around, remains a question.
Elst has said quite a few factually wrong things about Hindus' Gods/religion, at least some of which I
suspect Goel - or perhaps even Swarup - wouldn't just have stood for, moreso as Elst was lecturing a *Hindu* audience on these matters (with their subversion as possible result). E.g. the 'Hindus need to admit that the MBh essentially reveals that Krishna is a womanizer' type...argument that Elst made more recently (I think it's at koenraadelst.blogspot.com/2012/03/history-of-hindu-india-for-everyman.html).
Of course I'm probably merely second-guessing Goel/Swarup's reaction - considering I don't know them - but my suspicion is based on these next statements from something that
[color="#0000FF"]
Goel once stated[/color] ("An Interview with Sita Ram Goel", Publication : The Observer, Date : February 22, 1997) -
Quote:in Hinduism the concept of ishtadeva, [color="#0000FF"]the highest symbol of a person's spiritual aspiration.[/color]
In that sense, I am devoted to [color="#0000FF"]Sri Krishna as he figures in the Mahabharata[/color], and the Goddess Durga, as she reveals herself in the Devi-Bhagvata Purana.
Then again I could well be wrong: for all I know, maybe Goel would have in time come to agree with Elst's analysis? After all, it's been a long-standing pattern among countless would-be heathen Indians that they reveal themselves to be subvertibles when circumstances are right for it. So who's to say, right? But because the question can't be resolved either way - as Goel's not around - the point need not to be conceded to Rajaram that Elst is in all ways a representative "disciple" or even as one who does not depart in some *essential* points from Goel/Swarup (and their vision for what Hindus ought to be doing).
4. This next statement by Rajaram:
Quote:The old order has had its chance and has failed repeatedly. If it fails again, this punya bhumi will become mleccha bhumi and forever.
- The "old order" was never allowed any chance to protect the *heathens'* "punya bhumi" after the colonial era, since macaulayised (deheathenised/alienated) entities - who've repeatedly insisted that Hindus do away with their *heathenism* - along with the more consciously-christoconditioned (like seculars and communits) have ruled the roost in India. They are the ones who have colluded with and sold the country and its natives to christoislam.
- In contrast the ones who had in the past beaten down the enemies were usually noticeably *heathen* Hindus, and hence the upholders of the heathen Hindu - i.e. ritualistic - Vedic religion. E.g. Shivaji.
(Moreover, the people with the ultimate in brains when it comes to dealing with the mindviruses are always hardcore heathens. E.g. Julian. No confusing them with the loser unheathens.)
Oh, and not sure why Rajaram is worried about the land that's "punya bhumi" to Hindus turning into "mlechcha bhumi", when Rajaram must surely fit a description of that very same term - i.e. mlechcha - considering he speaks quite vituperatively against the Vedam, even going so far as to declare he wants its continuity binned.