http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/08/wsj...-ideas-and.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Tuesday, August 04, 2009
<b>wsj on devaluing hindu ideas and expropriating them</b>
aug 4th, 2009
the mcdonaldization of hinduism continues. and notice this girl cannot say "i am hindu". no, she was "raised hindu".
http://bit.ly/z8TzU<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->No kidding:
(My copious comments are marked in purple for the convenience of entirely-overlooking)
online.wsj.com/article/SB124935809551003759.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Americans' New Idol?</b>
By ANJALI ATHAVALEY
On a recent Thursday night, two friends and I crossed our legs and sat on colorful blankets in a Brooklyn yoga studio before a woman named Ambika. "Shree Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram," the 10 of us repeated after her.
[Anjali Athavaley.]
Anjali Athavaley
We were there for a night of <b>Indian devotional chanting</b> complete with drums and a harmonium. But rather than an Indian tabla, there was something more akin Native American drum. <b>An idol of Ganesh, the Hindu elephant god, adorned the altar next to a statue of another revered figureâPresident Obama.</b>
(Interesting context: this alienated individual regards the reverence for Ganesha as being in the same sphere as the sort of respect Obama has. Of course Angela wouldn't have drawn a similar parallel if it were a crucifix that had Obama's photo placed next to it.
Plus 'God' in singular, yet still lowercased.)
There was another significant difference between this recent spiritual session and those of my childhood: I chose to be there.
Kirtan, like other Indian spiritual activities such as yoga and meditation, is becoming increasingly popular in the U.S., with musicians releasing CDs of Indian chants and a growing number of yoga studios offering it with a Westernized twist. Another studio in New York, for instance, advertised its version as one where "rock, pop and jazz meet chanting." <b>According to the web site bollywood.com, Hindu scholar Rajan Zed has called for kirtan to be included as a Grammy awards category.</b>Â <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
(Who IS this person? "Hindu Statesman". "Hindu Scholar". A professional comedian too by any chance?)
  <b>âKirtan at my yoga studio felt laid-back and recreational in part because I was choosing to go as opposed to being forced into it.â </b>
But just as they celebrate this growing interest, notably from the American mainstream, Indians overseas also feel conflicted over it. Going to bhangra night at a New York bar or watching a Bollywood routine on the popular show "So You Think You Can Dance" makes us proud. Yet sometimes Hinduism shows up in odd forms: my sister recently heard from a friend about a Houston bar that features a statue of Ganesh, for example. It posed an interesting question, she said. Why was this considered trendy when it wouldn't exactly be considered hip to do the same with deities from other religions?
In my case, though, this new genre of "Hindu hip" represents the opportunity to rediscover some of the traditions I avoided as a child because they didn't seem so cool at the time. When I was a kid, <b>my parents used to drag me to a temple in Houston every Sunday to sit Indian-style for a 30-minute chanting session followed by a youth class about Hinduism. I would beg them not to make me go because it was boring and made my knees hurt. My dad's upper lip would curl with anger at my protests, and we would eventually pile into the car only to show up late and have 100 people glare at us. It was an unfortunate routine.</b>
[Kirtan]
(Sounds like some christian Sunday school. No Hindu ever does this in Bharatam. Parents or grandparents or other relatives - whoever is going - merely ask if you want to come along with them to the Temple. They'll go With Or Without You.
But the complaint by Angela - who is now an ancient but whining eternal-teenager - is the usual sort of psy-ops: "My Hindu parents made me do boring-because-Hindu things. But now that the same things are made 'secular', they are not irksome anymore. It's a jeebus miracle!"
And like Mira Nanda, this Angela similarly sacrifices her dad as the intolerant Hindoo fanatic since he <i>allegedly</i> wanted her to do <i>Hindu</i> things, versus Angela now choosing to do secularised things that merely "come from Hindu tradition" - see below. Except I find Angela an unreliable character witness, and her Hindu dad is conveniently not here to defend himself against her unlikely allegations.)
When I heard about this kirtan not too far from my apartment, I figured I could finally handle sitting still for more than 30 minutesâat least I thought. And I figured that while I don't consider myself a particularly spiritual person, I would get the same satisfaction out of it that I do out of yoga: a relaxing end to a hectic day.
<b>I was raised Hindu, but the Prema Yoga in Brooklyn, where I went, welcomes all;</b> donations, anything at all, are the only price of admission. My roommate and I put in $10. I appeared to be the only <b>South Asian </b>in the room. Kirtan singer Krishna Das, among the most popular artists, says kirtan is not about religion, <span style='color:red'>even though the chants come from Hindu tradition. "It's just about doing it, and experiencing," his web site says. "Nothing to join, you just sit down and sing."</span>
(That's what christists always say initially about Hindu matter: "although they are Hindu in origin, these 'Indian' things have now been incorporated into christianism." And next time they stop mentioning the "origins in Hindu Dharma" altogether.)
<b>I felt awkward opening my mouth to sing,</b>
(Does she ever <i>not</i> feel awkward? She seems entirely awkward. She is herself to blame for "choosing to go", for choosing to put herself in a position that her alienated self can't feel comfortable with. What a pitiably weak character she has. Or to put it more bluntly: what a Loser.)
but others in the class belted out the words in American accents and swayed to the music without hesitation. It was refreshing. <b>And frankly, I found it more appealing to listen to someone who sounded a bit like Sarah McLachlan as opposed to the stern-looking priest I remember at my temple.</b>
[Idol]
(Note how at *every* single statement she actively disparages Hindus and Hindu Dharma while "universalising"/secularising Hindu Dharma for appropriation. Is this christoterrorist-conditioning a general trend among kids born and raised in the US by Hindu parents?
Do any Hindus' children turn out okay when born outside India, I've always wondered.... But maybe that's an illegal question.
In any case, Angela's memory is probably topsy-turvy: who's to say, the priest at the temple need not have been stern-looking at all. Isn't it more likely that the whiny Angela, due to a permanently frosted frown on her forehead at the time, just inverted everything she saw back then - as if harbouring a shard of the Snow Queen's mirror - just like she is throughtout this article selectively inverting all the Hindu aspects of her current experiences doing Hindu Kirtanas?)
A co-worker asked me later, though, if it felt as authentic as chanting in temple. Indeed, as Eastern traditions such as yoga and kirtan take off in the West, some critics point out that spiritual concepts have become overly trendy and simplified.
<b>Maybeâat least for those of us born outside Indiaâthat's welcome.</b> When I went to temple as a kid, <b>the chanting and singing seemed more formal and religious.</b>
(Duh. It *is* religious. Kirtanas are Hindu and hence "seem" Hindu. She must be an specially 'challenged' sort of girl.)
<b>On the other hand, kirtan at my yoga studio felt laid-back and recreational in part because I was choosing to go as opposed to being forced into it.
This was ironic given that I was repeating the names of the same Hindu deities I learned about as a kid during religious instruction. Indeed, the words weren't entirely free of <i>connotations</i> even for my co-worker and roommate</b>, who came with me to the kirtan and are not Hindu or Indian. They told me later that while most of the chants didn't mean anything to them, they both instinctively refrained from singing "Hare Krishna," which they thought was affiliated with the movement in India.
(Translation: "the Kirtanas give a good feeling, but if only it wasn't so loathsome to have to repeat the names of <i>Hindu</i> deities". <- And note use of the word <i>deities</i>.
That is, she is YET AGAIN saying she found the invariably Hindu experience worthwhile *in spite* of it being Hindu.)
Maybe not everyone was supposed to take the same thing away from kirtan. <b>While some came for the spiritual experience, perhaps many kirtan-goers, like me, just wanted a break from the real world.</b>
(She is dropping a hint for inculturation: "perhaps the people who came didn't want the Hindu Dharma in the Kirtanas, maybe they just wanted the *form* of the Kirtanas.")
After an hour and half of chants, I found myself wishing for a moment that I could stay in the warmly lit yoga studio for a bit longer instead of going back to my apartment, where unpaid bills and dirty laundry awaited me. And that night, I slept better than I usually do.
(Kirtanas marketed as "a break from the real world". Like Yoga is marketed as exercise. What next: christian kirtanas where they repeat jeeeeeeebussss over and over again? Yeah, heard that before: "Deus Volt!" "Bei Gott!" "Eternally daaaamned!" And other expressions of jeebus terror.)
My roommate is already planning on going back because she says kirtan cleared her head. I, on the other hand, am contemplating just sticking to yoga. It seems, unfortunately, that while I am now older, wiser and eager to learn about my own culture, I haven't yet learned the art of sitting still.
Write to Anjali Athavaley at anjali.athavaley@wsj.com <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I take it back, should never have assumed she was a Hindu just because she makes reference to being "raised as a Hindu". She's just a crypto christian writing for the anti-Hindu WSJ which is trying to signal a new inculturating trend. At the very least, she is just the WSJ's good little native/sepoy.
And bet all this started when Hindus invited western people to their Kirtana gatherings and to their Temples in America, and invited them over for Yoga lessons/made Yoga into a commercial venture, etcetera.
When will (NRI/ex-NRI) Hindus learn?
En 't antwoord luidt: <i>nooit</i>.
And then western christians - and of course, the ever-appropriating Indian cryptos (who have no culture to speak of) - start setting up shop offering the hideous christianism specifically repackaged in a Hindu bottle (since Hindu Dharma is attractive) in order to dupe the more sincere people who attend.
http://haindavakeralam.com/HkPage.aspx?P...810&SKIN=C
<b>Atma Jyoti Ashram: Sannyasins or Swindlers?</b>
15/06/2009 11:20:50
By Swami Devananda Saraswati
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sita Ram Goel wrote this in 1988, and he would not be surprised to learn that <b>Christian priests and monks in America have adopted the very same tactics to attract a whole generation of American youth interested in Hindu spirituality, back to Christianity.</b> The leader in this movement today is Abbot George Burke of Atma Jyoti Ashram in Cedar Crest, New Mexico. He is better known on the Internet as Swami Nirmalananda Giri.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>ADDED:</b>
Angela declared:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In my case, though, this new genre of "Hindu hip" represents the opportunity to rediscover some of the traditions I avoided as a child because they didn't seem so cool at the time.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Ugh. There should be a tax on tackyness. It would make such characters as Angela destitute.
Hindu Dharma has nothing to do with hipness/hippyness or coolness.
It is timeless in its appeal, since Truth is timeless in its appeal. The genuine people it attracts for its own sake know the great worth of what they have in good fortune discovered.
All the Hindus with taste and sense live with their minds fixed in the universe of Hindu Dharma's outlook and are ever inalienable from understanding it. The rest swing whichever way the wind blows anyway.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Tuesday, August 04, 2009
<b>wsj on devaluing hindu ideas and expropriating them</b>
aug 4th, 2009
the mcdonaldization of hinduism continues. and notice this girl cannot say "i am hindu". no, she was "raised hindu".
http://bit.ly/z8TzU<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->No kidding:
(My copious comments are marked in purple for the convenience of entirely-overlooking)
online.wsj.com/article/SB124935809551003759.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Americans' New Idol?</b>
By ANJALI ATHAVALEY
On a recent Thursday night, two friends and I crossed our legs and sat on colorful blankets in a Brooklyn yoga studio before a woman named Ambika. "Shree Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram," the 10 of us repeated after her.
[Anjali Athavaley.]
Anjali Athavaley
We were there for a night of <b>Indian devotional chanting</b> complete with drums and a harmonium. But rather than an Indian tabla, there was something more akin Native American drum. <b>An idol of Ganesh, the Hindu elephant god, adorned the altar next to a statue of another revered figureâPresident Obama.</b>
(Interesting context: this alienated individual regards the reverence for Ganesha as being in the same sphere as the sort of respect Obama has. Of course Angela wouldn't have drawn a similar parallel if it were a crucifix that had Obama's photo placed next to it.
Plus 'God' in singular, yet still lowercased.)
There was another significant difference between this recent spiritual session and those of my childhood: I chose to be there.
Kirtan, like other Indian spiritual activities such as yoga and meditation, is becoming increasingly popular in the U.S., with musicians releasing CDs of Indian chants and a growing number of yoga studios offering it with a Westernized twist. Another studio in New York, for instance, advertised its version as one where "rock, pop and jazz meet chanting." <b>According to the web site bollywood.com, Hindu scholar Rajan Zed has called for kirtan to be included as a Grammy awards category.</b>Â <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
(Who IS this person? "Hindu Statesman". "Hindu Scholar". A professional comedian too by any chance?)
  <b>âKirtan at my yoga studio felt laid-back and recreational in part because I was choosing to go as opposed to being forced into it.â </b>
But just as they celebrate this growing interest, notably from the American mainstream, Indians overseas also feel conflicted over it. Going to bhangra night at a New York bar or watching a Bollywood routine on the popular show "So You Think You Can Dance" makes us proud. Yet sometimes Hinduism shows up in odd forms: my sister recently heard from a friend about a Houston bar that features a statue of Ganesh, for example. It posed an interesting question, she said. Why was this considered trendy when it wouldn't exactly be considered hip to do the same with deities from other religions?
In my case, though, this new genre of "Hindu hip" represents the opportunity to rediscover some of the traditions I avoided as a child because they didn't seem so cool at the time. When I was a kid, <b>my parents used to drag me to a temple in Houston every Sunday to sit Indian-style for a 30-minute chanting session followed by a youth class about Hinduism. I would beg them not to make me go because it was boring and made my knees hurt. My dad's upper lip would curl with anger at my protests, and we would eventually pile into the car only to show up late and have 100 people glare at us. It was an unfortunate routine.</b>
[Kirtan]
(Sounds like some christian Sunday school. No Hindu ever does this in Bharatam. Parents or grandparents or other relatives - whoever is going - merely ask if you want to come along with them to the Temple. They'll go With Or Without You.
But the complaint by Angela - who is now an ancient but whining eternal-teenager - is the usual sort of psy-ops: "My Hindu parents made me do boring-because-Hindu things. But now that the same things are made 'secular', they are not irksome anymore. It's a jeebus miracle!"
And like Mira Nanda, this Angela similarly sacrifices her dad as the intolerant Hindoo fanatic since he <i>allegedly</i> wanted her to do <i>Hindu</i> things, versus Angela now choosing to do secularised things that merely "come from Hindu tradition" - see below. Except I find Angela an unreliable character witness, and her Hindu dad is conveniently not here to defend himself against her unlikely allegations.)
When I heard about this kirtan not too far from my apartment, I figured I could finally handle sitting still for more than 30 minutesâat least I thought. And I figured that while I don't consider myself a particularly spiritual person, I would get the same satisfaction out of it that I do out of yoga: a relaxing end to a hectic day.
<b>I was raised Hindu, but the Prema Yoga in Brooklyn, where I went, welcomes all;</b> donations, anything at all, are the only price of admission. My roommate and I put in $10. I appeared to be the only <b>South Asian </b>in the room. Kirtan singer Krishna Das, among the most popular artists, says kirtan is not about religion, <span style='color:red'>even though the chants come from Hindu tradition. "It's just about doing it, and experiencing," his web site says. "Nothing to join, you just sit down and sing."</span>
(That's what christists always say initially about Hindu matter: "although they are Hindu in origin, these 'Indian' things have now been incorporated into christianism." And next time they stop mentioning the "origins in Hindu Dharma" altogether.)
<b>I felt awkward opening my mouth to sing,</b>
(Does she ever <i>not</i> feel awkward? She seems entirely awkward. She is herself to blame for "choosing to go", for choosing to put herself in a position that her alienated self can't feel comfortable with. What a pitiably weak character she has. Or to put it more bluntly: what a Loser.)
but others in the class belted out the words in American accents and swayed to the music without hesitation. It was refreshing. <b>And frankly, I found it more appealing to listen to someone who sounded a bit like Sarah McLachlan as opposed to the stern-looking priest I remember at my temple.</b>
[Idol]
(Note how at *every* single statement she actively disparages Hindus and Hindu Dharma while "universalising"/secularising Hindu Dharma for appropriation. Is this christoterrorist-conditioning a general trend among kids born and raised in the US by Hindu parents?
Do any Hindus' children turn out okay when born outside India, I've always wondered.... But maybe that's an illegal question.
In any case, Angela's memory is probably topsy-turvy: who's to say, the priest at the temple need not have been stern-looking at all. Isn't it more likely that the whiny Angela, due to a permanently frosted frown on her forehead at the time, just inverted everything she saw back then - as if harbouring a shard of the Snow Queen's mirror - just like she is throughtout this article selectively inverting all the Hindu aspects of her current experiences doing Hindu Kirtanas?)
A co-worker asked me later, though, if it felt as authentic as chanting in temple. Indeed, as Eastern traditions such as yoga and kirtan take off in the West, some critics point out that spiritual concepts have become overly trendy and simplified.
<b>Maybeâat least for those of us born outside Indiaâthat's welcome.</b> When I went to temple as a kid, <b>the chanting and singing seemed more formal and religious.</b>
(Duh. It *is* religious. Kirtanas are Hindu and hence "seem" Hindu. She must be an specially 'challenged' sort of girl.)
<b>On the other hand, kirtan at my yoga studio felt laid-back and recreational in part because I was choosing to go as opposed to being forced into it.
This was ironic given that I was repeating the names of the same Hindu deities I learned about as a kid during religious instruction. Indeed, the words weren't entirely free of <i>connotations</i> even for my co-worker and roommate</b>, who came with me to the kirtan and are not Hindu or Indian. They told me later that while most of the chants didn't mean anything to them, they both instinctively refrained from singing "Hare Krishna," which they thought was affiliated with the movement in India.
(Translation: "the Kirtanas give a good feeling, but if only it wasn't so loathsome to have to repeat the names of <i>Hindu</i> deities". <- And note use of the word <i>deities</i>.
That is, she is YET AGAIN saying she found the invariably Hindu experience worthwhile *in spite* of it being Hindu.)
Maybe not everyone was supposed to take the same thing away from kirtan. <b>While some came for the spiritual experience, perhaps many kirtan-goers, like me, just wanted a break from the real world.</b>
(She is dropping a hint for inculturation: "perhaps the people who came didn't want the Hindu Dharma in the Kirtanas, maybe they just wanted the *form* of the Kirtanas.")
After an hour and half of chants, I found myself wishing for a moment that I could stay in the warmly lit yoga studio for a bit longer instead of going back to my apartment, where unpaid bills and dirty laundry awaited me. And that night, I slept better than I usually do.
(Kirtanas marketed as "a break from the real world". Like Yoga is marketed as exercise. What next: christian kirtanas where they repeat jeeeeeeebussss over and over again? Yeah, heard that before: "Deus Volt!" "Bei Gott!" "Eternally daaaamned!" And other expressions of jeebus terror.)
My roommate is already planning on going back because she says kirtan cleared her head. I, on the other hand, am contemplating just sticking to yoga. It seems, unfortunately, that while I am now older, wiser and eager to learn about my own culture, I haven't yet learned the art of sitting still.
Write to Anjali Athavaley at anjali.athavaley@wsj.com <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I take it back, should never have assumed she was a Hindu just because she makes reference to being "raised as a Hindu". She's just a crypto christian writing for the anti-Hindu WSJ which is trying to signal a new inculturating trend. At the very least, she is just the WSJ's good little native/sepoy.
And bet all this started when Hindus invited western people to their Kirtana gatherings and to their Temples in America, and invited them over for Yoga lessons/made Yoga into a commercial venture, etcetera.
When will (NRI/ex-NRI) Hindus learn?
En 't antwoord luidt: <i>nooit</i>.
And then western christians - and of course, the ever-appropriating Indian cryptos (who have no culture to speak of) - start setting up shop offering the hideous christianism specifically repackaged in a Hindu bottle (since Hindu Dharma is attractive) in order to dupe the more sincere people who attend.
http://haindavakeralam.com/HkPage.aspx?P...810&SKIN=C
<b>Atma Jyoti Ashram: Sannyasins or Swindlers?</b>
15/06/2009 11:20:50
By Swami Devananda Saraswati
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sita Ram Goel wrote this in 1988, and he would not be surprised to learn that <b>Christian priests and monks in America have adopted the very same tactics to attract a whole generation of American youth interested in Hindu spirituality, back to Christianity.</b> The leader in this movement today is Abbot George Burke of Atma Jyoti Ashram in Cedar Crest, New Mexico. He is better known on the Internet as Swami Nirmalananda Giri.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>ADDED:</b>
Angela declared:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In my case, though, this new genre of "Hindu hip" represents the opportunity to rediscover some of the traditions I avoided as a child because they didn't seem so cool at the time.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Ugh. There should be a tax on tackyness. It would make such characters as Angela destitute.
Hindu Dharma has nothing to do with hipness/hippyness or coolness.
It is timeless in its appeal, since Truth is timeless in its appeal. The genuine people it attracts for its own sake know the great worth of what they have in good fortune discovered.
All the Hindus with taste and sense live with their minds fixed in the universe of Hindu Dharma's outlook and are ever inalienable from understanding it. The rest swing whichever way the wind blows anyway.