MahaBodhi:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->So what is it that has happened? Where are those Brahmins?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->You've been describing my grandparents (among many others of the older generations probably). That is why I could never describe myself as a Brahmana. I know what Brahmanas are and I know I will never in this life or probably the very next live up to that. It's an insult to their memory for me to refer to myself as belonging to the same kind of people as they are.
In my childhood I had also known many Hindus of that older generation who, though they were not from the brahmin community, deserved the term sooner than I will.
I'm a vegetarian, don't kill any insects and all. All that's easy as. It's easy to have respect for lifeforms that are at my mercy. I don't need to go out of my way to prevent myself from harming animals including the little things. But that's where my humanity ends. I'm impatient when it comes to humans.
And renunciation is but a noble idea to me, one which I've never carried out. But I know my grandparents did that all the time. When I'm hungry, I will eat all the food and not think one second of the poor Indians or Africans or others starving somewhere until I've had my fill. When I see the poverty and starvation on TV I feel miserable, but that does not stop me from coming first when it gets down to it. What sheer sense of compassion and will it must have taken for my grandparents to have always thought of others first. I don't think it is human. I'm a human and I can't do it. To me, they were incarnations of Gods.
So I have less than zero respect for brahmoons or whatever they call themselves who eat beef live on TV, screaming that they're brahmoons just so everyone 'knows', and think it is something secoolar and plooralistic and a sign of proogress.
Less than zero respect, because I know very young Indian Hindus here not of brahmin background who have renounced all animal meat and refuse to wear leather and check packed foods for whether they contain gelatine or animal fats. They do it because they feel it is Right. They are well on their way to becoming a Brahmana in this or the next life. And I know atheist non-Indians who are vegetarians by choice.
Then how hard is it for someone who was raised in a vegetarian household like some of those famous brahmoons who've been parading their beef-eating skills to see that there is a valid reason why their ancestors chose to be vegetarian? A Kshatriya needs meat because of who he is and the immense job he/she does. There is no sin incurred for people to eat meat when they are not Jain or Brahmana. Hindu men and women have had to undergo many laborious tasks and so they need whatever food they can get and the nourishment. In such cases, their hunting animals for food is like the native American killing the Carribou (sp?) with respect. But for a Brahmana (or Jain), whose is willing to renounce so much, is it oh so terribly hard to eat without purposefully harming other creatures? Especially in this day and age when one can get any plant-based product from the stores.
'Progress' in India today means to renounce all respect for one's ancestors and one's ancestral religion (Hinduism) and Dharma. But it's okay to be open-minded about christoislamic terrorists and stuff. Shouldn't offend their 'sensibilities' or their incomprehensible ideas of morality. Vegetarianism is an offence (unless it is currently popular in western countries in which case it's cool unless you were actually already doing it for Dharmic reasons), but don't you dare say one word about Halal or Haram foods. Or the stupidity of abstinence versus sensibility of family planning/condoms. You'll offend the islamochristoterrorists. Abstinence when carried out from a christo perspective is progress, don't ya know, they don't care that many Africans converted to christoterrorism are dying of AIDS.
Things in the world today have been turned upside down. Adharma has been labelled good and Dharma as bad and backward.
There is no shame in doing things because they are the Right thing to do. Right is always progress. Principles do matter. One's principles determine one's strength. I am always reminded of the Jewish prisoner in Bergen-Belsen or Auschwitz or some concentrationcamp who was only ever offered horse-meat by his taunting nazi guards. That went against his morality, so he preferred to starve himself than let them have the ultimate triumph over him by stripping him of all that he had left through destroying his principles: his identity.
If we care about who we are and what we represent, we must live up to that. If we don't respect it, no one else will.
Bodhi, I'm grateful for what you've written.
In my childhood I had also known many Hindus of that older generation who, though they were not from the brahmin community, deserved the term sooner than I will.
I'm a vegetarian, don't kill any insects and all. All that's easy as. It's easy to have respect for lifeforms that are at my mercy. I don't need to go out of my way to prevent myself from harming animals including the little things. But that's where my humanity ends. I'm impatient when it comes to humans.
And renunciation is but a noble idea to me, one which I've never carried out. But I know my grandparents did that all the time. When I'm hungry, I will eat all the food and not think one second of the poor Indians or Africans or others starving somewhere until I've had my fill. When I see the poverty and starvation on TV I feel miserable, but that does not stop me from coming first when it gets down to it. What sheer sense of compassion and will it must have taken for my grandparents to have always thought of others first. I don't think it is human. I'm a human and I can't do it. To me, they were incarnations of Gods.
So I have less than zero respect for brahmoons or whatever they call themselves who eat beef live on TV, screaming that they're brahmoons just so everyone 'knows', and think it is something secoolar and plooralistic and a sign of proogress.
Less than zero respect, because I know very young Indian Hindus here not of brahmin background who have renounced all animal meat and refuse to wear leather and check packed foods for whether they contain gelatine or animal fats. They do it because they feel it is Right. They are well on their way to becoming a Brahmana in this or the next life. And I know atheist non-Indians who are vegetarians by choice.
Then how hard is it for someone who was raised in a vegetarian household like some of those famous brahmoons who've been parading their beef-eating skills to see that there is a valid reason why their ancestors chose to be vegetarian? A Kshatriya needs meat because of who he is and the immense job he/she does. There is no sin incurred for people to eat meat when they are not Jain or Brahmana. Hindu men and women have had to undergo many laborious tasks and so they need whatever food they can get and the nourishment. In such cases, their hunting animals for food is like the native American killing the Carribou (sp?) with respect. But for a Brahmana (or Jain), whose is willing to renounce so much, is it oh so terribly hard to eat without purposefully harming other creatures? Especially in this day and age when one can get any plant-based product from the stores.
'Progress' in India today means to renounce all respect for one's ancestors and one's ancestral religion (Hinduism) and Dharma. But it's okay to be open-minded about christoislamic terrorists and stuff. Shouldn't offend their 'sensibilities' or their incomprehensible ideas of morality. Vegetarianism is an offence (unless it is currently popular in western countries in which case it's cool unless you were actually already doing it for Dharmic reasons), but don't you dare say one word about Halal or Haram foods. Or the stupidity of abstinence versus sensibility of family planning/condoms. You'll offend the islamochristoterrorists. Abstinence when carried out from a christo perspective is progress, don't ya know, they don't care that many Africans converted to christoterrorism are dying of AIDS.
Things in the world today have been turned upside down. Adharma has been labelled good and Dharma as bad and backward.
There is no shame in doing things because they are the Right thing to do. Right is always progress. Principles do matter. One's principles determine one's strength. I am always reminded of the Jewish prisoner in Bergen-Belsen or Auschwitz or some concentrationcamp who was only ever offered horse-meat by his taunting nazi guards. That went against his morality, so he preferred to starve himself than let them have the ultimate triumph over him by stripping him of all that he had left through destroying his principles: his identity.
If we care about who we are and what we represent, we must live up to that. If we don't respect it, no one else will.
Bodhi, I'm grateful for what you've written.