Tag: Hinduism

  • Go to Hell? Is that what Christianity is all about?

    Westboro Baptist Church at the United Nations ...
    Image via Wikipedia

    Religion is highly personal.It is not to be institutionalized.

    Unfortunately,Islam ,Christianity,Judaism, Paganism had all been institutionalized-Islam got entangled with tribal and clan interests,Christianity with Paganism and Judaism and Judaism with the obsession of ‘Chosen people‘.They believe in number games.

    People forget God,if He exists, does not care in numbers, just as Nature does not care about our perceptions of it.People who make a living out of religion do.

    Religion is meant to elevate the individual by stimulating the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ and to find out the inner meaning of life.

    Recently in US a church has banned the use of Yoga’for it has the potential to wean away the Christian faith‘.Is  the faith so fragile that can be weaned away from?If so it is no faith.

    Religion is for people and not the other way around.

    Instead of enlightening the individual. Religion has become a despicable tool of social control and intolerance.

    Hinduism, on the other hand encourages all criticisms, including its own fundamentals , never questions your way of living and does not doom you to hell if you do not believe its Percepts.In fact it does not advocate group praying.

    What is the point in making children hate at a very tender age, when they do not know what hate is?

    Story:

    Raised to Hate: Kids of Westboro Baptist Church

    Kid of Westboro Church says “gays, fags, hundreds … of Jews” bound for hell.
    .
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  • MY own private India-and US.

    I used to see pristine India in its glory with its beautiful way of living where parents were parents;no single parent,no drugs,no orphanages,no gays,no lesbians,no worship of $ and Bacchus.
    Neither were there crass materialism nor interference in other countries’ affairs, no kicks from every country in the world.
    Till US came in to influence.
    Indians ,ponder, this is what lies at the heart of the so called liberals of US.
    Why do you seek apology?
    Things are what they are.
    Now know what lies beneath the skin.
    Decide.

    Xenophobic gentleman,
    Indians came to US, truly because you could not switch on your routers.
    Gujaratis came for you do not know honest business.
    True we have Gods with many faces and arms.
    At least we do not worship +,nor do we Deify an unwed mother.
    How does this sound?
    **I am sorry i did not know that my feeling were too harsh and I have expressed myself thus and in the process have hurt many.
    I sincerely tender my apologies.
    *** How is this as an apology?

    The above piece is meant for Mr.Xenophobic and not for normal decent Americans.
    I would like him to know two can play a ball game.
    People such as this mar relation between human beings, least of among countries.

    Story:
    Statement Appended; July 2, 2010

    I am very much in favor of immigration everywhere in the U.S. except Edison, N.J. The mostly white suburban town I left when I graduated from high school in 1989 — the town that was called Menlo Park when Thomas Alva Edison set up shop there and was later renamed in his honor — has become home to one of the biggest Indian communities in the U.S., as familiar to people in India as how to instruct stupid Americans to reboot their Internet routers.

    My town is totally unfamiliar to me. The Pizza Hut where my busboy friends stole pies for our drunken parties is now an Indian sweets shop with a completely inappropriate roof. The A&P I shoplifted from is now an Indian grocery. The multiplex where we snuck into R-rated movies now shows only Bollywood films and serves samosas. The Italian restaurant that my friends stole cash from as waiters is now Moghul, one of the most famous Indian restaurants in the country. There is an entire generation of white children in Edison who have nowhere to learn crime. (See pictures of Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park.)

    I never knew how a bunch of people half a world away chose a random town in New Jersey to populate. Were they from some Indian state that got made fun of by all the other Indian states and didn’t want to give up that feeling? Are the malls in India that bad? Did we accidentally keep numbering our parkway exits all the way to Mumbai?

    I called James W. Hughes, policy-school dean at Rutgers University, who explained that Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 immigration law raised immigration caps for non-European countries. LBJ apparently had some weird relationship with Asians in which he liked both inviting them over and going over to Asia to kill them.

    After the law passed, when I was a kid, a few engineers and doctors from Gujarat moved to Edison because of its proximity to AT&T, good schools and reasonably priced, if slightly deteriorating, post–WW II housing. For a while, we assumed all Indians were geniuses. Then, in the 1980s, the doctors and engineers brought over their merchant cousins, and we were no longer so sure about the genius thing. In the 1990s, the not-as-brilliant merchants brought their even-less-bright cousins, and we started to understand why India is so damn poor.

    Eventually, there were enough Indians in Edison to change the culture. At which point my townsfolk started calling the new Edisonians “dot heads.” One kid I knew in high school drove down an Indian-dense street yelling for its residents to “go home to India.” In retrospect, I question just how good our schools were if “dot heads” was the best racist insult we could come up with for a group of people whose gods have multiple arms and an elephant nose. (See TIME’s special report “The Making of America: Thomas Edison.”)

    Unlike some of my friends in the 1980s, I liked a lot of things about the way my town changed: far better restaurants, friends dorky enough to play Dungeons & Dragons with me, restaurant owners who didn’t card us because all white people look old. But sometime after I left, the town became a maze of charmless Indian strip malls and housing developments. Whenever I go back, I feel what people in Arizona talk about: a sense of loss and anomie and disbelief that anyone can eat food that spicy.

    To figure out why it bothered me so much, I talked to a friend of mine from high school, Jun Choi, who just finished a term as mayor of Edison. Choi said that part of what I don’t like about the new Edison is the reduction of wealth, which probably would have been worse without the arrival of so many Indians, many of whom, fittingly for a town called Edison, are inventors and engineers. And no place is immune to change. In the 11 years I lived in Manhattan’s Chelsea district, that area transformed from a place with gangs and hookers to a place with gays and transvestite hookers to a place with artists and no hookers to a place with rich families and, I’m guessing, mistresses who live a lot like hookers. As Choi pointed out, I was a participant in at least one of those changes. We left it at that.

    Unlike previous waves of immigrants, who couldn’t fly home or Skype with relatives, Edison’s first Indian generation didn’t quickly assimilate (and give their kids Western names). But if you look at the current Facebook photos of students at my old high school, J.P. Stevens, which would be very creepy of you, you’ll see that, while the population seems at least half Indian, a lot of them look like the Italian Guidos I grew up with in the 1980s: gold chains, gelled hair, unbuttoned shirts. In fact, they are called Guindians. Their assimilation is so wonderfully American that if the Statue of Liberty could shed a tear, she would. Because of the amount of cologne they wear.

    TIME responds: We sincerely regret that any of our readers were upset by Joel Stein’s recent humor column “My Own Private India.” It was in no way intended to cause offense.

    Joel Stein responds: I truly feel stomach-sick that I hurt so many people. I was trying to explain how, as someone who believes that immigration has enriched American life and my hometown in particular, I was shocked that I could feel a tiny bit uncomfortable with my changing town when I went to visit it. If we could understand that reaction, we’d be better equipped to debate people on the other side of the immigration issue.
    http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1999416,00.html

  • Pope backs celibacy as priests rally in Rome-Despite current sex scandals?This is not the solution..


    Religious practice must be in tune with nature and the the innate tendencies/dispositions of man.No point in enforcing a code that can not be followed which , in most case results in perversions.
    Celibacy can not be practiced by all and being celibate alone does not enhance one’s chances of being nearer to God.If carnal desires are evil, why God has endowed human beings with them?
    Answer is to exercise restraint and enjoy the pleasures in such a way that it does not come in the way of your spiritual growth.What is needed is channelizing the five senses , not only generative organs but other senses as well.For details see my blogs on Hinduism,better still read Hinduism.
    Again, your personal faith does not need a sign nor other’s appreciation.
    Story.
    Pope Benedict XVI has strongly defended the Catholic Church’s rule of celibacy for priests, speaking to 10,000 priests in St Peter’s Square in Rome.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10290426.stm
    He called it a sign of faith in an increasingly secular world.

    But the Pope made no reference to the paedophile priests scandal that has rocked the Church in recent months.

    The rally of priests from more than 90 nations was one of the largest gatherings of clergy ever seen at the Vatican.

    The evening gathering marked the end of the Catholic Church’s international year of the priest.

    The Pope is due to celebrate a final Mass on Friday.

    Please read this as well.
    Recruiting For The Priesthood A Hard Sell In France
    The Roman Catholic Church in Europe is struggling with a shortage of priests. In France, the number of priests has been in steady decline since the 1960s. Determined to reverse that trend, the Catholic Church recently launched a public relations campaign meant to attract more young men to the priesthood.

    But the campaign has come at a difficult time, amid ever-expanding sex scandals, and its intended targets are skeptical.

    On a recent Sunday, bells call the faithful to morning Mass at St. Christophe de Javel Catholic Church in Paris’ 15th arrondissement.

    The Rev. Paul Ndour leads the congregation in song and prayer. An African priest from Senegal, Ndour has been preaching at St. Christophe since last August, and he will stay in France for two years.

    Ndour is one of about 1,500 foreign priests in parishes across the country who are helping to fill in for the dearth of French priests. Ndour says his time in France has been a wonderful opportunity for him and his congregation.

    “This has been a rich experience that has fostered more openness on both sides. For example, before, I had an image of French priests as missionaries or colonizers. But now I see that I was wrong,” Ndour says. “And I also feel that I’m teaching the congregation many things through our exchanges.”

    They’re trying to show they’re hip by using English words. But it’s not some slogan or a few flashy colors on a postcard that’s going to attract people. The Catholic Church is full of scandals and has to do its mea culpa.

    – Nicolas Dolivera, student at the Sorbonne

    Improving The Image Of French Priests

    In the 1960s, there were about 41,000 priests in France. Today, there are around 15,000. About 800 priests die each year, and only 100 are ordained.

    Frederic Fonfroide de Lafon is the head of the firm that the church has hired to run its public relations campaign. He says to attract new priests the church must first improve the image of the priest in France.

    “Priests suffer from a low social status, so we’re trying to change that by showing what being a priest really means. A priest has extensive training in philosophy and the humanities. He is not someone who lives apart from society in his own world, but someone who participates,” Fonfroide de Lafon says.

    “A priest accompanies people in the most important moments of their lives,” he adds.

    The campaign tries to reach out to the public with newspaper inserts and brochures that showcase real priests and their passion for people and humanity. The campaign is also distributing 50,000 postcards in cafes, cinemas and on college campuses specifically aimed at 16- to 22-year-olds.

    Fonfroide de Lafon says the recent child abuse scandals haven’t hurt the campaign, but instead made it more important than ever for the church to show the important work that priests do every day.

    Need For Mea Culpa, Modernization

    But in a student center at the Sorbonne, history major Nicolas Dolivera stares skeptically at one of the cards. On it, a smiling young man holds a cardboard cutout of a priest’s collar and jacket. A button on the lapel reads “Jesus is my boss” in English. The caption “Why Not?” — also in English — is printed across the bottom of the card.

    “They’re trying to show they’re hip by using English words,” Dolivera says. “But it’s not some slogan or a few flashy colors on a postcard that’s going to attract people. The Catholic Church is full of scandals and has to do its mea culpa.”

    Church officials say they are pleased with the campaign’s reception; its Facebook page has had 40,000 visitors already.

    Near the university, 21-year-old Maxime Bermann is hanging out with his friends. He has seen the church’s campaign on the Internet. But he thinks it will be difficult to draw more young people to the priesthood as long as there are so many arcane rules.

    “[The church] seems to look back to old values that don’t mean anything to young people today. They have to show with actions that they are able to modernize and not only with cards,” Bermann says.
    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127745118

  • The Aryan Dravidian Myth.-Video.


    1.Arya means ‘pure’,’Blemishless’;it has no racial connotation.
    2.Dravida indicates ‘from South’;those from south of Vindhya and Sathpura ranges are called Dravidians.
    3.Great Agasthya who is mentioned in Puranaas is from South.
    3.Evidence in Mahabharata states that a Chera King Perunchotruudiyan Neduncheralaathan fed both the armies of Kauravas and Pandavas during Mahabharata war and he was reported to have performed Srardha or obsequies for those killed in Mahabharata war.In fact his name is a non de plume ;it means on who fed many stomachs.
    4.Vedas mention Dravida in many places, praising their culture.
    5.Many Gods worshiped in India are purported to be Dark/Black.In fact Krishna means ‘Black’

    6.Children of Viswamitra were banished into exile into Dravidan territory, which those, in those times assumed ‘was populated by aborigines without culture.But they found , instead, a culture,if not superior ,that was equal to them.Hence they adopted the best of Dravidian culture , blended it with those of the North and thus came Apasthamba Sutra which is followed by people of South.Wearing of Thaali or Mangal sutra by women on marriage, is a Dravidian Concept.So is ‘Madisar’ a special way of wearing the saree by women.
    7.Of the Gods mentioned in Vedas,Subramanya, Ganesa,Vishnu,Devi(Kotravai),Indra,Varuna were worshiped in South as well.
    8.Sri Adi Sankara praises Gnana Sambandhar as ‘Dravida Sisu’ or son of South in Soundarya Lahari.
    9.Lord Rama worshiped in Rameswaram.
    There are proofs galore about Indian culture being one.Propaganda by vested interests can not change facts.