Wikileaks’ implication of Pak: No reason to be upbeat

Many of the Indian commentators were visibly upbeat these days thanks to the wikileaks’ confirmation of the Pakistan’s support to Taliban etc. It has rekindled an old Indian hope that US (on our behalf) would punish Pakistan for its actions. But those versatile with the history of US-Pak engagement know that there is no scope for optimism. As Raja Mohan of Indian Express rightly observes “The principal effect of the leaks will not be on US-Pak relations, but on American public support for the war. Most liberals and an increasing number of conservatives will draw the conclusion that the war in Afghanistan is not winnable and even if it can be turned around, the costs are not worth it.” The mounting public pressure will only hasten a messy retreat of America from Afghanistan.

On a related note, there is an excellent analysis of the developments by Spengler of Asian Times. He suggests that not just US or China, but even Indian govt dislikes a “solid proof” for Pak’s direct support to terrorists. Confrontation of solid evidence against Pak will compel the Indian govt. to make an open war with it… something it shies away. In Spengler’s words: “ India does not want America to call Pakistan to account. In the worst case, Pakistan might choose to support the Taliban and other terrorist organizations - including Kashmiri irredentists - openly rather than covertly. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, of whom the Economist on July 25 wrote "the strength of his coalition depends largely on how weak he is as Prime Minister", does not want to confront Pakistan. If Pakistan's support for anti-Indian terrorism became undeniable, India would have to act, and action is the last thing the Congress party-led coalition in New Delhi wants to consider.”

Hence, I don't feel these revelations are going to change anything in the present status-qou.

Yama & Niyamas

As everyone knows, Hinduism does not impose any unchangeable moral or ethical on its followers. But there exists many pointers and suggestions as to how a Hindu can lead his life. The most important of them are Yama and Niyama. Yama & Niyama can be termed as the most important principles to be followed by every Hindu. I am copy-pasting from an old Hinduism today article about what they are:


The Ten Vedic Restraints, Yama:

1. Noninjury, Ahimsa: Practice noninjury, not harming others by thought, word or deed, even in your dreams. Live a kindly life, revering all beings as expressions of the One Divine energy. Let go of fear and insecurity, the sources of abuse. Knowing that harm caused to others unfailingly returns to oneself, live peacefully with God's creation. Never be a source of dread, pain or injury. Follow a vegetarian diet. Ahimsa is not to be understood as inaction towards adharma; it has to be understood as absence of hatred.

2. Truthfulness, Satya: Adhere to truthfulness, refraining from lying and betraying promises. Speak only that which is true, kind, helpful and necessary. Knowing that deception creates distance, don't keep secrets from family or loved ones. Be fair, accurate and frank in discussions, a stranger to deceit. Admit your failings. Do not engage in slander, gossip or backbiting. Do not bear false witness against another.

3. Nonstealing, Asteya: Uphold the virtue of nonstealing, neither thieving, coveting nor failing to repay debt. Control your desires and live within your means. Do not use borrowed resources for unintended purposes or keep them past due. Do not gamble or defraud others. Do not renege on promises. Do not use others' name, words, resources or rights without permission and acknowledgement.

4. Divine Conduct, Brahmacharya: Practice divine conduct, controlling lust by remaining celibate when single and faithful in marriage. Before marriage, use vital energies in study, and after marriage in creating family success. Don't waste the sacred force by promiscuity in thought, word or deed. Be restrained with the opposite sex. Seek holy company. Dress and speak modestly.

5. Patience, Kshama: Exercise patience, restraining intolerance with people and impatience with circumstances. Be agreeable. Let others behave according to their nature, without adjusting to you. Don't argue, dominate conversations or interrupt others. Don't be in a hurry. Be patient with children and the elderly. Minimize stress by keeping worries at bay. Remain poised in good times and bad.

6. Steadfastness, Dhriti: Foster steadfastness, overcoming nonperseverance, fear, indecision and changeableness. Achieve your goals with a prayer, purpose, plan, persistence and push. Be firm in your decisions. Avoid sloth and procrastination. Develop willpower, courage and industriousness. Overcome obstacles. Never carp or complain. Do not let opposition or fear of failure result in changing strategies.

7. Compassion, Daya: Practice compassion, conquering callous, cruel and insensitive feelings toward all beings. See God everywhere. Be kind to people, animals, plants and the Earth itself. Forgive those who apologize and show true remorse. Foster sympathy for others' needs and suffering. Honor and assist those who are weak, impoverished, aged or in pain. Oppose family abuse and other cruelties.

8. Honesty, Arjava: Maintain honesty, renouncing deception and wrongdoing. Act honorably even in hard times. Obey the laws of your nation and locale. Pay your taxes. Be straightforward in business. Do an honest day's work. Do not bribe or accept bribes. Do not cheat, deceive or circumvent to achieve an end. Be frank with yourself. Face and accept your faults without blaming them on others.

9. Moderate Appetite, Mitahara: Be moderate in appetite, neither eating too much nor consuming meat, fish, shellfish, fowl or eggs. Enjoy fresh, wholesome vegetarian foods that vitalize the body. Avoid junk food. Drink in moderation. Eat at regular times, only when hungry, at a moderate pace, never between meals, in a disturbed atmosphere or when upset. Follow a simple diet, avoiding rich or fancy fare.

10. Purity, Saucha: Uphold the ethic of purity, avoiding impurity in mind, body and speech. Maintain a clean, healthy body. Keep a pure, uncluttered home and workplace. Act virtuously. Keep good company, never mixing with adulterers, thieves or other impure people. Keep away from pornography and violence. Never use harsh, angered or indecent language. Worship devoutly. Meditate daily.


The 10 Vedic Practices, Niyama:

1. Remorse, Hri: Allow yourself the expression of remorse, being modest and showing shame for misdeeds. Recognize your errors, confess and make amends. Sincerely apologize to those hurt by your words or deeds. Resolve all contention before sleep. Seek out and correct your faults and bad habits. Welcome correction as a means to bettering yourself. Do not boast. Shun pride and pretension.

2. Contentment, Santosha: Nurture contentment, seeking joy and serenity in life. Be happy, smile and uplift others. Live in constant gratitude for your health, your friends and your belongings, Don't complain about what you don't possess. Identify with the eternal You, rather than mind, body or emotions. Keep the mountaintop view that life is an opportunity for spiritual progress. Live in the eternal now.

3. Giving, Dana: Be generous to a fault, giving liberally without thought of reward. Tithe, offering one-tenth of your gross income (dashamamsha), as God's money, to temples, ashrams and spiritual organizations. Approach the temple with offerings. Visit guru with gifts in hand. Donate religious literature. Feed and give to those in need. Bestow your time and talents without seeking praise. Treat guests as God

4. Faith, Astikya: Cultivate an unshakable faith. Believe firmly in God, Gods, guru and your path to enlightenment. Trust in the words of the masters, the scriptures and traditions. Practice devotion and sadhana to inspire experiences that build advanced faith. Be loyal to your lineage, one with your satguru. Shun those who try to break your faith by argument and accusation. Avoid doubt and despair.

5. Worship, Ishvarapujana: Cultivate devotion through daily worship and meditation. Set aside one room of your home as God's shrine. Offer fruit, flowers or food daily. Learn a simple puja and the chants. Meditate after each puja. Visit your shrine before and after leaving the house. Worship in heartfelt devotion, clearing the inner channels to God, Gods and guru so their grace flows toward you and loved ones.

6. Scriptural Listening, Siddhanta Shravana: Eagerly hear the scriptures, study the teachings and listen to the wise of your lineage. Choose a guru, follow his path and don't waste time exploring other ways. Read, study and, above all, listen to readings and dissertations by which wisdom flows from knower to seeker. Avoid secondary texts that preach violence. Revere and study the revealed scriptures, the Vedas and Agamas.

7. Cognition, Mati: Develop a spiritual will and intellect with your satguru's guidance. Strive for knowledge of God, to awaken the light within. Discover the hidden lesson in each experience to develop a profound understanding of life and yourself. Through meditation, cultivate intuition by listening to the still, small voice within, by understanding the subtle sciences, inner worlds and mystical texts.]

8. Sacred Vows, Vrata: Embrace religious vows, rules and observances and never waver in fulfilling them. Honor vows as spiritual contracts with your soul, your community, with God, Gods and guru. Take vows to harness the instinctive nature. Fast periodically. Pilgrimage yearly. Uphold your vows strictly, be they marriage, monasticism, nonaddiction, tithing, loyalty to a lineage, vegetarianism or nonsmoking.

9. Recitation, Japa: Chant your holy mantra daily, reciting the sacred sound, word or phrase given by your guru. Bathe first, quiet the mind and concentrate fully to let japa harmonize, purify and uplift you. Heed your instructions and chant the prescribed repetitions without fail. Live free of anger so that japa strengthens your higher nature. Let japa quell emotions and quiet the rivers of thought.

10. Austerity, Tapas: Practice austerity, serious disciplines, penance and sacrifice. Be ardent in worship, meditation and pilgrimage. Atone for misdeeds through penance (prayashchitta), such as 108 prostrations or fasting. Perform self-denial, giving up cherished possessions, money or time. Fulfill severe austerities at special times, under a satguru's guidance, to ignite the inner fires of self-transformation.

Elections-09: Introspections of a Hindu-Nationalist

Hmm so the election results are out and as you can well guess they are totally against what I hoped for. But somehow I do not feel disheartened; instead I feel more energized. A feeling of “buckle up guys… if there is anything these elections has proved, it is that we have more work to do than we had estimated. So let’s get started immediately” engulfs me.

Although this is not a verdict I hoped for, it was something I was expecting to happen. There are some fundamental shifts taking place in the nature of Indian polity and society in general, but the BJP campaign did not/could not gear up to them. Here are some of my views on those underlying changes that have been taking place.

Before I begin, one more word. It is usual after every battle that all the people throng for friendship with the leaders if they won and crave for their heads if they lose. I am not interested in such distancing from the loser and indulging in that contemptuous “I told you so; if only you had listened to me” statements. This is more an introspection; from someone who feels he is part of the family and shares its destiny; and from someone who feels crying hoarse or feeling sorry is not a replacement for initiatives we have to take.

Ah one more word, please: We often tend to give elections and political spectrum in general more attention than they deserve. We feel they are the beginning and end of all; while the reality is far far away. However there is one item which I do attach importance to in the results: Irrespective of BJP winning or losing, the basic point is that the issues or what we are thinking are the issues are not finding much connect with the society today. We have full five years at our disposal to pick bones with cong, but this is the time to do some fundamental internal reshuffling as well, which is long overdue.


1. Outdated “Hindu Pride”
In the times till 90’s Hinduism was despised both in political and academic circles. Being a Hindu was looked as something shameful. A common Hindu used to be apologetic about his religion. In that context, the mobilization on the basis of Hindu pride was needed… and that’s what the Hindutva movements like Ayodhya did.

But now times has changed. Thanks to those 90’s movements, being Hindu is no longer something shameful. This has given way to more secure and stable feeling about being a Hindu. There is a genuine pride about Hinduism amongst its followers. The “Hindu Pride” is thus no longer an issue; for a Hindu today, it is rather taken for granted. The faith of Hindu of the old was feebly low due to constant attacks and thus its power has to be asserted through achievements like taking back Ayodhya. But the faith of Hindu now (thanks to the mobilization of those days) is more secure and stable that it does not feel threatened by mere destruction of Rama’s bidge (I am not saying the Hindu of today approves such destruction; I am instead saying that his faith does not feel threatened even if such act happens).

So the days of “Hindu Pride” are gone; it’s already a conquered fort. Time to move forward; time to reconvert Hindus into Hinduism; time to see that people who now Hindus only by association become Hindus who follow its ethos and values in their lives.


2. Politics of aspiration over politics of victimhood
Much of the politics of last two decades was centered on politics of resentment, be it caste or religion. This has given way to politics of aspiration (terms borrowed from Indian Express editorial). There were times when resentment of other caste/religion was the major factor in deciding to whom people voted. Lalu and Mulayam who benefited from scaring Yadavs and Muslims about others are the examples of those age. However this has come to an end as seen how Yadavs rejected lalu in Bihar and how Muslims did not buy similar tricks of Maya in UP. This is also apparent from how even after agitations in Jammu and Kandhmal, BJP failed to make any improvements in its vote tally there. In words of Sekhar Gupta:

“…the politics of grievance, rooted in our complex past, is giving way to the politics of aspiration. Or, as Thomas Friedman puts it, the weight of dreams is turning out heavier than that of memories… For, anybody who built a campaign on negativism, prejudice, victimhood and vengeance has been demolished …[the] more confident voter… is now willing to seek a stake in the future rather than be settling scores for the past.”

This is not to say that some of the issues like conversions or terrorism in front of the Hindu society have been solved. They are very much there. But the present Indian citizen prefers these to be tackled through institutions of the state, not by those outside it. Earlier it was an institutional problem in his eyes; now it is an implementation problem to him.

Now look at some of the issues taken by some of the Hindutva groups in the recent past: the likes of cross symbol on the new two rupee coin… comon guys if you search carefully, you will be able to find two perpendicular lines almost everywhere. Such agitations based on the feeling of “victimhood” has to be done with.


3. Controlling ones’ puppies
“Dogs of war” writes an asian times columnist “incline toward caution, which after all is how they grew up to be dogs. More worrisome are puppies, who do not know what danger is.” He then makes a very insightful observation: “Wars start because no one wants to disown his dog. If your dog bites a neighbor, your neighbor well might come after you with a shotgun.”

Confused… ok let me put it in perspective. The puppies here are the likes of Varun Gandhi, Sri Ram sena etc. Being puppies or inexperienced, they arrogantly go and bite neighbor; something experienced and battle hardened leaders in BJP like Advani etc never do. But what you do if your neighbor comes with a shotgun to kill that? The instinct is try to stand in the way or give some boring justifications of why it might have done so. In the end you sound like the one who secretly sanctioned all that even though in reality you did not.

The likes of Varun and Sri Ram sena run amok with the confidence of being under the Hindutva tutelage. While it’s true that most people in the Hinduva camp do not approve such acts as theirs, the protectionist instinct softens their stance, prompting them to give out some rationalizations of their acts. But these many times are very similar to the rationalizations we hear from liberals about Naxal violence and from Mullas about terrorism... something we abhor.

It’s not enough if you avoid hurting the neighbor. We also have to keep our puppies under control. And if they cross the line, we must also be ready to discard them instead of indulging in rationalizations (example: the type of strict adherence to basics shown by Republican party in kicking out Trent Lott).


4. The advent of the “Gentle” leader
Again going back to the old days, to become a leader you had to be a terrific and rubble raising speaker. But this expectation from the voters has changed. This has given way to preference for a gentle person. A look at the CMs of various states will prove my point. Be it Shivraj Singh Chauhan or Raman Singh or Nitish Kumar or Sheila Dixit or Naveen Patnaik or Yeddyurappa or Khanduri… all of them are “gentle” kind. They are not big controversy raisers nor those who hop media limelight all the time through their statements. They don’t talk much nonsense; they do not bother to heap their opponents in abuses. Modi's success too is on the basis of his Gujarat success story, not mere rhetoric.

The voter’s feeling today is that enough of rhetoric and abuses: tell us what solutions you propose. We must wake up to this (its not that congress came up with any solutions; but the excessive rhetorical criticism has backfired on BJP).

In this context it is also necessary to add one more word about the “youth” politics. Many blogglers have been arguing that one of the main reasons for BJP’s loss is lack of young faces countering those of Rahul to attract the young voters. Firstly I feel the “Rahul effect” is just exaggerated; I am sure most people who have seen him would have laughed at his childishness. I also reject the proposition that a leader must be young to attract young voters. Sheila Dixit’s case proves that it need not be the case. What the young prefers is a less rhetoric, more constructive leader, irrespective of age. Of course, as this is time for new ideas and , young blood is always preferable

5. The Cadre Dilemmas
Cadre and ideology centered parties are always better than individual based parties like that of congress. But there are some peculiar challenges which they carry along with them. Electioneering and campaigning requires considerable man power- people who can distribute pamphlets explaining the party policies, people who can guide their prospective voters on the day of voting, people who can help organize rallies and meetings etc etc. For congress to find people for such things is very easy: just pay. But for cadre based parties, it is very difficult to find people for all that. Imagine the amount of inspiration a person should have put aside his personal benefits and give his time for some election.

It requires a deep sense of dissatisfaction and frustration with the existing system that a person feels he has to put some of his self-interest aside and dedicate time for that ideal. A common cadre usually is thus likely to have much stronger opinions than the usual society. But Hindu-Nationalism is not merely about anger towards other systems. It is also accompanied by a deep belief in an alternate methodology. Thus while frustration with the existing system is the first step of becoming a cadre, harnessing and channeling that anger in disciplined and constructive manner is the second and more important part.

While that is desired, my personal observations internet world show that the second is not talking place (I am not sure of the real world; I am here only basing my opinions on internet world-whether you feel these observations can be extended or not is upto the reader). A common right-wing member of the yesterdays was a person who had one important quality: he was not a ravaging angry young man we see aplenty on internet today; but a person who has disciplined and channeled his aggravation properly. He just did not have questions for the “seculars”, he also had solutions and alternatives. The Hindutva members of the past gave hope and confidence in an alternate system; but the present one sounds more like a doomsday predictor.

The psychology behind it very simple: people don’t like to accept that they are deep soup. They thus switch to denial mode to your list of existing problems. Adjoin optimism with it and then you will find that they are more forthcoming to our line of thinking.

We can’t just heap lots of arguments on why the “seculars” are bad or how India is going to be doomed under them. We have to complete it with the more important part: what is the solution and alternative we suggest.

Of course I am not sure how much of blame for this can be laid at the feet of sangh, for they still very much stress these values. This is more an observation, than a complaint: that somewhere else things simply are not going as desired and that this reality needs to be acknowledged and attended to.


Conclusion
Before concluding just a quick point: just because I said we lack this, we failed at that etc, it does not mean congress has got it all right (the loss of its many central ministers prove that it has not). The congress and BJP just remained what they were. It is the Indian populace which moved, and that shift harmed the BJP more than congress. Now its time for BJP to come of the stagnation of ideas and reinvent itself from the basics. I concede a defeat in the battle, not war. So lets prepare for the next one.

Missionary agenda of YSR: From the horse's mouth

There are always allegations about the missionary zeal of the Christian Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Y.S Rajasekhara Reddy or commonly known as YSR. But many times due to absence of hard evidence, these are often discarded as nothing more than chest-thumping.

For people who believe only in “evidences” here it is. I have collected all the Government Orders (GO) by the Government of AP allotting funds to various Churches in AP. My source of information is no secret either. It is the online portal of Govt of AP listing all the GOs it issued (the government portals are treasure houses of information; you just have to know how to dig out what you need). You can see the data in this page:

http://suryassk.googlepages.com/AP_GOs.htm

People are welcome to cross-check the information I have given from the GO portal (it also have the scanned forms in PDF form for more info if you wish) if they find what I wrote here hard to believe.

The following is the summary of the data from that sheet:

1. The GO portal is active only from February 2008, hence the data I have given is only of 1 year (ie., Feb 2008 to Jan 2009). Note that although vast, it is by no means comprehensive (ie., I have shown Govt 263.07 lakhs to Christian institutions. This amount is the minimum spent on them, not the maximum).

2. But even for a single year, an amount of 263.07 lakhs was given as aid to various Christian institutions.

3. More than 258 churches benefited from these grants for construction/renovation of churches.

4. An amount of 1316.54 lakhs was given as aid to various Muslim institutions through Wakf boards.

5. Not a single GO granting any aid to a Hindu temple can be found. This in spite of the fact that in AP, the Hindu temples are managed by the Endowments Ministry (put it simply they take all the money which the temples generate).

6. Govt takes away all the money which Hindu temples generate, but do not grant a single penny to any of its temples. It does not touch the money from Christian and Muslim institutions, but grants them huge amounts of money.


I have always argued that the “Missionary Charity” is just a myth. These new evidence only reinforce my earlier points. I do not want to waste more words how the Christian CM of AP is perusing his missionary zeal not just through individual actions, but also through direct grants from the Government of AP. As I said, the facts speak louder. Let the reader judge for himself.

PS: Special thanks to my friend Sandeep Verma and blogger barbarianindians for getting my attention to this aspect.

The fascination for Hi-Fi

Man always tried to extend the limits of his abilities. Thus the idea of conquering the most challenging of the tasks fascinates him (the ambitious Big Bang experiment is one such example).

However, this attitude sometimes leads into negligence to basics. For example, one air crash absorbs all our attention, even though the number of dead in simple road accidents may be a thousand fold more. AIDS immediately comes to the mind when we say medical challenges, while diseases like malaria continue to kill more than 3000 children per day in Africa. What’s more, the malaria deaths are totally avoidable and preventable. Yet millions of dollars are poured into AIDS “awareness”, while much simpler, yet lethal diseases are happily forgotten. We hotly discuss the energy crunch in India and alternate methods of filling it. While that’s good, fundamentals like good power management are overlooked. The topics of more IITs and IIMs are passionately debated. But when was the last time primary education discussed with such passion? We closely follow the scheduled space flights of NASA. But how much do we know about rurally relevant technologies?

We are fascinated about the Hi-Fi, but neglect the basics. This behavior can be better understood with a background of the “slacker wins” attitude. The typical youth fantasy today is about an acne-pitted, pizza-gobbling, beer-guzzling mind-altered college dropouts in cut-off jeans and flip-flops starting a website and becoming billionaires. As an Asian times article points out, this attitude is reflected in even movies like “Kung Fu Panda”, in which a fat and feckless panda who in two easy lessons becomes a kung fu master. As film critic Carina Chocano lamented in the Los Angeles Times, "The slacker panda whose favorite word is 'awesome' is singled out for heroism when all the other characters have worked long and hard (the definition of kung fu) and sacrificed for what they've accomplished.

Underlying the seemingly good-natured adolescent humor movie is a nasty streak of resentment. Young men today profoundly resent the notion that they must subject themselves to the discipline in order to learn and advance - precisely what martial arts propose to teach.

Discipline and sacrifice are the two fundamental requirements for any great achievement. But most of us today are not willing to go for it, yet we want “greatness”. Thus the fascination for the Hi-Fi --- its makes more sense to choose a challenging job and not accomplish it (as you do not wish to give up slacking) than to choose a job which is achievable (you have to burn out your fat for that then).

Greatness does not lie in occasional sparks of genius, but in consistent hard work. In the words of Swami Vivekananda: “If you really want to judge of the character of a man, look not at his great performances. Every fool may become a hero at one time or another. Watch a man do his most common actions; those are indeed the things which will tell you the real character of a great man.”. Time to put these words into practice.

Hail the new Nuclear Realities

Finally after rounds of tough negotiations the NSG has given a waiver for civil nuclear cooperation with India. The irony is that NSG was formed in 1974 in opposition to the nuclear tests by India. Now, that very NSG gives special exception to India.


The Imperatives: Much has been written in the media about the advantages it gives to nuclear power generation in India, so no point in repeating it. In my view, greater advantages actually come in the form of use of dual use technologies… a wide range of technologies which can give a great boost to defense technologies in addition to those in civil arena.


Kudos to… I am sure many of you remember the situation 10-15 ten years back with Bill Clinton at the office… much of the grumble was about making India sign CTBT. From that times the situation today is that India is the only country beyond the NPT and yet having a weapons programme. So what changed these realities?

First it is the BJP govt for boldly conducting nuclear tests… while previous govts like that of PV chickened out in the last minute under the international pressure. Although shocked at this open defiance by India, the international community had to finally come to terms with the reality that India has nuclear warheads. Its nuclear weapons are not going to vanish just because the world denies that India is a nuclear power.

Then to the Indian bureaucrats like Anil Kakodkar, Shiv Shankar Menon etc. I still have trouble accepting the fact MMS, the selected-PM and a frontal puppet indeed held to his positions strongly in these tough negotiations. I always have this complaint that Indian negotiators often behave very soft and sissy. It was pleasant surprise to see that in spite of the tough negotiations, the Indian counterparts conceded little. Perhaps the credit for it goes to the opposition parties. Though unintentionally, they too played a role.

Although the international negotiations employ sophisticated terms, IMHO they are not very different from an ordinary vegetable market. Till the last minute the other party will try to extract the maximum possible. However, if it is made adequately clear that you have only Rs10 in your pocket and the vendor can either sell it for Rs10 or forego the process has many times a “softening” effect on the vendor. Thanks to the tooth and nail opposition to this deal from other parties, it was clear to the international community that it was a case of not-an-inch more with the Indian party. In a way it ensured what Advani said in parliament when he stated that he was not against nuclear partnership with US perse, but only wants India to extract more. The international community thus was left with no other option but to choose partial cooperation with India over no-cooperation if pressed for more.

The credit thus goes to the Indian democracy, that although the parties change, the crucial policies are continued and enhanced; and with the opposition providing the needed checks and balances (before you jump on me with all talk about the nature of politicians in India, lemme clarify that I do not negate the rough and ugly side of our democracy; its just that I don’t think it is beyond the point of no-redemption)


The apprehensions of opposition: There has been much opposition to this deal, but much of it is just rhetoric with no real logic. The arguments of left against this are not even worth a refutation. The only credible resistance to it comes from the likes of Arun Shourie et al. I may not agree with all of what he says, but do commend the approach and intentions (in contrast to the Chinese Party in India… err CPI).

The main argument of the opposing groups to the deal is that it takes away the sovereign right of India to test nuclear weapons in future. To start to with, India has already conducted nuclear test, including the thermo-nuclear ones in the past and has nuclear weapons. These tests confirmed our capability to detonate a nuclear war head. Further nuclear tests in future will be required only if you want to improvise the efficiency of the warhead. But then, is it really critical? Whether you employ a 50% or 60% efficient nuclear war head, is it going to make such a big difference when the war head is NUCLEAR? Not so much… particularly when India with its no-first use policy is still critically dependent on its conventional capabilities. Thus it is wiser in my view to choose free flow of dual-use technologies for improving conventional defense over an efficiency increase in the nuclear warheads.

Now for arguments sake lets say India has to test its warheads… what then? As India is not a signatory of CTBT and remains doggedly so, it is not bound by any international laws against testing. There may be cries about it, but with a history of having unanimous UN resolutions passed against it for its earlier tests, this kind of likely opposition is nothing new for India. The only after-effect of some real consequence is the possibility of the international community ending its nuclear cooperation with India.

In this regard some of the arguments about discriminatory attitude towards India are indeed true. Nuclear weapon states like US or China can make tests and get away with it without any real consequences, while India may be “punished” for doing the same. But then we must also acknowledge some hard realities, however, uncomfortable they may be. An editorial in IE puts it in better words: [written before the final nod of NSG] “India can’t negotiate a complicated international agreement and expect everyone to roll over and say take whatever you want, we’ll just watch and applaud. Right now, India is a nuclear pariah, excluded from global nuclear trade, shut out from the club. The rules as they stand imply that India’s status should remain unchanged. The nuclear deal, as non-proliferation hardliners have said, makes an India-sized exception to global rules.” We can always complain that the exceptions NSG made are not enough. But then considering that the important objections of India are still intact, it is sensible to let the life go on with taking what comes while continuing the fight for the rest in future instead of a full or nil in one go approach.

Coming back to the case of testing… so what happens if India conducts additional nuclear tests in the future? There is no clear cut consequences list in that case. We have many for/against the deal commentators citing this act and that act to prove their case. Who is correct?

The basic fact is that this ambiguity of legal terms was a conscious effort to accommodate both the supporting and opposing parties. If there is a friendly administration in US in the time of tests, it may citing this reason and that can indefinitely delay any action… remember that NSG requires consensus to make any decision… thus a waiver requires support of all the 45 countries. But then by the same logic, all the 45 should support the cancellation of waiver and the NSG guidelines (para 16.c.3) makes it clear that the individual parties can continue the cooperation till then.

On the other hand if there is a hostile administration, it can take cover under this law and that and stop the cooperation. But then this is possible even if there are more stronger words in India’s case. Countries often hide behind some silly legalities of issues to delay or expedite any action (recall how US continuously denies the proliferation history of China in spite of many proofs and strong legal agreements). Thus the legalities are best left to the columnists to argue out. The fact stands out that US administration of the day decides what to do in that scenario.

But then the question still comes up… how can we leave the future of our fuel supply to the whims of govt in US. Here the need for vision to develop self-reliance assumes importance. If Indians go into a slumber depending wholly on the goodwill of US, then on one fine day they will realise that they may not have power in their houses unless they have friendly ties with US. Hence such behaviour can be dangerous. But then such risk is always going to be there. The same question can be asked about oil supplies we get from gulf. What if tomorrow they suddenly cut the oil supply? Thus we cannot go into isolation just coz of some risks involved in it.

If we delve deeper, nuclear option decreases the risk factor for India, not increase it, coz you cannot store up much oil for future use, but we can store nuclear raw material for future use too. In a press interview after the IAEA resolution, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran clarified that the resolution provides for a strategic fuel reserve to be used for the lifetime operation of those reactors. “It means we can create a bank, and can fill it with fuel as and when we get fuel from other countries," and added that “this will allow for India's programme to go ahead without any disruption even if a dispute arises in the future.”

There are other considerations too… although much of the hopes of India’s self-reliance are based on its thorium reserves, by some estimates it will take atleast another 30years to make the process commercially viable, not to mention the subsequent time in building new plants with those designs. Even the road map of DAE on the subject reads “During the next 20 years, we would like to lay a firm foundation for the use of thorium by developing appropriating technologies.” We are still talking about laying foundation for the next 20 years and then making it commercially viable and then finally to build the plants. I will not be surprised even if it 2050 by they time they are ready.

On the other hand if it exposed to the nuclear know-how, even if in a partial manner, then thanks to the dual-use technologies a plethora of technologies like those in materials and thermal heat exchangers will be easily accessible. This can accelerate India’s own thorium research and thus decrease the lead time.

Another factor is that thorium, unlike uranium, is not readily usable. Thus we require some good amount to uranium and plutonium available with us to kick start the thorium programme. India does not have it at present. But the nuclear cooperation can provide the same.

Thus I feel in the longer run, it only increases the freedom of India, not decrease it. Then there is also another facet worth considering… India has only 0.8% of world’s uranium reserves. Due to lack of outside supply, it is forced to divert most of it to its existing nuclear power plants. Now due to the deal it can buy nuclear raw material for these plants from external sources and reserve its own uranium reserves for strategic purposes. Although the foreign countries are not going to supply India fuel for building more bombs, the deal overall only increases the amount of available uranium for strategic purposes.

India can extract enough of this deal even if it stays in place only for 10-15 years… and it stays even further then the nuclear fuel supply is only more welcome.

In Search of Some Balance…

We often see many heated discussions on many types of topics, essentially revolving around various personalities.

Few illustrations- our neo-Buddhist friends often come up with the argument of Shambhuka and his killing by Rama as a proof of caste discrimination. Our dualist and arya samaji friends try to quote bhajagovindam or some other verse of Sankara to prove that Sankara was against women or sudras. To be fair, even some Hindus do the same to others - be it Arun Shourie’s treatment of Ambedkar or Ayesha episode in Prophet’s life.

It will be of course to wrong to just right away brush aside these people as brainwashed or prejudiced. There is some principle they are all trying to highlight, be it against caste discrimination or gender discrimination etc etc.

But the error is they confuse a Personality from a Historical Person. They think that rejecting one is equivalent to rejecting the other. However that’s not the case.

For example, how does a devotee of Rama react to the question of Sambhuka- he will reply that “look brother, how can Rama who ate from the tasted fruits of Sabari ever discriminate another person on the basis of his caste; all those episodes should have been interpolations of later authors”.

It’s needless to say that the other does not buy this and keeps harping that it is the Shambhuka episode that is real, and Sabari might have been fabrication or dikhava. Naturally the fight goes on and on…

But what the first person does not realize is that the second person already agrees to the principle he is trying to bring out. The first person:
1. Feels that a concept is wrong (caste discrimination here)
2. He then feels that the personality in question is acting as a wrong example and hindrance to the acceptability of that principle.
3. He thus sets out to destroy that personality with a view to actually destroy that idea.

But when the second person does not even think that the personality in question holds such a view, the link in point-2 is broken. What happens thus is: though the first person starts the argument with a view of establishing a principle, he gets so engrossed in the argument that he forgets that both actually agree on the principle in question.

The same phenomenon can be seen in the reverse direction too… for example we used participate in some educational work in our nearby slum and used to have regular interaction with some kids there. Being maharastra, many of them were from families of neo-buddhist background and had great reverence for Ambedkar. The bookish-scholar I was, and having read Arun Shourie’s book on him, I did not have a great opinion of him, to put it mildly. I used to feel that a neo-buddhist guy naturally hates all the hindus and their gods. So when I used to visit some of their houses, I used to find it strange and contradictory that in many houses the hindu gods used to share space with their new gods viz. Buddha and Ambedkar.

It was later that I realized that Ambedkar for them stood for dalit empowerment and not exactly anti-Hinduism (note that I am referring here to lay followers; not the political class). It was only the bookish scholars on both sides who fight a futile battle over those things. When it comes to the actual follower, he has amazing ability to discriminate between both.

The same pattern can be seen even in many inter-sect debates too. Take for example, our Arya Samaji friend’s displeasure at Sankara in a recent thread. If we separate out all the strong and bitter words, what remains is that he opposes the singling out of women and sudras for vedic knowledge. Such person then feels that the teachings of Sankara are hindering those principles and hence opposes Sankara too (note that this is just an example and I am not commenting on any particular groups; to be fair there are also Advaitins who denounce the other dualist groups worshiping Shakti as illusion dwellers)

But when he poses these questions to people who revere Sankara, they will probably reply that Sankara meant “keep away from lust”, when he says “keep away from women” and as proof of this they cite many of those Sankara’s strotras extolling Shakti.

Swami Sivananda for example while commenting on Brahmasutras, when it comes to the Apasudradhikaranam remarks that this Bhasya is an interpolation of a later author. Other Adviatins cite the incident of Sankara and the Chandala to substantiate that argument.

In the end, an argument which started essentially to uphold some viewpoint lost itself somewhere and argument descends into an expression of one’s grammatical skills (when both parties actually agree to the principles in question).


One may ask is it not important to ascertain whether the person is question actually held those views or not? The answer to this takes back to the beginning of the post where we started with understanding the difference between a Personality from a person in history. None of us have empirical evidence of all the acts of Rama or Sankara. These personalities refer not flesh and blood people, but a set-of-ideas. Hence it also appropriate to judge them for what the follower understands them to represent, instead of what you or me understand them to represent. I feel if start to view things in this manner, we may agree with each other more easily. At least we can avoid fighting on things we don’t actually disagree.

Economics101 - Demystifying Economics

Economics is one field which completely surrounds us but which hardly understood by us. It is made more complicated by use of a jargon of complex terms. Hence this effort to give the reader a small introduction to this field.

Later Update: As it was too long, I have moved it to googlepages. You can read it here:
http://suryassk.googlepages.com/economics101

Religion and Humanity

Post of Thread starter:

Friends ! Here I am starting a new topic to understand religion and humanity impartially. Here I request post your views without criticizing any religion or community.
Here I start:
Different religions define life in different manners. There are many similarities and dissimilarities. And this variety is the beauty of world. If everything was alike then it would not have been so attractive. Variety of flowers makes a garden worth seeing.

My Reply:

You brought up a good topic (which is also proved by the fact that there are no responses to it )

There is an old story I remember. A hunter living in the forest once found a wooden bark in the form of a boomerang. It proved to be very helpful to him in his hunting. In the course of time, he slowly started to get attached to that boomerang.

As time went on, that boomerang slowly started to wear down and was no more useful. But as the hunter has become too attached to it, he kept using the same boomerang even though it was not really helping. Eventually he reached point where the boomerang was no use at all and this hunter unable to overcome his attachment to it could not leave it. Hence he no longer had any animals and eventually starved.

The case of humanity and religion is also something like that. Some persons realized various spiritual truths. Then religions came into existence in the form of various practices propounded by those spiritual men to imbibe those spiritual ideals they have realized.

But in the course of the time, the followers started forgetting that various practices are not the end, but the means. It is time Hindus ask themselves: who is a hindu – is it a person who covers himself with vibuthi and rudraksh, but does all the bad things or a person who even while believing in some other god, still is committed to the core to Bharat? Who is closer to Hinduism- is it Kalam or Lalu? Similarly the people of other religions too.

I like this “The Ideal of Universal Religion” and “The Way to Realization of a Universal Religion” lectures of SV very much. Quoting some bits from them:

[QUOTE]
Unity in variety is the plan of the universe. We are all men, and yet we are all distinct from one another. As a part of humanity I am one with you, and as Mr. So-and-so I am different from you. As a man you are separate from the woman; as a human being you are one with the woman. As a man you are separate from the animal, but as living beings, man, woman, animal, and plant are all one; and as existence, you are one with the whole universe. That universal existence is God, the ultimate Unity in the universe. In Him we are all one. At the same time, in manifestation, these differences must always remain. In our work, in our energies, as they are being manifested outside, these differences must always remain. We find then that if by the idea of a universal religion it is meant that one set of doctrines should be believed in by all mankind it is wholly impossible. It can never be, there can never be a time when all faces will be the same. Again, if we expect that there will be one universal mythology, that is also impossible; it cannot be. Neither can there be one universal ritual. Such a state of things can never come into existence;

What then do I mean by the ideal of a universal religion? I do not mean any one universal philosophy, or any one universal mythology, or any one universal ritual held alike by all;… What can we do then? We can make it run smoothly, we can lessen the friction, we can grease the wheels, as it were. How? By recognising the natural necessity of variation. Just as we have recognised unity by our very nature, so we must also recognise variation. We must learn that truth may be expressed in a hundred thousand ways, and that each of these ways is true as far as it goes. We must learn that the same thing can be viewed from a hundred different standpoints, and yet be the same thing….

…Then arises the question: How can all these varieties be true? If one thing is true, its negation is false. How can contradictory opinions be true at the same time? This is the question which I intend to answer. But I will first ask you: Are all the religions of the world really contradictory? I do not mean the external forms in which great thoughts are clad. I do not mean the different buildings, languages, rituals, books, etc. employed in various religions, but I mean the internal soul of every religion. Every religion has a soul behind it, and that soul may differ from the soul of another religion; but are they contradictory? Do they contradict or supplement each other? — that is the question. I took up the question when I was quite a boy, and have been studying it all my life. Thinking that my conclusion may be of some help to you, I place it before you. I believe that they are not contradictory; they are supplementary. Each religion, as it were, takes up one part of the great universal truth, and spends its whole force in embodying and typifying that part of the great truth. It is, therefore, addition; not exclusion. That is the idea. System after system arises, each one embodying a great idea, and ideals must be added to ideals. And this is the march of humanity. Man never progresses from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lesser truth to higher truth — but it is never from error to truth. The child may develop more than the father, but was the father inane? The child is the father plus something else. If your present state of knowledge is much greater than it was when you were a child, would you look down upon that stage now? Will you look back and call it inanity? Why, your present stage is the knowledge of the child plus something more.

Then, again, we also know that there may be almost contradictory points of view of the same thing, but they will all indicate the same thing. Suppose a man is journeying towards the sun, and as he advances he takes a photograph of the sun at every stage. When he comes back, he has many photographs of the sun, which he places before us. We see that not two are alike, and yet, who will deny that all these are photographs of the same sun, from different standpoints? Take four photographs of this church from different corners: how different they would look, and yet they would all represent this church. In the same way, we are all looking at truth from different standpoints, which vary according to our birth, education, surroundings, and so on. We are viewing truth, getting as much of it as these circumstances will permit, colouring the truth with our own heart, understanding it with our own intellect, and grasping it with our own mind. We can only know as much of truth as is related to us, as much of it as we are able to receive. This makes the difference between man and man, and occasions sometimes even contradictory ideas; yet we all belong to the same great universal truth

[/UNQUOTE]

How come different Saints have different realizations?

Question:

if realisation is the answer to all, then how come different saints have different opinions. For example Shri Ramakrishna in his enlightenment used to visualise Goddess Kali, Gautam Buddha got the enlightenment concluded that there is no God and all things are subject to change. Jesus Christ preached love to God. Mahavir Jain mediated only to find there is no God but souls are present!! I mean different saints concluded different truths(existence of God,soul, no God, love to God,creator God, incarnated God and so on). If they all got the wisdom how their conclusions of realisation/enlightenment are different? There should be only one truth after realisation. May be the oath/approches be different but the truth should be one only na?

My Reply

>>> if realisation is the answer to all

Realization is not the answer to all the questions of everyone. It is just to the questions of the person who realized. The others are still bound to have questions. If I have a meal, it will be my hunger, not yours that will be satisfied; even if I give you a lengthy theoretical description of how each dish tastes. They may water your mouth and encourage you to satisfy your hunger. But there it ends.


>>> then how come different saints have different opinions.

Yes coming to the actual question- how come they “differ”. Whenever, wherever, whoever finds truth, it will be same because... because it IS truth. How can we then account this disparity?

What a rudimentary follower will do is to cry foul about the integrity of the other. A Christian to account for the difference in what the earlier messengers said and what Christ said will say that Jews corrupted the earlier messages. Muslims will say that Christians corrupted the Christ’s message hence the difference in the teachings of Christ and Prophet. Some Hindus will say that Vedas became corrupted by Upanishads. Some will say that Upanishads are corrupted by Puranas. Some will claim that Puranas are corrupted by some other things. Some will claim that Sankara was corrupted by Buddhism. Some will claim that Madhva was corrupted by Islam. etc etc etc etc. These type of things go on and on.

There may be an element of truth in the factor that teachings got altered in the course of time. But that it itself will not answer all the questions. Followers of Saint-A may accuse that Saint-B was wrong and confused or much worse say that he is a fake and imposter. But the same logic also holds good in reverse as well. Hence let’s keep aside this “they got corrupted” reason.

There may be many imposters in the world and many more in the religious world; but there are also some personalities like a Buddha, a Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a Christ, a Sankara, a Mahavir, a Ramanuja etc on whose personal character and integrity we cannot raise a finger.

If we look at the physical level, then all the various teachings of different religions makes it impossible to accommodate each other. But if you look at what is the idea behind all these that they are trying to express, it is the idea of man trying to go beyond the limitations of the nature.

If science can be called the struggle of man to conquer external nature, religion can be termed as the struggle of man to conquer internal nature. But he may not be equipped with a complex language to express his idea clearly.

If there is difference between a man and a child, it is not in what they want to express, but in the clarity with which they can express their idea.

The early man seeing the apple fall thought there was a demon there, invisible, which is trying to pull the apple down. He did not have the mathematics to explain it clearly like newton. But it is the same idea of gravity that he was trying to express, but only in a crude manner.

Thus formed various ideas in various societies and each, man trying to express a idea in various form, sometimes sophisticated, sometimes crude.

Am I then saying that the differences are coz the Saints goofed up on putting their ideas into words? Not exactly. The trouble is more with the very language.

Lets take a silly example to drive home the point: lets say you have tasted a mint chocolate and want to convey to the other how it tastes. How will we do it? It depends on the target audience. If you are in a place where they know the taste of “sugar”, then you will take that as the starting point and try to explain that the mint is also sweet like a sugar etc etc.

Now lets imagine you are in a different place where people don’t know what is sugar, but know of ice. Then to them you start explaining that mint feels “cool” like ice etc etc.

Your idea was same, so was what you were trying to convey. But when it comes to conveying it, the perceptions of people come into picture. If that is the case with a simple eatable, imagine the difficulty involved with the case of Absolute, which is beyond even the realm of mind.

Christ might have comprehended the reality, but when he was trying to teach it to the people from Judaic background, he will start with the identification of that with the 'father in heaven'. This 'father in heaven' was no longer an angry, jealous god of the old testament, but a Loving god. But he was still the “father in heaven” they know nevertheless.

If a Saint goes to the devotee of Krishna, then he will not start off with saying “here stop calling the reality in that name, and adopt this name”. He will instead fine tune the understanding of that devotee that Krishna will be with such and such qualities.

Let me give you one example of such a phenomenon from your post itself. You said “For example Shri Ramakrishna in his enlightenment used to visualise Goddess Kali”.

Now this is the description of his first vision of Goddess Kali in Sri Ramakrishna’s own words “I felt as if my heart were being squeezed like a wet towel. I was overpowered with a great restlessness and a fear that it might not be my lot to realize Her in this life. I could not bear the separation from Her any longer. Life seemed to be not worth living. Suddenly my glance fell on the sword that was kept in the Mother's temple. I determined to put an end to my life. When I jumped up like a madman and seized it, suddenly the blessed Mother revealed Herself.

The buildings with their different parts, the temple, and everything else vanished from my sight, leaving no trace whatsoever, and in their stead I saw a limitless, infinite, effulgent Ocean of Consciousness. As far as the eye could see, the shining billows were madly rushing at me from all sides with a terrific noise, to swallow me up! I was panting for breath. I was caught in the rush and collapsed, unconscious. What was happening in the outside world I did not know; but within me there was a steady flow of undiluted bliss, altogether new, and I felt the presence of the Divine Mother.”

That was his vision of Kali in his own words. When we hear vision of Kali, we start imagining that the Kali with four hands, a sword, etc etc came appeared in front. But in his own words it is “a limitless, infinite, effulgent Ocean of Consciousness”. We may term it with words it in english, but that Ocean of Consciousness itself was Kali for him. Hence he will say “vision of Kali”. But either the teacher may present it in the perspective of the seeker or the seeker may understand the same from his perspective and hence the differences.

Veg vs Non-Veg: Killing of plants justified??

Question:

As we know that we kill plants and animals for food. But Is Killing them so that we stay alive is justified? We are told to be compassioante for all living beings. Is this compassion and love is restricted to human beings only. Also we realise or worship the God within every creature.

I agree that killing a creature for defense is right but killing plants and animals for food is which I feel something wrong. I know it is necessary to kill them for food but will it not lead to bad karma right from our birth. if this is the case then I wonder why the system has evoloved like this? Is Darwin theory of survival of the fittest makes us to stay and others to perish.Even Plants and animals have the right to live.Please if you all can enlighten me as this question is coming again and again in my mind.

My reply:

>>>But Is Killing them so that we stay alive is justified? I know that human beings are the most intellect and superior living beings on earth.But does that give us the license to kill or is it because that only we can realise God spiritually.

You are looking at only external life- but what about internal life. If starving and suicide not a form of violence?

The first requirement to get a clearer idea of this topic is to drop the barriers between internal and external. Whether seen from the lofty ideals of Advaita that there is no difference and all that exists is divine- both inside AND outside or even general common sense POV where world is a continuous existence of life.

Hence there is no “outside” and “inside”.

Now coming to non-violence. Firstly we should ask ourselves whether total non-violence is possible? If we do not consume plants, then we kill ourselves and there is still violence there. Then the plants and animals etc also form their own food cycle. A tiger may live on a deer; a deer may live on a tree; a tree may live by suppressing other plants.

Hence, whether you life it or not, there is always an element of violence involved in some form or other. Hence the next best thing we should aim is not “eliminate” violence, but minimise it. This is done by balancing the internal violence with the external violence. Different people may have different levels of cut off- some of them being:

1. The worst form is to breed, raise animals to only kill them. This is more rampant in Europe etc. They breed animals in excess to their natural ability just for the sake of killing them for food.

2. The next level is to form a part of natural food cycle. A tribal man might not be breeding animals for killing, but will consume them just like any other animal might consume it.

3. Then comes the attitude where you don’t kill any animal or in any way influence in the killing of an animal, but if somebody does kill it, then there is no harm in taking it. Buddha and Buddhists are known to follow this level. They do accept non-veg food as biksha coz the animal has not been killed coz of them, but irrespective of them and the excessive wasted food is being offered to them as biksha.

4. Then is the level of most vegetarians- do not consume animal meat in any manner, but cultivate plants to eat.

5. Then is the level of Sages who live in forests etc. They do not cultivate plants for food, but rather consume whatever has naturally fallen from trees etc.

6. The final is the way some of the Jain monks do- totally abstain from food, lest you kill someone. This again in the other extreme in my view.


There are no hard and fast rules- where you draw the line is something dependent on the nature of the person.

>>>I mean will it not lead to bad karma?

That’s a big subject in itself. The results of Karma do not dependent on the physical acts, but the attitude of the person in doing so (refer to this post for more on that subject).

One accumulates bad karma NOT by bad action, but by bad thought. In most day to day cases, bad thought precedes a bad action, hence people naturally identify bad action with bad karma. However the subtle difference needs to be maintained.

Let me give an example- take all the poltugiri steps that Pandavas take in Mahabharata under the guidance of Krishna to kill Kauravas. They are surely bad actions in the physical sense. However, the Pandavas did not accrue any bad karma coz they were not motivated by bad thoughts- i.e., the motive for their actions was not selfish, but unselfish upholding of Dharma.

In the same manner, if food is consumed with a sense of enjoyment (as they say, some people live for food, instead of food for living) then it accrues bad karma, for the motive there is enjoyment. But if it is consumed with a sense of duty, as a means to sustain this body, the perfect instrument given to us for Moksha, then it accrues no bad karma at all.

Horoscope – to believe or not to believe

Are Horoscopes correct? Whether to believe them or not? I am sure most of had this doubt.

There is some truth in this whole horoscope business. To my understanding it works out something like this:

Firstly, it is a common misunderstanding that a horoscope has our “destiny” predetermined in it and that we just follow it like puppets. That’s not true- a horoscope does NOT tell you your future. Rather it calculates your past and present karma and extrapolates it into the future.

It is like a mock test. A mock test based on your preparation in the past forecasts how many marks you may get if you continue with the same preparation. But that does not decide your test out come. You still have things in your control and by effort, we can change that.

A horoscope has to be seen only in that view. If a horoscope tells you that you are going to have such and such thing in future, it only means that based on your present karma and assuming that the present trend continues, you will get such an outcome in the future. But we do still have the power to change it.


One more question related to this believe-not_to_believe is why is there so much non-uniformity in the forecasts; for some ppl things turn out exactly the same, for some ppl they do not. If jyotishya is right, it must be right for everyone. Why this difference then? The following are some of the reasons for it:

1. Jyotishya is very much dependent on factors like time, place of birth etc. Even a 5 min difference in birth time or time of sunrise in that place may make huge difference in your jataka. In some cases we do have accurate timing, but in some cases, we may have the wrong time of birth, thus wrong horoscope.

2. As I said earlier, you can still with strong will change the forecasted outcome.

3. Seen isolated, this whole thing is nothing more than a bunch of numbers. A jyotishi has to understand what those refer to and based on it tell one about the horoscope. This involves insight and keen understanding. Something like a share market- anybody can tell you what the share rate of a company is, what’s the growth rate is etc. But it requires an insight to tell what those numbers mean, whether it is “good” or “bad” etc etc.

Are Yoga and Meditation interrelated?

Question:

In the below website and the links, I studied that meditation is related to yoga. It says the third step in yoga is meditation.

http://yoga-essenceoflife.blogspot.com/

As far I know, that meditation can be practiced on our own but not yoga. We need to study yoga from a well known teacher in that. If that is true, Can we practice meditation our own???

Is that meditation becomes a part of yoga???

Please reply.

My Reply:

First and foremost: Yoga does not mean a series of physical exercises like aerobics.

As the hinduwisdom website says “The aim of Yoga is to tear the veil that keeps man confined within the human dimension of consciousness. Yoga, is the union of the individual soul with the Supreme Soul”.

Sri Aurobindo commenting on the nature of Indian mind says “she saw that the physical does not get its full sense until it stands in right relation to the supra-physical; she saw that the complexity of the universe could not be explained in the present terms of man or seen by his superficial sight, that there were other powers behind, other powers within man himself of which he is normally unaware, that he is conscious only of a small part of himself, that the invisible always surrounds the visible, the supra-sensible the sensible, even as infinity always surrounds the finite. She saw too that man has the power of exceeding himself, of becoming himself more entirely and profoundly than he is, - truths which have only recently begun to be seen in Europe and seem even now too great for its common intelligence…

Then with that calm audacity of her intuition which knew no fear or littleness and shrank from no act whether of spiritual or intellectual, ethical or vital courage, she declared that there was none of these things which man could not attain if he trained his will and knowledge; he could conquer these ranges of mind, become the spirit, become a god, become one with God, become the ineffable Brahman.

Yoga is the “means” to the aim Sri Aurobindo talks about in the earlier para. It comprises of lot of steps. The body according to yoga is an “instrument” we have to reach the goal.

Yoga also has some exercises which aim at maintaining the body in healthy condition. But these are prescribed with the motive of keeping the “instrument” in good condition. Mere longevity of the body is never the aim of Yoga. A banyan tree lives for 500 years, but still it’s a banyan tree never the less. By ensuring the good condition of the instrument, Yoga tries to smoothen the path of man knowing his real nature.

That part of Yoga which deals with the physical longevity of the body is called “Hatha Yoga” and comprises of a series of body-exercises. Usually the yoga is identified with this. But this is actually a minor part of Yoga.

If Hatha Yoga is the part of Yoga in which we try to control our body, Meditation is the part of Yoga in which we try to control our mind. Thus in my view meditation can be termed as a subset of Yoga.

BTW both Yoga and meditation require a teacher. It is not advisable to say see a TV programme and try practicing it.

Sanyasa vs Grihastha

One often comes around arguments that either try to place Sanyasa or Gristha superior to the other. But I find this whole debate of Grihastha vs Sanyasa as dumb and stupid. Each caters to different people.

That’s fine you may say. The real question is which caters to whom- how can one know that one is following Sanyasa as a form of austerity and not as a form of escapism; how can one know that a person is living a Gristha life as a form of spiritual endeavor and not for indulgence and enjoyment?

Swami Ashokananda in his book “Spiritual Life” gives a simple but very useful guide. A person trying to attain Moksha by freeing himself of all the attachments should ask himself this simple question: “Is the person attracted to the objects of attachment even when he is away from them?” For example let us say you are attached to a particular sweet and cannot stop yourself from eating it. Now the above question will transform itself as: (1) are you not able to control yourself only after seeing the sweet or (2) are you hounded by it even when it is not in your surroundings.

If the answer is (1), then it helps to separate ourselves from that. If (2) is the answer, then even separation from it is not going to help as the sweet now is not in the physical world, but our mind. We must in that case try to settle the matter in that surroundings itself.

The same logic holds for Sanyasa vs Grihastha question. Are we attracted to the objects of enjoyment even when they are not around?

[1] If yes, then in that case it helps to separate ourselves from the objects of attachment and renounce the world. If you still stay in the world, your indulgence will increase.

[2] If no, then it means that the objects of enjoyment have entered our mind. Thus it is no use even if you go into a forest. The same mind is still with you and will continue to hound you. In that case it is better to stay in the world and even while following your daily routine, give them a higher direction. Do each daily routine as an act of worship and offering to the lord (this idea is the origin of the concepts like Pati-dev; griha-lakshmi, bala-gopala etc etc).

None is greater than other. It’s just that one suits one individual, the other suits another. The following is a story narrated by Swami Vivekananda in his Karma Yoga lectures which explains this point very well:

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If a man retires from the world to worship God, he must not think that those who live in the world and work for the good of the world are not worshipping God: neither must those who live in the world, for wife and children, think that those who give up the world are low vagabonds. Each is great in his own place. This thought I will illustrate by a story.

A certain king used to inquire of all the Sannyasins that came to his country, "Which is the greater man — he who gives up the world and becomes a Sannyasin, or he who lives in the world and performs his duties as a house holder?" Many wise men sought to solve the problem. Some asserted that the Sannyasin was the greater, upon which the king demanded that they should prove their assertion. When they could not, he ordered them to marry and become householders. Then others came and said, "The householder who performs his duties is the greater man." Of them, too, the king demanded proofs. When they could not give them, he made them also settle down as householders.

At last there came a young Sannyasin, and the king similarly inquired of him also. He answered, "Each, O king, is equally great in his place." "Prove this to me," asked the king. "I will prove it to you," said the Sannyasin, "but you must first come and live as I do for a few days, that I may be able to prove to you what I say." The king consented and followed the Sannyasin out of his own territory and passed through many other countries until they came to a great kingdom. In the capital of that kingdom a great ceremony was going on.

The king and the Sannyasin heard the noise of drums and music, and heard also the criers; the people were assembled in the streets in gala dress, and a great proclamation was being made. The king and the Sannyasin stood there to see what was going on. The crier was proclaiming loudly that the princess, daughter of the king of that country, was about to choose a husband from among those assembled before her.

It was an old custom in India for princesses to choose husbands in this way. Each princess had certain ideas of the sort of man she wanted for a husband. Some would have the handsomest man, others would have only the most learned, others again the richest, and so on. All the princes of the neighbourhood put on their bravest attire and presented themselves before her. Sometimes they too had their own criers to enumerate their advantages and the reasons why they hoped the princess would choose them. The princess was taken round on a throne, in the most splendid array, and looked at and heard about them. If she was not pleased with what she saw and heard, she said to her bearers, "Move on," and no more notice was taken of the rejected suitors. If, however, the princess was pleased with any one of them, she threw a garland of flowers over him and he became her husband.

The princess of the country to which our king and the Sannyasin had come was having one of these interesting ceremonies. She was the most beautiful princess in the world, and the husband of the princess would be ruler of the kingdom after her father's death. The idea of this princess was to marry the handsomest man, but she could not find the right one to please her. Several times these meetings had taken place, but the princess could not select a husband. This meeting was the most splendid of all; more people than ever had come to it. The princess came in on a throne, and the bearers carried her from place to place.

She did not seem to care for any one, and every one became disappointed that this meeting also was going to be a failure. Just then came a young man, a Sannyasin, handsome as if the sun had come down to the earth, and stood in one corner of the assembly, watching what was going on. The throne with the princess came near him, and as soon as she saw the beautiful Sannyasin, she stopped and threw the garland over him. The young Sannyasin seized the garland and threw it off, exclaiming, "What nonsense is this? I am a Sannyasin. What is marriage to me?" The king of that country thought that perhaps this man was poor and so dared not marry the princess, and said to him, "With my daughter goes half my kingdom now, and the whole kingdom after my death!" and put the garland again on the Sannyasin. The young man threw it off once more, saying, "Nonsense! I do not want to marry," and walked quickly away from the assembly.

Now the princess had fallen so much in love with this young man that she said, "I must marry this man or I shall die"; and she went after him to bring him back. Then our other Sannyasin, who had brought the king there, said to him, "King, let us follow this pair"; so they walked after them, but at a good distance behind. The young Sannyasin who had refused to marry the princess walked out into the country for several miles. When he came to a forest and entered into it, the princess followed him, and the other two followed them. Now this young Sannyasin was well acquainted with that forest and knew all the intricate paths in it. He suddenly passed into one of these and disappeared, and the princess could not discover him. After trying for a long time to find him she sat down under a tree and began to weep, for she did not know the way out.

Then our king and the other Sannyasin came up to her and said, "Do not weep; we will show you the way out of this forest, but it is too dark for us to find it now. Here is a big tree; let us rest under it, and in the morning we will go early and show you the road."

Now a little bird and his wife and their three little ones lived on that tree, in a nest. This little bird looked down and saw the three people under the tree and said to his wife, "My dear, what shall we do? Here are some guests in the house, and it is winter, and we have no fire." So he flew away and got a bit of burning firewood in his beak and dropped it before the guests, to which they added fuel and made a blazing fire. But the little bird was not satisfied. He said again to his wife, "My dear, what shall we do? There is nothing to give these people to eat, and they are hungry. We are householders; it is our duty to feed any one who comes to the house. I must do what I can, I will give them my body." So he plunged into the midst of the fire and perished. The guests saw him falling and tried to save him, but he was too quick for them.

The little bird's wife saw what her husband did, and she said, "Here are three persons and only one little bird for them to eat. It is not enough; it is my duty as a wife not to let my husband's effort go in vain; let them have my body also." Then she fell into the fire and was burned to death.

Then the three baby-birds, when they saw what was done and that there was still not enough food for the three guests, said, "Our parents have done what they could and still it is not enough. It is our duty to carry on the work of our parents; let our bodies go too." And they all dashed down into the fire also.

Amazed at what they saw, the three people could not of course eat these birds. They passed the night without food, and in the morning the king and the Sannyasin showed the princess the way, and she went back to her father.

Then the Sannyasin said to the king, "King, you have seen that each is great in his own place. If you want to live in the world, live like those birds, ready at any moment to sacrifice yourself for others. If you want to renounce the world, be like that young man to whom the most beautiful woman and a kingdom were as nothing. If you want to be a householder, hold your life a sacrifice for the welfare of others; and if you choose the life of renunciation, do not even look at beauty and money and power. Each is great in his own place, but the duty of the one is not the duty of the other.

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Re-examination of fundamentalism of BJP and Modi

Re-examination of fundamentalism of BJP and Modi

This is actually an article I wrote long time back. In the recent times of Gujarat election coverage of the media, I was tempted to post in it my blog. But waited till the results as back them it would have appeared more like promotion.

It is now become a fashion in many english media to write about growing Hindu “fundamentalism” and demonize BJP and Sangh as fuelling hatred towards other religions to the level that they are trying to kill every non-Hindu at the earliest possible moment. Enough opinion pieces have been written. I don’t want to lend credence to these “opinions” by doing the same. Instead I choose to let the facts do the talking.

In the five years of NDA rule, nothing of the sort which the commies predicted has taken place. There were no large scale killing of Muslims, there was no destruction of Muslim places of worship nor was there a temple build at Ayodhya forcefully.

So let’s get down to basics and look at the statistics instead of the scaremongering by media. Communal violence in India occurred in each and every year from 1954 to 1985. The total number of communal incidents in those 31 years was 8,449 (an annual average of 273), the total number of persons killed in that period was 7,229 (an annual average of 233), and the number of persons injured in those incidents was 47,321 (an annual average of 1,526). (statistics quoted from here)

After 1985, communal riots have also occurred in every year from 1986 to 1995, once in 1997, twice in 2002 and once in 2003. Thus if you see the only moment of low point in the incidents of communal violence is post 1997, which include six years of BJP in power.

All these statistics are of both Hindus AND Muslims died. I remember reading in a book that in the early fifties, Jayaprakash Narayan tabled a Home Ministry report which has investigated riot incidents and found that 22 out of total 23 were initiated by Muslims. Of late the government is not releasing the details of the dead in communal violence from sixties.

The only case against the BJP & Modi is the Gujarat riots in 2002. But even here the statistics do not prove any “Hindutva laboratory”. Contrary to the screams that thousands of Muslims being killed in those riots, the official figure is around 900. The case against Modi is not about killing the Muslims, but of official-willful-negligence, the same which is against Rajiv Gandhi for Sikh riots. Negligence does not make the mistakes right, but it is surely a LOT different from enthusiastic killing.

Moreover, how accurate is it to throw the blame on BJP alone for that when many congress workers also participated. Quoting from August 9, 2003 edition of Times of India:

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But when it comes to the involvement of its own party cadre in the killings, 10 Janpath maintains a deafening silence…

According to the JUH, "most Congress corporators" and some Congress leaders of Gujarat had actively participated in last year's riots.

Mahmood As'ad Madani, JUH general secretary told The Times of India: "We wrote letters to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, gave a list of Congress leaders involved in the riots, asked her to take action against them but to no avail."

On April 29, 2002, for example, the JUH received a list of 25 Congress leaders from its Gujarat chapter, which was promptly forwarded to her. This included a former Congress minister, a sitting MLA and a former MP.

Then on August 20, Madani reminded Gandhi: "Similarly our appeal forwarded to you in respect of involvement of Congress MLAs, corporators and workers in Gujarat carnage along with the list of culpable names remains disregarded." when it comes to the involvement of its own party cadre in the killings, 10 Janpath maintains a deafening silence.

According to the JUH, "most Congress corporators" and some Congress leaders of Gujarat had actively participated in last year's riots.

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Riots happen in a state- the state machinery takes 3 days to get law and order back. Later some member of BJP and Congress are accused of their participation the riots… and what’s the conclusion we are supposed to draw – that BJP is communal and congress the secular force fighting those communal groups!!! I leave that to the intelligence of the reader.

I am not putting these points to say that Modi is a messiah of communal tolerance. But there is no case of Modi ‘plotting’ to kill Muslims either. The point I am trying to make is one cannot dub this as a trend and attitude of sangh to persecute Muslims. Modi did not win because of Gujarat riots, but won in spite of them. If Gujarat voted him again, it is not coz the Gujarat has suddenly become “communal”, but coz (1) they think that there is not much a CM could have done to control the rage during riots; after all he is a CM, not an omnipotent god to just say halt and all those people full of rage suddenly dropping their violence (2) the overall benefits they got far outweigh the shortfalls that those mistakes can be forgiven.

Sanskrit in the Mottos of some popular organizations

Thanks to the prevailing "secular" atmosphere in the country, there was a huge hue and cry in the media about the recent ruling of Allahbad High Court on Gita as a national dharm granth. Secularism has now become equal to the negation of any kind of religious symbolism. So I did a small search of the Mottos of various organization in India. Surprisingly many of the Mottos, including that of our Indian State itself (Satyameva Jayate) are in Sanskrit and taken from Hindu Scriptures like Gita and Upanishads.

People who are shocked at the mere reference by a "secular" court to a "religious" Gita may ponder on these:

S.No	Organization	Motto			Meaning
1.	Indian Navy	Shano Varuna			May the Lord of the Oceans be Auspicious Unto Us (Tattraiya Upanishad)
2.	Indian Air Force	Nabha Sparsham Deeptam			Touching the Sky With Glory (Gita 11:24)
3.	Indian Coast Guard	vayam rakShaamaH			We protect (Bala kanda of Valmiki Ramayana)
4.	Reserve Bank of India - Bankers Training College	buddhau sharaNam anvichcha			Seek Refuge in Reason - Let intelligence be thy sole quest (Gita 2:49)
5.	Life Insurance Corporation of India	yogakshemam vahaamyaham			I shall take care of the well-being (Gita 9:22)
6.	Defence Service Staff College	Yuddham pragayya			To war with wisdom
Some Army Units
7.	The Madras Regiment	Swadharme Nidhanam Shreyaha		It is a glory to die doing one’s duty
8.	Grenadiers Regiment	Sarvada Shaktishali		Ever Powerful
9.	The Rajputana Rifles	Veer Bhogya Vasundhara		The Brave Shall Reap the Earth
10.	The Dogra Regiment	Kartavyam Anvatma		Duty Before Death
11.	The Garhwal Rifles	Yudhaya Krit Nischya		Fight With Determination
12.	The Kumaon Regiment	Prakramo Vijayate		Valour Triumphs
13.	The Jammu and Kashmir Rifles	Prashata Ranvirta		Valour in Battle is Praiseworthy
14.	The Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry	Balidanam Vir Lakshanam		Sacrifice is a Sign of the Brave
Universities
15.	Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad		Vidya Viniyogadvikāsaha
16.	Indian Institute of Management Bangalore		Tejasvi Nāvadhitamastu
17.	Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode		Yogah Karmasu Kaushalam
18.	Indian Institute of Technology Bombay		Gyanam Paramam Dhyeyam
19.	Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur		Tamaso Mā Jyotirgamaya
20.	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur		Yogah Karmasu Kaushalam
21.	Indian Institute of Technology Madras		Siddhirbhavati Karmaja
22.	Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee		Shramam Binam Na Kimapi Sādhyam
23.	Kendriya Vidyalaya		Tat Twam Pushan Apavrinu
24.	Central Board of Secondary Education		Asato Ma Sadgamaya
25.	Bengal Engineering & Science University,Shibpur		Uttisthita Jagrata Prapya Baraan Nibidhata
26.	Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani		Jnanam Paramam Balam
27.	Gujarat National Law University		Aa Na Bhadro, Kratavo Yantu Vishwata
28.	Indian Statistical Institute		Bhanineshvaikyasay Darshanam
29.	Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya		Dhiyo Yonaha Prachodayat
30.	Madan Mohan Malaviya Engineering College, Gorakhpur		Yogah Karmasu Kaushalam
31.	Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad		Siddhirbhavati Karmaja
32.	National Law School of India University		Dharmo Rakshati Rakshata
33.	Sri Sathya Sai University		Sathyam vada dharmam chara
34.	Sri Venkateswara University		jnanam samyaga vekshanam
35.	University of Calicut		Nirmaya Karmana Sree
36.	University of Colombo (Sri Lanka)		buddhih sarvatra brājate
37.	University of Delhi		Nishtā drithih Satyam
38.	University of Kerala		Karmani Vyajyate Prajna
39.	University of Moratuwa (Sri Lanka)		Vidyaiwa Sarwadhanam
40.	University of Peradeniya (Sri Lanka)		Sarvasva Locanam Sāstram
41.	University of Rajasthan		Dharmo Vishwasya Jagatah Pratishtha
42.	Sri Venkateswara University		jnanam samyaga vekshanam
43.	Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur		Yogah Karmasu Kaushalam
44.	West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences		Yuktiheena Vicharetu Dharmahnih Prajayate
45.	Andhra University		Tejasvi Nāvadhitamastu
46.	Banasthali Vidyapith		Sa Vidya Ya Vimuktaye

PS: Thanks to the following sites for helping me as a good starting points.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Military_Unit_Mottoes_by_Country#India

http://hitxp.wordpress.com/2007/03/03/great-sanskrit-hymns/

http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-educational-institutions-which-have-sanskrit-phrases-as-their-mottoes