Three religions which emanated from middle east practice monotheism.
But then there is Jesus son of the God and Trinity in Christianity, Mohammed Rasool of Allah in Islam. Christianity and Islam are poor copy of Judaism.
https://danasurdanu.blogspot.com/2020/08/birth-of-christianity-and-islam-from.html
Point is that, can these three religious groups decide which one God is true God? Then there are more than 200 denominations in Islam and thousands in Christianity. These three religions have always been in conflict with each other. In any religious conflict, one can always find either Christianity or Islam to be involved.
Problem is that there can be as many descriptions of one God as many brains on the earth. And if everyone insists on his version being true then it will cause conflict and disaster. A tribe in Isolated adman island or in pacific may have his own one God.
Polytheism creates room for free thinking religious ideas, and polytheism is result of this. It doesn't interfere natural freedom humans enjoy to develop their natural imagination and faculties. Monotheist Abrahamic versions are like dictatorship. It won't last forever, as soon as people have freed themselves, they will have many ideas individually and there will be diversion.
Suppose you are a teacher, you ask children to make a painting of village life. They will make different paintings. Only when they blindly copy, or make color Xerox that they all will make same painting. If people can differ so much on painting their imagination of village life, then religion, God is a much diverse and broad subject. Monotheism practiced by Christians and Islam is one such Xeroxing/copying.
It is maturity in the Hinduism which says "Poets see the same God in all different forms".
In Hindus, Sikh, Jain, those who follow Confucius or Buddhism, don't have such hard beliefs in most cases which can cause conflict. There has hardly been any serious religious conflict among them in recent history at least.
I think Hindus are tendency to adopt new Gods and accept many Gods, because they might have intermingled in ancient times without bloodshed in the name of Gods. So Gods of different tribes were accepted mutually.
My house owner in Mumbai practices Sanatan Hinduism, his relative who live upstairs to my room, practice Buddhism. One cleaning lady from Bihar told me that, she lives in the premises of a Buddhist temple, she cleans the temple and gets to live in the lieu, but she practiced traditional Sanatan Hinduism. I have seen Iskcon temples visited by Jain and Parsee people. During Covid, RSS prepared food in the premises of the Jain temple. I remember that in my place in Bihar, marriages were held in guest house of a Digambar Jain temple. There was only one Sikh guy in my bachelor class in Kolkata and he followed all the Hindu values, visited temples and gurudwara both. In my home town in Bihar, Sikh were part of Durga Puja pandal organizers, and so were Jains.
I was explaining to a western friend:
"Nobody can live idle, only a true yogi can live still, idle. People submerge themselves into something. Good people submerge themselves in devotion or work. Both are good. Some higher minds get busy in thinking, questioning, and philosophy. Inferior people find recourse in drink or drug or women.
Here yogi is not necessarily a devotee of God. Yogi is a person who has attained control over his mind and his response to sensual objects. Yogi is one who can meditate in complete stillness. He may or may not believe in God. But he lives simple and honest life.
Here an atheist, a Jain, a Shaivite, a Vaishnava, a Sikh, a Buddhist, a Chinese Confucius follower, they all shared these thought control techniques. And the word yogi is used for any of them. Many branches of Hindus were atheist. Jainism and Hinayana Buddhism are more closer to atheism.
So called religion was taken like study of science and psychological aspects. Just like scientific method remain common to all scientists, yoga, mind techniques are common to different parts of eastern philosophy and they shared and enriched each other."
In China Confucius and Buddha both were followed and revered. In Japan, Buddhism and Shinto are practiced within the walls of house. There has never been any conflict. Only religious conflict happened in Japan when Christian missionaries came. Pluralism, tolerance did not come from leftist movements and constitution. Tolerance is natural and intrinsic to Indic and eastern spiritual culture and this has been part and parcel of our culture for times immemorial, it did not require any police, any law, and enforcement. And even with all the constitutional rights and woke culture, Islam and Christianity can't coexist in peace with others, specially with each other. If that was so, USA would not hesitate in taking refugees from Islamic countries on the same scale as it took white from Europe or Latin Americans.
Harmony and respect comes in India from the Vedic poets who saw life and soul in everything, trees, animals, birds. Who loved and saw spirit in rivers, rocks, mountain, trees. Seeing God within oneself and in everyone outside. Seeing oneself within and out everywhere as a part of the world. It manifests in our worship of rivers, multiple Gods in the forms of animals, birds. It forms basis for our tolerance. Such a belief is much more efficient for imagination, harmony. Unlike Abrahamic faiths in which God is an external entity and only Jesus or Mohammed are....their one God....and everything else is false.
Lin Yutang: "Not until we see the richness of the Hindu mind and its essential spirituality can we understand India or hope to share with it the freedom and equality of peoples which we in some lame and halting fashion are trying to create out of this morally and politically chaotic world."
Christians and Muslim supremacist's don't like it. So they brought their dirty religious concepts here. First Europeans tried to invent among us as many religions and religious groups as possible. And then they malign the Indic philosophy, values, culture. Trying to paint us as intolerant, like them. They can't see others not fighting like them, and not sharing the blame. So leftists conveniently say religion is opium and causes violence, but Islam is good.
https://danasurdanu.blogspot.com/2015/03/religion-forced-concept-into-indian.html
Indian people live with so less money, but still remain happy. Here expenses are less. Simple life style, minimalism values help. People don't drink or smoke and meat consumption is very less. 99% people in village never have divorce like things, so that helps. Root cause of minimalism is spiritual beliefs.
Gita and Upanishad, say living beings are soul, rocks, mountains, rivers, trees everything. We are one with them, so we don't need to acquire them. And acquisition is foolish. Because one day we all depart. Although most people don't think that much. But some people do and they influence the society.
Hindu always had multiple views about God, eternal religion etc, and Hindus are in habit of settling it through dialogue, what we consider Dharmic and our views. There were six broad schools of philosophy among Hindus. And we existed with that. Vaishana, Nirankai, Shaiv and many other sects.
But there is a thin line between Dharma and Adharmic. What Islam does is adharmic, asking for supremacy over every other culture, if needed with sword.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKxINZOREus
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One of my emails dated 6 December 2021: I am not heartless. I take only message, I don't accept things literally. Buddha was atheist, so was Mahavir. This is Marxist atheism which is there in west. I allow myself the luxury of metaphors, stories, and variety. It allows me to go into depths of human creativity, imagination, intelligence. I make my life easier. But I always said I don't believe in anything magical. I agree and accept everything Darwin said. Hinyana Buddhism is atheistic faith. Yoga too can be used by both atheist and theist. Samkhya, Mimansa, Nyaya, Vaisheshika were atheist kind of philosophies. And these are common to Hindu, Jain, Buddhist. And I am wise enough to have my own thought process. And to not accept Western Marxist terminologies more than it suits me.
"It is not God that is worshipped but the authority that claims to speak in His name. "And that authority can be no form or God imaginable. It might just be physical processes. It is abstraction. Like say name of a company say Microsoft. Now there is no Microsoft human or animal or bird, or tree Microsoft has no life. But we say things like "Microsoft shares dropped" "Microsoft is doing well", "Microsoft is best company to work in", "Microsoft will go very high". Now who is Microsoft? It is just an abstraction. Same way I think about Hindu deities. They are useful tools.
Western atheism has developed in reaction to against western theism. So it has that acrimony against any form of symbol, tool, metaphor. Western belief is one extreme, western atheism is another, there is no harmony between them. But here human imagination accepts full spectrum of beliefs or lack of it and there is more harmony. That flexibility and harmony, that maturity is there. I can debate with a person who is devout like my parents, and it wont upset them. Like most scientists debate on subject or topic, but that does not become them.
Extreme in the sense there are those who claim literal belief in the Bible or Quran. and then there are those who completely reject the Quran or Bible. There is less room for something in between. Either you believe or you don't.
9 Dec 2021: Symbolism works, and it is good as long as you work with goals in mind, with first principles, as long as symbols don't become a goal in themselves (due to ignorance, inertia of dark mental habits), it works very well.
I am more efficient, my thinking is more efficient and developed when I am writing to real beings, when I am talking in my mind. Abstraction takes little more energy even for a person like me who is very good at abstractions. Brain doesn't likes to waste energy. And to brain real entities, idols, images of god, feels more real. If a person can't imagine something, he will not be able to spend energy on it. If a person can't visualize something, he will quit it.
Just like people quit mathematics, but even a poor man can admire a painting. We like to have images of our ancestors, we like to recall their name. We put flowers on photographs of martyrs. What is in name? Name is another symbol. So according to Islam name should also be haram.
And according to leftists everything which is not related to bread and butter is haram (with convenient exceptions). Reducing a live entity sensitive creature to that is not wise. In-fact many of the Devas' of Aryans were ancestors and those ancestors they elevated with time to the level of Deva (Deva is not God, both have different qualities) So we Vedas talk about 33000 Devas.
Adi Shankara mostly propagated Nirgun Brahman (Brahman without image/idol etc.). Ramanuja and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu propagated Saguna Brahman, (Brahman with symbols, artistic expressions, idols/images). And even though debates and logicwise Shankara was better than anyone except Buddha and Mahavira, but it was Ramanuja who got more done. Abstraction worked for an intelligent man like Adi Shankara. But even Shankara used symbols (as a secondary). As Lin Yutang said something like, "a western man looks into something and thinks this idea will work or not. Chinese wisdom will also require, that idea suits to human nature or not, and then only idea can qualify."
We chant or recite some anthem with feeling without understanding it. What is important, from where does the result come from? Feeling or our active thinking and interpretation, solemnity and earnestness in the sense of meaning about words uttered? Feelings also have solemnity and earnestness, but not the understanding of the meaning. Why does the tape recorder or loud speaker does not become patriot?
Result come from active thinking and implementation; solemnity, earnestness, emotions are power and energy put behind that thinking, like horses driving chariot. But horse doesn't have google map, so horse driving chariot is not meaningful, horse can only take chariot to destination when charioteer guides him into action and in the right direction. Otherwise it is no different from eating for the sake of eating, gorging on a large amount of food; same way praying for the sake of prayer.
A wise charioteer will not starve or kill his horses, he will merely rein in his horses, without diminishing their strength permanently. A wise man/woman will be solemn, serious, and will have emotions; but he/she will not be guided by emotions, instead he/she will use emotions in the right direction. So saguna Brahman was important in the development of Hindu thought. Nirguna brahman is important for the first principles, to not lose sense of reality, to not get lost in your own creation of mind, in labyrinth.
In Islam and Judaism one their God is invisible, second there is no permission to love their God. So it comes in the form of secrecy and riddle; there is distance. In Hinduism love for God is acceptable/normal and love towards Gods is visible and it has been expressed more explicitly. There is freedom to use all horses for the attainment of the pursuit. Song, natures beauty, trees, mountains rivers all have been used to find means and see manifestations. It is much more detailed story.
I was thinking about Sankranti. As Carl Sagan said, only in Hindu books there is a mature imagination of the cosmos. Sankranti is probably the oldest festival of India, much before they learned to read and write. They observed day and night, they thought about day and night in the life of moon, hence krishan paksha and shukla paksha, day and night in life of sun, hence uttarayan and dhakshinayan, day and night in the life of Brahmand, when Brahma dreams and creates a new cosmos which is day in the life of Brahma, then Brahma sleeps, and all the planets start dying, nothing is alive, all is dead. Then Brahma again creates a new cosmos. They didn't know science and big bang, it was just an imagination. It happens that all planets, suns shine bright and then they start losing their brightness, become cold, drawn back towards one central mass, dead again.
So a wise man/woman will not give up emotions, he/she will not strive to become emotionless. But he/she will merely try to manage them. You are allowed to use your imagination, to dream, as long as you know what you are doing. As long as you know what is what. These things are tools, means to attainment. When you lose that sense, and start seeing any absurd imagination as reality, and start rejecting reality, then there is a problem. You are not charioteer, you too have become horse only. That is ignorance. It is not that imagination, dream, metaphors are bad. They are very useful tools.
We can see the result that Bhakti movements made significant contribution in India's (common mans) spiritual development. Advaita is limited to intellectuals. Swami Dayanad Saraswati tried it, but Iskcon is more successful than Arya Samaj. Global effect is that religion in its most developed form can be found in India, more than any place else. There are 36 Gitas, 110 upanishad, 18 Puranas, Aranyaks, Shrutis, Smriti.....add to that works of Jain and Buddhism. Each of the guru in Nalanda and Vikramshila Universities used to be author of several books, and that was there for 1300 years. Buddhism uses symbolism in form of stories, metaphors, abstract philosophies. There are more terminologies related to psychology in Buddhism and Jainism than terms developed in the entire world and field of psychology outside of India. It is efficient and hence man here developed much broader developed detailed imagination. As I believed even our thinking is simulation, our perception is simulation/symbolic. Brain works that way.
Compare to that, so far nobody has probably written any commentary on Quran, to explain it to 21st century and all the centuries in between. Because Muslims take it as final word. They cant allow a single alphabet to go here and there, they like to recite it in pure Arabic as it was in 7th century, even if they don't understand the meaning. There is one advantage, they are less confused. They read only one book, and that makes whole thing lot easier.
Commentaries on Bhagwad Gita, Upanishad were written in every century, to make it accessible to that time and situation etc. In the past Greek and Roman philosophy, spirituality was much more developed.
Another highly developed religion is Judaism. Judaism is religion of one God. But their theology developed in the historical past which was much more diverse, before their kings finally zeroed on one God. There was diversity of views. A lot of work was done for many centuries before it was finalized. There are 24 books in Hebrew Bible. Old testament has 39 books. They did not cut things on the first day. There was some possibility in Islam with Sufis. But Sufis were cut down by Deobandis, Salafis, Barelwi.....Taliban...etc. To the effect that very limited independence of thought exists in present so called Sufis.
My view is that the question of Dharma is open and eternal (as long as there is spirit of Dharma, people are talking and seeking to improve, not when people start political games in the name of Dharma). It will always be debated, as needs change with time and place. It can't be bound by time or person or institution or group. No single person or book can give a complete answer to everyone. There can not be any final word, neither by Krishna, nor by Buddha, nor by anyone else. It will remain open forever. Just like mathematics remains open. Science remains open. Everyone's free to challenge Newton's work. That is the way we can get better.
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Advaita Vedanta: Adi Shankara who wrote those shlokas for shiva and shakti, in Soundarya Lahari and Shivananda Lahari, he himself propounded Advaita Vedanta too.
Advaita Vedant says there is no two, our inner self is one with this world, rock, mountains, trees, rivers, everything that exists. And rest sensations felt by mind as happiness and sorrow, smell, sight, sound etc are temporary. It calls self identity and ego to be delusion. So Adi Shankara knew he was being poetic, seriously poetic. But he didn't mean them literally. Advaita Vedanta also said that there are no two, meaning no God which is different from who we are in inner nature, most absolute form. It says you don't have to look outside for something, some God, you are part of it. It is within you and it is everywhere. So there can't be prophets, holymen, Gods as separate special entities. Everything which exists is part of the same absolute nature, which we called Brahman/Universe (different from Brahman used for person, that interpretation came later). It says that rocks, me, you, cow, dog, rivers these all are part of the same reality. And that perception in which we see things as two or many is delusion (not real), a temporary sensation. So all the reasons and explanations which we use to make differences are temporary in nature and caused by incomplete understanding. It is stronger than monotheism, there is no confusion about who was the special Gods prophet, who would be last prophet etc. But it accepts poetic arts.
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From Anjali Gorg: "It is difficult to uproot a living tree, but a dry one will fall by itself. Sanatana Dharma is a mighty tree whose roots run deep and under whose green canopy many civilizations have thrived. It is a way of life, which has crystallized over thousands of years through a system of checks and balances. Empathy to fellow creations is at the core of it. Anthropologists loosely refer to this lot as “pagans”. On the other hand, organized religions rose basically as political movements and their founders went on to be hailed as Gods. We now hear people saying politics should not be mixed with religion, but the truth is the process had begun much earlier – when the very notion of organized religion was seeded. Expansionism was intrinsic to these religions, and they used all tools at their disposal, including politics, to further their agenda across the world.
India or Bharat has always been a sour grape for them, but they didn’t lose heart and kept improvising their methods to cut the mighty tree of Sanatana Dharma to size. When their swords and guns failed to yield results, they devised a more potent war of ideas. A key part of this was to make the natives feel ashamed of themselves so that they would want to switch to (read convert to) something they need not be ashamed of. The subaltern is gradually fed with the idea that he/she is not civilized and that only the western ideas and ideals can rescue them. Language, gender, food, Gods – all become tools in this surrogate warfare."
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From Quora: https://qr.ae/pGm7Sd
"Because, like most belief systems Hinduism encounters, it simply ate it. Hindu theology is very malleable, so porous and fluid that it can embrace virtually any spiritual belief or practice as one of its own. While many other religions would have confronted and challenged the Buddhist growth directly, Hinduism absorbed it. The question of whether or not Buddhism is another offshoot of Hindu belief is still a valid one. As such, there is little motivation for Hindus to convert to another faith. (As the Christian missionaries quickly found out.) There is virtually no religious/spiritual claim one can make that Hindus do not readily agree to....except for the absolute ones. (Jesus is the ONLY way to the Father; Mohammad is the LAST prophet of Allah, we are THE CHOSEN people of God, etc.)"
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Method
There is a difference in western and eastern approach. In west system is expected to work top down.
Government is everything, has to take care of every citizen, punish crime, support children, ensure care for old.
In East government is ideally expected to be a facilitator. Children are concern of family, family co-operate with society.
Too much about tables, facts, charts. More focus on facts. It seems that they see everything so in mechanical fashion.
But lack of judgement, values. Individual wishes to have all the freedom and only responsible to government.
Thing is that without judgement those facts and figures often seem to lead nowhere.
And they get even facts wrong, because of lack of value orientation. They ask for facts in debates, dry cold facts. And ignore development of values.
Until a person like me can turn their partial facts on them. IQ test is one example, showing ridiculous results, and western over reliance on IQ tests.
Everywhere they tend to do that in non-scientific subjects.
As if those things will get value and respect only when a western will approve it with his data.
They apply their laboratory methods to areas of very different nature. And hold the rights of deciding as they have control over mechanics.
Then only it will be considered legitimate, and worth anything based on scores in that data.
Western people use the same trick of computer popping intelligence based on some questions in debates. They lay some rules and they master those mechanical rules, and start their trickery.
These false Gods have to be replied using their own language and have to be shown their place, humbled down. We have to do so without losing our other faculties/abilities which have not yet themselves to the words and using them for strength.
One of the reasons why I feel revulsion to their idea of one God and atheism.
Seen in their black and white idea of either One God or polytheism/pagan or atheism.
They can't imagine more. It always feels so gross.
Western methods no doubt extremely useful. But are not everything.
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In life there has to be some goal, towards which passion of the man is directed. I see that most people seem to be lost and then they either get busy in chores or look for satisfaction in alcohol or worse things, these are dangerous people, they will cling to anything to make life bearable. That is why I think Bhakti is good and simple. People doing japa of ram nam is not harming anyone, is self contented, whatever work he does, he will add something.
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HOW RELIGION AND OTHER MASS THINGS WORKS
Suppose you have been given an island on the earth and you have no connection to humanity. On that island there are 100 female kids, 100 male kids, men, women, old etc. All of them have no memory of the past. They have to start afresh. And you are lord of that island. The best way to have an order and to organize people, is to tell them everything what they should do. Don't tell them to think, that will create a mess, a civil war. Tell them in every conceivable detail a complete philosophy, which pleases their ego, which tells them how great they are, when to shit, when to eat and who created earth, who created them, answer all their doubts, give them a very simple answer which dumbest kid on the island can believe without any thinking.
If your theory fulfills these boundary conditions, you will have a social order. You will have created a religion. Religion is a perfect story which can control the human mind and take away any need for thinking. People will hold to it, because it will take away the biggest burden of their lives, burden of thinking. You will become the God of those people, if you want to. You just have to liberate people of burden of any thinking, and satisfy their ego. One God or many Gods or no God does not matter. Maybe you are not happy with only yourself being God, then have more God. Whatever you want, communists had zero God.
Remember your story should be good enough for masses to believe, and satisfy their bias; if they start doubting then they will be in tension, and you will be in peril; they will start leaving your herd. You are the shepherd of your herd, you must give them food and water and psychological safety. Masses are your customer, they should be pleased in best way.
Same way corrupt systems work when everything is well set to great detail. Because people won't act automatically to improve the system. People always reduce effort, energy waste.
Do anything, you want to gather people for something, some organization based on some criteria; do not ask them to think and mental work. Give them fun, enjoyment, luxury. Tell them how great they are. In Mumbai I went to attend Institute of Engineers event in 2019, because organizer was my senior. There was lot of nice talk by speaker without any meaning; clapping, lamp lighting and then in the end there was dinner. That is how corruption in NGOs, media, politics, educational systems work in India.
Even very smart people; so called intellectuals fall in this trap. They are more likely to do so, in my experience. They consider themselves elevated, and they have bigger ego which they need to satisfy. They are more likely to fall victim to simplification, bias, bigotry. Story on which they feed is more sophisticated.
Thing is that zero thinking. Nobody should need to think. You may say that it doesn’t work because there is always somebody that does that (thinking). But if that thinking man's thoughts asked others to think then others will reject his thoughts. He will be of no consequence. If he thought on behalf of everyone and brought gifts only (no effort) for others, no extra work then only his thinking will be appreciated by the masses. So they like innovators and scientists who produce new technology. So it works, people will take care of you if you think and put them in trouble, people will put you in trouble, that will take care of your thinking.
Conclusion is that you can enslave the animal within us, by telling it any story which covers everything, explains everything which he and she sees in life. Most of the time that storyteller is we ourselves.
And it doesn't come at a single point of time, we keep creating new stories, passively or actively; that story millions of stories we for in course of our lives, at different time points. We keep creating, storing, modifying, forgetting these stories all the time.
You tell a story with less fact, great detail, that is more likely to feel real, than a story which has great facts but less detail. I was reading Quran yesterday, I was searching references about Jews, 22 references all of them were work of depraved mind, creating hatred against Jews. In Quran, Idolaters have been put on the lowest rung, almost like animals. Then Jews, then Christians, then Muslim on top. But against whom the maximum hate is directed? Jews. Because the Quran goes to great length, 22 references against Jews, giving a very clear picture about why a Jew is vile and leaving no place for confusion. Idolater even if put on the lowest rung, there is not that kind of detail against him, so it is not that clear how much to hate idolater, mostly they would overlook the idolater. So write a fiction with great detail, it feels like more real. Tell a real story, great fact, with no appeal to emotion, no detail story; it wont sell. Leftists do that, they write great fiction.
Kamala Harris might not have faced any problem ever. She was a rich powerful lawyer, enjoying best quality life, consumerism.
But she kept recalling her mothers' humble background, struggle, her fathers black background problems.
Her mother was from strong background in India as we know. How else those days she could go to USA.
She intentionally kept using her race during the campaign.
She accused Biden of racist bigot during debates, now she is VP working with him.
KH is not a victim, she is a bully, who would intentionally use and threaten anyone when she can't get her way with her racist card.
Kamala Harris leads a privileged life. Politicians in the U.S., especially those obsessed with "identity politics" love to accuse other people of being bigots merely for having different opinions or being from a different political party.
It is same in India, powerful people from very strong background use their backward caste and gender
to get votes in elections, and to shield themselves from corruption charges.
I read somewhere: "The disturbing thing about Hitler is the ideas about eugenics that he supported so strongly were also supported by leading academics at major universities in the U.S. and UK, by the so-called "progressives" in the U.S., and by many upper class people. The rich wanted to get rid of any poor person they deemed "unfit", and they applied the label generously. In the U.S., they used sterilization, but I often wonder how long it would have taken for the eugenicists in the U.S. to have moved on to killing, if the camps in Germany hadn't forced the eugenics movement into a reckoning and disbandment."
Eugenics, racism was done by the British as well. They classified Indian people on the basis of multiple races. And they found Martial races; Punjabi Muslim, Sikh, Rajput, Jat etc, these castes were lebelled martial, others non-martial.
And those who were labeled martial, still use that label with pride.
Hitler did a lot of wrong, but he was not a hedonist. He was very serious. He is the biggest victim of false liberalism in the west, which to me feels more like a drama of people who want to flaunt their liberal credentials.
Once during the campaign, Democrats herded together some psychiatrists to go on the news and declare Trump as mentally ill; a tactic that political opponents use to eliminate each other. In Russia they used to confine political opponents in mental institutions.
Hate against Hitler has been put in great detail, it leaves no room for doubt, nobody has to think anything; he would win the prize of most hated human being ever by record margin if a poll is held.
People are hypocrite, they speak all bad against a person when he lost and he is dead. You don't have to think, there is no cost. Instead there is some prize, you will be considered good by shouting abuses against Hitler. But very same people in Germany saw him as a God, liked Mein Kemf. I have Jewish friends, and I agree with them on their views about wrong done by Hitler, but Hitler was not only culprit.
I saw American TV propaganda against Japan, that too in great detail. Japan didn't do anything which other western powers like Britain did not do. Japan did same things on a bigger scale. But all the blame for WWII was put on Japan.
Point is that, to do good, to do bad, to do anything you need to tell a great detailed story. And that story becomes truth for masses. To attack, to defend, to counter, in all scenarios you need to tell a great story.
Doesn't matter if the story is objectively true or not. Now in 21st century your weapon is your story, your oration. You can't fight with swords and guns now, you have to achieve same objectives of defending and attacking using words.
And in day to day life it feels very silly, when people who themselves are victims of some story or their own bias; people who are themselves manipulated, they call others to be manipulated.
Appetite of the rich, is very important for them, so they might like to dine in some famous restaurant in New York, Hotel Taj, Japanese restaurant etc. But is that experience of taste special and only limited to them? Maybe hyenas enjoy more while sucking the bone marrow of a week old rotting carcasses. Maybe vultures enjoy it more. How do we know? Millions of animal species, which of them have more ability to enjoy the taste.
Same with regards to physical experiences between opposite genders, maybe pigs have more of that feeling.
But we upper middle class and rich humans behave as if those experiences exist only in us, special and rational; can not occur in animals, not shared by animals; Or as if when animals enjoy the same feeling it is animalistic feeling; but when we enjoy these feelings become rational, important. It is like a cloth is not just a cloth; that a cloth is inferior if worn by ordinary man, but same cloth becomes superior when worn by someone special.
It is same problem with western people, they feel their biases are not bias, it is rationality. They are perfectly rational, so their feelings and emotions are also perfectly rational. They can't be misguided.
Tragic thing is that people keep copying stories from other people, just based on their gut feeling, their bias; without even knowing. It is like a virus passing from body to body without getting detected. I was thinking once, which virus will result in more damage, one which is lethal but has immediate and clear symptoms, or other which is less lethal, but invisible. The Later one is more dangerous. You can deal with a strong enemy if it is visible, but an enemy weak in itself can be very strong if it is invisible, that invisibility gives it tremendous power. And to strip it down, you need ability for discrimination.
By detail, I didn't mean detailed analysis.
This detail I talked about above is detailed in fulfilling your needs.
What you want on the weekend, that it tells, that on Sunday do nothing pray to God.
That when you are sick you need some reason and it tells you that God will take care of your diseases, you have done some sin etc.
It answers everything; and it takes care of your questions in such a way that you accept it as your own thinking, it passes through your immune system. It is invisible. Doubt may strengthen your immune system or it may become an autoimmune, attacking your own good beliefs also unnecessarily. Doubt without deep knowledge, experience, logic and coherence may not yield results. And knowledge is never complete.
Emotions are vehicles like genes, and reason/useful thinking is path, like mutation.
Reason allows change, intervention.
Emotion is like a car, reason is like GPS.
A car without GPS will reach nowhere.
Usually in society most people have emotion alone, no ability to change, they never change.
Just change goes haywire, change in the right direction only works.
How societies evolve is because there are some people who feel and reason both; these are special people, these become Bertrand Russel, or Emerson.
With reason they can manage and direct their feelings. With reason they develop algorithms to guide their feelings.
And some of these people also take the work of guiding the society.
If 98% people feel in India, 1% being psychopath and 1 % both think and feel.
Of those some will produce output which can be used to intervene in the emotional life of society.
This intervention allows a society to change, when 98% people allow it.
So even though 98% people are not able to reason, those 0.1% who produce useful stuff, they guide 98.9% to change, to a new standard.
That keeps a balance in society.
The religions which have survived, are very robust stories, just like most species might have got lost,
Religion is also like species; thoughts and intuition born in human mind and there can be as many as the humans.
And then there is standardization to reduce the work of imagining again and recreating everything; it makes finding answers easier.
You know everything by age of 12, how earth by created in muddy pit etc.
Else you will be confused till deathbed.
The religions which have survived this process of standardization; religion of Christ or Mohammed or Hindus (and its offshoots) are very robust stories.
Like all standardized things, all religions are mostly based on faith and habit.
Most religions have been dumb at one point of time, such as religion of Hindus, Mohammed and Christ. And have evolved at different pace.
And it takes some intervention by thoughtful men, just like mutation in genes to allow changes to occur.
But like living creatures aim of mutation is to increase survivability.
Thinking evolved to increase survivability, not to become clever and use contraception (for explanation).
Other things such as such as science became symbiotic or parasitic of this instrument and started using them for purposes other than survival and procreation.
Religions are stories are based on faith and these don't allow thoughts which are against its survival.
This faith is master of thinking brain most of the time.
In principle there can be as many religions as number of people.
In some religions (some people or their personal belief) and atheists allow for intervention, their structure is such that they have symbiotic relation to some extent with external thoughts algorithms using the thought process of mind.
Religion of Hindus and its offshoots allows for some change as its base is not one person. So there is some adaptability.
Religion of Buddha is different, it took off from a high platform, when upanishad had already developed a lot.
So it was quite intellectual and highly evolved from inception and is easily adaptable.
It may last longest along with its parent religion of Hindus, before it dies to become a purely philosophical study, bereft of emotional faith.
Some religions like religion of Mohammed, leave very little scope for adaptability.
So it is daily struggle with change.
Its core structure does not allow a person to think, and mutate against its core structure, all thoughts must only be directed to its preservation.
It is pure faith, so Naipaul wrote his book "among the believers."
Core structure of this story has an antivirus which blocks any virus like science or reason from penetrating its control over mind.
And all the Trojan viruses like Salman Rushdie are thrown out.
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Metaphors:
In some cases people can ascribe happiness and sadness to some reason something.
In many, it can be that there is no reason for being sad, there is no reason for being happy.
If you are sad then you are sad; if you are happy, then you are happy.
If you are in some state then you are in that state, there is no other reason.
There is no reason why chicken is chicken. There is no reason why elephant is elephant;
but to these we ascribe rules of karma, and God and what not.
So be careful if you are in some state, some situation, which is undesirable.
If you want to get out of it, just get out of it. Do not look for why, it is not there.
If you examine a lot, and critically, many of the reasons will seem like a façade.
Often there is no prize for slogging, except for those who feel it.
If you have to go from Mumbai to Pune physically, you have to think about taxi or train whatever.
But if you have to do so in your dream or if you are writing a story, why limit yourself to those mediums, why not take fastest vehicle imaginable? Why not go in infinitesimal small time? Why not go in no time ? What binds you. A lot of suffering we suffer in imagination, in our stories. It is a dream or nightmare we live with open eyes. The man who gives up life defending country, same man doesn't give a thing for free in life. If it is the story which makes you suffer then change the story. Why bother even about story? You know that story has to be found. Just change, don't even bother about story.
It meant your state of mind and inability to move to other state depended a lot on story inside your mind. Not on your karma etc. Then if you change your story or have a different story, everything changes. So it depended on what story you could find, what story you could form or what story hit your mind, it can come from others or intuition or from anywhere.
You are not an individual in this way, you are one of the 7 billon balls on the billiard table, and any ball can get energy to get in any direction, by getting hit by another ball or stick or whatever.
If it depended on story then why put any limits on your story.
There object, which is made up of real, and which changes form with time, but that form is real in an instant.
And then there is perception about that object, for the same object there are as many perceptions as the number of preceptors.
So the perception is not one, not unique, how can there be so many perceptions of one real?
So perception has quality of a dream, a story.
And then you can change your story by intervening into it using a metaphor, or another story, or intuition or anything.
So the sages used every possible means and succeeded.
Suppose you have a physical injury, for which you need a surgery, then nothing can replace that; you need doctor, hospital etc.
But if you are hurt or something bothers you in your mind, your inventiveness will be important, you can write a new script in mind.
You don't have to stick to the objectivity of the physical world, because what causes you pain, hurt is also not existing in physical world, it exist in your story.
Probably that is the way a lot of mythology might have come up, because there is a bigger limit to what you can believe, dream.
A lot of problems of economics, social sciences, medicine etc are transformed into equations, for which solutions and insights come from geometry.
To a layman there will seem no relation between geometry and social science.
Same way metaphors, and other tools, imagination, intuition can be useful in solving our philosophical problems.
When we solve a real world problem, we do mapping.
We map the event in our minds and then we solve it there by making various projections and seeing the result.
Our brain conducts a low cost simulation of the problem outside.
To solve the problem, we always take the smallest unit of it, and change it to some simple, easily understandable form and map it to something which can be solved; we map the thing back to the original problem in the real world.
And then we go higher in scale, check our solution for higher scales.
That is the only way a lot of problems can be solved.
So it is good to imagine, dream and go back to the world.
This is the way to solve a problem.
Other way is to work hard.
But working hard and solving a problem both are different things very often.
If you are ignorant, hard work may not help you become less ignorant, often.
Otherwise all the bull who plough our farms would be enlightened.
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Mail to a friend on 27 May 2012
My point on religion is that people should have freedom to read fiction, metaphors, stories; as long as they read it with the label of fiction/philosophy, and not take it literally. That will keep the poison out, at the same time giving people freedom to choose what to fall for, to decide what is beneficial. Like we take a detour in fiction books such as The Godfather, Micromegas by Voltaire.
Like in India our culture is full of metaphors. People create new stories, and there is some understanding that some things have different meaning. They kind of look for the force which represent the creation and many like me believe that there is no such force.
But all this is very liberal.
There has never been any violent religious dispute between Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Indian Buddhists on religious grounds. And even Hindus have many different sects which vary a lot in opinion, but all this doesn't cause dispute. Here focus is more on outcome, values, rather than literal truth.
Alot of people know that all this is just metaphor. So a person out to be judged by how he becomes after all this.
For example, if you mock a God in temple it is not a problem.
But if you eat meat in temple, or indulge in sexual behavior, it is offensive, unacceptable.
It is so common in rural folklore that Gods are criticized for certain things. Like would have been in Greece, that they also criticized their Gods.
What makes Islam dangerous is literal interpretation and very rigid views.
In Ajerbaizan Islam is very liberal.
Here Darwin, and evolution is accepted by educated Hindus, almost 95% people I guess.
Not believing in God doesn't make me other, it is normal. Nobody objects to it.
With this kind of setup, it becomes unimportant whether I believe or not.
No two Hindu can have common religious views, so there no question of literal interpretation.
Just like my Jewish friend used to say "two Jews three opinion"
and Jews have that kind up liberalism now, that a lot of them don't believe in God.
India has a tradition of storytelling.
Aesop fables are not original, they come from Indian roots.
In India we have Panchatantra, stories written thousand years ago, in which all the characters are human, animal, birds etc. Like children cartoons, but these are serious lessons.
Buddha, he always told stories, to explain things, in which he used everything, animals, etc as characters.
You might have known about two Greek epics, War of Troy and Odyssey.
War of Troy has been influenced by Mahabharata, and Odyssey is kind of a copy of Ramayana (story of King Rama) both are Indian epics, known to all of us here. But here you find very intricate details of these epics, and these epics were known in entire Asia on the east of India, such as Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia.
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There is a temple in my office. In one temple room there are deities of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhism, Jain, north Indian, south Indian, East Indian, Sindhi. These God's reflect our conception of God, and there is no conflict between all these Gods, or our conception of God. But the Christian God or Islamic God is intolerant towards every other conception of God. That is root cause of intolerance.
It is very silly that we inherited such a great foundation of harmony, essential for teamwork. but chose to be so narrow to think on caste and even worse only for ourselves and family.
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