While it is understandable that one should be mindful of the religious sensibilities of others, it is hard not to take potshots at the many oddities of religious thought and fashions
I continue to be amazed at the failure and folly of human reasoning when it comes to deliberating religious and spiritual concepts.
To borrow a term from psychology, if we look for one of the common areas where cognitive disorders manifest the most and in all forms of absurdities, we need to look no farther than popular religion and spirituality.
In the cause of spirituality, it is not uncommon to confound prose with poetry, comparison with contrast, meaning with vacuity, clarity with equivocation, perspicacity with ambiguity, sagacity with sophistry. If all this fail yet, to replace reason and sense with inanity and nonsense.
When on an occasion I raised the point that Hindu Puranas for all their poetic and narrative quality abound in absurd theories about creationism and is the source of many Indian superstitions, the response was that Puranas were meant for the masses and more learned aspirants should turn to our Upanishads for guidance.
Maybe they should have said or meant misguidance, which is what the Upanishads also do in great part by their theory of creationism, which is almost as asinine as that of Christianity or Judaism. Do not take my word for it. It may be interesting to look up the translations of these texts on www.hinduism.org or www.sacredtexts.org. While I agree that some context and meaning may indeed get diluted in translation, I still feel that English language is capable of capturing the broad semantics of the texts.
While we may differ with B.R Ambedkar on many political issues, his assesment of most Hindu Scriptures, especially the Upanishads was spot on. He termed the Upanishads as "Useless metaphysical speculation without any beneficial impact on the Indian society or Hindu religion"
See how this contrasts starkly with the typical notion of the Hindu/Brahmin intelligensia and populace about the grandeur and excellence of our ancient scriptures, which is ofcourse not unusual. It only underscrores how our gentility live in their own ivory tower of religious romanticism and fantasy.
Though it may be argued that Ambedkar got ahead of himself in the virulent condemnation of Hindu social system, the point of the pre-eminence of Vedanta over other Indian schools of thought is itself moot and does provide fodder to the charge that the predominence of Vendanta is evidence of the vice-like grip of Hindu preisthood on the social and philosophical landscape of Indian civilization.
To our hordes of Indophiles who are marching on in their overzealous mission of competitive evangalism with their more misguided Christian counterparts, it does not seem a fit thing to pause and wonder that if our scriptures are so excellent, ennobling and uplifting with supposedly boundless reformative power, why did the Indian civilization suffer social and political decadence and was in perpetual decline for more than 2000 years.
I am sure the spiritual brigade will be ready with some outrageous explanation for this irony too, but that is occasion for another debate and another day.
With that I give a breather to my tirades...Will catch up on another post and subject
I continue to be amazed at the failure and folly of human reasoning when it comes to deliberating religious and spiritual concepts.
To borrow a term from psychology, if we look for one of the common areas where cognitive disorders manifest the most and in all forms of absurdities, we need to look no farther than popular religion and spirituality.
In the cause of spirituality, it is not uncommon to confound prose with poetry, comparison with contrast, meaning with vacuity, clarity with equivocation, perspicacity with ambiguity, sagacity with sophistry. If all this fail yet, to replace reason and sense with inanity and nonsense.
When on an occasion I raised the point that Hindu Puranas for all their poetic and narrative quality abound in absurd theories about creationism and is the source of many Indian superstitions, the response was that Puranas were meant for the masses and more learned aspirants should turn to our Upanishads for guidance.
Maybe they should have said or meant misguidance, which is what the Upanishads also do in great part by their theory of creationism, which is almost as asinine as that of Christianity or Judaism. Do not take my word for it. It may be interesting to look up the translations of these texts on www.hinduism.org or www.sacredtexts.org. While I agree that some context and meaning may indeed get diluted in translation, I still feel that English language is capable of capturing the broad semantics of the texts.
While we may differ with B.R Ambedkar on many political issues, his assesment of most Hindu Scriptures, especially the Upanishads was spot on. He termed the Upanishads as "Useless metaphysical speculation without any beneficial impact on the Indian society or Hindu religion"
See how this contrasts starkly with the typical notion of the Hindu/Brahmin intelligensia and populace about the grandeur and excellence of our ancient scriptures, which is ofcourse not unusual. It only underscrores how our gentility live in their own ivory tower of religious romanticism and fantasy.
Though it may be argued that Ambedkar got ahead of himself in the virulent condemnation of Hindu social system, the point of the pre-eminence of Vedanta over other Indian schools of thought is itself moot and does provide fodder to the charge that the predominence of Vendanta is evidence of the vice-like grip of Hindu preisthood on the social and philosophical landscape of Indian civilization.
To our hordes of Indophiles who are marching on in their overzealous mission of competitive evangalism with their more misguided Christian counterparts, it does not seem a fit thing to pause and wonder that if our scriptures are so excellent, ennobling and uplifting with supposedly boundless reformative power, why did the Indian civilization suffer social and political decadence and was in perpetual decline for more than 2000 years.
I am sure the spiritual brigade will be ready with some outrageous explanation for this irony too, but that is occasion for another debate and another day.
With that I give a breather to my tirades...Will catch up on another post and subject
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