Could we table the Aryan thing....

[Guest guest]

Hi -

 

I've seen other news groups go through all of this and it doesn't

seem to get anywhere. For both sides, if you focus on the past

rather than in the moment and upon groups rather the individual

rather than his or her past or ancestry you can't know that person

now. You can't be open to know their beauty.

 

Hate to say this but we are all an imperfect lot and this is not a

perfect world. We all make mistakes and I'm sure our ancestors had

done their fair share. If you believe in karma then you have to

believe there were and are forces in play that when the occurred the

participants had no idea of the reason nor the repercussions.

 

Reality tells us that there are not absolute good or bad. The

Europeans have their sins and regrets and the Indians have their sins

and regrets. Both have brought wondrous and beautiful things into

this world and likely too their opposite. None of us have control or

had control over those events in the past from our point of awareness

here now. Both sides at one point or another have mourned over the

sadness and unfairness we have witness.

 

We come here to learn more about each other and the Shakti with all

the little Shaktis. I've met to women in my life that have given me

the glimpse of the goddess and I came her wanting to know more.

 

Let us understand that we either come into this world with pre-

judgements about people or groups. Some of this is learned, some is

from misunderstand, some of it cultural and of it is way of our human

and social development. It is too easy for us to have contempt

for "the other" outside our skin and beyond our eyes. When we have

contempt, we think it gives us the right to hurt them, abuse them,

rob, murder or steal. That's wrong and we all know it is wrong.

 

This isn't to say it is not wrong to have difference. Yes, let us

have them so that hurts can be acknowledged and cried over and

healed. But when you have such differences is has to come from

a "higher" plane that understands we are all fallible. That the

other across from us is fallible. That the people in the past were

like us with the same hopes and wishes and were fallible, too.

 

I'm not someone who comes to you to tell you I live what I just wrote

every moment of everyday. There are in justices that make me angry

or sad. If we can talk to one another adult to adult, it is a place

within this group to gather up the fruits of piece, love and civility.

We can't get even or made whole from all our hurts but what we can do

is to acknowledge our hates, differences and indifference and move to

a better place of understanding.

 

None of us can know the other totally but there are place were we can

try to know the other not as strangers but as friends with wonders

and foibles.

 

Again, bad things happened to good and bad people alike. However, I

think if there had been a way for those people to have seen a better

way of handling their lives or the lives of their culture they would

have gone the better way. We are all born in such ignorance and

loneliness. As long as that is the case, there will be unfairness

and want.

 

We need to get come closure on this issue.

 

Eric

[Guest guest]

I don't see this Aryan Invasion post is getting us to any where. And

like devi Bhakta I like to repeat this "Please note that the primary

purpose of this Group is the glorification and worship of the Devi,

and a discussion of myriad related topics. Think of it as a cyber

Devi Temple, and speak accordingly: If you wouldn't feel comfortable

talking about it in your pooja room, temple, mosque, church and

wherever you worship, then you probably shouldn't feel comfortable

saying it here."

 

"We need to get come closure on this issue."

I support this motion. I really hate to do this, but if I have to act

accordingly I will. Please forgive me in advance if I have to!.

[Guest guest]

Teacher:

 

You are entirely correct. My post on the Aryan Invasion Theory

isn't getting us anywhere -- at least not any place that we need to be. My

apologies to all for submitting it in the first place, and for any offense

it has caused to anyone on this list. I do not imagine that I am an expert

on this subject, just a student of the issues involved, and one who seeks to

learn more about it. Clearly, I can best do that elsewhere, and not in a

discussion forum dedicated to matters pertaining to the feminine element of

the divine (in which I also have a great interest). I am also not entirely

unaware of, or unsympathetic to, the position of those who take exception to

what is becoming the prevailing view on this issue in some quarters. I

really have examined it from the "pro" and "con" standpoints and will

continue to do so. However, this was clearly a "can of worms" best left

unopened and there will be no more questionable "contributions" of this sort

from me.

 

As I've explained to Devi Bhakta privately, my point of entry onto the list

seems to have occurred at a somewhat awkward time, and I have blundered my

way into an ongoing "conversation" of which I was not already a part. A

more circumspect approach would have been far more appropriate than "jumping

in with both feet," opinions and all. I am afraid that an Internet

discussion forum is not the venue for the exchange of ideas with which I am

most familiar. I hope that you can pardon my ignorance and I humbly ask

for the forgiveness and forbearance of one and all.

 

"I am far too stupid to become a Buddha. I just hope to be a real monk who

helps others cross to the other side." -- Dogen (and Interested Inquirer)

 

>"Nora" <ashwini_puralasamy

>

>

> Re: Could we table the Aryan thing....

>Sun, 27 Jul 2003 15:05:58 -0000

>

>I don't see this Aryan Invasion post is getting us to any where. And

>like Devi Bhakta I like to repeat this "Please note that the primary

>purpose of this Group is the glorification and worship of the Devi,

>and a discussion of myriad related topics. Think of it as a cyber

>Devi Temple, and speak accordingly: If you wouldn't feel comfortable

>talking about it in your pooja room, temple, mosque, church and

>wherever you worship, then you probably shouldn't feel comfortable

>saying it here."

[Guest guest]

> I don't see this Aryan Invasion post is getting us to any where.

 

I agree. I keep saying that yes there is evidence, and other people

keep saying that no there is not. Neither side has been presenting

any evidence, merely stating that such evidence exists or does not. I

do not have time to write lengthy anthropology articles to summarize

the evidence. Such would not be appropriate here anyway.

How did this start? Oh, yes, I remember. I wrote an essay for my

divinely-female list expressing my disapproval of the Indian caste

system. Devi Bhakta asked me to share it with this list. Someone

asked how the caste system originated, and I repeated the answer that

my anthropologist husband taught to me. Perhaps we should return to

the original topic. Does anyone here approve of the traditional

Indian caste system? Why? Please explain.

 

Sister Usha Devi

[Guest guest]

It all depends on what we are talking of. The “original" or the "traditional".

 

 

 

The "Original" was not inflexible and there was upward and downward or as some

may prefer, lateral movement of people from one caste to another.

 

 

 

The story of Satyakama jabala in jabalopanishad is a pointer to that.

 

 

 

But it is true that caste is determined by birth -not physical birth - not the

lineage of the parents; but the qualities imbibed at birth. In short the

character of the person.

 

Then later on it became "traditional" where the "haves" wanted to deny sharing

with the "have nots". That’s when the stratification became bad and rigid and

mere physical lineage without reference to quality became the basis of

determining one’s position in society.

 

 

 

Now in India we have the situation that the so called "upper castes" still hold

on to esoteric knowledge while the material benefits have been obtained as

"privileges" by the so called "lower castes". It was given temporarily as a

method of uplifting and now they claim it as of right and want it permanent.

This is a reversal of the earlier situation. As the wheel of time turns these

things happen.

 

 

 

In south India in Tamil Nadu the Thevars are considered "untouchable" in the

earlier times of rigid caste system. But they were the traditional rulers (and

incidentally Lopamudra wife of the great Brahmin Agastya and the seer of Haadi

Viya system of Sri Vidya) was a Thevan princess. {Again pointing to

intermingling of so called 'castes" in ancient times}.

 

 

 

Thus the "traditional" caste system that is becoming a relic of the past except

among those who wants it maintained - The politicians who want vote banks; the

westerners to have a stick to beat India with.

 

 

 

Modern Indian children are ignoring the caste system in everything except those

who are not upto the mark and wants to fall back on the system to gain advantage

over their intellectual betters - in education and in the government job market.

Thus a new “caste system” is emerging.

 

 

 

Whether you like it or not; the caste system is not unique to India. Its there

in the west too. But LIMITED movement is allowed among the “castes” in the west.

Of course they are not called castes there, that is all. I do not intend to

elaborate on them.

 

 

 

As long as humanity is there these stratifications would be there whether we

like it or not.

 

 

 

My only request is let us not have fingers being pointed to India alone as if we

alone have “castes”. When talking of castes lets talk about the "castes" in the

west as well. The whites and the coloreds; the haves and the have nots; the

elite and the not so elite; the nobility and the commoner. These are also castes

and I am sure Sister ushaDevi will disapprove of these too.

 

 

 

Kochu

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sister Usha Devi <sisterusha wrote:

 

I don't see this Aryan Invasion post is getting us to any where.

 

I agree. I keep saying that yes there is evidence, and other people keep saying

that no there is not. Neither side has been presenting any evidence, merely

stating that such evidence exists or does not. I do not have time to write

lengthy anthropology articles to summarize the evidence. Such would not be

appropriate here anyway.

 

 

How did this start? Oh, yes, I remember. I wrote an essay for my divinely-female

list expressing my disapproval of the Indian caste system. Devi Bhakta asked me

to share it with this list. Someone asked how the caste system originated, and I

repeated the answer that my anthropologist husband taught to me. Perhaps we

should return to the original topic. Does anyone here approve of the traditional

Indian caste system? Why? Please explain.

 

Sister Usha Devi