Where do you live?

May 26, 2005

Eve69 wrote:

"Social change

A1 The oppressive structures of society are internalized by all of us,

molding our psychological and experiential structures.

If we set out to transform society without having transformed our own inner

structures

we unavoidably reproduce those structures in the new order of things.<snip>"

Have you read Erich Frooms Escape from Freedom?

Sopme excerpts:

"The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical

with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious

any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self."

And second, under the chapter, "Freedom and Democracy":

"This loss of identity then makes it still more imperative to conform, it means

that one can be sure of oneself only if one lives up to the expectations of

others. If we do not live up to this picture, we not only risk disapproval and

increased isolation, but we risk losing the identity of our personality, which

means jeopardizing sanity."

Regards

Lars

May 26, 2005

Eve 69 wrote:

"This kind of judgement is truely ignorant. The yogi gives hope in the truest

sense. He shows the path to cessation of suffering while alive, not just after

death."

But if you do not consider life as suffering but instead as WONDERFUL, what

then?

"This is something that a Christian cannot hope to understand."

Perhaps because christians do not consider life as suffering?

"Moreover, who is to say that this person is not also contributing charitably?

So he knows the time of his death. That doesn't mean he was given the choice to

change that."

OK

>

> Who ought to be our ideal, the christian Mother Theresa or yogis of

this kind?

"Do you have a throne to sit in such high judgement?"

I only asked a question. I think questioning is a good thing.

"The flipside of such thinking is the depression of seeing all as a nihilistic

void."

Perhaps. But that wasn't my intention. My intention was to point out that

perhaps the christianity - or maybe rather West - also has something to offer.

Why is there so many poor people in India but not in Europe or USA?

Perhaps a yogi also could be cultural conditioned?

Regards

Lars

May 26, 2005

No, but does this exactly fit the discussion of religious conversion, politics,

and the creation of new self sustaining structures of fiefdom when the inner

conditions weren't first themselves changed? In this way maybe Mohatma gandhi

was a true revolutionary, no?

To try to be clear.

(1) Maha's hatred of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism.

(2) Why? He says, they serve a raw and shabby deal, which is no way comparable

to Hinduism.

(3) I said that structures of repression are mirrored in new institutions due to

the lack of transformation from within.

(4) You say, individuality should not be given up or it equals losing ones

sanity.

Are you trying to say that more choices are better for the sanity of the people?

If so I would agree. At very least, having many different religions and cultural

groups makes fascism harder to sustain. Was that something like your point Lars?

Or maybe like the Austrian expert on Hinduism and Great Nath says, ethnic

cleansing should be the pogrom of the day? No, not ethnic cleansing, I know I

know. How about merely rewinding the tape, or better yet, erasing it and

recording a new one? All Hindu, All the Time! Now which specific sampradaya

would be the best for everyone. I say the Hare Krishna's - One simple mahamantra