The fly goes for the sore.

[Guest guest]

> > Certianly, this term 95% is being used by Srila Prabhupada in the sense

> > of "most Indians", or "most all Indians", and my experience in India for

> > six years (and not in place like Vrindavan or Mayapura, where westerner

> > devotees have facility to avoid or minimize their contact with the

> > locals) is that this statement of Srila Prabhupada is still true.

> >

> > I would have to ask you this: what is your experience in India?

>

> I have been living in India for the last 10 years. I moved to punya bhumi,

> the land of dharma, with very high ideals and lots of regard for vedic

> culture. I still believe in the same ideals and I still think vedic

> culture is vastly superior to western materialism but after ten years of

> firsthand experience of socalled vedic India I have to admit that I became

> quite disillusioned with the India of today because it appears to be

> almost as materialistic as the west.

>

> Yes, there are still millions of Indians who are by their very nature and

> upbringing pious and devoted to Krishna, but at the same time the

> statistics that Madhusudani Radha presented are definitely factual not

> fiction. I dont know about Vrindavana and other holy places in India, but

> in Mayapura and Shantipur there is a good deal of prostitution and

> alcoholism. Nowadays it is not anymore completely safe for a western

> mataji to go to the Ganga unaccompanied. There are too many shady

> characters and drunkards who are simply waiting to sexually harass a white

> skinned girl.

>

> I have also firsthand experience of the numerous scandals which are going

> on in the Indian village setting. Murder, kidnapping, rape, incest,

> divorce, child abuse. You name it, it is all there in holy India. We have

> experienced it right there in Mayapur, what to speak of in other places.

> Several times have I been approached by indian village girls who were

> desperate to get remarried to a western devotee because they had been

> beaten, cheated on and ultimately dumped by their drinking husbands. How

> many times have I been approached by young Indian men who wanted to get

> married to a western girl or pleaded with me to help them get a visa to

> the holy lands America, Germany or Britain. Once a twenty year old Indian

> told me: "Every Indian youth wants to have a girl friend like Bo Derek or

> Brooke Shields." At the time, I did not even know who Bo Derek or Brooke

> Shield were. Yes, India is still watching Mahabharata once a week on

> Durdarshan (Indian national tv) but they watch cricket, Hindi movies and

> the Bold and the Beautiful on STAR TV every day.

>

> Madhusudani Radha has pointed out that not everything is sweetness and

> light in India. In India,there are wonderful remnants of dharma and just

> so much ugliness side by side.So much so that it is becoming more and more

> hard to see much of a difference between India and the west. That is why I

> do not understand why Madhusudani Radha is drawing so much flack from Kk

> das and Guru Krishna.

>

> As Atma Tattva das (born in India in a brahmin family) used to point out

> time and again: there is western nonsense and there is vedic nonsense.

> Believe it or not,living in India has increased my respect for certain

> aspects of western civilization and I am now at a point where I can see

> that there is actually not so much of a difference between a sincere

> Christian and a sincere follower of the Vedas.

 

Srila Prabhupada told me personally - face to face - that it is better to

worship the demigods than to worship the one "God" of the western

religions... "they are the scriptures of the meat eaters" he said.

 

"Worship of the demigods is following the vedic system & by following the

vedic system you will get gradual elevation."

 

So, at least in SP's opinion there IS a difference between a sincere "C" & a

sincere "FoTVs".

 

Wouldn't it be more acurate to say "nonsense in the NAME of vedic culture"

rather than say "vedic nonsense"?

 

As I understood it; and both Hari Sauri Prabhu & I investigated the

gentleman, (AT Prabhu quoted above); he is full of nonsense... (but he

appears to have a number of good qualities, too...??? Therefore, better keep

a respectful distance & don't quote any "questionable" statement of his).

[Guest guest]

> >Well, perhaps, I think yes.

>

> So, why are you arguing? If you think yes, then you have plenty of good

> examples. Unless, of course, you don't want that.

 

If you have not noticed it already, I am arguing against

your meaningless application of some 25-years old quote

from Prabhupada that you attempted to prove with what

Prabhupada is holding about the contemporary Indian

society. I found that this kind of application/exploitation

of SP's quotes over the decades of ISCKON, has contributed

to almost a kind of a mental invalidity of (some) members.

One can't almost go to a doctor and tell him if the knee

is paining or not, unless "confirmed" and "evidenced" by

some Prabhupada's quote from a Folio.

 

My pointing on some of the present social mess in India

was simply the part of that same point I was making.

 

 

But, alas, you decided in my name, and you are stubbornly

insisting on it, that I am perhaps arguing how there are

not plenty of good examples in India. And hence I am to be

seen as a fly that goes for the sore.

 

As far as my point of looking upon example of "Vedic" India,

I'll try to make it again: The so-called "Vedic men" in ISCKON

are trying to impress the Western World how the solution of

all their social problems would be in getting their women in

"order", just like Indian women are. But all the world has to

do is to have a look at the Indian social mess, and then laugh

on such a "solution". That simple. Either it's not really the

women to be blamed for all that mess in the Western World

and ISCKON (a revolutionary idea, isn't it?), or the "formula"

doesn't work at al.

 

 

 

- Mahanidhi d.