Fw: Answer to quiz/reddy

July 23, 2003

varahamihira , " N.Anna " <anmar@a...> wrote:

> Mr. Reddy,

>

> > Camouflaging ignorance with arrogance is not the answer! "

>

> OK- sounds good to me.

> But, forgive me my ignorance, from your long post I've seen only

>the later- what's your point, Sir?-

In simple words " practice " and " belief " are considered seperate by

heathens. People tend to seek Jyotisha advise irrespective of whether

they believe it or not. Likewise wrt to any set of secular morals.

People may take alcohol; yet they go to temples. It is their

ancestral practice(ishta/kula/graama deva.) It is not because of

their beliefs engrossed in holy books.

Forgive me, Lord!

July 24, 2003

Dear Sanjay,

Let me clarify a bit further:

Think of Secularized Hindoo Indian communist who deprecates hindoos

publicly; yet he goes to local jyotisha to fix muhoortha for his

daughter's marriage. Likewise in some village jatara-s, people drink

alcohol and yet do pooja-s. There is no contradiction-in-terms here.

If we look at those above two cases from the Modern point of view, it

looks ridiculous. And our commie friend thinks that he is modernized

because he is criticizing Hindu's beliefs(No such beliefs exist among

hindoos, if we transcend the current English translations, evokations

of english translated texts.)

There is no contradiction-in-terms here. And even Vatsayana in his

Kamasutra declares that the purpose of his compilation is for every

human to overcome desires by practice, thus one will try to search

for the truth on someday. And Western liberals, Indian Seculars

declare that Indians are immoral based on fragments of KS. Now they

refined this verbiage and call heathens childish, moral cretins(a

liberal cultural pshchology professor at UChicago.)

In reality, Indian Ancients, Roman Pagans do practice the traditions

handed over by their ancestors. This practice is independent of

polemics viz existence/non-existence of deva-s, which tradition is

better for sanyaasis etc. In otherwords, they are continuing

traditions, as well as trying to understand the same by

debates/philosophy.

For a real hindoo practioner, there are no constraints setforth by

any books(now we got Vedas as holy books so says 18th century

europeans; even vaidika practioners do declare that mastering

samskrita/veda-s is not necessary, for example: R`shi Daiva Raata of

Gokarna. Just practice and practice whether it is mantra, yoga, dont

even think of their meanings, their references in text) Does lack of

undestanding samskrita/veda-s make us un-hindoo. I dont think so.

Even we consider naastikas(but not atheists, which has different

history in the West) as another part of learning process.

It is natural for people in West and secular educated Indians to ask

questions like, Smoking cigars and practising his ancestral

traditions is contradiction-in-terms because our secular books say

that practice is embodiment of beliefs(here we need to recall the

history of Christianity debates with then pagans) How come? Beliefs

sprang from Intentions. Intention need an Agent. And this belief is

also, one can say, 'redescribing our actions in whatever way one

can.' Our yagnya-s have no meanings, nor any agent. Our traditional

practices are no way linked with beliefs, whereas our modern texts

reverbarating the truths of The holy science, intentional psycholgy

that presupposes christian theology.

Indic traditions, then Greeco-Roman cults are based on practical

systems, say rituals and its variants; whereas abrahamic religions

based on theory, say theology to undergird the book of nature and

book of God, The Truth!

Regarding Shyamasundara Das debate: Why should he enter into proxy-

debates+derisions if he honestly want to debate?

Here is a relevant thread from a trained philosopher of Science,

which might be useful.

[begin Quote]

About Ritals and their meaning.

1. Consider, say, a ritual like sandhyaavandanam. Here are two

extremes, when it comes to saying what it is: (a) one goes very

deeply

into what Mudras mean, which of the mudras occur in this daily

ritual;

analyses the praanayaama as it is taught; goes into what the

Gaayathri

mantra really means; and so on. (b) The other extreme is an ordinary

Brahmin who performs all the prescribed actions without knowing what

any of them mean.

1.1. When asked, they both give their answers: the one tells us of

the results of his research and the other simply says: " I do not know

what any of these mean. I perform them because I have been taught

that

way. " Question: which one of these claims is *TRUE*? Further, unless

you make a *meta-assumption* about the whether or not rituals *ought

to have* a meaning, you cannot even privilege one story above the

other.

1.2. Consider a third person, who says: none of these actions mean

anything. And when all three perform the ritual, is it possible to

say

of any one person's performance that he is not doing sandhyaavandanam?

1.3. The three have a debate. The third says of the first

interpretation, the following: " I do not deny that you *can*

interpret

the ritual that way, or another way. But that is how *you* interpret

it. That need not be the only *true* interpretation. In fact, my Guru

told me the following: the truly enlightened man does all these

ritual

actions without ascribing any meaning to them. The enlightened man

knows that *he* is not performing any of these actions, does it

without any goal or purpose in his mind; is completely indifferent to

what these actions mean or whether they mean anything at all… One can

learn to become enlightened by doing the ritual the way the

enlightened man does it: that is, by being totally indifferent to

what

these actions are, what they mean, etc. Therefore, the `real' meaning

of this ritual is what it is to the enlightened man: it means nothing.

" Would our traditions allow us to say that this claim is *FALSE*?

1.4. We have then, three claims: the ritual is pregnant with

meaning; the performer is not aware of it; the performer denies

meaning. Our traditions allow us to say that each of these claims is

*TRUE*. (Here is *one way* of how one would make all three claims

come

out true: the ritual is meaningless to the enlightened; since not

everyone is enlightened, one needs to know what they mean; but

because

not everyone can find out all these meanings, one can continue to do

perform the ritual even if one does not know what it means … That is

the `truth' of the claim is `relativised' to the person performing

the

ritual.)

1.5. Logically speaking, we have the following situation: some

thing has meaning (true); there is no awareness of any meaning; the

same thing has no meaning (true). Yet all three perform the *same

thing*. The logical conclusion? That thing is *indifferent to

meaning-ascription*. The `truth value' of the ritual does not change

as the `meaning' of that ritual changes.

1.6. At the first level of abstraction, this is what it means to

say that rituals are meaningless: one can provide multiple meanings;

one need not know any meanings; one can deny all meanings. And yet,

one can perform and be seen as performing the same ritual. (Consider

the chanting of mantras, for instance.) In some senses, our (Indian)

common-sense *preserves* this insight thus: mantras and rituals are

provided with *efficacy*, whether the performer is aware or ignorant

of the `meaning' of these rituals and mantras. This insight does not

mean that rituals or mantras have some magical potency (though this

is

how common-sense puts it), but that they are *indifferent* to

meanings. They just *work* (says our common-sense) because they are

rituals and mantras.

2. Consider the Catholic mass (assuming, for a moment, that it too

is a ritual) as an example. There are *rigid* limits to

interpretation. You might or might not believe that

`transubstantiation' really occurs, where the bread becomes Christ's

body and the wine his blood. In fact, you can even be agnostic about

this doctrine. But the limits of what they `mean' are prescribed by

the Catholic theology. You are not eating the `naiveedyam' you

prepared in your kitchen, or the bread you bought at the baker's

shop.

Nor are you celebrating Ganesha Chathurthi. Some variation is allowed

in interpretation of the `meaning' of the Catholic Mass; but the

variations are circumscribed in such a way that of each

interpretation

it can be said unambiguously that it either `true' or `false'. I do

not, for instance, consider the Catholic Mass as a rital; it is a

liturgical event.

3. One claims that it is his gut-level feeling that rituals are not

meaningless. My riposte is this: it is not his gut-level feeling at

all; but his westernized consciousness that speaks here. This

consciousness makes meta-level assumptions about human actions, what

it means to speak of their meaning, and the kind of beings humans

become when they perform meaningless actions.

4. Of course, we need to develop a good theory of rituals. That is

a task for the future. But there is nothing silly or stupid about the

claim that providing symbolic (or other) interpretations of rituals

are typical of the western culture because it does not know of

rituals. A flag-hoisting ceremony is not a ritual, any more than

scratching your skin because it itches is a rite.

[EndQuote]

varahamihira , " Sanjay Rath " <daivagyna@s...>

wrote:

>

> aià gurursarasvatyai svähä

> Dear Venkateswara

> Your mail was good but a bit confusing as it had terms which were

new to me like abrahic and all that. Now you speak of alcohol and

going to temple?? I hope you are not suggesting that about me. Just

clarifying.

> I wonder if I should accept that *challenge* from Syamasndara.

Maybe we should have ACVA or ICAS as the neutral jury/judge. Let 100

charts be given as a test and (1) we have to pick out those charts

where there is an extra-marital relationship and (2) indicate the

type/brief details of the reationship. The one with the higher number

of correct answers is the winner. You know what the loser does. Is

this what you feel should settle this once and for all. I am also

prepared to accept such a test with K N Rao or any other astrologer

worth his mettle.

> I think that should decide whether someone knows or not. I have

considered you to be very learned and hence seek your advise.

> ~ om tat sat ~

> Yours truly,

> Sanjay Rath

> ---------------------------

> H-5, B.J.B Nagar, Bhubaneswar 751014, India, +91-674-2436871

http://srath.com

> ---------------------------

>

July 24, 2003

Whatever comments I made hitherto are not pertained to Shymasundara

Das vs. Sanjay. I am amused by accusing Gauranga just for forwarding

that Shyamasundara's email. And also he raised valid (wrt the culture

he raised in) questions re: Old dispute Sanjay vs. Gauranga. The

answer to his questions lies in the *epistemological* assumptions of

such a culture that is constrained by secularized religion(cf:

Orientalism, by Ed Said.) Just I am clarifying this. I am not blaming

either one. The fault is with cultural differences that are defined

by west in west for *whole* world. This verbiage, which carries 2000

years of christian theology+history, became our stock-in-trade.

Dont even try to say the amalgam of East which is spiritual and West

that is material would heave us to unknown heights that human

civilizations never reached before.

There is a seperate history for why science/tech is important for

theology!

Regards,

VR

July 25, 2003

Thanks for your reply,

Mr. Reddy

Anna

-

venkateshwara_reddy

varahamihira

Tuesday, July 22, 2003 8:09 PM

|Sri Varaha| Re: Fw: Answer to quiz/reddy

varahamihira , "N.Anna" <anmar@a...> wrote:> Mr. Reddy,> > > Camouflaging ignorance with arrogance is not the answer!"> > OK- sounds good to me.> But, forgive me my ignorance, from your long post I've seen only >the later- what's your point, Sir?-In simple words "practice" and "belief" are considered seperate by heathens. People tend to seek Jyotisha advise irrespective of whether they believe it or not. Likewise wrt to any set of secular morals.People may take alcohol; yet they go to temples. It is their ancestral practice(ishta/kula/graama deva.) It is not because of their beliefs engrossed in holy books.Forgive me, Lord!|Om Tat Sat|http://www.varahamihira