From: udumudi@vanilla (u v babu srinivas)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: INDIAN CULTURE - subservient?
Date: 23 Nov 1992 10:08:17 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
NNTP-Posting-Host: vanilla.wpi.edu
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ja == J. Ainikkal (J.Ainikkal@massey.ac.nz) wrote:

sri ==  udumudi@vanilla (u v babu srinivas)  writes:


ja> Besides religion should be personal (as Selvakumar puts it). I
ja> do not deny the fact that religion can bring more happiness. A
ja> religious person often does not think - and there is a lot of
ja> truth in the statement 'Ignorance is Bliss'. 

you are associating with word 'religious person' with someone
who follows his/her 'sacred texts' blindly, someone who doesn't
think, someone who does all kinds of rituals without even trying
to understand the real symbolic meaning. and may be, a fanatic.

I am not. I am talking about someone who knows the true sense
of religion, as I have made it clear in the previous article.
I meant to say that a person with a spiritual side would 
definitely be more happy than a material person. and any one
can have this spiritual orientation, a truth seeking scientist
to a politician. it might be more prominent in some.


sri> I think you are wrong in saying ills and evils of their society 
sri> have been reduced because of affluence. they don't have the kind 
sri> of problems which haunt our society, but of a different kind.

ja> But on the other hand they have been very very successful
ja> fighting other evils. No society has doen as much for womyn
ja> rights as the West, No society has as much wealth as the West,
ja> No society has as much 'individual rights' as the West. The

yes we need reform. but, that's a totally different matter. reform
doesn't mean that we have to reject all what's there. and religion
is the last we should throw away. I think, in its reformed form,
religion and the spiritual view it gives to life, is what we have 
and others lack, which is our strong point.

I can't think of a truth seeking, truly religious person who
wouldn't recognize individual rights. having individual rights
and having wealth are two different things. one might be related 
to other in some sense, but the former doesn't follow automatically
from the latter is what I want to say.


ja> While we can argue and say that it was 'ideas' not 'wealth' that
ja> reduced evil in society we would be making a grave mistake -
ja> leaving Marx out completely:( - it was/is wealth that makes a
ja> whole lot of contribution and difference by itself. If India (the
ja> average Indian) got wealthy he/she would have more rights. It is
ja> only with wealth that rights are increased. I am sure U would

take arab countries for example. this is what you said about them:


sri> the arab countries are affluent too. what do you say 
sri> about them? 

ja> The worst example that anyone could bring forward - When it comes
ja> to human rights - their societies are primitive (My opinion).
ja> When it comes to wealth - they 'got lucky' - they were sitting
ja> on oil. Their true achievements in society - Zero (These are my
ja> opinions).

so what did wealth do to them? did everything else follow automatically?
isn't that a good example proving what you have said wrong?


sri> [example of an IIT grad giving up material life]

ja> I have no problems with his quest of happiness - but if he goes
ja> about inciting violence by preaching that his religion is better
ja> than mine  and he goes about 'telling' other people that his way
ja> is the right way and to be 'humble' and search for happiness
ja> spiritually - well then I have a problem.

no he wouldn't. religion has always been used by people for their
quest of power and for commercial ends. they are not truly spiritual
people. their primary goals in life are material. that's what makes
them behave the way they do. and this leads to all kinds of problems
we see in today's world. you should see that it's the MATERIAL
edge in him that is the prime cause for all the evil, and not
his spiritual side. you would be making a mistake if you reject
the true principles some person USES them for wrong [material] purposes.


sri> we need not give up our material life, but it can take a
sri> secondary position in our lives. we need to attain what the west
sri> has, we need to get affluent, we need to make sure that everyone
sri> gets at least their daily meals, but giving up the
sri> 'spirituality' is not the way it should be done. 

ja> Show me a better way - give all Indians the material wealth I
ja> have along with their religious beliefs - I will have no problem
ja> with it. 

I have no problems with giving them wealth. but I have a problem
with asking them to shed their spiritual side. I wouldn't give 
them religion as it is followed now either.


ja> While I can understand that U have your concept of happiness -
ja> I cannot understand why U can not agree with the statement that
ja> there are as many people in the West who are as happy.  

ja> Happiness can be achieved by ones definition of 'happiness' and
ja> ones achievements towards reaching that definition. The Western
ja> concept of happiness is different from a more spiritual one
ja> prevalent in the East. There is NO One True way to attain
ja> happiness. Real happiness is how society defines it to U. In your
ja> case its spiritual.

show me one person whose life is merely controlled by material 
luxuries he strives to gain, and is happy.

if I understand you properly, you have assigned blame to the spiritual
side of our culture which religion gives [not necessarily only 
religion] for all the problems we have today, and you are saying
that we need to get rid of any form of religion. and you say that
one should be totally material and gain as much wealth as possible
in order to be happy.

not just talking at personal level, but the society as a whole should
have that outlook, you say. is that right?

then, no... material societies can never achieve happiness.


ja> Religion has always been a 'tool' to gain power. The only truly

because a tool is used in the wrong way, you don't throw it away.
you tell them how to use it in the right way. what you are asking
for is the very wrong which made the tool look bad -- materialism.


ja> JA> A culture which is deeply rooted in religion - is bound to
ja> be doomed in a material world.  

sri> a material world is bound to me doomed. only a culture deeply
sri> rooted  in religion [in it's true form] will save it. 

ja> Well u have your thoughts - I have mine:(

and I say mine are correct, yours are wrong. that's where it all
started, right? :)


sri> we would be conversing in the Great Indian Language (tm), the 

ja> I am sorry but I am not sure of this great Indian language U are
ja> referring to - is it Tamil(tm)? A rather conceited statement.

no it's not Tamil. neither is it Telugu. don't blame me for something
I never said :)

to explain what I meant -- if you look at history and the cultural
transfusion between distant societies through varied agents, you would
see that it always resulted in better[?] cultures which mutually 
benefited from the transfusion. or it many times even resulted in a 
single culture across all the involved societies. if one of them is 
too superior than the rest, then the resultant culture of all the 
societies involved has elements reflecting the superior culture more 
than any others. 

keeping that in mind, and the tremendous rate at which the transfusion 
takes place in our modern times [compare with that of ancient worlds]
-- with TV and other miracles of the information age, and with a single 
administration over all the culturally varied states of India trying 
to deal with the problems that arise out of this diversity, I think
a common [superior] culture would arise, and shared by all the citizens
of the country. 

I am also of the belief that the present language problems, and other
problems [which are being discussed with a feverish zeal on the net
now a days -- Tamil vs Hindi, Dravidian vs Aryan etc.] is only a 
prelude to the resulting fusion.

you can look at what happened in north India [to all the present days'
lesser known languages and lesser known customs which were prevalent 
in earlier times] to understand what's happening, and to get an over 
all [grand] view.

though I am not sure if it means a single language, though I am
not sure if different languages could be used by components of
a single culture, I have a hunch it would all give rise to a new
language -- Great Indian Language :)

a historical perspective applied to the present -- I call it :)

but, that's another story, though interesting. we can come back
to that later. lets talk about materialism for now :)


sri> day the world learns from history and takes to its original
sri> spiritual base -- I am waiting for that day. 

ja> And I dread that day - It would be moving backward a 1000 years
ja> (IMO).

I agree with your opinion -- it's going 1000 years, naah, 3000 years
behind. but wait, I am not saying that we need to get primitive. imagine 
how the world would be if we undid all the ugly [purely] material 
sides the cultures have developed. 


ja> John Ainikkal
ja> I think - Therefore I am.
ja> 'Aotearoa' - Land of the long white cloud

                                                       -- srinivas
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian