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Re: Courage is the Vehicle of the Gita
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To: alt-hindu@cis.ohio-state.edu
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Subject: Re: Courage is the Vehicle of the Gita
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From: vivek@cs.rice.edu (Vivek Sadananda Pai)
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Date: 19 Jan 1995 22:19:38 GMT
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Distribution: world
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From news@larry.rice.edu Thu Jan 19 17: 07:14 1995
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: Rice University, Houston, Texas
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References: <3fk28c$m86@ucunix.san.uc.edu>
In article <3fk28c$m86@ucunix.san.uc.edu>, sadananda@anvil.nrl.navy.mil (K. Sadananda) writes:
|> > Swamy Vivekananda would be proud of them for following his messages,
|> .....> India today needs a thousand crusaders with such blazing courage. It
|> does
|> > not need redemption from sin, but from hunger and oppression, it does not
|> > need lengthy lectures on "Moksha" or the "nature of reality", but
|> > desperately needs clean streets, pure water, food and shelter, it does not
[...]
|>
|> Aneeta - Salutations
|>
|> - excellent article - more refreshing than reading ISKAN broken records
|> that Swami Vivekananda who inspired people was as idiot and a fool.
first a side-note:
Meat eating, on both an economic as well as a spiritual level, is
a bad idea. If you're interested in feeding the poor, given a limited
amount of grains, etc. you can feed a lot more people with a vegetarian
diet than you can with a meat-based diet. Given the fact that there
are starving people in India, not speaking out against the gluttony
of meat-eating seems almost like a sin of omission.
back to the main point:
|> With your permission I will submit the copy to our local temple news
|> letter, if they wish to publish it.
A quote right out of the text if you will:
"India... does not need lengthy lectures on 'Moksha' or the 'nature of reality'"
Sound like a temple that believes that would be out of business, or
perhaps it wouldn't be much of a temple. Of course, maybe I'm taking
the phrase too literally.
|> Geeta does not preach inactivity. Pursuit of Moksha is not antithesis to
|> social upliftment work. MOksha- ultimately that is the purpose of life
|> itself. This does not mean that one should sit down and do watch with
|> agony the decaying society. Geeta only preaches that if you want to jump
|> into action with what attitude one should work.
|>
|> Manava Seva is indeed Madhava Seva.
Consider the following "practical" argument:
A doctor can perform coronary bypasses every day and make a very
good living since so many people eat meat and fail to regulate
their diets. He is indeed helping people. However, the people would
be much better off if they didn't need his "help" and were instead
told to reform their diets.
It puts an interesting spin on what sort of "seva" one should be
doing. Seva that ultimately allows people to keep performing
their bad habits is not seva at all. It's a disservice. You've
become the "enabler" in modern pop-psych terms. Building charity
hospitals without changing the habits of the populace is a bad
idea.
[...]
|> We are supposed to have a voting power and we still elect crooks. In
|> Andhra a communal crook has come back to power through elections. In a
|> way people deserve what they get.
This last statement sounds quite merciless, especially if you're
trying to eliminate suffering.
The whole idea of trying to put man above God seems quite bad
to me. The actions that this kind of thinking starts are ultimately
quite bad, even if they started with good intentions. Without a
proper societal framework and mindset, the "helping" actions you
think are performing can quite easily become harmful actions.
If you want large-scale proof of this, look at most countries after
a revolution/change-of-power. This is another long topic, but I'll
ask you this: are the poorest of the Indians any better off now that
we have political self-determination, or have the evil British just
been replaced by the new evil Indians? Wouldn't it have been better
for the poorest if we replaced the evil in men's hearts with good?
-Vivek
