What is Enlightenment?

Spirituality Religion
#221

[QUOTE=The Scales;58638]YOU ARE RIGHT.

EVERY LAST WORD.

ITS AFU over here and it is infecting the whole world.

I hesitate to use the word Culture. There has to be a better word.

Sociological Condition

Sociological Status

When I think of culture I think of Art, Film, Music, Museums. Etc . . . Thats culture to me.

What do you think?[/QUOTE]

You are right, the word “culture” has to be used loosely when talking about Western culture. You are right culture is about art, music, poetry, philosophy. However, just as you can have good and bad culture, you can have good and bad art, music, poetry and philosophy.

Dharmic culture is nothing more than the most perfect expression of cultural forms. The law of dharma is very simple: what is the natural order of something. There is a natural order even in relationships.

Teacher: The teacher imparts education and wisdom to remove ignorance from you and to make you more knowledgable. Thus the teachers dharma is to dedicate their life to their students to make sure they learn well. In the West teachers do not at all dedicate their life to the students, but rather on making money(you have to pay extortiant fees to study) and they could not care less about your personal development, your just a number in the class. Professors run away from you if you try to get help from them and most of them are only interested in their own publications and books. It was a wake up call to me when students and teachers went out partying together and the teachers were drinking. Students talk to their teachers like they are talking to their mates. The respect is missing.

In dharmic culture the teacher is not only respected, but considered to be the highest form of god because the teacher imparts knowledge and liberates you. We surrender to the teacher/master completely and obey his/her higher wisdom. The teacher is involved in all aspects of your life and becomes like a second parent to you. Your personal development becomes their duty. You are their responsibility.

Parents: The parent is there to bring up the children in their early years. To show them love and affection until they start school and to impart to their children character and nobility so the children are inspired by them and respect them. The mother is there to nuture the child and the father is there to protect the child and discipline them. In the West most children are bought up in dysfunctional families where they witness domestic violence, divorces, single parents changing their boyfriend/girlfriend all the time. They learn not to respect their parents, start to call their parents by their names and resort to rebellion, drugs and look forward to moving out. In later years their parents can even become like strangers to them. Heck, most of the time it is the parents who throw you out anyway when you’re 16-18 - even if you end up on the streets!

In dharmic culture the parents are never strangers, but always remain authority figures in your life and have a huge say in your life. The children obey them and respect them. The mother looks after the house and the children and the father earns. Single parent families are rare, as a child needs both its mother and father to get the right balance of energies. Children bow and touch the feet of their parents and ask for their blessings for all undertakings. Calling your parents by their name is unthinkable, rather we call them mata shri, piti shri(most respected) we never talk to them like we are talking to friends.

In both case it does not mean we will blindly obey our teachers and parents, rather we will tend to trust their wisdom. They too have a dharma of listening to their children and catering to their needs, and if they are not practicing their dharma properly, the child has a right to point it out.

#222

Again, what do you know of India besides what Western media shoves down your throat?

Its funny that you said this. Since you are living in America, I’d be suspicious about your perception about India. But dont get me wrong, I do endorse you to learn more about your own history rather than relying upon mere speculations and back-patting sessions with your fellow Hindus.

Do you forget our colonial history so easily when barraged by attacks on Western culture?

No. But I will tell you what I told to Surya earlier: if you fight fire with fire, there will be more fire in the end.

It appears that you are just as lacking as SD in cultural knowledge.

Maybe. Leastways, I extensively study my own culture good enough to criticise.

[QUOTE=Nietzsche;58639]
But what about your illogical and obtuse comparisons?[/QUOTE]

What about them? Since there isn’t any :rolleyes: And I’d rather if you don’t use my own word against me, for it appears to be out of its context, per se.

You said fashion choices also vary greatly in India. Well then show me some. Show me some that isn’t traditional. If you show me traditional outfit, then you do need to count the traditional western outfits worn before industrialism. Don’t turn it into a pissing contest dude. Seize the theme here!

I criticise the stereoytpical examples Surya has shown. For example, why do you think he chose bikini models, instead of the image of a normaly day outfit of a Western woman? He’s making the West satan here, pretty much what Khumeyni is doing it in Iran. After all I know that you are a proud Hindu and you don’t want to be put in same category with Muslims :stuck_out_tongue:

#223

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;58642]Clash of civilisations: Indian music vs Western music

I will make it clear I am not a cultural relativist. While most people try to be politically correct when comparing cultures and religions, I am not at all. My central thesis is that dharmic civilisation is the most superior in every area and it is must take over the global Western culture for humanity to progress.

The following comparison is by an expert in Indian and Western classical music:

Dr. Rabindranath Tagore who was well familiar with both the systems, explained the difference as follows: "The world by daylight stands for Western music which is a flowing concourse of vast harmony, composed of concord and discord and many disconnected fragments. And the night world stands for Indian music: one pure, deep and tender raga. Both, touches our heart, and yet both are contradictory in spirit. But this is natural. Nature, at the very root is divided into two, day and night, unity and variety, finite and infinite.

Indian men live in the realm of night; we are inspired by the sense of the One and Infinite. Indian music draws away the listener beyond the boundaries of daily joys and sorrows and takes us to the solitary space of renunciation which exists at the root of the universe, while Western music leads us to dance through a limitless rise and fall of human joy and grief.

Indian classical music basically stirs our spiritual sense and discipline - a longing for realization of the self salvation. Singing is a worshipping act and not an intellectual exhibition of mastery on the technique of a raga. In Western culture, singing is a formal and secular exercise, and does not involve piety or devotion as compared to Indian music

The teacher-student (Guru-Shishya) tradition in Indian music is responsible for the deep dedication and attachment of the student to the teacher. In the West, a music teacher is taken as a hired person who teaches lessons and there is no deep attachment between the teacher and student.

Like Western music, Indian music too is based on melody and rhythm, but it has no foundation of harmony which is so significant in Western music. Indian music is "modal" - based on the relationship between the permanent individual notes known as tonic, with the successive notes. This is the reason why Tanpura (drone) is played in the background of Indian music which reminds one of the tonic notes.

The Indian classical music system is horizontal; one note follows the other, while the Western music is vertical; many notes played at a time. Yehudi Menuhin, the noted musician, highlights the differentiates both systems by describing Indian music as: "for appreciating Indian music one has to adopt totally a different set of values... one must orientate oneself and at least for the concerned period, forget the passing of time and just sink into a kind of thematic, almost hypnotic trance. The rhythmic and melodic features of Indian music that are repetitive, acquires an extraordinary charm and fascination... despite the domination of this hypnotic mood's domination, which is an Indian music characteristic, actively frees the mind."

The place of "composition" in these two systems is notably different. In Western music, the music is first composed by the composer and arranges it in notation: then the musicians play this composition under the guidance of a music conductor. Here improvisation hardly takes place, and the performance value lies in the uniformity and the pre-determined conduct of tone and music speed (tempo). In Indian music, while the melody grammar and rhythm is fixed, the ingenuity and skill of the musician lies in his creativity and improvisation, especially in mood evocation and rasa of a particular raga.

In this context, an international musicologist has written: "In the West, solid blocks of music are constructed. After carving out like building stones, the seven degrees of diatonic scale, lined up and placed on top of each other with cleverly worked out harmony and counterpoint. In this way fantastic edifices in sound are erected.

In Indian classical music, no one can think of dividing sound into blocks; instead it is refined into a wire-thin thread. The sound is stretched out to refine it to an extreme point of delicacy... No standard materials, no building of three or five floors, but just like silk thread which unfold and rises and falls and evokes a world of sensations and feelings."

In music of India, melody and rhythm offer a variety of subtleties, which is not possible in Western music. Indian notes are divided into units called shruties (22 microtones), whereas Western music consist of 12 semitones. The microtones are more subtle than semitones. These microtones adorned with gracetones (gamakas) create a magical effect.

Western music has the capacity of producing many feelings and moods. While Indian music, has the capacity to produce a principal emotion or a mood in a raga. An Indian musician improvises with his own creative genius within a raga's framework, but in Western classical music, except in jazz, such an improvisation is inconceivable.

The comparison highlights the crucial difference in the cultural philosophy and values between Indian and Western culture. Indian culture emphasises one to go inwards, to aspire to the divine and penetrate into deeper and deeper reality, to maintain harmony and order in relation to the entire cosmos because everything is interconnected and everything is connected to consciousness. Hence Indian music also has a psychological theory of aeshetics underpinning it(known as theory of rasa) In contrast, Western culture emphasises going outwards, to aspire for material perfection and to treat everything as separate and individual. This can be seen in every cultural form, including of course as we can see from the above article music.

Indian music is not just music, but it is a holy and divine act and treated as sacred. Hence why music is practiced with the same intensity as a yogi practices for enlightenment. In fact it is said one can attain enlightenment from the path of music itself. It is studied under the tutelage of a guru and requires absolute dedication and respect. It is clear that the founders of Indian music penetrated very deep into the vibrations of music as each notes of consists of 22 microtones, making it a more more subtle and refined than Western music/

Again you will find this feature repeat throughout all Indian cultural forms. All of them tend towards divinity and spiritual realization. Is that surprising when even a simple act such as greeting one another has a divine message?

This is why there is simply no comparison between Indian culture and Western culture. One is divine, spiritual(Deva) and the other is material(Asura) As the divine and spiritual is a much deeper reality than the material and the very foundation of existence towards which humanity is evolving, it is blatantly clear then that Indian culture is superior and more advanced. Therefore one day Western culture too will become exactly like Indian culture. It is inevitable and it already happening to an extent: 15-20 million people say Namaste to one another, do salutations to the Sun and chant OM ;)[/QUOTE]

Your writing is incoherent. First Indian music, then Western culture? Ok, we get it you want to prove India's superiority :stuck_out_tongue:

I acknowledge the complexity of Indian music and that it consists of 22 tones. But it is a system based on linear complexity, which means it does not employ harmony and counterpoint. It is however good for improvisation, as Jazz guitarist John McLauglin used to play with a band called Shakti in Mahavishnu orchestra.

Yet, on the other hand, I need to remind you that it is your own cultural music. It has its own superiorities and inferiorities, and just because it is more complex than Western music in some respects doesn't mean that it is all superior to Western music. For I told you above, Indian music lacks harmony and counterpoint usage, which is employed insofar as dodecaphony (12 tone music).

Thus this comparison is rubbish. Many of my westerner friends find Indian music rather tiresome to listen to.

You claim not to be a cultural relativist, and I think this is also quite strange. Being unrelativistic in this world, in my perception, is rather an attempt to swim against the current. You should read some Chaos theory before running through your cultural un-relativism.

Open another thread named "Hindu Superiority" in some other section, if you wanna continue with these comparisons. There you can freely write and trust me I'd be very much interested in reading your own.

But not here. It has long strayed from its original purpose again...

#224

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;58636]Namaste Nila,

With all due respect I am not comparing apples and oranges, I am comparing one culture to another culture. This is a valid comparison. Now, it so happens that our culture is still very much based on its classical roots, whereas Western culture has veered off considerably from its classical roots. This is actually a theme of our culture that we preserve ancient traditions and that is we are the only civilisation to have preserved a 10,000 year old culture in more or less the same form. Even the lifestyle of most Indians(who live in rural India) has changed little compared to the Indus valley days.

Why is this comparison important? It is important because we are living in a Western world today, it’s culture of MTV, sex, drugs and rock and roll, Mcdonalds and its values of individualism and systems of capitalism have spread like a virus everywhere on the planet. It is given legitimacy by calling it “modern” this suggests Western culture is superior because it is the modern development of human culture and all previous cultures on this planet are primitive. Read Q’s posts carefully, this is exactly what he is saying.

Western culture is responsible for the breakdown of families, for the vast social inequality in the world, for drug traffiking(since the Opium wars) making the current generation stupid and shallow, and polluting this planet, destroying it ecosystems and endangering the species of this planet. To put it bluntly, Western culture is a virus that is destroying humanity on this planet. It has spread even to the dharmic countries and is taking them over(divorce rates in India are climbing in proporation to Westernization)

This is why I am calling a spade a spade and bringing it to the attention to rational people that we need another culture - a dharmic culture. I am not the only one to come to this conclusion, but many Western intellectuals have suggested this. Hence, why it is important to show through rational dialogue that dharmic culture is superior and it the dharma way we need to adopt to bring peace and harmony to this planet.

Have you ever asked yourself why is everything in dharmic culture so much more advanced, rich, complex and textured than Western culture? Like for example Sanskrit, why is our language Sanskrit so advanced that it even gives competition to modern computer languages? Why have Western intellectuals called our philosophical systems the most “advanced metaphysics the human has ever conceived” Why is Yoga and Ayurveda so sought after, to the extent attempts at plagiarism are made. Why do Western astrologers who learn Vedic astrology speak in praise of it? Why do pionnering physicists in the West look to Vedic science? The answer is very simple: our culture is more advanced. The West is a backwards culture. This point needs to be understood, especially by Indian youth today seduced by Western culture. There has to be total renaissance of Vedic culture on this planet.[/QUOTE]

Dear Surya,

I have a hunch that this discussion won’t be going anywhere else but in a circle if we continue so my response will be no more than this:
It is my belief that it is impossible to [B]judge[/B] another Culture’s cultural expression based on one’s own subjective understanding of it. As in, the basic viewpoint of cultural expressions of the “West” differs so much from the basic viewpoint of cultural expressions of the “East” that there is no logic in trying to find the better of the two when it comes to specific areas such as fine or classical arts. It is interesting to compare scales to ragas, but since they are not the same thing, how can you judge any one of them? (Keep in mind that the diatonic scale is the most basic one you can find in the “West” and that microtonality exists here as well. And so on and so on.)
We can make discernments and comparisons, we can interact and become inspired or stick by our traditions while respecting those of others, but judging? I have a difficult time seeing that such a perspective could lead to any good in the long run.

Here is something beautiful from the EastWest.

Yours,
Pernilla
Relativist by deafult and upbringing, and proud of it :wink:

#225

It is my belief that it is impossible to judge another Culture’s cultural expression based on one’s own subjective understanding of it.

Not my belief :stuck_out_tongue: I do not have a subjective understanding of Western culture. I have been born and bought up in Western culture and 30 years of experience of it. I have been educated in Western education and studied Western literature, philosophy and culture. I have also been bought up in a traditional dharmic family and exposed to dharmic culture. Although, my real appreciation for it came after 10 years of immersing myself into it.

Can they be compared? Yes, of course they can be and they do get compared quite regularly. You can compare using various measures: drama, poetry, history, values, morals, music, philosophy, language, cuisine, clothes. You are comparing drama with drama, poetry with poetry, history with history, values with values, morals with morals, music with music, philosophy with philosophy, language with language, cuisine with cuisine and clothes with clothes

As in, the basic viewpoint of cultural expressions of the “West” differs so much from the basic viewpoint of cultural expressions of the “East” that there is no logic in trying to find the better of the two when it comes to specific areas such as fine or classical arts.

The difference is called being backwards :wink: The West is backwards. It will become more Indian-like in the future when it become more civilised :stuck_out_tongue:

#226

I rather want to prove the West is backwards simply to bust the myth of Western superiority which most people just assume to be true in order to rid this planet of this culture, so we can rebuild the world on a dharmic foundation

I acknowledge the complexity of Indian music and that it consists of 22 tones. But it is a system based on linear complexity, which means it does not employ harmony and counterpoint. It is however good for improvisation, as Jazz guitarist John McLauglin used to play with a band called Shakti in Mahavishnu orchestra.

Rather, it is based on a sequence of notes to create melodies(raagas) which is accompanied by various instruments adding to the melody. Western music on the other hand is based on “harmony”(such a misnomer) where disparate chords are added to a sequence of notes. Harmony is built up by every instruments doing their own thing and skillfully orchestrated. This is very much in consonance with the clockwork and mechanical universe, where every cog is a separate part does its own thing to make the entire mechanism work.

Indian music however works to create a primary rasa(mood) using the bhavas(emotions) and all instruments rather than doing their own thing, all work together to enhance the rasa. As Indian music has much more subtle scale it penetrates deep into the vibrations of sound. Like all things Indian, it tends inwards to deeper reality. Most Indian music is spiritual and about inducing a state of peace and tranquility to create a meditative state.

Yet, on the other hand, I need to remind you that it is your own cultural music. It has its own superiorities and inferiorities, and just because it is more complex than Western music in some respects doesn’t mean that it is all superior to Western music.

There is no inferiority :stuck_out_tongue: Indian music is more advanced. Anything which tends inwards to spirituality is more advanced. This is how evolution works: organisms gradually develop over time and become more and more conscious and when they attain human form they have the ability to introspect, look within, contemplate. What separates a superior human from an inferior human is the ability to go inwards. The deeper you can go the more evolved you are.

Thus this comparison is rubbish. Many of my westerner friends find Indian music rather tiresome to listen to.

Many of my Western friends can’t stand Beethoven and Mozart and would rather listen to Riana, “Oh nana, whats my name” Your point :wink:

You claim not to be a cultural relativist, and I think this is also quite strange. Being unrelativistic in this world, in my perception, is rather an attempt to swim against the current. You should read some Chaos theory before running through your cultural un-relativism.

Chaos theory is rubbish :stuck_out_tongue: I am an absolutist. The ultimate reality is pure intelligence and consciousness. This is what keeps the universe coherent. Take out of the intelligence and it will fall apart and become chaos. It is impossible for any kind of chaotic system to create irreducibly complex system. Complexity and order are due to the presence of intelligence.

Open another thread named “Hindu Superiority” in some other section, if you wanna continue with these comparisons. There you can freely write and trust me I’d be very much interested in reading your own.

I was going to do this but you previously said you were enjoying this discussion and barely anybody really is talking about enlightenment here anymore, so I decided to continue with the off-topic pissing contest started by Q. However, I now shall start a separate thread.

#227

“The West is backwards. It will become more Indian-like in the future when it become more civilised”

If you mean by “backwards” that it remains primitive and undeveloped, then it is not something unique to the West. Both the East and West are still lagging behind in their own ways. India in particular, although it has a rich history of exploration into every dimension of man’s being and has taken the science of the expansion of consciousness to it’s very innermost depth, it has remained in a state of great material poverty. That was inevitable for a culture which has for centuries demanded that the only way to liberation is to renounce the world and live as an ascetic. The West has developed tremendous outer science and technology, but has remained ignorant as to the inner dimension. So the difference between the East and West is simply the difference between one culture which has emphasized the inner, and the other which has emphasized the outer. But neither the East nor the West has managed to bring both together into a harmonious balance. If man is to come to know of a certain integration between his inner dimension and his outer life, then this kind of balance is absolutely necessary.

#228

I’ve just decided to implement an Oasis-only music theme at my new yoga studio. That should shake things up a bit.

#229

Its funny that you said this. Since you are living in America, I’d be suspicious about your perception about India. But dont get me wrong, I do endorse you to learn more about your own history rather than relying upon mere speculations and back-patting sessions with your fellow Hindus.
Isn’t it also funny that I visit India every now and then and have numerous relatives living in India who send us photos and videos often?

I endorse you to learn more about Indian history and culture rather than relying on Christian/White-supremacist run Western media. Mmmk?

And to think that I once thought you were unlike any Westerner I have met…should have known most of you are all the same. White bigots and supremacists.

No. But I will tell you what I told to Surya earlier: if you fight fire with fire, there will be more fire in the end.
That is sometimes what must be done in a world run by white/Western supremacists and Christian bigots.

Maybe. Leastways, I extensively study my own culture good enough to criticise.
Such hypocrisy. You don’t know the least bit about Indian culture and yet you criticize it.

At least I have experienced both worlds enough to criticize and respect both, unlike you.

What about them? Since there isn’t any :rolleyes: And I’d rather if you don’t use my own word against me, for it appears to be out of its context, per se.
There are many.

You said fashion choices also vary greatly in India. Well then show me some. Show me some that isn’t traditional. If you show me traditional outfit, then you do need to count the traditional western outfits worn before industrialism. Don’t turn it into a pissing contest dude. Seize the theme here!
You said that I don’t know much about Indian culture besides what my fellow Hindus tell me. I guess that makes me incapable of informing you about my culture. :stuck_out_tongue:

Its about time Westerners learn to discover things for themselves. After all, how would a uncivilized barbarian like me know anything that what white men don’t? :stuck_out_tongue:

I criticise the stereoytpical examples Surya has shown. For example, why do you think he chose bikini models, instead of the image of a normaly day outfit of a Western woman? He’s making the West satan here, pretty much what Khumeyni is doing it in Iran. After all I know that you are a proud Hindu and you don’t want to be put in same category with Muslims :stuck_out_tongue:
He chose bikini examples in order to make apparent the rampant sexuality and lack of morality in the Western world in addition to the “inferior” nature of Western clothing.

Well, it IS, to date, the most destructive, intolerant, and culturally backwards civilization. :stuck_out_tongue: You’re too butthurt to realize that.

P - Political
E - Economic
R - Religious
S - Social
I - Intellectual
A - Artistic

I’m sure that even you are not bigoted enough to see that 4/6 of those in Western civilization are inferior.

The last two (whoops, I gave it away) are what I believe is neither superior or inferior when comparing any civilization.

This is, of course, assuming you DON’T consider the hundreds of millions of deaths, rampant poverty, and ignorance caused by your civilization “godly.”

You wouldn’t want to be put in the same category as demons now, would you? :stuck_out_tongue:

Sheesh, with supremacists like you accounting for the majority of the Western world’s population, it is no small wonder the Muslims can’t resist blowing you guys up.

Member was confined to the Religion forum for this post. - Admin - 04/29/11 2:29pm Central

#230

Your writing is incoherent. First Indian music, then Western culture? Ok, we get it you want to prove India’s superiority

Yep.

I acknowledge the complexity of Indian music and that it consists of 22 tones. But it is a system based on linear complexity, which means it does not employ harmony and counterpoint. It is however good for improvisation, as Jazz guitarist John McLauglin used to play with a band called Shakti in Mahavishnu orchestra.

Yep. That doesn’t necessarily mean its inferior.

Yet, on the other hand, I need to remind you that it is your own cultural music. It has its own superiorities and inferiorities, and just because it is more complex than Western music in some respects doesn’t mean that it is all superior to Western music. For I told you above, Indian music lacks harmony and counterpoint usage, which is employed insofar as dodecaphony (12 tone music).

Yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean one is inferior to the other. I disagree with SD in this regard.

Thus this comparison is rubbish. Many of my westerner friends find Indian music rather tiresome to listen to.

And yet, those Westerners who listen to classical music are called “gay” and “retarded.” Most Westerners find classical music rather tiresome to listen to.

Your civilization fails in respecting its traditions.

Remember, this is coming from a guy whose favorite kind of music is Western classical music.

You claim not to be a cultural relativist, and I think this is also quite strange. Being unrelativistic in this world, in my perception, is rather an attempt to swim against the current. You should read some Chaos theory before running through your cultural un-relativism.

Open another thread named “Hindu Superiority” in some other section, if you wanna continue with these comparisons. There you can freely write and trust me I’d be very much interested in reading your own.

But not here. It has long strayed from its original purpose again…

Yep.

#231

[QUOTE=AmirMourad;58719]“The West is backwards. It will become more Indian-like in the future when it become more civilised”

If you mean by “backwards” that it remains primitive and undeveloped, then it is not something unique to the West. Both the East and West are still lagging behind in their own ways. India in particular, although it has a rich history of exploration into every dimension of man’s being and has taken the science of the expansion of consciousness to it’s very innermost depth, it has remained in a state of great material poverty. That was inevitable for a culture which has for centuries demanded that the only way to liberation is to renounce the world and live as an ascetic. The West has developed tremendous outer science and technology, but has remained ignorant as to the inner dimension. So the difference between the East and West is simply the difference between one culture which has emphasized the inner, and the other which has emphasized the outer. But neither the East nor the West has managed to bring both together into a harmonious balance. If man is to come to know of a certain integration between his inner dimension and his outer life, then this kind of balance is absolutely necessary.[/QUOTE]

No, this is not why India is materially lacking today.

If you were truly enlightened, you would not make such an ignorant comment.

A truly enlightened person does not let mere perceptions and biases pollute assertions like these.

#232

Enlightment is when you are able to see beyond maya. The veil is lifted, and you see. And giving this example shows why it is called enlightment, because just as in case of being veiled, and unveiled, you pass from darkness to light, through enlightment you pass form limited consciusness to a more extended one. So, enlightment is an extention of our waking consciusness to a so far unseen realm, where usually we go unconsciously when we fall asleep or we die.
Prety much, enlightment is passing the threshold, experiencing the higher nature of the world and ourselves. Does it happen once and than it lasts forever, as a state ? No. Does enlightment have degrees ? Yes. Some only expereince the immediate vital surroundings. Naturally, one meets one’s own higher aspects first. But through discipline and further development, one becomes able to get rid of these, and rise from the individual to the universal.

PS. Hint: Enlightened persons rarely post on this forum :slight_smile:

#233

[QUOTE=Hubert;58790]Enlightment is when you are able to see beyond maya. The veil is lifted, and you see. And giving this example shows why it is called enlightment, because just as in case of being veiled, and unveiled, you pass from darkness to light, through enlightment you pass form limited consciusness to a more extended one. So, enlightment is an extention of our waking consciusness to a so far unseen realm, where usually we go unconsciously when we fall asleep or we die.
Prety much, enlightment is passing the threshold, experiencing the higher nature of the world and ourselves. Does it happen once and than it lasts forever, as a state ? No. Does enlightment have degrees ? Yes. Some only expereince the immediate vital surroundings. Naturally, one meets one’s own higher aspects first. But through discipline and further development, one becomes able to get rid of these, and rise from the individual to the universal.

PS. Hint: Enlightened persons rarely post on this forum :)[/QUOTE]

Still true

#234

[QUOTE=Hubert;58790]Enlightment is when you are able to see beyond maya. The veil is lifted, and you see. And giving this example shows why it is called enlightment, because just as in case of being veiled, and unveiled, you pass from darkness to light, through enlightment you pass form limited consciusness to a more extended one. So, enlightment is an extention of our waking consciusness to a so far unseen realm, where usually we go unconsciously when we fall asleep or we die.
Prety much, enlightment is passing the threshold, experiencing the higher nature of the world and ourselves. Does it happen once and than it lasts forever, as a state ? No. Does enlightment have degrees ? Yes. Some only expereince the immediate vital surroundings. Naturally, one meets one’s own higher aspects first. But through discipline and further development, one becomes able to get rid of these, and rise from the individual to the universal.

PS. Hint: Enlightened persons rarely post on this forum :)[/QUOTE]

Exactly right…

#235

Quote Amir… So the difference between the East and West is simply the difference between one culture which has emphasized the inner, and the other which has emphasized the outer. But neither the East nor the West has managed to bring both together into a harmonious balance. If man is to come to know of a certain integration between his inner dimension and his outer life, then this kind of balance is absolutely necessary

Amir has raised an interesting point here…

#236

I disagree that the East had not managed to bring the inner and outer into harmony. This is a misconception based on nothing more than a stereotype which defines the East as mystical and other wordly and non-rational. This is obvious rubbish to anybody who has looked at the history of the East. The East did in fact consider material progress important and were always ahead of the West in production technologies even up until the 18th century. They produced better textiles, dyes, spices, seafaring ships, gems, steel, zinc. In fact better everything hence why India had a 25% share of the industrial output in the world.

The West could only have its huge industrial revolution because of colonialism. If any Western person is honest with themselves they will realise that their civilisation is only at the top today because of looting, pillaging and plundering the East. Otherwise, India and China have always been at the top. There is no reason to think India and China would not have later developed their own railways, steam engines - because they were always ahead. In fact the first use of gunpowder and the first solid rockets were created in China and India respectively. The West pretty much shut these countries down by brute force and stopped them from progressing. It used all of its loot to fuel its industrial revolution and this is why it happened so fast.

Spiritual civilisations also make material progress, but more slowly, because of ironically enough the need to grow holistically. The West, being a materialist civilisation on the other hand with little to no spirituality, has not grown holistically, but disproportionally. It has at the expense of spiritual growth, focussed purely on material and technological growth and the results are here for everybody to see: World wars, holocausts, weapons of mass destruction and nuclear threat, climate change, deforestation, endangering the species of the planet.

The West is pretty much like children given a box of matches. The danger is of setting the whole house on fire.

The West is too immature to run this planet. It needs to get out of the driving seat and let the adults take over.

#237

Hi Surya Deva,

[quote]a), how come the weak are weak and the strong are strong, isn't that due to circumstances as well, b) so what's up with you blaming anybody but Indians for the shit going on in India like corruption, lousy education, people being poor, India vs Pakistan, c) get your story straight, d) ; next

You do indeed suffer from a narrow mind, can you not conceive of any other possibliites other than the environment being the cause.[/quote]sure. What other reasons would there be?

I can think of another possibility random chance how some cultural practices end up survivng and some do not.
I don't think so. Even if you thought it was in the blood, that would be somehow caused by the environment. Even if god was the cause, god would be an envirionmental factor, so would be aliens. Name one other possibility please - don't worry, I now you won't. And no, you don't have to apologize to bore me with beginning any reply to me with the same lame routine of a narrow mind.

However, it need not be just one possibility: it can be several: better climate and resources, certain cultural practices end up surviving.
But my friend, aren't "better climate" and "more resources" pretty much exactly what I said like forever? And aren't these circumstances?

Circumstances are the reason. Circumstances circrumstances circumstances.

The reason I said "It's the way it is" is because we cannot possibly know certainly why one culture on the planet ended up developing a scientific culture and another a hunter-gatherer culture - all we can do is speculate. I don't like speculating - I just deal with facts.
Quite simple. :lol:

The fact is Hindu civilisation was advanced and noble and your civilisation was not.
I think if you continously point that out, you have to care for a reason. Indian civilisation was not simply "advanced", it was only advanced compared to Germanic people, who, as you like to put it, painted their face and ran naked through the jungle. If there had not been Germanic people, how would Indian people be advanced? Advanced in comparison to whom? Advanced to themselves, 1,000 years earlier? Germanic people were more advanecd each thousand years later as well.

So what you overall do is pick two people and compare them and belittle one of them and glorifiy the other, but to discuss the hows and whys is unfortunately impossible. So we end up that at some point in time, or let's say some time-window, the people you genetically happen to stem from had a more advanced culture than the people I genetically happen to stem from. Compared to the time-window of evolution, that was something like a few minutes: Congratulations, Surya Deva. Your ancestors were ahead for five minutes. clap clap clap

Why that is the case I don't know certainly - but I do know it has nothing to with race, because such a thing does not really exist.
Don't be pc, sure there are races, differences in the genome.

[quote]What I'm talking about is not how wrong-doers have to behave, should behave, might behave, could behave, but how one could and should be judging them, how one could react to wrong-doings, wether they should wind up in hate and desire retaliation, even hate the kids of wrong doers, the neightbours, someone who randomly happens to be from the same nation or some vague "the West". That the point, ma friend.

Wrong doers should be bought to justice in proportion to their wrong doing. This is common sense, no? You do not execute a thief and you do not sentence a serial killer to 6 months in prison.[/quote]I see that you have decided to play the evading game again. You can't deal with this. You don't even want to think about it. Wrong doer? Punish them!

Could you pretty please explain why you punish a wrong doer? What's the point? And could you pretty please explain how you set the punishment? Why would you send a thief 6 month to jail? Why not 12 or 3? What about the serial killer, the killed serial, isn't dying just once unjust?

And allow me to ask again: What about me? My family? People of the city I live in? My nation? What would need to be brought to justice? What have I done wrong, my family, the people of the city or nation I live in? I wouldn't know.

[quote]Maybe you can, I don't want to deny that completely, but you need a lot of circumstances to do so, for example intelligence, you need to have access to information, like different philosophies, and when you indeed come to find out that there is something wrong, you also need means to act accordingly, for example must you be brave enough, you should be responsible only for yourself, not have a family that might suffer consequences, etc. etc

No, you do not need any kind of exposure to a philosophical system, a legal system, or a moral code of conduct to know what is right and wrong. You already have an intuition of what is right or wrong - it is called your conscience. The majority of civilisations on this planet know that killing, raping, stealing, cheating and lying are wrong. Most have a golden rule(do unto others as you would them do unto you) Most children know when their parents are arguing or fighting that they do not like it. They don't need to learn this. Naturally we prefer to be in positive states than negative states, and we find that when the mind is calm and tranquil and less clouded with thought, we are naturally in a positive state and practice positive behaviour. Thus there is no desire for raping, stealing, cheating, lying - these negatives states are simply symptomatic of a troubled mind.[/quote]"No" he says: Hilarious. Well. Yes, I agree, when parents fight, the kid understands that all the yelling and angry faces are not nice and all. People indeed as well know that to hurt or kill somebody is not a nice thing to do. Your arguments are not actually mindblowing. Did you think I wouldn't know that or do you wish to evade the point. Did you notice, there is no question mark? :lol:

You don't want to understand. You refuse to. You want to insist on your simple minded convenient black and white world view.

For example: You grow up in Nazi Germany. The anti-jewish-propaganda is all around you, 24/7, in Kindergarten, at school, after school when you have to attend to the organised activities of HJ and BDM, and so forth. You grow up with everybody telling you that the Jew is some sort of parasite like rat, out to harm you and your people and the great nation that was built by honest people with honest work. That's all you hear, over and over and over again. Books and teachings that might lead to you questioning this are banned, people who think differently are send to concentration camps or downright killed.

Another example: You're the kid of an extreme Hindu nationalist and you grow up around your father and his "friends" and their kids and all you hear all day every day is "Western people are Asura, we are the Deva, the Asura must be destroyed, they are our enemies, they are inferior, we are superior" etc. etc. Now imagine you would say "but no wait, we're all the same, western people are no demons..." Kinda improbable, wouldn't you agree.

And so forth. But you nailed it:

Most children know when their parents are arguing or fighting that they do not like it.
You seriously should write a book, man.

[quote]I agree insofar that the so called elites (those with powers) make the decisions, but they're not driven by an ethos, but only by greed. Then, they mislead the people, for example their executive forces (police, military) by bribing them with money and some advantages/priviliges, others with ideology or religion, they control the media, the education, etc. etc.

The elites are not consciously thinking, "I am going to drive our ethos" but rather the ethos is subconsciously ingrained as a system of cultural practices they have inherited. The elites maintain the cultural practice because the ethos you have inherited allows elites to exist. Like I said you have a society of dichotomies of have and have not, of ruler and ruled, oppressor and oppressed. Throughout your history your elites have always tried to maintain their power because greed is seen as natural in your culture. The story continues today. In your culture killing of one tribe is seen as normal, and its been going on since the beginning of your culture. In our culture such genocide is demonic and not even our worst villians in our history ever commited a genocide.[/quote]But hey, genocide is a regular thing, I do it every morning, you should try it yourself, there's no better way to start the day. :lol:

Funny jokes aside: Not that I would be a total pacificst or anything, you'd most probably find out all about it if you kept saying such stuff to my actual face, but genocide is not one of my customs. And it is not of most Germans, though we once had leaders that wanted to kill all the Jews. This, though, was a secret operation the vast majority of Germans had no idea about and the generation that had lived at that time was ashamed about it their whole life.

Fighting to protect what's ours is indeed one of our "cultural practices", many for example consider one particular battle as the birth-hour of the Germans, when several Germanic tribes united to fight the Hungarians. And so it can happen that a people are mislead into killing and slaughtering and into genocide, because their leaders tell them that this is necessary to protect themselves.

Do you disagree with that "custom"? It kinda seems, as India was always easy to conquer for anybody. This is indeed hard to understand. If someone came along to rape your mother and kill your dad, would you just stand there and bow in namaste to them? Would you not fight to protect your family? And your people? Why not?

[quote]Actually my culture is now on the Deva side and yours is on the Asura side. Because we have learned from our mistakes and you have adopted them.

I disagree, you are still on the Asura side. [/quote]Oh really. :lol:

As Asura does indeed mean a highly materialistic, debauched and hedonist culture. We, on the other hand have a Deva culture corrupted with an asura culture. We still retain many of values like respect for elders, teachers and parents, it is still normal for us to bow down and touch and feet of our parents and ask for their blessings - you on the other hand call your parents by your name, and even go pubbing and clubbing together.
In our culture we still have a highly religious culture were we worship god/s and ask for their blessings, such as invoking the name of Saraswati before taking an exam - in your culture a large percentage of people do not care about god or divine blessings. We still have a respect for many of our paramparas(traditions) and consider as ideal that a woman should be the manager of the house and the man the protecter of the house - still in our culture the woman is called, "Lakshmi" the goddess of wealth. She is given the keys to the safe when she enters and makes decisions in the house on spending money and is the main counsel to her husband. In your culture the gender identities have collapsed, man is becoming woman and woman is becoming man, leading to dysfunctional families, divorce and battle of sexes. In our culture still education is taken very seriously and we respect knowledge, hence why we outperform Western students - in your culture education is seen as an excuse to rock and roll, have sex and do drugs. In our culture ahimsa is still seen as a major value, and because of this we have not invaded any country still - in your culture, you have been invading countries constantly left, right and centre and still have not stopped today. In our culture we value diversity(hence the motto: unity in diversity) and represent every faith and tradition in our country, including Sikhs. We have a Hindu woman president(and an ex-Muslim president), a Christian leader of the ruling party, a Sikh prime minister. Your culture is highly homogenous and ethnic minorities struggle and live in poverty and get represented poorly.
In our culture sex, pornography is still seen as taboo, and we still are very culturally sensitive about showing this in the media - your culture is full of it, and even has porno empires like playboy, playgirl. You have cities famous for porn like Amsterdam. In our films when boy meets girl they fall in love and get married eventually. In your culture when boy meets girl they fcuk.
Point by point, the ole "my dad - your dad". yawn You are simply spooling of a bunch of stereotypes, you generalise, you understate and overstate. For example. :roll:

What's your problem with sex and porn? If you don't like it, you don't have to have sex and you don't have to watch porn. If you like it, you can do it - in the West. To claim there would be something wrong about it, is a matter of opinion. If you would bring porn to India, a lot of Indian men would love it and watch it. Sure you can debate this. Debate your opinion, give reasons and arguments for your opinion why porn is evil, why sex is bad. Sure you can. But that does not make your opinion a universal truth. It remains an opinion. And it is not an opinion that in the west you simply have the freedom of choice. And - I agree on that anytime - while I might not really understand your concepts of "Asura" and "Deva", I still think that freedom of choice is always the better thing than forbidding something and surpressign something with force.

Same with parents. Sure do I "fraternize" with my parents. I call em mom and dad, and not by their names, never heard anyone doing that, but I see no problem there too. I respect them because they are respectable people, not because they are my parents. If I would be forced to respect them, or if I would have been brought up to respect them, no matter what they do, that would again be surpression of my free will. If I disagree with them, I should be able and allowed to express that, instead of blindly agreeing with anything they do. See my example of an extremist Hindu nationalist who teaches their kids hate. If they blindly follow anything such a dad says, there is no way out for them. So again: Freedom of choice.

Same with women. The woman is the housekeeper. Yes, that's backwards. Why would she be? What's the point? There is no reason, it's simply a tradition based on women being less strong than men, and therefore less capable of doing the hard work that had to be done in ancient times. I do no hard work, and neither do you, so why would our wifes have to be housekeepers. It's nonsense.

As well is it a stereotype that western families are all dysfunctional. Sure there are more to observe, because in the west, if husband and wife don't want to be together anymore, they have the freedom to go seperate ways. Which - I guess - in India is different.

Etc. etc. All your examples go back to the same thing: Freedom of choice vs. the straitjacket of tradition.

Of course I know there are loads of flaws in the current Indian society like poverty, casteism, dowry, honour killing, so there is no need to point it out,
Sure. No need to. :lol:

as I am not claiming it is perfect and I do not consider it Deva at all by Vedic standards. But you are definitely not a Deva culture today. You are materially prosperous and spiritually backwards. We are materially backwards, and though we have lost a lot of spirituality, we are still the spiritual capital of the world.
Again, I think of Deva as holy, good and such, and Asura as evil, demonic, etc. India is corrupt, for starters. And it is a lot more corrupt, or let's say the corruption has a more serious impact on the people, than in the west. Because people have to actually suffer from hunger because of the corruption. You don't have that in the west, at least not in my country. In my country, SD, if you have no job and no money, you go to some office and they will instantly pay your rent, pay for your health-insurance and pay you an additional 350? per month. For example. Also, you have to go to school, every kid has to go to school for at least 10 years. Every kid, another example, has to go to see a doctor on a determined schedule. It's the law. If you fail to obey, the police will come. Hitting children at school is illegal, so is hitting children illegal for their parents. It is even illegal to mistreat a child emotionally, you know, be unkind continously, punish the kid continously.

And so forth. Women are pretty much emancipated, and not only by law, but in general. I wouldn't know anybody who thinks that women are less smart, less capable, less valuable or anything. It's a regular view. To say women have to stay at home and take care of the household: Hilarious. Primitive.

Sure. There are still flaws. Surya Deva: No need to point them out. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: As I am not claiming everything would be perfect. Sure there is greed and materialism. Sure spirituality has still to improve. But these things are on their way, and not just because those who are interested in it have nothing else to hold on to, which is often the case in a poor country. If you have nothing else in life but your faith and spiritual path, you're much more likely to stick to that. Give all who are spiritual and religious in India 1000 bucks per month and watch how many will give up their path; I'd be surprised if it were only 50%.

However, if you extrapolate, if you had a curve or tendency of where a culture goes, Deva or Asuara, you would see that India goes Asura and the West goes Deva. War is much less accepted for decades already. Germany for example has suspende compulsory military service this year, and you could always refuse to do it (which, btw, I did, I worked in a hospital for a year instead). People donate billions to poor country, etc. etc.

And last not least my friend, take yourself. You are all about belittleing the west, denying the west anything, you declare billions of people demons, evil, barbarians, compare them even with animals, you try to drive a wedge between east and west, you try to scare people with world war III, and so forth. Your actions are evil, my friend, you're a wrong doer.

[quote]Not interested to share some thoughts? How will you remove the evil culture? Drop some nukes? Do some terrorist attacks? Poison our water? I wouldn't know, seriously. Waffling on teh interwebs: What difference does it make? So far you're not so impressive, all the evading, all the paroles. Is that all you got?
Here is a test of how narrow that mind of yours is. Can you conceive of any other possibilities than the above.[/quote]No, I can't. Why else would I ask. And as I just mentioned, you have already implied that India and China and Russia might/would/should team up to declare war on the west. In the Lybia-uprisind thread. Did you not? I can look it up for you.

The West disagrees with your diagnosis of being evil. We're regular people. Our ancestors did a lot of bad things, as did the ancestors of pretty much everybody. India is somewhat an exception, my theory is clear: They had a large empty land to expand into, and before it was full, India was continiously conquered and occupied and surpressed by other forces, Muslims, Portugueses, British, so it was in no position to start wars with other nations. And now, that it is free again, and the land is full, it has split itself in how many parts, three?, it's the worlds largest importer of arms (while the people are poor and suffer from hunger), it has waged several wars already, many with their own brothers and sisters, there are a lot of riots going on, a lot of religious violence.

So again: The West considers itself to be quite regular. More successful, yes. The Muslims for example tried to conquer Europe too. They got kicked out. The West won't admit to some pseudo-Indian British Hindu-fanatic that it has to become Hinduistic and give up their roots. You can spend your next 50 reincarnations and it's not going to work out. Don't you agree? It's my question. Do you think that your posts on this forum make a difference? So far it does not look like, with more then 3,000 postings already. So either you have to come with guns, give it up or tell me how you think you'll achieve your goal.

[quote]Nothing..? Again?! Should you be that short-witted after all? What a disappointment.

You forgive only those who show remorse for what they did resolve to become better.[/quote]You mean "I", when you say "you", my personal philosophy is quite different, goes like this:

  • noone decides to be evil by themselves, so
  • everyone has a reason to be the way they are and
  • if I understand why they are how they are, how could I blame them, and finally
  • even if I don't understand, I know there must be a reason, and therefore
  • I can't blame anyone for anything and think of them as evil and guilty

Yet, if one does wrong, they have to be stopped and indeed they have to be punished, for punishment has to be there as a deterrence to strengthen the will of a potential wrong-doer, and people will think twice before they give in to the allurement of evil.

However:

As far as I am aware we had no compensation whatsoever for the trillions which were looted from us and the hundreds of millions today living abject poverty which the West are responsible for by bleeding the country dry over 250 years, who have not been lifted out of poverty by the West.
That is actually interesting. Germany, for example, has paid billions to Israel for example. Billions over billions, German Wikipedia says:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Wiedergutmachungspolitik
Die Gesamtsumme aller Entsch?digungsleistungen belief sich bis Ende 2009 auf 67,118 Milliarden Euro
"Milliarden" are "billions, see also

Was there nothing alike coming from Britain? Maybe Germany is more Deva then Britain then, I wouldn't know.

The Western history books still retain all the distortions and propoganda that was spread about our civilisation, and it is still going on today with Western academics from ivy league still attacking our civilisation by calling our most reveered spiritual leaders like Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda pedophiles; calling our Hindu goddess a goddess of lust, evil and war; calling our lord Krishna a deceitful and murderous man; Calling our Gita, "Not a nice book" calling our Vedas, "Primitive ritual books of no spiritual value"
Aren't you currently occupied with branding that recently deceased Indian guru a sex-offender? I have never heard your two leaders to be pedophiles, also am I unfamiliar with your other problems, I have only read that the Gita was a great book, which is why I bought it, there is a neat lecture about it, in a course called "Books that have made history - Books that can change your life". And so forth. You perform selective perception here.

Inciting separatism in our country by trying to convince the Dalits to leave our religion and become Christian and convincing the Dravidian South Indians to reject Hinduism and accept Christianity. A movement supported by the Vatican, The Southern Baptist Church, the Church authorities in India.
Yeah, I had briefly looked into that Hindu nationalist book "Breaking India" too, that's where you got this from. As far as I know the "Dalits" (what a fucked up concept to have Dalits at all, man) are supported to gain more rights in that caste-syste-driven-society. And sure, all religions try to convert people. It's what you do on this forum, isn't it, hypocrite.

It is you who are warring against us.
Yea, I'm warring against India. Totally. Want to anihilate India and Indians.

Freak.

We are not warring against you. We did not invade you - you invaded us. We did not distort your history and heritage - you distorted ours. We credit your scientists, writers, philosophers, religious leaders - you do not credit ours. We are not trying to incite civil wars in your country through subversion - but you are in ours.

You are still a barbarian culture going around the world plundering it, exploiting the third world, invading soverign countries and forcing your ways on them.

If you want Hindus to play nice with you, then stop your hostilities against us. We will even forget about the compensation - otherwise prepare for the CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS.
Our "hostilities" we won't give up. We can't, the western way, which is simply, as I had tried to explain in the Lybia-thread already, that which works best, is unstoppable. It will spread. The idea of equal rights, no matter who your father is, no matter where you live, no matter what gender you have. Freedom of religion, of speech of thought, access to information, access to porn, if you want it. There is no stopping this. There is no agreeing with you too, just some compensation I would actually agree to be fair, see my question above.

So what CLASH would we have to prepare for? I'm asking you again. Don't be a coward, just openly say what you long for. Is it war? Or what? Because if it's just offering what each civilisation has to offer to the people, dude, there is no question which civilisation will win. Not the one that is choking down the freedom of people.

In the end, you know, I must keep noting it..., you still keep ignoring and evading my points. Like this one:

You for example so far have not experienced the circumstances to enable you to understand all this, I'd guess because you see yourself and your people as the eternal victims. It's too hard for you to find a place for wrong-doers in your heart. I come from a nation that has done a lot wrong. I had and have to deal with that, which opens my heart for both sides, the victim and the offender.
Your comment on this is "India was not compensated, non-Hindu-religions try to convert a group of people that is discriminated by Hinduism, a few old books say don't adore Indian's great religious scriptures".

All that you got this is. Short witted you are. Only repeating paroles you can. What drives you, anger is, anger in intense degree:

2.34 Uncertain knowledge giving rise to violence, whether done directly or indirectly, or conditioned, is caused by greed, anger or delusion in mild, moderate or intense degree. It results in endless pain and ignorance. Through introspection comes the end of pain and ignorance.
Wake up.

Don't expect me to further reply to your regular routines, sun is shining, the weather is sweet, I have a life, so I guess other can take over now, and we can talk again in winter, k? :smiley: I already had to force me through this set of paroles.

#238

[QUOTE=Quetzalcoatl;58827]Hi Surya Deva,

sure. What other reasons would there be?

I don’t think so. Even if you thought it was in the blood, that would be somehow caused by the environment. Even if god was the cause, god would be an envirionmental factor, so would be aliens. Name one other possibility please - don’t worry, I now you won’t. And no, you don’t have to apologize to bore me with beginning any reply to me with the same lame routine of a narrow mind.

But my friend, aren’t “better climate” and “more resources” pretty much exactly what I said like forever? And aren’t these circumstances?

Circumstances are the reason. Circumstances circrumstances circumstances.

Quite simple. :lol:[/quote]

I will have to conclude you have a narrow mind. If circumstances alone could explain why a culture becomes more civilised, then why is your culture still not civilised and why are you still going around invading, exploiting, looting and raping other countries? The West has been at war with non-Western countries non-stop since the beginning of the 20th century. Internally, you suffer from 50% or higher divorce rates and the highest rates of depression and mental disorders. Why are you still not civilised?

So what you overall do is pick two people and compare them and belittle one of them and glorifiy the other, but to discuss the hows and whys is unfortunately impossible. So we end up that at some point in time, or let’s say some time-window, the people you genetically happen to stem from had a more advanced culture than the people I genetically happen to stem from. Compared to the time-window of evolution, that was something like a few minutes: Congratulations, Surya Deva. Your ancestors were ahead for five minutes. clap clap clap

I never singled out the Germanic people. I have been talking about Western civilisation which traces its origins to the Greco-Roman world and Sumeria. I am saying Indian civilisation has always been more advanced. Again, it is easy to compare IVC with its contempoary Sumeria and you can clearly see which one is more culturally advanced.

Don’t be pc, sure there are races, differences in the genome.

The differences are neglible. It is a clear fact in genetics that all races belong to the same human species. I would not expect you to be anymore biologically inferior or superior to me if you were a different race. I have in fact met far more intelligent, spiritual and high charactered white people than Indian people today. Race is not a factor for me and never has been. I treat all races in exactly the same way.

Could you pretty please explain why you punish a wrong doer? What’s the point? And could you pretty please explain how you set the punishment? Why would you send a thief 6 month to jail? Why not 12 or 3? What about the serial killer, the killed serial, isn’t dying just once unjust?

And allow me to ask again: What about me? My family? People of the city I live in? My nation? What would need to be brought to justice? What have I done wrong, my family, the people of the city or nation I live in? I wouldn’t know.

You punish a wrong doer to set an example in society that such wrongs are not tolerated. It is to deter people from commiting crimes. The punishment is set according to the severity of the crime and who commits the crime. You see a normal joe on the street if he commits theft is not as big a deal as a holy man commiting theft, say a pope, guru or imam.

Very serious crimes like rape and murder must be given be very serious punishments to deter other members of society for doing the same. The current Western/modern judicial system is a joke though - rapists get a few years or a few months, and can reduce their sentence by getting aid. Hence, it is not surprising that many of them repeat-offend. Moreover, prison is hardly something to be feared - you get regular meals, television, libraries, x-boxes and people to socialise with.

As regards how you, your family and your people must be punished? Whoever said you should be punished? I distinctly remember saying I do not consider you responsible for what your ancestors did. Did you just conveniantly ignore that? Why?

You don’t want to understand. You refuse to. You want to insist on your simple minded convenient black and white world view.

For example: You grow up in Nazi Germany. The anti-jewish-propaganda is all around you, 24/7, in Kindergarten, at school, after school when you have to attend to the organised activities of HJ and BDM, and so forth. You grow up with everybody telling you that the Jew is some sort of parasite like rat, out to harm you and your people and the great nation that was built by honest people with honest work. That’s all you hear, over and over and over again. Books and teachings that might lead to you questioning this are banned, people who think differently are send to concentration camps or downright killed.

Another example: You’re the kid of an extreme Hindu nationalist and you grow up around your father and his “friends” and their kids and all you hear all day every day is “Western people are Asura, we are the Deva, the Asura must be destroyed, they are our enemies, they are inferior, we are superior” etc. etc. Now imagine you would say “but no wait, we’re all the same, western people are no demons…” Kinda improbable, wouldn’t you agree.

And so forth. But you nailed it:

Unfortunately in your worldview we are just a collection of our circumstances. This is why I state you are narrow minded. It is easy for anybody to see that while circumstances are a significant factor, humans also have a conscience. Not all Germans for example sided with the Nazis in their hatred towards the jews, some actually even helped the Jews and fought for them.

Your worldview is quite miserable in which you do accept the humans may actually have a natural morality or goodness. I pointed out the example of children becoming upset at seeing their parents fighting to point out we have a natural aversion to negative emotions like anger and sorrow. We have a natural preference for positive emotions joy and happiness. Therefore, when we see another human being wronged by another, we have natural empathy for them which expresses itself in our conscience. Indeed, we can choose to listen to our conscience or suppress it, but we cannot escape the guilt that arises when do so. Even criminals feel guilt.

Unfortunately, you are too brainwashed by a materialist worldview where we are nothing than biological machines programmed by our environments. This is also another reason why you a backwards person. To not know that you have a soul is actually stupidity. Even children know they have a soul. It is proven in crosscultural studies children innately believe in soul, mind-body dualism and god. Nobody has to tell them.

Funny jokes aside: Not that I would be a total pacificst or anything, you’d most probably find out all about it if you kept saying such stuff to my actual face, but genocide is not one of my customs. And it is not of most Germans, though we once had leaders that wanted to kill all the Jews. This, though, was a secret operation the vast majority of Germans had no idea about and the generation that had lived at that time was ashamed about it their whole life.

Please do not pretend that the majority of Germans were innocent in the holocaust and didn’t know it was going on.

Do you disagree with that “custom”? It kinda seems, as India was always easy to conquer for anybody. This is indeed hard to understand. If someone came along to rape your mother and kill your dad, would you just stand there and bow in namaste to them? Would you not fight to protect your family? And your people? Why not?

Well as your statement is not true it will be easy to refute. India was no more easier to conquer than any other strong country. India had one of the strongest armies in the world during the Gupta empire. This is when Alexander armies laid seige on India, first walking through Persia, but then were defeated at the border by a minor Indian king known as Poros. Although Greek historians later recorded this as a victory, they remained suspiciously silent on it - well that is because Alexandra was badly beaten. His army was scared off by the mighty Indian army and refused to fight, and he even ended up ceeding his previously captured territory in Afghanistan to Poros. So Poros ended up not only succeeding in holding onto his own, he gained twice the size by the end of war.

Moreover, India was a collection of kingdoms, which grew in size and reduced in size throughout time. Even when the Mughals invaded India, they could not capture it all and got barely anywhere near the South, because they faced stiff resistance from Hindu kingdoms like the Marathas, Rajaputanas, Sikhs etc. This is because Hindus have a strong warrior culture. While the Muslims pretty much walked through the Romans, the Arabans, Persians, Egyptians, converting them to 100% Muslim - in India they struggled. India is still 80% Hindu.

The British also did not have it easy in India. They had to fight several wars with Muslim kingdoms and Hindu kingdoms, and even lost a few. When they won the battle of Plessy and gained control of Bengal, a crucial hub of India, most of India fell into its hands. However, again Hindus fought very hard several times such in the 1857 battle of independence. The fight never ended, because Hindus have a strong warrior culture.

Portugal and the Dutch did not invade all of India, but only managed to get small colonies like goa and pondicherry. India has not suffered anymore invasions than say England, or France or Germany.

In 10,000 years of history, it is only in the last 1000 years that foreign invasions started - and boy did we fight. So how can you conclude from this it constantly got invaded?

It is obvious you are not apologetic about what your ancestors did to India, because you speak with pride when you say India got invaded, raped, and looted. Thus my criticism of you as being uncivilised and backwards is justified.
If I came to know that my ancestors went around raping, killing and looting people in the world, I would feel ashamed. I would have no pride in the matter. This is the difference between you and me.

Civilised people measure a civilisations progress by their character, nobility, morality and wisdom - not by how many people they have exterminated, raped, enslaved and looted or how big their weapons are.

You are not a civilised person. You are backwards.

What’s your problem with sex and porn? If you don’t like it, you don’t have to have sex and you don’t have to watch porn. If you like it, you can do it - in the West. To claim there would be something wrong about it, is a matter of opinion. If you would bring porn to India, a lot of Indian men would love it and watch it. Sure you can debate this. Debate your opinion, give reasons and arguments for your opinion why porn is evil, why sex is bad. Sure you can. But that does not make your opinion a universal truth. It remains an opinion. And it is not an opinion that in the west you simply have the freedom of choice. And - I agree on that anytime - while I might not really understand your concepts of “Asura” and “Deva”, I still think that freedom of choice is always the better thing than forbidding something and surpressign something with force.

Now you are proving why you are uncivilised. You actually think Western immorality is a virtue :wink: It is easy to see why porn and lust are bad qualities for a civilised person, but not for you, because you are uncivilised. I will give you a brief answer why:

Lust is not a positive emotion or feeling. If you are feeling lust you are lacking in character, discipline and self-control. To be civilised is to overcome your base instincts which you have inherited from your animal past and to bring forth your human quality which impart your humanity, else you are not far removed from an animal. The human has the ability for great compassion, charity, love, friendship and wisdom, but he will not realise this unless he overcomes his base animal nature and gains control over his own senses. One who does not have control of his senses, but rather the senses control them, is not far removed from an animal.

You sound closer to an animal to me than a human. You take glee in your ancestors raping, murdering and conquering people on this planet. You are proud of your barbaric past. You think we are nothing more than instinct driven creatures. Most definitely backwards.

Same with parents. Sure do I “fraternize” with my parents. I call em mom and dad, and not by their names, never heard anyone doing that, but I see no problem there too. I respect them because they are respectable people, not because they are my parents. If I would be forced to respect them, or if I would have been brought up to respect them, no matter what they do, that would again be surpression of my free will. If I disagree with them, I should be able and allowed to express that, instead of blindly agreeing with anything they do. See my example of an extremist Hindu nationalist who teaches their kids hate. If they blindly follow anything such a dad says, there is no way out for them. So again: Freedom of choice.

You do not “fraternize” with your parents because your parents are not your mates. Hence you do not talk to them as you would your mates. In civilised socieities like India and China, we understand what is called relationalism, that is we should behave differently with different people and we should be mindful of remaining within limits. In India this is known as maryada. For example you do not kiss your mother on her lips(I have actually seen this happen in the West) or sleep with your teacher. Each relationship has limits which one must remain mindful of.

You do lack respect for your parents from a dharmic point of view because you do not respect their authority and treat them like your mates. Your mates did not bring you up - they did. You are indebted to them. When we blur the limits of these relationships as it happens in your west, you destory the order of society. Hence why in your culture even incest takes place.

Same with women. The woman is the housekeeper. Yes, that’s backwards. Why would she be? What’s the point? There is no reason, it’s simply a tradition based on women being less strong than men, and therefore less capable of doing the hard work that had to be done in ancient times. I do no hard work, and neither do you, so why would our wifes have to be housekeepers. It’s nonsense.

Can you give birth to children? No, because you do not have the nature of a woman that would allow that. The woman biologically is the mother and the mother obviously has to mother the child. How can she do that if she is working? Somebody has to look after the family and manage the house, and I assure you having watched my mother do the housework and pitched in myself to help time and time again, it’s not easy - it is a full time job. Dharma is about making sacrifices in life for the greater good - the mother sacrifices her own leisure to look after her children. The father sacrificies his leisure to work hard and earn to provide for his family and give them the comforts they need.

It is a two-way process and most Hindu men and women understand this very well. Just as the mother has a dharma, so does the father, so does the child. Of course you cannot understand dharma because you are a backwards civilisation.
In your civilisation the mother leaves the child at home with a nanny or simply on its own, while she goes out for a night out with the girls :wink: Why else do you have 50% or more divorce rates. Most children growing up now days can’t even be sure who their father is :smiley:

As well is it a stereotype that western families are all dysfunctional. Sure there are more to observe, because in the west, if husband and wife don’t want to be together anymore, they have the freedom to go seperate ways. Which - I guess - in India is different.

Etc. etc. All your examples go back to the same thing: Freedom of choice vs. the straitjacket of tradition.

I am not saying they are ALL dysfunctional, but over 50% of them are. It is a widely recognised and endemic problem in Western society, not just some exaggeration. The cause of this is how relaxed you are about divorce, how you lack a notion of dharma. The other day I saw a 60 year old woman in a club when I went out with my mate on a Hen party - shameful, trully shameful. I even said to my mate, “If I was still in this place at the age of 60, I would consider I have failed in life”

Dharma is basically virtue. I cannot explain virtue to somebody who lacks virtue and cannot understand why it is virtue.

Again, I think of Deva as holy, good and such, and Asura as evil, demonic, etc. India is corrupt, for starters. And it is a lot more corrupt, or let’s say the corruption has a more serious impact on the people, than in the west. Because people have to actually suffer from hunger because of the corruption. You don’t have that in the west, at least not in my country. In my country, SD, if you have no job and no money, you go to some office and they will instantly pay your rent, pay for your health-insurance and pay you an additional 350€ per month. For example. Also, you have to go to school, every kid has to go to school for at least 10 years. Every kid, another example, has to go to see a doctor on a determined schedule. It’s the law. If you fail to obey, the police will come. Hitting children at school is illegal, so is hitting children illegal for their parents. It is even illegal to mistreat a child emotionally, you know, be unkind continously, punish the kid continously.

And so forth. Women are pretty much emancipated, and not only by law, but in general. I wouldn’t know anybody who thinks that women are less smart, less capable, less valuable or anything. It’s a regular view. To say women have to stay at home and take care of the household: Hilarious. Primitive.

You have a simplistic view of your society, you are only looking at it on face value. I am looking at it a lot more critically:

Corruption: Yes, India is a lot more corrupt on face value. You have to pay bribes in India, even the moment you step into the country this goes on. Rich people get away with crimes by paying off the police. Most Indians in India will try to con you :smiley: This is symptomatic of a developing country - all developing countries have this problem. Corruption is reducing now though, and the public at large are fed up of it, but it is not going to come down overnight.

But to say the West is not corrupt is a lie. The West is not corrupt on face value, but at the deeper strata of society you will find a level of corruption which puts India to shame. Sinister corruption like planning invasions of countries based on political and economic interests, spreading war propoganda through the media(black ops) inciting civil wars in countries to break them apart, funding rouge regimes and profiteering from war. Do you know whose money funded the Nazi concentration camps - the Bush family, Standard Oil and other big Western companies. Do you know who trained the Indonesian army and armed them for the East Timorian genocide? America. Who weaponized Iraq and put Saddam Hussain in power and let him invade Kuwait? America.

India has never invaded a single country in its entire 10,000 year history - the West on the other hand has never stopped invading, looting, plundering.

However, if you extrapolate, if you had a curve or tendency of where a culture goes, Deva or Asuara, you would see that India goes Asura and the West goes Deva. War is much less accepted for decades already. Germany for example has suspende compulsory military service this year, and you could always refuse to do it (which, btw, I did, I worked in a hospital for a year instead). People donate billions to poor country, etc. etc.

I can see some trends of Deva culture appearing in the West, but this is because our Hindu gurus came to the West and spread Yoga, Vedanta etc We have gradually started to civilise your people, but the majority of you are still uncivilised. However, even India today as it stands is more civilised than your culture, we still retain much of spirituality and culture. We don’t have porn empires, our divorce rates is only 1%, we still respect our parents and we still respect education. Hence why our educated lot are outperforming your educated lot. Our media is still relatively clean and emphasise Indian values. We still have the most temples, churches, mosques and ashrams in the world.

And last not least my friend, take yourself. You are all about belittleing the west, denying the west anything, you declare billions of people demons, evil, barbarians, compare them even with animals, you try to drive a wedge between east and west, you try to scare people with world war III, and so forth. Your actions are evil, my friend, you’re a wrong doer.

No, I can’t. Why else would I ask. And as I just mentioned, you have already implied that India and China and Russia might/would/should team up to declare war on the west. In the Lybia-uprisind thread. Did you not? I can look it up for you.

I am not threatening you with a third world war or saying Hindus are going to invade you. I am telling you you will not get away with your imperialism in the world. You have too many enemies in the world today, and because you are not stopping your old habits of walking over everybody, you are putting yourself in a very dangerous position. India poses no physical threat to you - but Russia and China? Keep pushing and you will find out for yourself.

it’s the worlds largest importer of arms (while the people are poor and suffer from hunger), it has waged several wars already, many with their own brothers and sisters, there are a lot of riots going on, a lot of religious violence.

It is fairly obvious why India is the biggest importer of arms. It is surrounded by two nuclear powered enemies which have an alliance against it.
In all three wars tell me who started the wars? They were all started by Pakistan. One of these wars in 1971 was started by Pakistan commiting widescale genocide against the Hindus in what is now Bangladesh killing millions of them. India had to send in a liberation army, much like the West sent a liberation army into Nazi germany.

Don’t you agree? It’s my question. Do you think that your posts on this forum make a difference? So far it does not look like, with more then 3,000 postings already. So either you have to come with guns, give it up or tell me how you think you’ll achieve your goal.

I don’t come to this forum for political purposes. Of course 3000 or even 10,000 posts on this forum is not going to make much of a difference. I come here to discuss - this is an entertainment for me - not a mission.

That is actually interesting. Germany, for example, has paid billions to Israel for example. Billions over billions, German Wikipedia says:

“Milliarden” are "billions, see also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiedergutmachung

Was there nothing alike coming from Britain? Maybe Germany is more Deva then Britain then, I wouldn’t know.

Perhaps it is, but I would rather say Germany is less Asura than Britain :wink:
I must say though I quite like the German people, my ex-girlfriend was German :wink:

Aren’t you currently occupied with branding that recently deceased Indian guru a sex-offender? I have never heard your two leaders to be pedophiles, also am I unfamiliar with your other problems, I have only read that the Gita was a great book, which is why I bought it, there is a neat lecture about it, in a course called “Books that have made history - Books that can change your life”. And so forth. You perform selective perception here.

You read the Gita and thought it was great. But it seems like you have learned nothing from it.

Yeah, I had briefly looked into that Hindu nationalist book “Breaking India” too, that’s where you got this from. As far as I know the “Dalits” (what a fucked up concept to have Dalits at all, man) are supported to gain more rights in that caste-syste-driven-society. And sure, all religions try to convert people. It’s what you do on this forum, isn’t it, hypocrite.

The idea of “Dalits” did not exist in India until the 19th century when the British created it. You know the drill - divide and rule. The British wanted to convince lower caste Indians they were being oppressed by evil Brahmins and have been oppressed forever. Of course what you don’t read is that many leading Brahmin Hindus were fighting for reform, abolishing the caste system - but the British took credit. This goes on still today all efforts by Hindus fighting for reform in the caste systems and the rights of low caste Hindus are ignored by the Western media, to make it look like the Western missionaries are helping them. We hear so much about what Mother Terresa - but barely anything about Hindu gurus or saints who have done huge work in charity, service and upliftment of society.
The aim of course is not to help the “Dalits” but to incite separatist ideologies in them.

Rajiv Malhotra is not a Hindu nationalist by the way. He is a respected international scholar and serves on the faculties of many recognised universities. He himself disagrees with Hindutva ideology.

Yea, I’m warring against India. Totally. Want to anihilate India and Indians.

Actually it sounds like you. I think lot of people reading your latest reply are going to agree you have made some damn right chauvanistic statements, and even from a Western perspective your defense of Western immorality is embarrassing.

Our “hostilities” we won’t give up. We can’t, the western way, which is simply, as I had tried to explain in the Lybia-thread already, that which works best, is unstoppable. It will spread. The idea of equal rights, no matter who your father is, no matter where you live, no matter what gender you have. Freedom of religion, of speech of thought, access to information, access to porn, if you want it. There is no stopping this. There is no agreeing with you too, just some compensation I would actually agree to be fair, see my question above.

I expect strawmans from you anyway. I certainly did not say equal rights, women rights, freedom of religion, thought and speech were bad things. I don’t oppose these things either. But you see that is not what your culture represents. What you are spreading is: Materialism, capitalism, individualism and secularism which produce social inequality, mental disorders, wars, breakdown of families and spiritual impoverishment.

Have you seen Avatar by the way? :wink:

So what CLASH would we have to prepare for? I’m asking you again. Don’t be a coward, just openly say what you long for. Is it war? Or what? Because if it’s just offering what each civilisation has to offer to the people, dude, there is no question which civilisation will win. Not the one that is choking down the freedom of people.

It is already happening. We Hindus are not weak today, we are poised to become superpowers of this century. We are taking your jobs and we have political, intellectual and economic influence today. You are messing with the wrong people. If the Hindus consolidate you are in deep trouble.

However, your narrow mind can only see this in terms of war. Hindus do not go around blowing things up like Muslims because we have no jihad doctrines. But the damage we can do politically, intellectually and economically to you if you do not cease your hostilities against us, can be immense. We have already taken over many of your companies and now we are taking over your culture in a big way through spreading our culture. The new age moment in the West is actually been seeded by the Hindus - and it is spreading Hinduism in your society - without you even knowing it :wink:

You have pretty much proven what we said in the Libya uprising thread. You are a racist bigot. I thank you for a lot of things you said in this reply. You have exposed your true colours.

#239

sure. What other reasons would there be?

I disagree with SD on this. Circumstances, with roots in prior events, always matter.

But my friend, aren't "better climate" and "more resources" pretty much exactly what I said like forever? And aren't these circumstances?

Circumstances are the reason. Circumstances circrumstances circumstances.

Quite simple. :lol:

I agree.

I think if you continously point that out, you have to care for a reason. Indian civilisation was not simply "advanced", it was only advanced compared to Germanic people, who, as you like to put it, painted their face and ran naked through the jungle. If there had not been Germanic people, how would Indian people be advanced? Advanced in comparison to whom? Advanced to themselves, 1,000 years earlier? Germanic people were more advanecd each thousand years later as well.

History fail #1000000000000000. Grow out of your supremacist Arian race bias and pick up a textbook on Indian history. SD isn't calling you narrow minded out of malice.

Sheesh, I didn't know Nazi supremacist idealism was still alive and well in Germany, albeit in a less conspicuous and more dilute form.

So what you overall do is pick two people and compare them and belittle one of them and glorifiy the other, but to discuss the hows and whys is unfortunately impossible. So we end up that at some point in time, or let's say some time-window, the people you genetically happen to stem from had a more advanced culture than the people I genetically happen to stem from. Compared to the time-window of evolution, that was something like a few minutes: Congratulations, Surya Deva. Your ancestors were ahead for five minutes. clap clap clap

Wrong once again. Our ancestors were ahead for millennia.

Pick something like this up.

Don't get me wrong though, its not because we were inherently superior. Its all about circumstances, as you and I have been saying.

Don't be pc, sure there are races, differences in the genome.

Uhmm, no. Is this what they are teaching you in German schools? German ubermensch vs uncivilized dirt?

Humans are one race. There is little genetic variation among humans.

Another example: You're the kid of an extreme Hindu nationalist and you grow up around your father and his "friends" and their kids and all you hear all day every day is "Western people are Asura, we are the Deva, the Asura must be destroyed, they are our enemies, they are inferior, we are superior" etc. etc. Now imagine you would say "but no wait, we're all the same, western people are no demons..." Kinda improbable, wouldn't you agree.

The problem is, Westerners are no better than Asuras with their bigotry, supremacy, and racism. Hell, even you have these qualities.

However, even Asuras have the potential for reform. Give up your supremacy and ignorance. Thats all the world asks of you. Recognize the considerable achievements of other cultures and civilizations, know that without other civilizations, the Western world would never have developed into what it is today. Stop treating non-whites like uncivilized dirt that are nothing more than test subjects for "civilized" concepts.

Then the world won't be so angry at you.

Do you disagree with that "custom"? It kinda seems, as India was always easy to conquer for anybody. This is indeed hard to understand. If someone came along to rape your mother and kill your dad, would you just stand there and bow in namaste to them? Would you not fight to protect your family? And your people? Why not?

Whenever we were not united.

Persia: Conquered our most peripheral and unprotected regions.

Alexander: Had a tough time with even the kingdoms in the periphery of the subcontinent. Of course he was tired and blah blah blah, but there it is.

Muslims: Yeah, we were kind of suffering from a Dark Age and internal strife with the collapse of the Gupta Empire.

Europeans: Initially conquered ports that the Muslims didn't care about. Land vs Sea power and at that time, both were supreme in their elements and neither dared touch the other. But once the Mughal Empire collapse, the Europeans moved in.

What's your problem with sex and porn? If you don't like it, you don't have to have sex and you don't have to watch porn. If you like it, you can do it - in the West. To claim there would be something wrong about it, is a matter of opinion. If you would bring porn to India, a lot of Indian men would love it and watch it. Sure you can debate this. Debate your opinion, give reasons and arguments for your opinion why porn is evil, why sex is bad. Sure you can. But that does not make your opinion a universal truth. It remains an opinion. And it is not an opinion that in the west you simply have the freedom of choice. And - I agree on that anytime - while I might not really understand your concepts of "Asura" and "Deva", I still think that freedom of choice is always the better thing than forbidding something and surpressign something with force.

There is nothing wrong with sex. Sex is creation. If we Indians had such an adverse reaction to sex, then explain the Kamasutra and the Kujaraho temples. Explain our concept of kama (sensual gratification).

The problem arises when you consistently have sex for the sensual gratification, when you go beyond limits.

I agree with you for the most part. Freedom of expression is better than suppression, even in most controversial topics. The only exception I would make is with Abrahamic religious bigotry.

Same with parents. Sure do I "fraternize" with my parents. I call em mom and dad, and not by their names, never heard anyone doing that, but I see no problem there too. I respect them because they are respectable people, not because they are my parents. If I would be forced to respect them, or if I would have been brought up to respect them, no matter what they do, that would again be surpression of my free will. If I disagree with them, I should be able and allowed to express that, instead of blindly agreeing with anything they do. See my example of an extremist Hindu nationalist who teaches their kids hate. If they blindly follow anything such a dad says, there is no way out for them. So again: Freedom of choice.

And the example of zealous Western parents who teach their kids that Christianity is superior, all other religions are false, white men are civilized and superior while other "races" are barbarians and savages?

Same with women. The woman is the housekeeper. Yes, that's backwards. Why would she be? What's the point? There is no reason, it's simply a tradition based on women being less strong than men, and therefore less capable of doing the hard work that had to be done in ancient times. I do no hard work, and neither do you, so why would our wifes have to be housekeepers. It's nonsense.

Its either backwards or "civilized" depending on the society's intent. In India, the intent is not repressive but out of respect for women.

Of course, that doesn't mean we frown upon women getting jobs. Women have been a large part of our economy (especially as doctors) for decades now.

As well is it a stereotype that western families are all dysfunctional. Sure there are more to observe, because in the west, if husband and wife don't want to be together anymore, they have the freedom to go seperate ways. Which - I guess - in India is different.

Um no, Mrs. Dancing-is-banned-in-India. Grow out of your Arian supremacist bias.

Again, I think of Deva as holy, good and such, and Asura as evil, demonic, etc. India is corrupt, for starters. And it is a lot more corrupt, or let's say the corruption has a more serious impact on the people, than in the west. Because people have to actually suffer from hunger because of the corruption. You don't have that in the west, at least not in my country.

India is indeed corrupt. Hats off to the Congress party and the raping of India by the British.

What you fail to mention are the constant anti-corruption movements within India, especially the recent hunger strikes led by Anna Hazare against government corruption. My father told me that a new anti-corruption division within the government was created, with him as the head.

And so forth. Women are pretty much emancipated, and not only by law, but in general. I wouldn't know anybody who thinks that women are less smart, less capable, less valuable or anything. It's a regular view. To say women have to stay at home and take care of the household: Hilarious. Primitive.

In America, there's a conservative party called The Republicans (G.O.P). The most famous and well-known party in America, along with The Democrats.

They are largely anti-immigrant, anti-black, Christian fundamentalist (to varying degrees), anti-feminist, anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, and anti-gay rights.

As I am not claiming everything would be perfect. Sure there is greed and materialism. Sure spirituality has still to improve. But these things are on their way, and not just because those who are interested in it have nothing else to hold on to, which is often the case in a poor country. If you have nothing else in life but your faith and spiritual path, you're much more likely to stick to that. Give all who are spiritual and religious in India 1000 bucks per month and watch how many will give up their path; I'd be surprised if it were only 50%.

I would be surprised if it was even 90% in the West.

However, if you extrapolate, if you had a curve or tendency of where a culture goes, Deva or Asuara, you would see that India goes Asura and the West goes Deva. War is much less accepted for decades already. Germany for example has suspende compulsory military service this year, and you could always refuse to do it (which, btw, I did, I worked in a hospital for a year instead). People donate billions to poor country, etc. etc.

No, the West is Asuric and India is Devic. There are many evils in India, but those arise from ignorance and poverty.

In the West, however, people are willfully ignorant.

Think about the difference.

And last not least my friend, take yourself. You are all about belittleing the west, denying the west anything, you declare billions of people demons, evil, barbarians, compare them even with animals, you try to drive a wedge between east and west, you try to scare people with world war III, and so forth. Your actions are evil, my friend, you're a wrong doer.

Your supremacy is evil, my friend, you're a wrong doer.

Your ignorance is astounding. Throughout the course of this cat-fight, you have showcased your Western/white supremacist biases enough times.

When SD says that there will be a war, it is quite true. The rest of the world is sick of how the West treats them as nothing more than animals that need to be "civilized" by the West. If there ever will be a war between the East and the West, it will arise out of frustration at Western cultural and economic imperialism and jingoism.

The West disagrees with your diagnosis of being evil. We're regular people. Our ancestors did a lot of bad things, as did the ancestors of pretty much everybody. India is somewhat an exception, my theory is clear: They had a large empty land to expand into, and before it was full, India was continiously conquered and occupied and surpressed by other forces, Muslims, Portugueses, British, so it was in no position to start wars with other nations. And now, that it is free again, and the land is full, it has split itself in how many parts, three?, it's the worlds largest importer of arms (while the people are poor and suffer from hunger), it has waged several wars already, many with their own brothers and sisters, there are a lot of riots going on, a lot of religious violence.

No one cares about what the West thinks. You think going into any non-Western nation and saying "The West does not approve" will have any effect? Don't make the non-West world laugh.

How many times have we gone over the fact that you are deficient in Indian history? How retarded can you be to call a nation with 100's of millions of people by the 1500's, "empty?"

So again: The West considers itself to be quite regular. More successful, yes. The Muslims for example tried to conquer Europe too. They got kicked out. The West won't admit to some pseudo-Indian British Hindu-fanatic that it has to become Hinduistic and give up their roots. You can spend your next 50 reincarnations and it's not going to work out. Don't you agree? It's my question. Do you think that your posts on this forum make a difference? So far it does not look like, with more then 3,000 postings already. So either you have to come with guns, give it up or tell me how you think you'll achieve your goal.

Too bad the rest of the world disagrees. Your bigotry, racism, cultural supremacy, and exploitative systems are anything but normal.

I disagree with SD in that the West will become Dharmic. In my opinion, there won't BE a West that CAN become Dharmic/better/etc (assuming that you guys won't change).

However:

That is actually interesting. Germany, for example, has paid billions to Israel for example. Billions over billions, German Wikipedia says:

"Milliarden" are "billions, see also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiedergutmachung

I wonder how long it will take the West to realize that dishing out money won't solve problems.

"Here Mr. Poor Indian guy! Here's some money! Now can you forgive us for our imperialism and let me continue to bash your inferior culture?"

Aren't you currently occupied with branding that recently deceased Indian guru a sex-offender? I have never heard your two leaders to be pedophiles, also am I unfamiliar with your other problems, I have only read that the Gita was a great book, which is why I bought it, there is a neat lecture about it, in a course called "Books that have made history - Books that can change your life". And so forth. You perform selective perception here.

Good. Read the Gita. Maybe you'll give up your Arianism. Most likely though, you will decide that Yoga predated Hinduism, ancient Hindus were barbarians, and that the Gita is a product of Buddhist influences.

Yeah, I had briefly looked into that Hindu nationalist book "Breaking India" too, that's where you got this from. As far as I know the "Dalits" (what a fucked up concept to have Dalits at all, man) are supported to gain more rights in that caste-syste-driven-society. And sure, all religions try to convert people. It's what you do on this forum, isn't it, hypocrite.

No, not all religions convert people. Again, grow out of your supremacist bias, Mrs. Arian. Abrahamic religions are not the only religions in the world.

"Breaking India" is not a Hindu nationalist book, but a book written by the creator of the "Infinity Foundation." It is a well-known organization in America that campaigns for a better representation of Hinduism, India, and Hindus. The "Hindu nationalist" author is also university teacher and lecturer. If he was an extremist, I can guarantee you that he wouldn't have been given a university post.

I think the West needs to stop being so butthurt and admit that it committed the worst human-rights atrocities in the history of mankind.

Once again, don't talk about the caste system when you are ignorant of its history.

Yea, I'm warring against India. Totally. Want to anihilate India and Indians.

You said in another post in another thread that the "world will become like the West." If you truly think this, then you are not only warring against Indians, but every single nationality on Earth.

Our "hostilities" we won't give up. We can't, the western way, which is simply, as I had tried to explain in the Lybia-thread already, that which works best, is unstoppable. It will spread. The idea of equal rights, no matter who your father is, no matter where you live, no matter what gender you have. Freedom of religion, of speech of thought, access to information, access to porn, if you want it. There is no stopping this. There is no agreeing with you too, just some compensation I would actually agree to be fair, see my question above.

"Equal rights" isn't Western, Mrs. Arian Hitler. Its a natural concept that Westerners just so happened to formalize into legislation because of the activism of repressed social groups (women and African Americans especially) and uncivilized people (hence, why one of the UN's main goals is to curb nationalism. But you guys sure are failing at it since you believe you are superior to everyone else, thereby, ELICITING nationalism in other places around the world).

Don't think that the world will become like the West. Even after accepting secularization, democratization, and capitalism, India will remain India, Greece will remain Greece, China will remain China, and so on.

So what CLASH would we have to prepare for? I'm asking you again. Don't be a coward, just openly say what you long for. Is it war? Or what? Because if it's just offering what each civilisation has to offer to the people, dude, there is no question which civilisation will win. Not the one that is choking down the freedom of people.

What clash? A clash between "superior" Westerners and the resentful rest of the world. That's the clash you have to prepare for, Mrs. Hitler.

Wake up.

Please do.

#240

Hi Surya Deva,

I will have to conclude you have a narrow mind. If circumstances alone could explain why a culture becomes more civilised, then why is your culture still not civilised and why are you still going around invading, exploiting, looting and raping other countries? The West has been at war with non-Western countries non-stop since the beginning of the 20th century. Internally, you suffer from 50% or higher divorce rates and the highest rates of depression and mental disorders. Why are you still not civilised?
that’s actually simple: Because you declare us to be not civilised. You declare us to be “going around” and “invading, exploiting, looting and raping”. You declare some rate of divorce or depression as an indicator for the grade of civilisation.

That’s why. :wink:

That’s how [you think] it works. I personally did not ever even speak about being civilised, what should that be anyways, asking you, I’m sure it’s behaving in a way you think is appropriate.

However, even if you disagreed with the circumstances being the reason for a nation to be violent, non-violent, or, if you will, “civilised”, you still have not named a single alternative. So please: What could it be?

[quote]So what you overall do is pick two people and compare them and belittle one of them and glorifiy the other, but to discuss the hows and whys is unfortunately impossible. So we end up that at some point in time, or let’s say some time-window, the people you genetically happen to stem from had a more advanced culture than the people I genetically happen to stem from. Compared to the time-window of evolution, that was something like a few minutes: Congratulations, Surya Deva. Your ancestors were ahead for five minutes. clap clap clap

I never singled out the Germanic people. I have been talking about Western civilisation which traces its origins to the Greco-Roman world and Sumeria.[/quote]:roll: And I picked Germanic people as one example. Germanic people were less advanced than Romans and Greeks and all sorts of other cultures. And probably more advanced than a few others.

Again you simply refuse to deal with the point, skippy.

I am saying Indian civilisation has always been more advanced. Again, it is easy to compare IVC with its contempoary Sumeria and you can clearly see which one is more culturally advanced.
So in other words you pick two people, IVC and Sumeria, compare them, belittle one of them (Sumeria) and glorificy the other (IVC), but to discuss the hows and whys is still impossible. You refuse to admit it’s the circumstances, reason: It would reduce the glory of ancient India. If it were just the circumstances, it wouldn’t be a surprise or big deal. If it was just an easy life in a large land with no competitor that gave India the chance to advance faster, how lame would that be, hm?! Even lamer than your style of “debate”.

[quote]Don’t be pc, sure there are races, differences in the genome.

The differences are neglible. It is a clear fact in genetics that all races belong to the same human species. I would not expect you to be anymore biologically inferior or superior to me if you were a different race. I have in fact met far more intelligent, spiritual and high charactered white people than Indian people today. Race is not a factor for me and never has been. I treat all races in exactly the same way.[/quote]So there are races. Sure they all have the same potential. That’s why I wonder why you still have to refuse to accept that India and Indian people were only more advanced culturally due to circumstances. Why do you desire so much that there were your obscure “other reasons”? If all races are the same, why not admit yours was simply lucky in the dawn of civilisation?

Because you’re a damn racist…?

[quote]Could you pretty please explain why you punish a wrong doer? What’s the point? And could you pretty please explain how you set the punishment? Why would you send a thief 6 month to jail? Why not 12 or 3? What about the serial killer, the killed serial, isn’t dying just once unjust?

And allow me to ask again: What about me? My family? People of the city I live in? My nation? What would need to be brought to justice? What have I done wrong, my family, the people of the city or nation I live in? I wouldn’t know.

You punish a wrong doer to set an example in society that such wrongs are not tolerated. It is to deter people from commiting crimes. The punishment is set according to the severity of the crime and who commits the crime. You see a normal joe on the street if he commits theft is not as big a deal as a holy man commiting theft, say a pope, guru or imam.

Very serious crimes like rape and murder must be given be very serious punishments to deter other members of society for doing the same. The current Western/modern judicial system is a joke though - rapists get a few years or a few months, and can reduce their sentence by getting aid. Hence, it is not surprising that many of them repeat-offend. Moreover, prison is hardly something to be feared - you get regular meals, television, libraries, x-boxes and people to socialise with.[/quote]Ok, you punish to deter people from commiting crimes. But if people were not afraid of punishment and you could punish as much as you wanted and the crime rate wouldn’t go down: There would not be a point in punishment (btw), right? It would only be one thing: Cruel.

Do you agree? And now show me where and how punishment reduces the crime-rate in a country. And then explain your whole punishment-sub-subject in context of India being invaded, see my citation of the context:

As regards how you, your family and your people must be punished? Whoever said you should be punished? I distinctly remember saying I do not consider you responsible for what your ancestors did. Did you just conveniantly ignore that? Why?
I can’t remember you did, here is the context of the discussion about punishtment:

1/Q:
there is no point in condemning one and glorifying the other culture, because they’re both nothing but the product of said circumstances. It was impossible for the culture you call “demons” to develop differently. There is no choice involved, and therefore no guilt. A culture that lives in a much harsher climate, and has a lot of problems to only feed itself, will have no time to meditate, do philosophy, practice science, invent mathematics. Such a culture is busy with finding food, stocking it and building shelter for the winter. What such culture thinks about is how to improve their lives, how to survive.

2/SD:
Every criminal justifies their crimes by blaming outside factors. A serial killer says, “I had a poor upbringing, I got abused, I struggled etc” but this is no justification.

Your culture has been like a serial killer on this planet exterminating entire races, raping, enslaving, corrupting, destroying with impunity. You can blame your circumstances all you want, but it does not excuse the fact you are barbarians. Although I admit today you are more civilised now after having looted every other culture on the planet and becoming prosperous of their backs, you are still part of the same foundation that was set in Sumer and barbarism still is very much running your cultural stream. Hence why despite being the richest nations on Earth today, you are still going around the planet exploiting other cultures and invading them.

Q:
You say every criminal says circumstance made them criminal? And then what? Is that not true? You think someone woke up one morning and made that decisions for themselves? Of course do circumstance make the criminal. And circumstances make the saint. Your conclusion of this fact is faulty, that’s why you reject the conclusion. Because the conclusion does not lead to an acceptance of the crime or makes the crime even just. Of course not. But it alters how one deals with the criminal.

That again, though, is highly influenced by circumstances as well. You for example so far have not experienced the circumstances to enable you to understand all this, I’d guess because you see yourself and your people as the eternal victims. It’s too hard for you to find a place for wrong-doers in your heart. I come from a nation that has done a lot wrong. I had and have to deal with that, which opens my heart for both sides, the victim and the offender.

SD:
Circumstances are influences but they are not determinants. You always have your own will to choose from possiblities. This is why two different people in the same circumstances can turn out completely differently.

Q:
What I’m talking about is not how wrong-doers have to behave, should behave, might behave, could behave, but how one could and should be judging them, how one could react to wrong-doings, wether they should wind up in hate and desire retaliation, even hate the kids of wrong doers, the neightbours, someone who randomly happens to be from the same nation or some vague “the West”. That the point, ma friend.

SD:
Wrong doers should be bought to justice in proportion to their wrong doing. This is common sense, no? You do not execute a thief and you do not sentence a serial killer to 6 months in prison.
So you say that the culture of “the West” (actually like 5,000 different cultures) is evil. And I reply, the circumstances led to wrong doings of western cultures, and you say it doesn’t matter and wrong doers have to be punished. Who is there to be brought to justice by whom? If it’s not me, the living part of my culture, then who? You keep repeating to whine about the past: What for? You keep blaming western culture for the past: Why? We who live today, as you say now and claim to have said before, aren’t responsible. So what do you want? What’s your point? Are you against wrong doings in the present? Then why (the hell) do you emphasize the past 24/7? Are you against military actions in the present? Dude, I’m pretty much with you here. Are you against exploitation of poor countries? Exactly my opinion. How come we don’t discuss such topics and always talk about a past that’s done and gone, about wrong doings that happened in the past, with noone responsible alive anymore? Let’s talk about the present! What topics are there? You mentioned some: In some book, the author didn’t think the Bhagavad Gita was a great book. Holy lord, how dare he! What book was it, anyways? And you think that Indian literature is not recognised?? I don’t see how and why, please show me, all I always hear and read is that it’s great. And you mentioned the Dalits being converted to Christianity?

Dalit, also called Outcaste, is a self-designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as of Untouchables and unsuitable for making personal relationships. Dalits are a mixed population of numerous caste groups all over South Asia, and speak various languages.

While the caste system has been abolished under the Indian constitution,[4] there is still discrimination and prejudice against Dalits in South Asia.[5]
Well, it’s always easy to convert people that are discriminated by their own people/religion. My suggestion: Stop that discrimination and prejudice and make “Dalits” feel at home and welcome and part of the community. Really abolish the caste system.

What else have you got? Child labor? Should be banned. Exploitation of farmers and such in poor countries? Should be banned. There are efforts to do so, for example I think it’s even illegal (in Germany) to import goods that were manufactured with child labor involved. And there is this “Fair trade”-movement to avoid exploitation. Personally I always try to avoid to buy food that comes from other countries, but buy stuff that’s grown locally.

However, I think that these problems are problems that you cannot just blame a nation or a culture for, that is a problem that lies within the companies that are interested in making money. I don’t see that as a cultural phenomenon, you can find people who betray or abuse or exploit others for personal profit in any culture, including India.

Quite a boring subject, isn’t it? I mean, for you and your agendy. :wink:

Unfortunately in your worldview we are just a collection of our circumstances. This is why I state you are narrow minded. It is easy for anybody to see that while circumstances are a significant factor, humans also have a conscience. Not all Germans for example sided with the Nazis in their hatred towards the jews, some actually even helped the Jews and fought for them.
But the question remains why the majority sided with the Nazis and in fact became Nazis, which lead to the Nazis being in power which lead to the Nazis killing the Jews (and starting WWII, with ~ 60 million victims). How did that happen? You call me narrow minded for stating it were the circumstances: What’s your alternative explanation? You keep saying it weren’t circumstances, why don’t you enlighten me about what it was then?

Your worldview is quite miserable in which you do accept the humans may actually have a natural morality or goodness.
Huh?

I pointed out the example of children becoming upset at seeing their parents fighting to point out we have a natural aversion to negative emotions like anger and sorrow. We have a natural preference for positive emotions joy and happiness. Therefore, when we see another human being wronged by another, we have natural empathy for them which expresses itself in our conscience. Indeed, we can choose to listen to our conscience or suppress it, but we cannot escape the guilt that arises when do so. Even criminals feel guilt.
Yeah sure. So?

Unfortunately, you are too brainwashed by a materialist worldview where we are nothing than biological machines programmed by our environments. This is also another reason why you a backwards person. To not know that you have a soul is actually stupidity. Even children know they have a soul. It is proven in crosscultural studies children innately believe in soul, mind-body dualism and god. Nobody has to tell them.
Nice insults.

You evade evade evade. You want to deny deny deny that circumstances lead to wrong doings. If it’s not the circumstances, then what the hell is it? What does make a man a thief or a killer? Such a simple question. What led the Germans to become Nazis? Was Germany a great nation, rich, happy, etc.? Or was it a miserable poor country, humiliated, weakened? Do you think a great and rich Germany would’ve done the same, would’ve followed the same paroles, committed the same crimes? Here, just by the way, you see what punishment can lead to: Just the next crime, and one far more grave and evil.

Spare me your paroles, they don’t affect me. I know all about paroles. It were paroles that brought Hitler to power, many of which are quite similar to the ones you spool off. I’m asking you a simple question: What leads to wrong doings?

[quote]Funny jokes aside: Not that I would be a total pacificst or anything, you’d most probably find out all about it if you kept saying such stuff to my actual face, but genocide is not one of my customs. And it is not of most Germans, though we once had leaders that wanted to kill all the Jews. This, though, was a secret operation the vast majority of Germans had no idea about and the generation that had lived at that time was ashamed about it their whole life.

Please do not pretend that the majority of Germans were innocent in the holocaust and didn’t know it was going on. [/quote]No, I won’t pretend that.

[quote]Do you disagree with that “custom”? It kinda seems, as India was always easy to conquer for anybody. This is indeed hard to understand. If someone came along to rape your mother and kill your dad, would you just stand there and bow in namaste to them? Would you not fight to protect your family? And your people? Why not?

Well as your statement is not true it will be easy to refute. [/quote]What statement? I ask a question and state that “it kinda seems”. Is it not true that India was always easy to conquer for anybody? No problem, I don’t know Indian history any much. So it was hard?

India was no more easier to conquer than any other strong country. India had one of the strongest armies in the world during the Gupta empire. This is when Alexander armies laid seige on India, first walking through Persia, but then were defeated at the border by a minor Indian king known as Poros. Although Greek historians later recorded this as a victory, they remained suspiciously silent on it - well that is because Alexandra was badly beaten. His army was scared off by the mighty Indian army and refused to fight, and he even ended up ceeding his previously captured territory in Afghanistan to Poros. So Poros ended up not only succeeding in holding onto his own, he gained twice the size by the end of war.
I didn’t know that. Good job!

Moreover, India was a collection of kingdoms, which grew in size and reduced in size throughout time. Even when the Mughals invaded India, they could not capture it all and got barely anywhere near the South, because they faced stiff resistance from Hindu kingdoms like the Marathas, Rajaputanas, Sikhs etc. This is because Hindus have a strong warrior culture. While the Muslims pretty much walked through the Romans, the Arabans, Persians, Egyptians, converting them to 100% Muslim - in India they struggled. India is still 80% Hindu.
Strong warrior culture: I see!

The British also did not have it easy in India. They had to fight several wars with Muslim kingdoms and Hindu kingdoms, and even lost a few. When they won the battle of Plessy and gained control of Bengal, a crucial hub of India, most of India fell into its hands. However, again Hindus fought very hard several times such in the 1857 battle of independence. The fight never ended, because Hindus have a strong warrior culture.
Very good.

Portugal and the Dutch did not invade all of India, but only managed to get small colonies like goa and pondicherry. India has not suffered anymore invasions than say England, or France or Germany.

In 10,000 years of history, it is only in the last 1000 years that foreign invasions started - and boy did we fight.
Boy, you must be a tough culture, I really underestimated you.

So how can you conclude from this it constantly got invaded?
This should be quite interesting for you: Because of you. And your whining. You actually make it look like India was a very weak culture, conquered by all sorts of other cultures since (I think) 7AD. You have this huge thread where you whine about all this:

http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/f33/persecution-of-hindus-and-ending-it-7604.html
Overview:

Hindus are one of the most persecuted people in history, alongside the Jews. However, the history of persecution of Hindus is relatively recent, beginning around 7AD when the first Islamic invasions started. The Muslims were brutal with the Hindus, waging war after war, sacking every Hindu city, temples and place of learnings(building mosques using the rubble) and killing Hindus almost like a sport. Hindus have lost tens of thousands of temples, libraries, univeristies and other places of Hindu learning due to this onslaughts. Hundreds of thousands of Hindus were killed on the spot on many occasions. The Muslims hated the Hindus, calling them filth, pollution, idolaters, enemies of god, and routinely killed, maimed, raped, molested Hindus, treating them like third class citizens in their own country. It is estimated the population of Hindus went down by 80 million during Muslim rule.

The second round of persecution began with the Europeans, which held similar views about Hindus, calling them pagans, demons, heathens. The Portguese were the most brutal and started the Goa inquisitions where Hindus were routinely subjected to torture and the most inhumane treatment. The British who followed later subjugated the Hindu people. They enslaved Hindus, by forcing them to work for the East India company, outlawed their own industries, forcing them into unemployment and poverty. Many took to agicultural jobs, but even then the British empire demanded heavy taxes from them in the form of food grain(Lagaan) even during times of draught, sucking the people’s blood dry. The result was several famines that ended up killing tens of millions of Hindus. Not a single Indian state existed that did not experience depopulation. Not content with the economic destruction of heathen Hindus, the British outlawed the Indian education system, shutting down tens of thousands of Sanskrit schools and colleges, rendering future generations illiterate.
Sounds like an easy thing to do, just go there and take what you need, kill 80 million Indians here, tens of millions there.

But if you say it was actually not easy to conquer India: Very well. You, though, in setting things straight here, accidentially forgot about my actual point:

Do you disagree with that “custom”? It kinda seems, as India was always easy to conquer for anybody. This is indeed hard to understand. If someone came along to rape your mother and kill your dad, would you just stand there and bow in namaste to them? Would you not fight to protect your family? And your people? Why not?
So fighting for survival is ok, right? It’s ok to kill other people if the alternative would be to die? Please respond. :lol:

It is obvious you are not apologetic about what your ancestors did to India,
I wouldn’t know that my ancestors ever did anything to India. Did I miss something?

because you speak with pride when you say India got invaded, raped, and looted. Thus my criticism of you as being uncivilised and backwards is justified.
If I came to know that my ancestors went around raping, killing and looting people in the world, I would feel ashamed. I would have no pride in the matter. This is the difference between you and me.

Civilised people measure a civilisations progress by their character, nobility, morality and wisdom - not by how many people they have exterminated, raped, enslaved and looted or how big their weapons are.

You are not a civilised person. You are backwards.
Dude, if I was proud of anything, I’d say so and you wouldn’t have to interpret it into my words. It’s just a corner you desire to push me into. That, my friend, is not civilised, but you never were a fair debater, you pull hair, spit and bite. For this instance, I will report you to David.

[quote]What’s your problem with sex and porn? If you don’t like it, you don’t have to have sex and you don’t have to watch porn. If you like it, you can do it - in the West. To claim there would be something wrong about it, is a matter of opinion. If you would bring porn to India, a lot of Indian men would love it and watch it. Sure you can debate this. Debate your opinion, give reasons and arguments for your opinion why porn is evil, why sex is bad. Sure you can. But that does not make your opinion a universal truth. It remains an opinion. And it is not an opinion that in the west you simply have the freedom of choice. And - I agree on that anytime - while I might not really understand your concepts of “Asura” and “Deva”, I still think that freedom of choice is always the better thing than forbidding something and surpressign something with force.

Now you are proving why you are uncivilised. You actually think Western immorality is a virtue ;)[/quote]I actually think that morality is nonsense overall, and to grant a people freedom is the virtue of the West. :wink:

It is easy to see why porn and lust are bad qualities for a civilised person, but not for you, because you are uncivilised. I will give you a brief answer why:

Lust is not a positive emotion or feeling.
:lol:

If you are feeling lust you are lacking in character, discipline and self-control.
:lol:

To be civilised is to overcome your base instincts which you have inherited from your animal past and to bring forth your human quality which impart your humanity, else you are not far removed from an animal. The human has the ability for great compassion, charity, love, friendship and wisdom, but he will not realise this unless he overcomes his base animal nature and gains control over his own senses. One who does not have control of his senses, but rather the senses control them, is not far removed from an animal.
If one has no control over their senses, I agree they need to improve. But why would somebody who watches porn not have control over their senses? Why would one who watches porn not have the ability for great compassion, charity, love, friendship and wisdom?

You gave no single argument for anything being wrong about porn. Is it wrong to love eating tasty food to?

You sound closer to an animal to me than a human. You take glee in your ancestors raping, murdering and conquering people on this planet. You are proud of your barbaric past. You think we are nothing more than instinct driven creatures. Most definitely backwards.
I reported this post, just btw, cuz you’re taking it too far with your insults. You need some punishment, maybe get banned for a week, so you learn not to do this again. I, though, think it only reflects your helplessness. If you have no other way to respond to arguments, you try to insult your opponent away.

You do not “fraternize” with your parents because your parents are not your mates. Hence you do not talk to them as you would your mates. In civilised socieities like India and China, we understand what is called relationalism, that is we should behave differently with different people and we should be mindful of remaining within limits. In India this is known as maryada. For example you do not kiss your mother on her lips(I have actually seen this happen in the West) or sleep with your teacher. Each relationship has limits which one must remain mindful of.
See, you give no single reason. You just repeat traditional values. Why not? Besides being my parents, my parents are my friends, I don’t call them “Madam” and “Sir”.

You do lack respect for your parents from a dharmic point of view because you do not respect their authority and treat them like your mates. Your mates did not bring you up - they did. You are indebted to them. When we blur the limits of these relationships as it happens in your west, you destory the order of society.
Paroles. I see no explanation, just dogmas.

Hence why in your culture even incest takes place.
In India it doesn’t. Never ever. Really. Because dharmic traditions forbid it.

[quote]Same with women. The woman is the housekeeper. Yes, that’s backwards. Why would she be? What’s the point? There is no reason, it’s simply a tradition based on women being less strong than men, and therefore less capable of doing the hard work that had to be done in ancient times. I do no hard work, and neither do you, so why would our wifes have to be housekeepers. It’s nonsense.

Can you give birth to children?[/quote]No.

No, because you do not have the nature of a woman that would allow that. The woman biologically is the mother and the mother obviously has to mother the child.
I thought this is about the woman being the housekeeper. Now it’s about the woman being the mother. What if there is no child?

How can she do that if she is working? Somebody has to look after the family and manage the house,
And why can’t the father do that?

and I assure you having watched my mother do the housework and pitched in myself to help time and time again, it’s not easy - it is a full time job.
Yeah dude, of course it is. The question is, why has it to be the job of a woman. It can as well be the father. The father can stay at home and take care of the household and the children and the mother goes to work.

Dharma is about making sacrifices in life for the greater good - the mother sacrifices her own leisure to look after her children. The father sacrificies his leisure to work hard and earn to provide for his family and give them the comforts they need.
Or the mother sacrifices her own leisrue to work and the father his to look after the children. Or, and that’s how my wife and I handle it, they split it. I look as much after our son as his mother, and I often even do more at home, because I work at home. There’s surely something wrong according to your primitive-uhm-I-mean-dharmic worldview: Explain what!

It is a two-way process and most Hindu men and women understand this very well. Just as the mother has a dharma, so does the father, so does the child. Of course you cannot understand dharma because you are a backwards civilisation.
Oh, I do understand it quite well. To take care of a household is not exactly a work that is considered to be manly, you know, wash clothes, prepare food, clean the toilet. You call it dharma: Well. :wink:

In your civilisation the mother leaves the child at home with a nanny or simply on its own, while she goes out for a night out with the girls :wink: Why else do you have 50% or more divorce rates. Most children growing up now days can’t even be sure who their father is :smiley:
See: when I say that India was conquered a lot and it seems to have been quite esay, that’s actually an observation. No glee involved, no pride. You stating that “most” childredn grow up without being sure who their father is and adding a bunch of smileys to it: That’s glee. You like that thought. You like to think that western culture is rotten and all. What’s so likeable about it, Surya Asura?

However, it’s indeed the case that in the West parents can take a break of being parents every now and then. It’s common. You let the kids grandparents watch over it or you leave it at a friends house, who has children as well, and they sometimes leave your kids with you. Or you leave the kids with the fathers and the mothers go out or the other way. Why wouldn’t you? So you have some free time for yourself to have some non-kid-fun, that provides you with some energy.

About the divorce rate: I don’t see the problem again, sorry. If people don’t want to be together anymore, why would they not part? According to your tradition-driven India, the reason why there (are there?) less divorces should be that tradition forbids it, forbids women to got out and meet other men (and therefore men don’t meet other women). So you have families that live a formal life with artificial relationships that are determined by traditions, instead of feelings. Women are not allowed to leave the house and have fun, are not allowed contact with other men, not allowed to divorce if they simply don’t love their husbands anymore. Well, if they ever did in the first place, aren’t mariagges arranged a lot in India? And if it wasn’t banned, widows would even die with their husbands. Why all that would be “civilised” and “advanced culture”: I don’t get it. To me it sounds like oppression.

You think you can change western culture to live that way? Dude.

[quote]As well is it a stereotype that western families are all dysfunctional. Sure there are more to observe, because in the west, if husband and wife don’t want to be together anymore, they have the freedom to go seperate ways. Which - I guess - in India is different.

Etc. etc. All your examples go back to the same thing: Freedom of choice vs. the straitjacket of tradition.

I am not saying they are ALL dysfunctional, but over 50% of them are. It is a widely recognised and endemic problem in Western society, not just some exaggeration.[/quote]It is a fact, yes. But I do not see what the problem is. Well, I do see a problem that when a couple breaks up and they have a child, that the father or the mother isn’t around all the time anymore and they get to see each other less. On the other hand, if mom and dad don’t love each other anymore and don’t want to be together anymore, they’d be unhappy if they’d be forced to be, which would again affect the child. And if they work it out, both parents can still frequently see the child after a divorce and spend “quality time” together.

The cause of this is how relaxed you are about divorce, how you lack a notion of dharma.
Dharma, that’s an Indian tradition or something, isn’t it? That you then call the eternal law of the universe or so. :wink:

The other day I saw a 60 year old woman in a club when I went out with my mate on a Hen party - shameful, trully shameful. I even said to my mate, "If I was still in this place at the age of 60, I would consider I have failed in life"
And while you were disgruntled by a 60 year old woman having a good time, that 60 year old woman was having a good time. If you asked me, you already have failed in life.

Dharma is basically virtue. I cannot explain virtue to somebody who lacks virtue and cannot understand why it is virtue.
I think your so-called virtue is a set of primitive traditions that are mostly installed to oppress women, hold them down, make them the slaves of men, breed their children, wash their clothes, clean their toilets, and so forth. I despise it.

You have a simplistic view of your society, you are only looking at it on face value. I am looking at it a lot more critically:
Oh my! :lol:

Corruption: Yes, India is a lot more corrupt on face value. You have to pay bribes in India, even the moment you step into the country this goes on. Rich people get away with crimes by paying off the police.
Terrible. In Germany, we recently had a case of our minister of defence having written a plagiat as a dissertation. Some people set up a website and researched the issue and found every instance of where he copied from other authors. Result: Said minister put down all his functions and is now facing the law.

Most Indians in India will try to con you :smiley:
What’s so funny about that.

This is symptomatic of a developing country - all developing countries have this problem. Corruption is reducing now though, and the public at large are fed up of it, but it is not going to come down overnight.

But to say the West is not corrupt is a lie.
Sure. And it’s a lie to say I had said that.

The West is not corrupt on face value, but at the deeper strata of society you will find a level of corruption which puts India to shame. Sinister corruption like planning invasions of countries based on political and economic interests, spreading war propoganda through the media(black ops) inciting civil wars in countries to break them apart, funding rouge regimes and profiteering from war. Do you know whose money funded the Nazi concentration camps - the Bush family, Standard Oil and other big Western companies. Do you know who trained the Indonesian army and armed them for the East Timorian genocide? America. Who weaponized Iraq and put Saddam Hussain in power and let him invade Kuwait? America.
Yes, I know all that. A few powerful families, I’d actually say quite general the uppermost class. A big problem indeed, which I did not deny, when I said:

Again, I think of Deva as holy, good and such, and Asura as evil, demonic, etc. India is corrupt, for starters. And it is a lot more corrupt, or let’s say the corruption has a more serious impact on the people, than in the west. Because people have to actually suffer from hunger because of the corruption. You don’t have that in the west, at least not in my country. In my country, SD, if you have no job and no money, you go to some office and they will instantly pay your rent, pay for your health-insurance and pay you an additional 350? per month. For example. Also, you have to go to school, every kid has to go to school for at least 10 years. Every kid, another example, has to go to see a doctor on a determined schedule. It’s the law. If you fail to obey, the police will come. Hitting children at school is illegal, so is hitting children illegal for their parents. It is even illegal to mistreat a child emotionally, you know, be unkind continously, punish the kid continously.

And so forth. Women are pretty much emancipated, and not only by law, but in general. I wouldn’t know anybody who thinks that women are less smart, less capable, less valuable or anything. It’s a regular view. To say women have to stay at home and take care of the household: Hilarious. Primitive.
This you evade: How surprising. :lol:

India has never invaded a single country in its entire 10,000 year history - the West on the other hand has never stopped invading, looting, plundering.
And I have already commented on this 10,000 times.

[quote]However, if you extrapolate, if you had a curve or tendency of where a culture goes, Deva or Asuara, you would see that India goes Asura and the West goes Deva. War is much less accepted for decades already. Germany for example has suspende compulsory military service this year, and you could always refuse to do it (which, btw, I did, I worked in a hospital for a year instead). People donate billions to poor country, etc. etc.

I can see some trends of Deva culture appearing in the West, but this is because our Hindu gurus came to the West and spread Yoga, Vedanta etc[/quote]:lol:

We have gradually started to civilise your people,
:lol:

but the majority of you are still uncivilised. However, even India today as it stands is more civilised than your culture, we still retain much of spirituality and culture. We don’t have porn empires, our divorce rates is only 1%, we still respect our parents and we still respect education. Hence why our educated lot are outperforming your educated lot. Our media is still relatively clean and emphasise Indian values. We still have the most temples, churches, mosques and ashrams in the world.
Ok, if Deva means “no porn” and “no divorces” and “don’t befriend your parents” and “many churches” then India is Deva + I don’t care to be Deva.

I am not threatening you with a third world war or saying Hindus are going to invade you.
Not? Then what are you saying?

I am telling you you will not get away with your imperialism in the world.
What does that mean? Not getting away?

You have too many enemies in the world today, and because you are not stopping your old habits of walking over everybody, you are putting yourself in a very dangerous position. India poses no physical threat to you - but Russia and China? Keep pushing and you will find out for yourself.
Ok. :wink:

It is fairly obvious why India is the biggest importer of arms. It is surrounded by two nuclear powered enemies which have an alliance against it.
India: The eternal victim.

And China is a threat to the West…? Hey, maybe the west and India can team up when war breaks out? Wouldn’t that be awesome? You and me, side by side fighting China? High five!

In all three wars tell me who started the wars? They were all started by Pakistan. One of these wars in 1971 was started by Pakistan commiting widescale genocide against the Hindus in what is now Bangladesh killing millions of them. India had to send in a liberation army, much like the West sent a liberation army into Nazi germany.
But Pakistan is India. It’s the same people, just that they split off and called themselves “Pakistan”. I’m not familiar with all the causes, but what I see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_wars_and_conflicts
The Kashmir dispute has been the root cause of all major conflicts between the two countries with the exception of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, where the dispute concerned the erstwhile East Pakistan.
And then

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_dispute
India claims the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir and as of 2010, administers approximately 43% of the region, including most of Jammu, the Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, and the Siachen Glacier. India’s claim is contested by Pakistan, which controls approximately 37% of Kashmir, namely Azad Kashmir and the northern areas of Gilgit and Baltistan. China controls 20% of Kashmir, including Aksai Chin, which it occupied following the brief Sino-Indian War of 1962, and the Trans-Karakoram Tract (also known as the Shaksam Valley), which was ceded by Pakistan in 1963.
Two (or three?) nations battling about a piece of land. Of course Indians will say the others are the evil force. And the others will say, India is. As usual.

The facts remain the facts, India/Pakistan are warring nations, once brothers, now fighting each others. What exactly is that Deva-concept again…?

[quote]Don’t you agree? It’s my question. Do you think that your posts on this forum make a difference? So far it does not look like, with more then 3,000 postings already. So either you have to come with guns, give it up or tell me how you think you’ll achieve your goal.

I don’t come to this forum for political purposes.[/quote]:lol:

Of course 3000 or even 10,000 posts on this forum is not going to make much of a difference. I come here to discuss - this is an entertainment for me - not a mission.
Ok, so you aint’t trying to make a difference with your posts - it was just a question, my friend. And what about that discussion? I see no discussion. You have your point of view and that’s it. You repeat it over and over again. There is - I said it before - no coming to terms with you. On the contrary are you doing everything to insult and belittle your opponents. They are like animals to you, if they don’t agree with your conservative traditional world-view. How is that a discussion? You’re here to inform people and spread you viewpoint. That’s also called “propaganda” - remember when I was the first to expose who and what you are? Was back in the days when you still was civilised and started your posts with “Namaste”. How come you gave that up, btw? I still greet you in each and every post. :slight_smile:

However, I have to go now; I’ll read the rest of your insightful notes tomorrow. Oh, and I have to report your post. Does that require a note…? I’ll give this one:

Hi David,

I want to report this post by Surya Deva for these parts:

[quote]you speak with pride when you say India got invaded, raped, and looted. Thus my criticism of you as being uncivilised and backwards is justified.
If I came to know that my ancestors went around raping, killing and looting people in the world, I would feel ashamed. I would have no pride in the matter. This is the difference between you and me.

Civilised people measure a civilisations progress by their character, nobility, morality and wisdom - not by how many people they have exterminated, raped, enslaved and looted or how big their weapons are.

You are not a civilised person. You are backwards.
and

You sound closer to an animal to me than a human. You take glee in your ancestors raping, murdering and conquering people on this planet. You are proud of your barbaric past. You think we are nothing more than instinct driven creatures. Most definitely backwards.
I don’t mind heated debates and the occasional insult, but this simply goes too far. There is no indication I would be proud or happy that people get killed and mistreated. This isn’t the “religion”-forum (and not a discussion about religion), so I don’t think I have to accept such slander.[/QUOTE]