OOPS...WRONG PICTURE!!! It is supposed to be the picture below...sorry about that folks - I blame my computer!
I saw the post on Dandavats.com about the book written by Stephen Knapp “Crimes against India”. I perused the topics about sanatan dharma etc. I have not read the book and do not know anything about its contents. Just the title and the cursory review of the webpage invoked certain thoughts.
The book most likely will touch on preserving Vedic culture (sanatan dharma). The biggest pet peeve I have is how our culture is waning not because of foreign invasion but utter rejection and ignorance of culture by its own people – the Indians!
As an Indian, growing up in a small town, I can safely say that the India I knew 20 years before is completely different from what it is today. Indians have purposefully neglected their true calling to know their roots. While the whole world is taking pride of their roots, Indians are actively and forcefully accepting a culture inherently foreign to them – the western mind!
All my friends (at least once upon a time…and I had many) have no clue about the difference between body and soul and this is 101 in spiritual life. Every one of them at best is “religious” in a mundane sense if not impersonal/atheistic and the buck stops there. Actually, the ground reality is no one cares or wants to spend time knowing their Vedic roots! Now, I am talking about a generation who got raised in a culture without cable tv and internet. Imagine the next generation raised with cable tv and internet?
The reason Vedic culture is dying…I attribute this mainly to the lack of desire Indians have to learn their own roots. Of course…there are other external factors influencing the environment but if Indians born in Vedic culture can care less about their own culture, why should the Muslim, British and western media care?
Today…the things an average Indian from North to South is proud about and may even think it is their culture are the following,
The book most likely will touch on preserving Vedic culture (sanatan dharma). The biggest pet peeve I have is how our culture is waning not because of foreign invasion but utter rejection and ignorance of culture by its own people – the Indians!
As an Indian, growing up in a small town, I can safely say that the India I knew 20 years before is completely different from what it is today. Indians have purposefully neglected their true calling to know their roots. While the whole world is taking pride of their roots, Indians are actively and forcefully accepting a culture inherently foreign to them – the western mind!
All my friends (at least once upon a time…and I had many) have no clue about the difference between body and soul and this is 101 in spiritual life. Every one of them at best is “religious” in a mundane sense if not impersonal/atheistic and the buck stops there. Actually, the ground reality is no one cares or wants to spend time knowing their Vedic roots! Now, I am talking about a generation who got raised in a culture without cable tv and internet. Imagine the next generation raised with cable tv and internet?
The reason Vedic culture is dying…I attribute this mainly to the lack of desire Indians have to learn their own roots. Of course…there are other external factors influencing the environment but if Indians born in Vedic culture can care less about their own culture, why should the Muslim, British and western media care?
Today…the things an average Indian from North to South is proud about and may even think it is their culture are the following,
- A.R.Rahman (not that one should not be…he is a good composer...especially now he may get an oscar...keep your fingers crossed!),
- Rajnikanth (ok…I like him!),
- the movie industry,
- Mahatma Gandhi (not that I know him more than anyone outside India)
- his non-violence movement,
- Indian food,
- Temples (I mean only the architecture of it),
- Taj Mahal (I have never seen it)
- of course Sachin Tendulkar or I mean cricket
...for now this is all I can think of.
Bottom line – if I don’t care about my own backyard…no one else will be! I am not even talking about the highest principles of Vaishnavism but about fundamental issues of body, mind, soul, and God?
The only way Vedic culture can be preserved is if the people of India take to their roots in a mood to understand the real essence of the Vedas and not fight in the name of mundane religion and caste!
Hare Krishna
2 comments:
Servant of the Servant is a great blog, very interesting and well written.
That other post it was not as good as all the other things you have posted here. Please keep on posting good things like these.
These things are a pleasure to read.
Hare Krishna,
Nice reading ..............
Post a Comment