Urgency for religions to intervene in the current disintegration of individual and societies

Christianity:

Love, as Jesus Christ had meant it, was an unknown emotion in the contemporary world. Today it is being preached in the churches as a moral obligation, or even a moral burden for man and the world, whereas Christ had taught it to be the all engrossing glue that should unite man with man, and man with God. He was very specific in his 10 commandments, that all of them would find its culmination in just two prime laws; ie. Loving God with all the might, and loving one’s neighbour with the equal intensity.

But Church and mankind is yet to understand LOVE in his given meaning and relevance. This philosophic attempt here is to throw light on Love, as Christ had wanted it to be.

The very theme of Christ, a revolutionary one, was to alter the social-system and the man-to-man relation that world hitherto had been following, the ‘eye-for-an-eye, and ear-for-an-ear’ social-justice system that Hammurabi had introduced.

This vital shift of the way of the world had not only happened till today, and the Church that was established after death of Christ, did not take any step so far that would directly or indirectly usher-in such a society and world Christ had envisioned, and given-up his life for ! In this sense, the revolutionary religious founder’s very purpose stands unfulfilled or failed !

 Today, mankind is keeping Darwin’ s survival of the fittest law as the law of nature as well as that of God, that determines the relation between man to man. His law has been accepted by science also as the law of nature. Without any doubt, extreme awareness of this law has resulted in a perpetual anxiety among men to safe-guard one’s self and everything he owns from its being grabbed by others around him ! This fear has gripped human societies and nations as well as a natural phenomenon. 

Darwin’s law, when adopted by Science, provided it a firm legitimacy to the principle of ‘survival of the fittest, and the law of ‘Natural selection. It has become a dangerous social value. It has caused base anxiety about one’s own survival, and extreme fear of the other person, other community, and other nation.

I wish to share more details of this dangerous fate of the modern man with you, at my blog links: http://leadingdogmasthatruletheworld.blogspot.in/

nd: http://lovepredominatessurvivalinstincts.blogspot.com/

While the 1^st blog depicts the gripping influence of Darwin’s law on mankind, the 2^nd blog touches on the crucial relevance of realizing LOVE as the LAW of nature that should replace the damaging law of Darwin.

Role of Church: Recent media survey revealed that almost 90% of youngsters in India are religious. It is an extremely good sign, but it does not get translated into reformed behavior towards the fellow being. It only has got translated into more attendance in the church, temples, mosques, and Gurudwaras. Man has no knowledge of God’s law for the world, where he has to spend 60 to 70 years of life: an inevitable phase of self-existence.

Understanding Love in an existential, and spiritual meaning

The revolutionary teaching of Jesus Christ, whose coming had marked the end of the reign of old laws, and the beginning of the sole law of LOVE, is still unknown as a social ideology among scholars within Church, and laymen in the mainstream human society. I introduced this subject at the beginning of this paper. This fact, despite existence of His Church for more than 2000 years on earth, and the Christian population of the world remains majority in the world,its lack of understanding as the prime creative and existential EMOTION should be a matter of serious concern !

It needs no super intelligence to realize that the concept of Love He had taught was the natural law of human societies, for sustainable peace. The dire need of this age is to understand LOVE in its most simplified and logical essence and meaning; as that of VALUING THE OTHER PERSON AS HE VALUES HIMSELF. If we simply look at the great emotion a bit closely, it would be easily revealed that LOVING is in essence VALUING the person you love ! Valuing encompasses every essential features of love. Understanding loving as Valuing, thus makes  a lot of difference.

The existing understanding of love merely as a moral burden for man, must come to and end. Love as existential cause and glue, in a truly scientific sense, must replace Darwin’s dangerously materialistic law of the ‘survival of the fittest’, and that of ‘natural selection’.

Christians must admit that, Love is the most less understood emotion in the world, despite it being the centre of our religious life for two millenniums ! Love as meant by Jesus was nothing but this VALUING the other person. The Godly emotion behind creation of the world was nothing but His all engrossing emotion of LOVE ! The motivational energy and emotion that made God to create the world and life was this VALUING OF everything he has created ! He simply shared this PRIME EMOTION with man, and set it as the norm and law between man and God, as well as man and man ! We can not ever find a better definition and understanding of LOVE other than that of VALUING the other ! Loving God for man means VALUING Him more than anything else, and LOVING one’s neighbour means valuing him too, the way he VALUES God ! This valuing is nothing but valuing life, and valuing everything God has created !

  

Why LOVE was the PRIME emotion behind creation ?

This author was into deep meditation for long, prompted by his extreme inner urge to probe into answering the much enigmatic ‘WHY” question of  human existence. He attempted to answer this question in one of his blog-posts at Link : http://thewhyquestionofexistenceanswered.blogspot.com/  This idea of LOVE has been detailed in every possible, logically convincing way and sense in the above blog-post

The purpose behind this deliberation

The purpose behind this deliberation is to seek the active involvement of Christian-authorities in propagating the theme of LOVE as the natural law of human relations, human societies, as well as the THEME of existence itself.

It is indeed a great task, but God had the original urge to convey this message to mankind to SAVE them from the peril of life without love. This was the very purpose and message of Christ. He discarded all the old books, knowledge and laws of the Jews, and gave mankind the NEW, simple law of LOVE, declaring that, it will replace all other previous laws.

In reality, this era of the new Book, and the new law of Love, is yet to be known by people at large in the world ! The institution and the infrastructure of Church has grown much in disproportion to the above PRINCIPLE for which it was intended for !

Time has come now for the world to reverse the trend. Church, fortunately has the required status, infrastructure and man-power at her disposal, that she should put to use to spread the Prime message;the singular law of Christ, LOVE !

This step from Church’s end is a historical need and responsibility; the ever dwindling number of church goers in the world, especially Europe and USA, reiterates the need of such a proactive step !

It can keep a secular face while spreading this vital-social justice revolution. It is teaching human societies its natural law of co-existence as set by God, or existence ! 

The hurdle of the state in the way of Love:  To value the other person, one should have his self esteem in place. Dignity of self should replace fundamental fear. Democracy was intended to provide this central existential need of man. But it is today a name sake of its true substance and meaning. Elected representatives are trying to act like the old masters of the world, the KINGS and MONARCHS whom they had replaced. The neurotic catch of the ‘ruler’ image is irresistible for these peoples representatives !

The great ideal of Democracy has become the prime tool for ordinary individuals as well as political leaders to fulfill these primordial urge. Hence, the above said primary need of man still remains an unaccomplished dream. Man on the road is the most disdained and neglected item in the state, and in the game of politics.

Man should be capable of loving himself first, for doing it for the other. This would be possible only when democracy reinvents itself in its originally intended form, and accomplish its first duty of ensuring DIGNITY OF SELF of all citizens. We urge the Church to help the respective states to reinvent the system of rule, ie. DEMOCRACY, as a first step to work on the central theme of LOVE. When state recognize the base need of providing citizen his feeling of individual dignity, and provide it to him in the act of governance, mankind can said to have achieved a major step in the path of moving ahead further in the ladder of civilization. I would like to share a blog post, depicting the dire need of this theme : http://direneedofreinventingdemocracy.blogspot.com/

What stops Church authorities in spreading the message of LOVE with all force ?

This author realizes that Vatican, in principle, is against the intervention of Church in the active social  problems of societies as per its clearly notified policies in the Compendum document.  It prefers to remain only in the spiritual domain of the believers. In Vatican’s ‘ Compendum of Catholic Church : Doctrine of social responsibility ’ , at item No. 68, She says:

‘The Church does not assume responsibility for every aspect of life in society, but speaks with the competence that is hers, which is that of proclaiming Christ the Redeemer[91]: “Christ did not bequeath to the Church a mission in the political, economic or social order; the purpose he assigned to her was a religious one. But this religious mission can be the source of commitment, direction and vigour to establish and consolidate the community of men according to the law of God”[92]. This means that the Church does not intervene in technical questions with her social doctrine, nor does she propose or establish systems or models of social organization[93]. This is not part of the mission entrusted to her by Christ. The Church's competence comes from the Gospel: from the message that sets man free, the message proclaimed and borne witness to by the Son of God made man.’

But it is not a matter of any dispute that world is more in darkness than it was during Christ’s time. So, Church must review her above resolution, and decide to come-forward to full-fill the vision and purpose of her founder. Her present head, Pope Francis, fortunately has the will and desire to see the world altered, judging from his enthusiasm shown in the field of climate-change etc.

No other agency exists in the world to accomplish this task: The political-Media-Business nexus is complete, to have supremacy over human institutions and establishments. This author’s various blogs in the above referred blog-spot have many posts depicting this sad calamity.

Political leaders or Media can never take-up this task of leading mankind to enlightenment and spiritual freedom. They have own agendas and priorities, leaving man totally orphaned in the world! Here comes the great responsibility of the Church as well as other great religions. The purpose of every religion indeed was to have a sane and mutually loving world, not for having different and distinct RITUAL-PROCEEDINGS. Such overt difference sharpens the difference between religions, and the divisions get defined excessively on such overt features and cultural peculiarities their believers follow. Every one knows the extreme mutual fear, hatred and violence on the basic of such superficial differences modern world encounter now. The simple and direct unity of all religions on the mater of LOVE and mutual-valuing of others should have kept the world at peace and tranquillity.

It is quite disturbing that even Christian management schools are yet to device and introduce special syllabus to teach the Christ-taught management style, ie. being leader of men by becoming their servant ! He stood for the management principle that ‘I am your leader and King, because you can torture me and kill me if that would make you happy’ !

Unfortunately, this kind of teaching is considered an anti-thesis today including by  Church. But reality is that, there is no other way in the world for achieving lasting peace other than the simple most principle he had taught ! It is the final law for man for bringing Kingdom of God on earth. New testament of Christians teaches this singular principle only ! It is indeed the essence of New testament !

Love was the emotion that God was filled with to the brim when he had decided to CREATE, as once stated above. It is the same emotion that sustains creation today, moment to moment on earth ! It is the missing energy link that unites all other energies of Physics, the missing link of physical energy system that scientists have been searching for long.

Mind is not the organ for knowing God. It is only for dealing with physical objects in the world. It can know God only as one of its imaginary (phenomenal) entities. It is the mind’s way of acquiring knowledge. It creates subjective images of everything it knows, and then store it in the memory. But we have blogged about a possible other organ of knowing, beyond the phenomenal world, at Link: http://philosopherskorner.blogspot.com/ .I have a self-published small book also

( Amazon.com link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008NOEE9I) that introduces REASON as a sense organ that provides mysterious knowledge beyond his external sense organs, including knowledge about God, or at least sensing His existential emotion of LOVE .

The said book and blog present faculty of reason of man as a SENSE ORGAN that detects existential ORDER. If realized and well accepted by world, this would be a game changer for mankind - -it should open up the eyes of man towards the fact that how near is the Kingdom of God from man ! Above blog depicts that Reason indeed is man’s God destined sense organ for knowing Him ! It is an ever open door that connects man with Him every moment. When mankind becomes aware of this door, the need to create models of ‘faith’ ceases. It would then be living with God every moment. It is our usual mind organ, our tool for living in the world, is the only hurdle that acts as a wall from our knowing God the above way ! ( Refer our latest blog: http://anatomyofrealities.blogspot.in/ on TRUTH and REALITY explains this elaborately)  

The sphere of knowledge of the proposed ‘new organ’ is the abode of FAITH for man. Knowledge, when reached the level of this new sense organ, is called faith, whereas what he gathers through other external sense organs form his knowledge. I feel, this special organ was lying hidden in man for the exclusive sake of knowing God !

I earnestly request you all to initiate special theological evaluation of my proposition, and my full thesis on the subject matter.

It would be interesting to notice that, biblical fathers such as Abraham, Jacob, David etc, and the various prophets in the old Testament used to remain in the world with their Reason organ active and alive, wherein they remained always in touch with God. We notice constant, direct interaction of these old fathers with God, taking directions from Him in day to day course of life. When the category of the ‘world’ has submerged man, this organ might have diminished its function, and become dysfunctional in due course! 

Seeing the other person as the reflection of one’s own self is ultimately man’s remaining as the ‘spirit of God’ as specifically mentioned by St. Paul, the chief propagator of Christian faith after Christ’s death. He was a Roman-soldier entrusted with the duty of crushing Christians and their religions, but got transformed into a pillar behind building-up of the future Church.

Man’s identity as his ego, as a member of the society and world is a direct product of his mind organ. It is this mind organ that makes the worldly entity of man-his ego- not the other way around ( that ego creates the world) as we usually infer.

Church has the first responsibility to lead and guide man to these future developments. Its theological wing has to toil hard  to incorporate these possibilities into Church’s existing bundle of knowledge, and then the communication wings of the church has to spread the gained light through-out the world.   

Leaving her vision to Christianize the entire world population, a vision that every other major world-religions shares with Christianity, and a major issue of intense-politics and division in modern world, Church  could attempt to convince the world that LOVE is the natural social law. it would be then equal to establishing God’s Kingdom on earth !

When the Church succeed in Leading every man to value himself and value his neighbour also in the same degree, it is equal to getting Christ’s wish fulfilled, and his mission accomplished and complete.

To get acceptability for the above theme of love in a secular way, the best way is to sell it to the world in the above explained ‘scientific’ ( natural law) wrapping.

Abraham J. Palakudy

He is a seeker and researcher in areas like Mind,Reason, Spirituality,Metaphysics, and Polity

Contact him at: ajoseph1@rediffmail.com

Twitter: Voice of Philosophy@jopan1

His profile and other blogs at:https://www.blogger.com/profile/14249415589712707293

The task of preserving the best about our Heritages

(This is the text of my paper presented at Maharaja Siyaji Rao University seminar on Heritage, held at Gandhinagar, Gujarat,as part of the State Government's 'National education Summit' during September 2013)

Theme of the seminar : 'Towards educating young India'

The task of sieving-out the evil aspects of heritages, and preserving only the best about them

Abstract

Discussions on heritage always revolve around what in the past was deserved to be preserved. They never touch the very difficult task of successive generations and cultures in weeding out the evil aspects of every heritage.

No culture has ever produced a heritage that was free of evil aspects. Take for example our own Indian culture and heritage. Weeding out its evil practices like caste based un-touchability, ‘sati’ etc. was an equal or even more difficult task than that of preserving what was unique about it. So, whenever we discuss heritages, we should also include the difficult process of sieving out their evil aspects too, so that we could stop the unrealistic and unhealthy trend of glorifying the past blindly by sections of political and religious groups. Political groups often use such techniques to sway voters emotions, and come into power. . 

In fact the  task of every culture and civilization was this weeding out the evil aspects of past cultures, and contribute a more civilized history for future generations. If we look the history of the world it becomes evident that,  this process often took place naturally, at times through the eruption of bloody revolutions and foreign invasions, or at other times, by the work and activism of great writers, and great men of mind and wisdom.

If we look at the net result of the above natural process today, we would observe that the very evolutionary direction of human civilization throughout the history was a story of such cultural and heritage-wise improvement. The course of nature itself ( or the evolutionary direction ) has defeated many attempts to impose dangerous and divisive cultures and traditions upon humanity. How did the 2^nd World war take place, and how did Hitler’s dangerous attempt to rule the world by invoking and indoctrinating his countrymen about the glory of Aryan heritage, is still alive in our memory. 

This paper will attempt to remind the educators, and the scholastic world in general,  about the need of including stories and task of nations and cultures in fighting the evil aspects of every heritage also, in their  discussions, conferences and seminars on Heritage.

Keywords: Heritage, evils of wrong heritages, fight of nature to weed-out evil aspects of heritage, evolutionary direction.   

Full paper

Introduction

This paper intents to touch the following 3 aspects of Heritages:

1)     The responsibility of the scholastic world to necessarily include mankind’s fight against its own evil Heritages also in its education endeavors, besides the glorious aspects

2)     While preserving the Heritage, the special care needed in choosing the net essence of every Heritage, instead of roaming around its popular and superficial symbols.

3)     The paper also attempt to expose the connection between Heritage preservation and the political power-structure of the States.  

Human civilization seems thriving on a perennial conflict; between its tendency to hold on to the past, and its evolutionary needs of future. If we look at the history, we always see a clear tendency of nature, always favoring the winning of such evolutionary needs of the future. For this reason, our age is today free from the many evil practices of the past like human sacrifice, witch hunting, slavery etc world over, and sati, child-marriage, un-touchability etc. in our own country.

For this paper, only intangible heritages are referred to, as tangible monuments are considered as mere symbols of the total cultural aspects of a heritage. Heritages, when it is preserved for the sake of history, it is meant for future generation’s knowledge purpose. But it should be carefully distinguished when it is preserved for sole political purposes. In the second case, the process would high-light only what was best about the past, while they tend to hide the evil aspects under the carpet. In the American history, the blood and annihilation of the native Red-Indians would always be hushed down, and only the hard-toil and sacrifices of the early pilgrim-fathers would be highlighted as stories on Heritage. In India too, we tend to highlight only our glorious contributions towards the world-heritage, while the evil practices that we have mentioned above would always be put behind the curtain.

 This assembly here is an assembly of philosophers, thinkers and other men of mind. We are not supposed to be blind followers, or flag-bearers of any particular heritage. Instead, we are supposed to be the torch bearers of the wisdom and light for the entire world. So our responsibility do not end in merely exposing the evil aspects of every Heritage, but we should also be clever enough to dig-out the unique aspects of every past Heritages that would be the leading light for every age and culture. When we follow this responsibility, one thing about the sharp contrast between the Eastern and Western cultural Heritages that has not received world’s close attention yet, deserves special mention here. It would also reiterate the great  prospects of Eastern, or more specifically the Indian cultural Heritage here.

It was merely a historical accident that the Westerners had built-up the modern world around the ancient Greek Heritage, instead of the opposite world view always advocated by the Eastern Heritage. This was the reason why modern world was predominantly built-around the principles of materialistic science, and we always follow a  development model akin to capitalism and its blind exploitation of natural resources. The two Heritages were always at opposite poles as far as their attitude towards life and existence was concerned. Let us listen it from a Western writer himself:

Mr. Marc Edmund Jones (in his Book ‘Occult philosophy’– ‘SAMBHALA’ USA), wrote in favour of the greatness of Eastern traditions by equaling it with the classic Greek tradition in every sense:

He writes: “Any effort to determine causal connections more than two millennia afterwards would be futile, but it must be remembered that developments in philosophy east of Indus, paralleled vary completely to those among the Hellenic thinkers. It may as well have been pure historical accident as the circumstances of any particular genius, that led to the building of modern western idea upon the Grecian rather the Hindu Contribution”

The drastic difference between the two mother Heritages of the world as far as general outlook towards life and existence concerned, is evident from the various  writings of Francis Bacon, one of the pioneers of modern science. Science’s   general attitude towards nature and life, is crystal clear from his following coinages:

Ø       Nature had to be haunted in her wanderings ( word ‘haunting’ refers to that age’s witch hunting traditions in Europe)

Ø       She should be bound into service

Ø       made her a slave

Ø       put her in constraint

Ø       to torture-out the secrets of from her

Against the above world-view of science, what the eastern thought, especially Hinduism stood for was :

Ø       Take care of,  or even worship  rivers, trees and mountains

Ø       Feed and protect every life form. Hindus revere cows,rats, monkeys and even snakes.

Ø       Bow even before one’s enemies before putting them to death.

Ø       Treat the reproductive organs like penis and vagina as sacred and pure.

Ø       Treat  guests as one treats his God

We know how great was the loss to humanity on account of the said historical accident, as  world is paying its high price today in the form of innumerous issues of exploitation of the weak by the strong, gigantic inequality of income, status and living standard  in society, blindly exploited oceans, rivers, mountains, forests and even the atmospheric life-air ! The newly discovered science, or the principles of Ecology emphasizes and reiterates the relevance of the Eastern way of life and development. In order to survive for long, we have to look after our water resources, mountains, forests, air, and even other species in the life sphere, instead of blindly exploiting them in the name of science and development.   

If the East is serious about a reversal of the course of the present world, it must work-hard to propagate our kind of opposite heritage and life-view in the world. Such an initiative would be our paying true homage to our  Heritage, and improving its prospects in the world.  

Another unique Heritage of this great nation that did not receive deserving exposure and popularity in the world  was the non-violent way in which the Father of nation Mahatma Gandhi had defeated the mighty British-empire. His method, though popular in modern world, has not gained a deserving wide-spread acceptability as a leading principle in our multitudes of fights for freedom.  

What we touched in the above few paragraphs was  the extreme caution needed from our part in choosing what to preserve about every Heritage, while giving equal care in throwing light upon mankind’s fight against eradicating the evil aspects also, of every Heritage. Only our strata of men in the world, that of thought, philosophy and mind  could undertake this job with responsibility and balance, as political and religious class may twist the facts to suit their goals.     

Power and Heritage, and the ultimate direction of nature

We can always observe a close relation between power structure in any society, and the heritage it leaves behind. Past glory will always be around the achievements and success of the powerful and their agents.. So, all heritages tend to be intangible stories and tangible monuments and artifacts around their great successes and achievements. A nation, or a region under slavery would never want to pass over their kind of heritage to her future generations !

Such plain examples lead us to suggest that man invoke heritages to identify his ‘self’ with something glorious in the present or past. His superficial self, the ego, does not have any other means to relate itself with, other than what is tangible in the external world. To keep his self-identity even after his life time, the ones in power always attempt to build tangible symbols of their power and glory. The history writers, poets and artists of all the past ages were fearful subjects of the Kings, and  they were under compulsion, or under sacred duty to praise the ruler as a matter of custom, practice and tradition. So, what we have in the form of evidences of past heritages may not be always genuine evidence of truth, but intentionally constructed symbols of their glory, specially made for the future.

It was only after Renaissance and the European enlightenment that the mind of man had become free, and he was able to picture true realities of the past, fearlessly. Thereafter, the scientific and scholastic world could  account and describe past Heritages truthfully. It is today that our class of men, thinkers and writers and philosophers got hold of our sense of reason and enquiry liberated and free, and are able to objectively analyze every fact truthfully.   

When we have a close look at the direction of overall human civilization so far with such an open and free mind , it becomes obvious that the story was that of a slow but  steady win of a certain kind of human progress; ie, the win of more and inclusiveness, plurality and equality over the past tendencies of exclusiveness, highhandedness and inequality. Therefore, any open minded enquiry on the direction of human civilization would be compelled to accept the above stated, clear evolutionary direction of human progress, ie. despite the tentative win of the forces of exclusiveness and highhandedness of the rich and powerful at many instances in history, the overall net effect was the victory of the opposite forces.

In India, we had the terrible history of caste based supremacy of certain men over other men, child marriage, bride-burning etc, but what we have today is a society meritoriously free from those past evil heritages.  If we look at world-over, the humiliating tradition of slavery in western nations, the holocaust, the perils of two world wars etc are just faded memories. Modern world has, by and large, succeeded in leaving those past evil events and practices behind, and move ahead with a kind of universal sense of freedom, multiculturalism, plurality and equality.

Specific efforts of the world, and its eminent men and institutions in saving it from the evil effects of negative heritages  

Now let us focus on the great task that the world and its eminent men and institutions had put-in to fight  the evil aspects of its negative heritages:

First let us consider major stories from foreign  nations.

Slavery:  Let us first take up the case of slavery, one of the most heinous heritages that the western world had created. Though slavery existed all over the world from time immemorial, its institutionalized form had started with the colonization  of the world by the Western powers in the 15^th century. In the new institutionalized form, the chief victims were the various African people. As the newly found land of America had become the most active field of activity of the colonizers, slavery flourished there the most. The mostly agrarian South American states could not survive without the slave population to run their large farms.

Abraham Lincoln, though his chief intention was said to be a unified America than liberating the slaves, had to fight a fierce internal war that cost the nation one billion  American dollars. The human-life loss was more than 600,000, a figure that exceeded the total death-toll of the 1^st and 2^nd world war put together ! The duration of war was 4 years. It is said that the total number of slaves who got liberated  was far less than the  number of soldiers lost their lives in the war. In other words, the cost of getting rid-of an evil Heritage was much more than the net-worth of the evil Heritage itself !

Slavery was one of the most heinous heritages of the Western world, and what we have seen above was the huge prize that it had to pay in eradicating it.

Holocaust : ( The State initiated genocide of the Jewish people)

Holocaust was an attempt of a political leader in Germany, Adolph Hitler, to cerate a particular kind of Heritage for his country men, as well for the ‘master race’ he believed his countrymen belonged to. ( ie. the pure Aryan race) His oratory skill and the systematic state propaganda had made the entire German people to accept his mad ideas, and they joined him in his mission of exterminating about 6 million Jewish people, out of the total 9 million of them lived in different European countries.

There was no greater shock than the Holocaust to the modern world. It had never imagined that such a horrible thing could happen during their time ! Hence, the steps taken by various nations in the world to immune themselves from similar future happenings have no parallel. Among them, perhaps The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum may be the most visible institutional initiative.

Since its dedication on April 22, 1993, the Museum has welcomed nearly 30 million visitors, including more than 8 million school children. It has also welcomed 91 heads of state, and more than 3,500 foreign officials from over 132 countries. The Museum's visitors came from all over the world. Its website had 25 million visits in 2008 from an average of 100 different countries daily. 35% of these visits were from outside the United States, including more than 238,000 visits from Muslim-majority countries.

Then the United Nations General Assembly voted on November 1, 2005, to designate January 27 as the "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

Besides the above referred museum in USA, there are scores of other similar  memorials and museums in different states of America. Almost equal number of memorials and museums are there in France, followed by at least one or two memorials and offices dedicated to avert similar future events, at many nations in the world.  

  

What we have been discussing above was the hard task of mankind in freeing the world from its evil legacies, and the intangible heritages. We hinted above that more than any specific work of men in this direction, it was mother nature who evolved Her own mysterious strategies to achieve the result of cleansing the world from  evil Heritages.

 In the case of Holocaust, it was the defeat of Nazi alliance by the rest of the world that ended the reign of the evil heritage of ethnic and racial hatred.

Few very ancient evil Heritages :

Now let us move to some of the very ancient evil Heritages of the world that we were able to successfully overcome. It is about the ancient practice of selling of old parents for their meat. Bertrand Russell refers to this old practice of our ancients, in his book ‘POWER’ and how we might have over-come it.

He says; “ at some stage in the development of civilization, it must have occurred to some men of unusual foresight that he could, while his children were young, produce in them a state of mind which would lead them to keep him alive in old age; presumably he was a man whose parents were already disposed of” (  book ‘ power’ Unwin -1960, p.160) That highly imaginative foresight really worked. Respect for parents has become an important pillar of human morality in due course.   

He also refers to the origin of  natural aversion of the 6^th century BC Greece towards the evil practice of human sacrifice. Though the Oracle at Delphi tried to retard the above humanitarian reform, the good sentiment of the people prevailed over, and gained victory at the end.

Kings always wanted to retain the Heritage of monarchy. He would say, “ monarchy is good, and I am glad that I am a monarch “ A heritage, when  good for some one, turns pain and death for some others. We should repeat, nature’s task always was to preserve the universally advantageous heritages for the good of future generations.  

European colonization:  It was a glorious heritage for many European nations, but end of life and liberty for many Asiatic and African nations from 15^th century till mid 20^th century. It cost the world  innumerable freedom struggles, blood-baths and destructions  to save itself from the calamity. Many nations and their people under long years of colonization still struggle to wiggle out form the psychological and economic deprivation that the calamity had inflicted upon them.

The Indian Story:  Though our great nation was the birth place of few of the world’s most important religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism, and was the major hub of what we called in the beginning as ‘the Eastern thought and heritage’, our struggle to save ourselves from some of the evil aspects of our Heritage like child marriage, Caste based social discrimination etc are still continuing. We could stop Sati like blemishes from the list of these evil heritages with the help of social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, and the stern legal measures adopted by the then British Viceroy, Lord William Bentick  

Free India fought the ancient heritage of caste-system by enacting various laws from 1950 onward. The fight to eradicate the evil was more through legal initiatives like ‘reservation’ and quota for  government jobs to members from the down trodden communities. The opening up of the nation towards eradicating this evil Heritage was total for  free India, as one of the central figures in the Indian constitution making was a Dalit, Dr.Ambedkar. In the later years, India even had a Dalit President of the nation, Dr. Narayanan.

Though caste based discrimination is legally abolished in India, the evil is said to be still alive in many interior pockets of  rural India. The fight against these evil Heritages was indeed much heavier than the job of preserving what was glorious about our Heritage.

Summary:   

The chief purpose of this paper was to warn against the general tendency of Heritage studies to always go for its glorious aspects.

We are men of mind, the torch bearers of mankind’s wisdom and mental sanity. We know that modern world is still not fully free from its past tradition of the upper-hand of the rich and powerful. As the US ‘occupation wall street’ agitators used to cry out, it is still the rule of 1% elites over the 99% ordinary men. So, the threat of evoking imaginary past glories in the name of Heritage is very real even today. We, the minority of men of mind should be extremely careful in preserving and highlighting what ever was best about past Heritages, while equally exposing and highlighting the evil aspects as warning signals.

World media do not show any responsibility towards maintaining any such discretion between good and bad Heritages. They are here for ‘describing and narrating events, and not to judge any of them. They often get played up in the hands of their political and industry masters. Therefore, the voices of plain reason and sanity has no effective outlet in the present world, due to the monopoly of media in the realm of mass communication. Such sad aspects of the present world demands greater vigil and pro-activism from our part, the minority men of thought, philosophy and mind. We are supposed to be the torch bearers for the future generations. 

Jai Hind !

Abraham Joseph

Independent scholar from New Delhi,

And Founder of conscience of the society: a registered non-profit organization that is engaged in philosophical and polity research on themes like Man’s faculty of reason, self, mind, spirituality and finally, a reinvented democracy

e.mail: ajoseph1@rediffmail.com

Mob: 9891168448

www.conscienceofthesociety.com

Blogger profile : http://www.blogger.com/profile/14249415589712707293   

Acknowledgement of references :

Edmund Jones, Book ‘Occult Philosophy’ ( Sambhala, USA)

Bertrand Russell, Book ‘Power’ ( Unwin books, London)

Wikipedia  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_and_the_United_Nations_Outreach_Programme ( about UN initiatives to prevent future Holocausts)

And,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Holocaust_memorials_and_museums ( list of

memorials and museums )

and,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_Sati_Regulation,_1829 ( Sati abolition efforts)

  

    

  

   

Killing the great Hinduism by its politicization

When Francis Bacon, one of the forefathers of modern science and its method said during AD 1500s:

Ø       Nature had to be haunted in her wanderings

Ø       She should be bound into service

Ø       made her a slave

Ø       put in constraint

Ø       to torture-out the secrets of nature from her

Hinduism said:

Ø       Worship the trees and mountains

Ø       Feed snakes, cows and monkeys

Ø       Bow before your enemy before killing him

Ø       Treat penis and vagina as sacred and pure

Ø       Treat your guests as you treat God

The stark difference of the world view, or the way both traditions look at life and nature are well evident from the above narratives. While the first model treats world and nature an object for exploration and plunder, the other tradition accepts its spiritual essence, and then value,respects and even worship her, and all her inmates and objects !

Mr. Marc Edmund Jones, a Western Writer (Book ‘Occult philosophy’– ‘SAMBHALA’ USA), wrote in favour of the greatness of Eastern tradition by equaling it to the classic Greek tradition:

“Any effort to determine casual connections more than two millennia afterwards would be futile, but it must be remembered that developments in philosophy east of Indus paralleled vary completely to those among the Hellenic thinkers. It may as well have been pure historical accident as the circumstances of any particular genius that led to the building of modern western idea upon the Grecian rather the Hindu Contribution”

Every right thinking human being can imagine how different modern world would have been if it was built around the Eastern Traditions than the Western. Our subject-matter is not a comparison of Western and Eastern traditions, but exposing the current sin of killing the great Hindu tradition and its above seen un-parallel life and world view, by enforcing of its politicized version of mutual hatred, intolerance, division, violence and communal disharmony in the very country of its birth !

The above seen original traditions and world view of Hinduism are no where to be seen today. It has been buried for the sake of the modern highly politicized, violent and divisive traditions of politicized Hinduism. The majority Hindus in this country (almost 80%) have been indoctrinated to believe that their traditions and beliefs are under threat from the remaining small percentage of other religions. They have been asked to shed their age-old tenets of compassion, tolerance and the traditions of peace, in order to protect their faith ! 

The still remaining bottom wisdom of a few truly saintly seers might have been suppressed intentionally, and they are never allowed to come out into the mainstream expressing the truth. Many of them also might have been indoctrinated into the violent sect, by promise of power and position once the political group emerge as rulers of the country in the soon approaching election!

Like a river or ocean, pure Hinduism was all accepting and receiving, without any differentiation of 'paths' to know and understand 'Brahma'! She was the one and only religion who distinguished between 'true-self' and 'false-self', a unique spiritual feat for any religion ! She stood for considering the sense world as 'Maya',( false, or illusion) and said, one can leave the path of Maya and attain pure 'salvation' in this world itself.

For the absolutely selfish motive of capturing the rulers’ throne in the country, the highly professionalized political elements have succeeded in killing the original Hinduism, and converted it into an intolerant vision and movement.   

The thought system like ‘ ADVAITA’ ( non-duality, or the principle that there exists no difference between the essence of God and man) is unique and un-parallel in the world ! Leading monotheistic religions keep the belief that the essence of God and that of man are different, and man need to love and worship God for attaining salvation and liberation. Today, such uniqueness of Hindu thought has lost its relevance and mainstream priority in the Hindu community. Every Hindu is being made to feel pride of his majority status in the country, and its natural sense of power and cultural superiority in society.

Why ordinary Hindus in the county deserve all the praise for not falling flat for the above political propaganda ?

The most outstanding feature of this great, predominantly Hindu nation is the restraint, and the intellectual and spiritual sanity and maturity that being shown by the ordinary Hindus in the country, in the face of the above strong political propaganda: very few Hindus have fallen for the above dangerous and divisive political agenda. The rest have firmly stood for what had the great religion stood for ages together: the treatment and even worship of everything that exists, both friendly as well as antagonistic elements in life, and considering everything as the sacred manifestation of the supreme-being !

If it were any other religion for that matter, they would have stood together as one united point of strength, and had taken its natural political and cultural advantage in the country ! This is what makes Hinduism really unique and un-parallel ! The entire credit for not converting the country into a theocratic entity should directly go to the ordinary Hindus in the country, who showed maturity and soberness to abide by the ancient religion’s fundamental teachings. 

They have shown their unique understanding to realize that the forces who cry out for Hindu unity against the minorities in the country have their dangerously divisive political agenda ! Men behind such agenda are not Hindus by essence, but professional political players who are habitual of utilizing anything and everything that could win their goal. In other words, they are enemies of the real Hinduism in its age-old essence !


Authored by: Abraham J.Palakudy, a philosophic,mind&reason,polity and Spirituality seeker and researcher.

Twitter:Voice of Philosophy@jopan1
His profile and other blogs:https://www.blogger.com/profile/14249415589712707293