Kulapavana

July 24, 2008

<!--mstheme-->Are You Ready to Face the Facts about Israel?<!--mstheme-->

By Paul Craig Roberts

"On October 21 (1948) the Government of Israel took a decision that was to have a lasting and divisive effect on the rights and status of those Arabs who lived within its borders: the official establishment of military government in the areas where most of the inhabitants were Arabs."

Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History

I had given up on finding an American with a moral conscience and the courage to go with it and was on the verge of retiring my keyboard when I met the Rev. Thomas L. Are.

Rev. Are is a Presbyterian pastor who used to tell his Atlanta, Georgia, congregation: "I am a Zionist." Like most Americans, Rev. Are had been seduced by Israeli propaganda and helped to spread the propaganda among his congregation.

Around 1990 Rev. Are had an awakening for which he credits the Christian Canon of St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem and author Marc Ellis, co-editor of the book, Beyond Occupation.

Realizing that his ignorance of the situation on the ground had made him complicit in great crimes, Rev. Are wrote a book hoping to save others from his mistake and perhaps in part to make amends, Israeli Peace Palestinian Justice, published in Canada in 1994.

Rev. Are researched his subject and wrote a brave book. Keep in mind that 1994 was long prior to Walt and Mearsheimer’s recent book, which exposed the power of the Israel Lobby and its ability to control the explanation Americans receive about the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Rev. Are begins with an account of Israel’s opening attack on the Palestinians, an event which took place before most Americans alive today were born. He quotes the distinguished British historian, Arnold J. Toynbee: "The treatment of the Palestinian Arabs in 1947 (and 1948) was as morally indefensible as the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis. Though nor comparable in quantity to the crimes of the Nazis, it was comparable in quality."

Golda Meir, considered by Israelis as a great leader and by others as one of history’s great killers, disputed the facts: "It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist."

Golda Meir’s apology for Israel’s great crimes is so counter-factual that it blows the mind. Palestinian refugee camps still exist outside Palestine filled with Palestinians and their descendants whose towns, villages, homes and lands were seized by the Israelis in 1948. Rev. Are provides the reader with Na’im Ateek’s description of what happened to him, an 11-year old, when the Jews came to take Beisan on May 12, 1948. Entire Palestinian communities simply disappeared.

In 1949 the United Nations counted 711,000 Palestinian refugees. [ United Nations General Assembly Appendix 4, No. 15 ]

In 2005 the United Nations Relief and Works Agency estimated 4.25 million Palestinians and their descendants were refugees from their homeland. [PDF ]

The Israeli policy of evicting non-Jews has continued for six decades. On June 19, 2008, the Laity Committee in the Holy Land reported in Window Into Palestine that the Israeli Ministry of Interior is taking away the residency rights of Jerusalem Christians who have been reclassified as "visitors in their own city."

On December 10, 2007, MK Ephraim Sneh boasted in the Jerusalem Post that Israel had achieved "a true Zionist victory" over the UN partition plan "which sought to establish two nations in the land of Israel." The partition plan had assigned Israel 56 percent of Palestine, leaving the inhabitants with only 44 percent. But Israel had altered this over time. Sneb proudly declared: "When we complete the permanent agreement, we will hold 78 percent of the land while the Palestinians will control 22 percent."

Sneb could have added that the 22 percent is essentially a collection of unconnected ghettos cut off from one another and from roads, water, medical care, and jobs.

Rev. Are documents that the abuse of Palestinians’ human rights is official Israeli policy. Killings, torture, and beatings are routine. On May 17, 1990, the Washington Post reported that Save the Children "documented indiscriminate beating, tear-gassing and shooting of children at home or just outside the house playing in the street, who were sitting in the classroom or going to the store for groceries."

On January 19, 1988, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, later Prime Minister, announced the policy of "punitive beating" of Palestinians. The Israelis described the purpose of punitive beating: "Our task is to recreate a barrier and once again put the fear of death into the Arabs of the area."

According to Save the Children, beatings of children and women are common. Rev. Are, citing the report in the Washington Post, writes: "Save the Children concluded that one-third of beaten children were under ten years old, and one-fifth under the age of five. Nearly a third of the children beaten suffered broken bones."

On February 8, 1988, Newsweek magazine quoted an Israeli soldier: " We got orders to knock on every door, enter and take out all the males. The younger ones we lined up with their faces against the wall, and soldiers beat them with billy clubs. This was no private initiative, these were orders from our company commander. . . . After one soldier finished beating a detainee, another soldier called him ‘you Nazi,’ and the first man shot back: ‘You bleeding heart.’ When one soldier tried to stop another from beating an Arab for no reason, a fist fight broke out."

These were the old days before conscience was eliminated from the ranks of the Israeli military.

In the London Sunday Times, June 19, 1977, Ralph Schoenman, executive director of the Bertrand Russell Foundation, wrote: "Israeli interrogators routinely ill-treat and torture Arab prisoners. Prisoners are hooded or blindfolded and are hung by their wrists for long periods. Most are struck in the genitals or in other ways sexually abused. Most are sexually assaulted. Others are administered electric shock."

Amnesty International concluded that "there is no country in the world in which the use of official and sustained torture is as well established and documented as in the case of Israel."

Even the pro-Israeli Washington Post reported: "Upon arrest, a detainee undergoes a period of starvation, deprivation of sleep by organized methods and prolonged periods during which the prisoner is made to stand with his hands cuffed and raised, a filthy sack covering the head. Prisoners are dragged on the ground, beaten with objects, kicked, stripped and placed under ice-cold showers."

Sounds like Abu Ghraib. There are news reports that Israeli torture experts participated in the torture of the detainees assembled by the American military as part of the Bush Regime’s propaganda onslaught to convince Americans that Iraq was overflowing with al Qaeda terrorists. On July 23, 2008, Antiwar.com posted an Iraqi news report that the Iraqi government had released a total of 109,087 Iraqis that the Americans had "detained." Obviously, these "terrorist detainees" had been used for the needs of Bush Regime propaganda. No one will ever know how many of them were abused by Israeli torturers imported by the CIA.

Rev. Are’s book makes sensible suggestions for resolving the conflict that Israel began. However, the problem is that Israeli governments believe only in force. The policy of the Israeli government has always been to beat, kill, and brutalize Palestinians into submission and flight. Anyone who doubts this can read the book of Israel’s finest historian Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006).

Americans are a gullible and naive people. They have been complicit for 60 years in crimes that in Arnold Toynbee’s words "are comparable in quality" to the crimes of Nazi Germany. As Toynbee was writing decades ago, the accumulated Israeli crimes might now be comparable also in quantity.

The US routinely vetoes United Nations condemnations of Israel for its brutal crimes against the Palestinians. Insouciant American taxpayers have been bled for a half century to provide the Israelis with superior military weapons with which Israelis assault their neighbors, all the while convincing America—essentially a captive nation—that Israel is the victim.

John F. Mahoney wrote: "Thomas Are reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: an active pastor who comes to the unsettling realization that he and his people have been fed a terrible lie that is killing and torturing thousands of innocent men, women and children. Not without ample research and prayer does such a pastor, in turn, risk unsettling his congregation. The Reverend Are has done his homework and, I suspect, has prayed often and long during the writing of this courageous book."

Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran theologian and pastor who was executed for his active participation in the German Resistance against Nazism.

Professor Benjamin M. Weir, San Francisco Theological Seminary, wrote: " This book will make the reader squirm. It asks you to lend your voice in behalf of the voiceless."

Americans who can no longer think for themselves and who are terrified of disapproval by their peer group are incapable of lending their voices to anyone except those who control the world of propaganda in which they live.

The ignorance and unconcern of Americans is a great frustration to my friends in the Israeli peace movement. Without outside support those Israelis, who believe in good will and do not share their government’s belief in Lenin’s doctrine that violence is the only effective force in history, are deprived, by America’s support for their government’s policy of violence, of any peaceful resolution of a conflict began in 1947 by Israeli aggression against unsuspecting Palestinian villages.

Rev. Are wrote his book with the hope that the pen is mightier than the sword and that facts can crowd out propaganda and create a framework for a just resolution of the Palestinian issue. In his concluding chapter, "What Christians Can Do," Rev. Are writes: "We cannot allow others to dictate our thinking on any subject, especially on anything as important as Christian faithfulness, which is tested by an attitude towards seeking justice for the oppressed. It’s a Christian’s duty to know."

Duty, of course, has costs. Rev. Are writes: "Speak up for the Palestinians and you will make enemies. Yet, as Christians, we must be willing to raise issues that until now we have chosen to dodge."

More than a decade later, President Jimmy Carter, a true friend of Israel, tried again to awaken Americans’ moral conscience with his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

Carter was instantly demonized by the Israel Lobby.

Sixty years of efforts by good and humane people to hold Israel accountable have so far failed, but they are more important today than ever before. Israel has its captive American nation on the verge of attacking Iran, the consequences of which could be catastrophic for all concerned. The alleged purpose of the attack is to eliminate nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons. The real reason is to eliminate all support for Hamas and Hezbollah so that Israel can seize the entire West Bank and southern Lebanon. The Bush regime is eager to do Israel’s bidding, and the media and evangelical "christian" churches have been preparing the American people for the event.

It is paradoxical that Israel is demonstrating that veracity lies not in the Christian belief in good will but in Lenin’s doctrine that violence is the effective force in history and that the evangelical Christian Zionist churches agree.

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.<!--mstheme-->

Try to understand what Prabhupada is telling us.

Prabhupada is telling his immature children that the snake is a rope.

Either that, or he is preaching something that none of the previous acharyas, including his own guru, supported.

And before that?

 

There are so many things that Vedic sastra has told us that seems contradictory, whereas in reality, in Goloka Vrndavana dhama (Krsnaloka), due to the 'eternal presents' of no past or future, these things will be seen in another way as also explained by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta.

 

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada - “It is the jivas who are the attendants in His Sports. They become attached to matter, having deviated from their own essential nature as the result of their desire for enjoyment. But when again the soul . . . gains true wisdom of the transcendental region of God . . . he begins to get back his pure essential nature” Sri Caitanya's Teachings, p. 323.Srimad Bhagavatam 6.2.43

 

"Vishnu has three energies, one of them is meant for manifestation of His eternal Abode, another Potency is for creating all human souls who are emanations from His Tatastha-shakti found between the temporal and eternal worlds. By this potency He creates human souls. The human soul has two different predilections. If he desires to serve God-head he is allowed into the Eternal Region. If he desires to lord it over this world he comes down for enjoying in different capacities the products of the Deluding Potency." (Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura: Sri Caitanya's Teachings, "Immanent and Transcendent")

It is very clear to me, that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, just like all other Vaishnavas outside Iskcon, knows very well that tatastha sakti is a region between the Vaikuntha (eternal world) and the material (temporal) world. That is where all souls found in the material world come from. It does not get any more clear than that. None of us here fell from Vaikuntha. We all came out of undifferentiated Brahman located between the material and the spiritual worlds.

The 'fall from Eden' fairytale Prabhupada told his disciples was strictly inspirational 'snake is a a rope' tactic. Too bad so many of his disciples don't get it after more than 3 decades since his passing.

The lack of time factor means that once you make it to Vaikuntha, it will seem to you like you were there all the time.

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It is completely clear that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta defines tatastha sakti differently than all of the above posts suggest:

"Before acquiring material designations, the living entity is supremely

pure. Even though he is not engaged in serving the Supreme Lord, he remains situated in the neutral position of santa-rasa due to his marginal nature. Though the living entity born from the marginal potency does not at that time exhibit a taste for serving the Lord due to a lack of knowledge of self realization, his direct propensity of serving the Supreme Lord nevertheless remains within him in a dormant state. Though the indirect propensity for

material enjoyment, which is contrary to the service of the Lord, is not

found in him at that time, indifference to the service of Hari and the seed

of material enjoyment, which follows that state of indifference, are

nevertheless present within him.

The living entity, who belongs to the marginal potency, cannot remain

indifferent forever by subduing both devotional and nondevotional

propensities. He therefore contemplates unconstitutional activities from

his marginal position. As a sleeping person dreams that he is active in the

physical world without actually being involved in activities, when the

dormant indifferent living entity of the marginal potency exhibits even a

little apathy to the service of the Supreme Lord and situates himself in a

neutral, unchanging condition for even a little time, he is infected by

impersonalism. That is why the conditioned soul desires to merge in the

impersonal Brahman, thus exhibiting his mind's fickle nature. But due to

neglecting the eternal service of the Lord and thereby developing the

quality of aversion to the Lord, he cannot remain fixed in that position. In

this way aversion to the Lord breaks his concentration of mind and

establishes him as the master of this world of enjoyment.

(Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura: Brahmana and Vaishnava,

Hari-jana-khanda, p. 86-87)

Jivas are of two kinds (1) Nitya-mukta (eternally free), (2). Nitya-baddha

(eternally enslaved). Free jivas are never enslaved. They are serving the

Supreme God in five different functions in His eternal blissful abode, where

there is no change, no destruction, no misery. Jiva, once entered there,

never comes back here.

(Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura: Vaisnavism - Real and Apparent,

"The Bondage of the Jiva")

Vishnu has three energies, one of them is meant for manifestation of His

eternal Abode, another Potency is for creating all human souls who are

emanations from His Tatastha-shakti found between the temporal and eternal

worlds. By this potency He creates human souls. The human soul has two

different predilections. If he desires to serve God-head he is allowed into

the Eternal Region. If he desires to lord it over this world he comes down

for enjoying in different capacities the products of the Deluding Potency.

(Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura: Sri Caitanya's Teachings,

"Immanent and Transcendent")

Dog-dung philosophy alert! You should be ashamed of yourself. The mere fact that you said birth has some bearing on varna implies your elitist, casteist, racist, and every other -ist in existence belief that birth makes varna and excuses one from performing any duties. This means you are a Hindu supremacist, an Indian religionst, blah blah blah, ...

Guilty as charged!

Perhaps if I study some more I will elevate myself to the camel dung level. Dog dung is truly useless. It is worthless as a fertilizer, and worthless as a fuel. Smells real nasty too. Dog dung charge is the ultimate put-down. Compared to that, camel dung position is extremely elevated

But seriously...

What I find very inconsistent in our movement is a belief that with a proper education you can turn a sudra into a brahmana, but somehow the women should only get minimal education to keep them 'where they belong'

As if the examples of Gangamata Goswamini or Jahnava Ma were not relevant in the present society...

The idea that humans cause global warming seems like the ultimate atheistic philosophy of our time period.

The changes induced by humans can have profound effects on the entire planet. That is a fact, not a philosophy. Is global warming one of these changes? Perhaps. I see this kind of thinking to actually be progressive: we care what happens to our world not just during our lifetime, but for the future generations.

Demonic people may still manipulate the masses with such global warming propaganda, just like they use religion to manipulate others. In the hands of a demonic person even the good thing becomes dangerous and destructive.

The point is that some self-proclaimed, wannabe Vaishnavas think that birth has no bearing on one's varna.

Since taking birth in a particular setting is not accidental, of course it has bearing on one's varna. Birth is also related to a particular upbringing. Yet ultimately varna is dependent on guna and karma - Chatur-varnyam maya srishtam guna-karma-vibhagashah [bg. 4.13]

Considering the actions of US/Israel, I am seriously beginning to think 9/11 was an inside job. Too many contradictions in the govt. version of events, too many loopholes, also motive for US to invade Iraq. Not that I am justifying Islamic terrorism, but it's come in handy for the US/Jews to use Islamic terrorism as a pretext to start wars.

I think it is not so much an 'inside job' as it is the case of knowing about that plot and allowing (and even helping) it to go through because it provided all kinds of justifications, power and resources to US top power circles.

The objection to Bhaktisiddhanta introducing sannyasa to Gaudiya Vaishnavism is just as unfair as the objection that traditional GV parivars (the so called caste goswamis) are bogus.

We can clearly see that in both cases the position of a sannyasi, or goswami, can be abused for material profit, or taken up by unqualified person. 90% of people who received sannyasa from Prabhupada fell down, often with disastrous consequences for his movement. Saraswatas have no right to criticize the entire system of traditional parivars, because the system they introduced is very far from being perfect, or even clearly better than the one they so strongly criticize.

That was 34 years ago and it has not happened yet. What is "Very recent, very recent future"? 50 years? maybe... but I do not take it as any kind of 'Prabhupada prophecy'. Prabhupada spoke of possibilities, and from the perspective of the Cold War such conflict seemed both likely and unavoidable. Today it is not. It can happen, but it is not likely.

That was 34 years ago and it has not happened yet. What is "Very recent, very recent future"? 50 years? maybe... but I do not take it as any kind of 'Prabhupada prophecy'. Prabhupada spoke of possibilities, and from the perspective of the Cold War such conflict seemed both likely and unavoidable. Today it is not. It can happen, but it is not likely.

What is really funny is that the word 'sindhu' simply means 'river'

"Most experts agree today that the name “India” was derived from the river Indus (in today’s Pakistan). But the name “Indus” itself has a fascinating history behind it.

In ancient times, the entire Indus river system (along with its seven tributaries - Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, Jhelum, Beas and the now extinct River Saraswati) and the area it covered, used to be called “Sapta Sindhu[ii]” i.e. the land of seven rivers (“Sindhu” means river in Sanskrit).

The word “Sindhu” not only referred to the river system and adjoining area but also became the label to denote the culture that had developed along its valleys (In fact, continuing archaeological evidence suggests that the “Indus Valley Civilization” should more accurately be called the Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization considering the land mass where it developed).

The corruption of “Sindhu” into “Hindu” can be traced back to journeys made by early Persian explorers from the Northwest who due to the peculiarities of their own language aspirated the “S” sound in “Sindhu” to make the word “Hindu”

Thus to world beyond, the area around the Saraswati-Sindhu rivers and its culture became to be known as the area of “Hindus” (thus the name Hindustan which literally means the land of “Hindus”)

This nomenclature stuck and became particularly prevalent after the invasion and conquest of “India” by Mughals. The Mughals (based on the earlier Persian terminology) used the term “Hindu” to refer to the original inhabitants of the land and this label became the way to distinguish native/indigenous/ancient culture form that of the invaders.

About 2500 years ago, when the Greeks first reached the river plains of Punjab, they borrowed the name of the region from the Persians and simply modified it to “Indos”. “Indos” later morphed into “Indus” in Latin – by which name the river is still known in the West. The Romans began to call the whole land mass after this river and thus the name “India” came to stay – which has been the form used by Europeans over the ages.

It is clear from the above that the word “Hindu” simply meant (someone living in India) “Indian” or (something) related to India.

The term Hindu did not signify any religion or set of religious beliefs but was really a label for a specific landmass. At best the word simply implied someone associated with (or dwelling in) the geographical area the boundaries of which were roughly covered by the Saraswati-Sindhu rivers and their tributaries." http://satyameva-jayate.org/2006/05/27/hindu-india-and-bharat-word-origins/

Just like one prominent leader once said, yes, it is fact, Prabhupada told me to be his successor and become the next acarya. Short time later when people were going against him, he all off a sudden said, no, Prabhupada never told me to sit on the vyasasana, I did the greatest disserve for the mission of our guru.

If he lied once, why do you think he was telling the truth the second time?

Is the ritvik system described anywhere in Prabhupada's writings? No. Neither is it part of our previous GV tradition followed by previous acharyas. So it must be a concoction of his disciples.

Hi friends

 

Can anyone tell me how can we find our Real guru.?

when you find him you will know. but it helps to know what you are looking for. for me, it was important that the guru comes in a proper sampradaya and does not present his own philosophy, but that of his disciplic line.

How would you explain cancer or AIDS in this context?

both are self correcting machanisms - primarily on the level of entire species, but also on the level of individual people. usually a disease is a result of making poor choices in life. it is a karmic mechanism.

How then do you explain diseases which need treatment, the bodies aren't self-correcting and adaptable, are they?

in the long term the diseases keep the species in shape - it is part of natural selection.

to some extent the individual body has all kinds of self correcting mechanisms but the actual story is about perpetuating the species - maintaining the viability of various life forms in our world. also, if you live an unhealthy life, disease is a signal you are doing something wrong.

All said and done, the Jewish lobby/Israel is fulfilling most people's secret desire-to eliminate terrorists and such undesirables from the society. Oil crisis just an unfortunate side effect, which will persist with or without Israel/Jews, anyway. This cannot be denied, so let's try to see the good things, for a change.

Quite the contrary: they are the ones creating (breeding) terrorists and the money drain is the main event. Ever since the Israeli warmongers whipped up the war in Iraq, the terrorism is more popular than ever. Al-queda recruitment is way up world wide. So are the profits for many rich people in USA and Israel.

You can't kill your way out of that situation. For every Palestinian Israelis kill ten more come up to take his or her place and the hatred only intensifies. The same in Iraq and Afghanistan. French learned their lesson in Algeria, but Jews and Americans refuse to learn. Why? Because it IS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY.

Terrorism is a product of exploitation and injustice. Stop the injustice and terrorism will be completely marginalized.

Looks like the dollar might be headed to similar scenario as German hyperinflation as national and world events play out. I noticed Pat Buchanan has got a lot of heat for saying blunders by Churchill and others caused WWII and the holocaust might have been avoided if not for these blunders. I have no idea if there is any truth to this but I have always respected Buchanan. Savage will not even let Buchanan back on his show anymore.

You are right. The banking sector troubles, devaluation of the dollar. fuel and food speculation, all have some resemblace to the past in more way than one. And Buchanan is one of the very few people in America who dare to say publicly what a lot of people think privately. The Jewish lobby have been marginalizing him for years and now he is very rearely seen in public media.

What these people do not understand, is that the REAL INTELLIGENCE of the design is it's flexibility and adaptability to changes in environment. Just like the real marvel of the skin is it's ability to repair itself. Can you build a jacket that will mend itself when you tear out a button and make a hole in the fabric? So the bodies designed by the intelligent designer are ADAPTABLE and self-correcting.

"After I am gone you probably will not print my books, I need to see them printed while I am still here."

 

Thats what Prabhupada said when visiting our temple in 1974. He said it exactly that way.

Have you heard this directly from Prabhupada? And who was he speaking to? It must have been in Schloss Rettershof.

http://www.prabhupada.de/rettershof.htm

Thanks for the info., but how do we link their interest in Vedic culture to their anti-Semitic policies which formed a major part of their movement? That seems to be one of the most puzzling things in their ideology, it's nearly a contradiction.

Nobody said that national socialists were saints. Far from that. But the issue of their anti-semitism is very complex. The perception in Germany was that WW1 was lost due to Jewish intervention (see Balfour Declaration) and the subsequent economic collapse and hyper-inflation were ruthlessly exploited by Jewish capitalists and bankers preying on Germans. Still, as long as they were loyal and useful to the State and war machine, Nazis allowed many Jews to remain in place. Some even directly served in the military. There was even a fully functioning Jewish hospital in Berlin, supported by Eichmann to the very end, surviving the siege of Berlin in 1945. It is still there today. Read about it here for example: http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/21952/edition_id/444/format/html/displaystory.html

I bet you a 100 bucks you never heard about that story.

It takes some real effort and intelligence to understand the world around us. Many people want to cheat us, demanding that we think like they want us to think. Ultimately it is all about control. Do not let asuras control your thinking. Hare Krsna!

This is the Ralph T.H. Griffith English translation of the Rig Veda.

It is not a very good translation. The author misses some really basic meanings, like in the Purusha-sookta hymn - it is completely butchered.

Translations by the Indian scholars are far, far superior.

I also would be interested in buying them, please pm about details of bank transfer. Could you please post a pic of the Bhagavatams.

I will not bid against you, Suchandra-ji. These books have much more value for you. I hope you get them!

On a side note, do you know of any references pointing to National Socialists and their interest in Vedic Civilization?

Germans were fascinated by the Vedic culture long before the national socialism was invented. Read the history of German indology for examples. Nazis simply exploited that fascination and took it a step further. They were the only people who took Vedic sicience very seriously and conducted elaborate research in that area. I do not have much reference but you can easily google a lot of information - ranging in value from pure conjecture to solid facts. All that research ended up in American hands after the war, largely dismissed as irrelevant.

Not this matter specifically, but the general tendency throughout the world to blame Jews for every problem. Surely, that's ridiculous, don't you agree? As to Iran/Iraq, both nations have had a violent history, which includes a war between them killing millions. So with or without Jews, they've been hating and killing each other. So does it really matter if Jews are involved, when it's palpably clear that Muslim nations are violent, no matter what?

I do not think at all that this is a general tendency in the world (blaming Jews for everything). Quite the contrary: in most places it is completely unacceptable to blame Jews for anything, with Jews attacking such people for being anti-semitic. Anti-semitism was a crime punishable by death in the Lenin-Stalin Soviet Union. A protection no other ethnic or religious group had. In some countries it is a crime to even question the statistics of Holocaust. You can question the number of Poles who died in WW2 in concentration camps, but not the number of Jews who died in the same camps. Does that seem fair to you?

Muslims have their own problems. They are no more prone to violence than Christians or Jews, they just do it differently. If you did some research you would see for example that Jews kill far more Muslims than Muslims kill Jews - about 10 times more. Each group blames the other for the violence, but the statistics do not lie. For me it is a case of one animal fighting another animal - I hardly see much difference between them, it is more like a nature's balancing act.