suchandra

This was to be expected, the materialists are outraged that according court decision teachers can present their own opinion and reasoning while teaching when they believe in intelligent design. Instead materialists demand that "there should be no 'academic freedom' to be allowed to undermine the teaching of atheistic evolution." Also tone is getting more and more aggressive, "This crap of intelligent design is exposed as nothing but religious fundamentalism". Nice kali-yuga - all hell is let loose! Thursday, May 22, 2008 The Post Exposes ID: West Replies The Post Exposes ID: West Replies The Washington Post tore into intelligent design a few days ago, saying, "Red-herring arguments about 'academic freedom' can't be allowed to undermine the teaching of evolution." For those who haven't followed the latest flavor of creationism, the ID strategy is to "teach the controversy" where they make up problems with modern evolutionary theory and say "Gee, this looks so complex that it couldn't have arisen by natural selection". Then the student is either to be told explicitly that there is an "intelligence" that "designed" life or allowed simply to come to this conclusion based on their Christian upbringing. The other part of the strategy is an appeal to freedom of speech. We're all for it, right? Of course. So why can't we have "the academic freedom" to "teach the controversy"? Well, because there is no controversy. In addition, is it really the place of middle and high schools to be on the cutting edge of research? Are biology teachers equipped with the knowledge that would allow a critical analysis of the intricate details of evolutionary theory? The Post has this to say: "Consider, also, that there really is no such thing as academic freedom in elementary and secondary education. A teacher can't deviate from the accepted curriculum to present alternative lesson plans or to offer his or her own notions." It is the job of scientists; specialists in the field to provide advise on curriculum. The goal of introducing "criticisms" of "a critical analysis" of evolutionary theory is to allow biology teachers with a religious bent free reign to interject their own spiritual beliefs and belief in the divine origin of humans. The "controversy" has been manufactured by religious zealots who have their own cultural goals. From the Discovery Institutes' infamous leaked "Wedge Document": "The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. " "The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were devastating. " "Discovery Institutes's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies. " Let's not forget the Dover Trial in which the infamous term "cdesign proponentists" was exposed. Let's hear what the cdesign proponentists have to say for themselves: Jonathan Wells: "Father's words (Rev. Moon), my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle." William Dembski: "To lift that pall will require a new generation of scholars and professionals who explicitly reject naturalism and consciously seek to understand the design that God has placed in the world" "The job of apologetics is to clear the ground, to clear obstacles that prevent people from coming to the knowledge of Christ," Dembski said. "And if there's anything that I think has blocked the growth of Christ [and] the free reign of the Spirit and people accepting the Scripture and Jesus Christ, it is the Darwinian naturalistic view.... It's important that we understand the world. God has created it; Jesus is incarnate in the world." – National Religious Broadcasters, 2000 "Intelligent Design opens the whole possibility of us being created in the image of a benevolent God." - Science Test, Church & State Magazine, July/August 2000. "The world is a mirror representing the divine life...The mechanical philosophy was ever blind to this fact. Intelligent design, on the other hand, readily embraces the sacramental nature of physical reality. Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." - with A., Kushiner, James M., (editors), Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design, Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2001. " Now, what is the Jonathan West said in response to the Post editorial: "Predictably, the Post asserts that the academic freedom bills are about “inviting creationism back into the classroom.” Except that they aren’t. In fact, the bills repeatedly and explicitly state that they only protect the presentation of scientific information, and that they don’t authorize the promotion of any religious doctrine." He even carefully quote-mines Lynn Margulis, who introduced and popularized the endosymbiont theory: "Or to National Academy of Sciences biologist Lynn Margulis (no friend of intelligent design!), who has written that “Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity change shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations leads to speciation.” (Acquiring Genomes [2003], p. 29). " Margulis is very critical of the neo-Darwinian synthesis; which most all today will admit is incomplete (a new synthesis is in the works and includes development). Margulis is especially bitter because she was criticized for her idea for years. I personally think she goes too far from having read a few of her books. In any case, Margulis does not think the alternative to neo-Darwinism is intelligent design. She thinks the evidence points to serial endosymbiosis as the major source of evolutionary innovation and thus "macroevolutionary change". West ends with an interesting little diatribe: "I guess facts just don’t matter when the issue is evolution and you’re a writer for the Washington Post editorial page. After all, Post editorialists have a proud history of producing fact-free editorials on the topic (see here, here, and here). And the big media wonder why many citizens are turning to alternative sources for news and commentary?" Given the facts that have been continually presented demonstrating the lies and deceit of the cdesign proponentists, it is supremely hypocritical to say something of that nature and have this as the statement of purpose on the DI blog from which West's article was posted: "The misreporting of the evolution issue is one key reason for this site. Unfortunately, much of the news coverage has been sloppy, inaccurate, and in some cases, overtly biased. Evolution News & Views presents analysis of that coverage, as well as original reporting that accurately delivers information about the current state of the debate over Darwinian evolution. " Posted by Clostridiophile at <a class="timestamp-link" href="http://ofmicrobesandmen.blogspot.com/2008/05/post-exposes-id-west-replies.html" rel="bookmark" title="permanent link"><abbr class="published" title="2008-05-22T06:09:00-07:00">6:09 AM</abbr> Labels: creationism, evolution

In case of Madhu Pandit - his deeds speak for themselves. If he would have done something wrong, his project would have been a failure. Must say that I haven't actually enough details to praise Madhu Pandit, it's all like a well hidden secret what's happening in Bangalore. Kinda rare exception and not the rule. If there wouldnt be something like the law that diksa-guru must authorize siksa-guru, disciples could do what they like and call it, "Sorry guru maharaja, but I'm fully busy taking siksa"?

Prabhupada's idea was that his disciples would first of all stick together and increase his global movement to become firmly fixed up and taken seriously by people in general. Since his ISKCON movement was a preaching movement, it was clear that in due course of time some devotees would have emerged as effulgent preachers and would have been blessed by Krishna to become even more and more advanced, up to the point of selfeffulgent acaryas. There's presently one example of a devotee getting the mercy, Madhu Pandit. First, history, Krsnakant started IRM with Adri Dharian; then, they brought in their most successful devotee: Madhu Pandit, who had been a businessman, then joined Iskcon, got initiated by HH Jayapataka swami; then Madhu Pandit started to preach and collected donations what has become the most successful Hare Krsna temple in the world in Bangalore, South India. At some point Madhu Pandit turned to Prabhupada, and then he slowly converted his whole temple to become a Prabhupada temple; rejecting his guru, HH Jayapataka swami, for Srila Prabhupada. In the huge Bangalore temple complex, Prabhupad's life size murti is taken around the grounds daily on his palanquin, as part of guru puja. These Bangalore devotees distributed more of Prabhupada's original books than all of the rest of Iskcon combined. Madhu Pandit bought two properties in Vrndavan, that when developed, will be far larger than Iskcon's KRSNA-BALARAM Mandir. He has surely been blessed by Krsna, and Prabhupada. Nowadays, he is also involved in the huge national government program to feed India's vast school children population at least one free meal a day. At this point in time, he is up to feeding almost 900,000 children a day: feeding them prasadam cooked and prepared with love and devotion by his Prabhupadanuga devotees daily!

Please correct if wrong, but I heard that a full-fledged siksa-guru who instructs you about what to do in devotional service has to be assigned to you by your diksa-guru. Let's say you consider a Vaishnava really exemplary and trustworthy, can you ask this Vaishnava to become your siksa-guru and instruct you how to perform devotional activities without asking your diksa-guru for permission? Never heard that this is according Vaishnava etiquette, to make such important decisions without asking my diksa-guru. And superiors like TP, GBC, they just were changing too often in order to automatically take the position of siksa-gurus.

Agreed, associating with Vaishnavas was always having priority. In deed there're 120 results when searching for, see below, "associating with devotees". This "associating with devotees" can of course also considered as receiving siksa, or associating with siksa-gurus, but I was told that Prabhupada never appointed any of his disciples to be a full-fledged siksa-guru for giving siksa to younger godbrothers. <small>Found 120 items, now showing 1 - 10</small> 1. Causelessmercy - Ebook - The Nectar of Instruction It is often said that a man is known by his company, and if an ordinary man associates with devotees, he will certainly develop his dormant Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The <small>http://causelessmercy.com/NoI.htm </small> 2. Causelessmercy - Ebook - Sri Caitanya-caritamrta - Madya-lila - 22.2 teṅho that same association with devotees; punaḥ again; ... Kṛṣṇa awakens, association with devotees is still ... sat-samāgamaḥ association with devotees; sat-saṅgamaḥ <small>http://causelessmercy.com/Madhya22.2.htm </small> 3. Causelessmercy - Ebook - Narada-bhakti-sutra Your browser does not support scripts. ... Devotion NBS 1 TEXT 1* athāto bhaktiṁ vyākhyāsyāmaḥ SYNONYMS atha now; ... Now, therefore, I will try to explain the process of devotional <small>http://causelessmercy.com/NBS.htm </small> 4. Causelessmercy - Ebook - Srimad-Bhagavatam - Canto 3 - 25.1 Because they do not associate with devotees, they cannot understand that the ... the Lord and the devotees increases. Association with devotees means association with the Lord. The <small>http://causelessmercy.com/SB3.25.1.htm </small> 5. Causelessmercy - Ebook - Teachings of Lord Caitanya - 12 1) to associate with devotees, (2) to chant the holy name of the Lord, (3) to hear Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, (4) to live in a holy place such as Mathurā or Vṛndāvana, (5) to serve <small>http://causelessmercy.com/TLC12.htm </small> 6. Causelessmercy - Ebook - Srimad-Bhagavatam - Canto 4 - 30.2 find the highest happiness in association with devotees. SB4.30.35 TEXT 35 yatreḍyante kathā mṛṣṭās tṛṣṇāyāḥ praśamo yataḥ nirvairaṁ yatra bhūteṣu <small>http://causelessmercy.com/SB4.30.2.htm </small> 7. Causelessmercy - Ebook - Teachings of Lord Kapila, the Son of Devahuti - 12 Lord and the devotees increases. Association with devotees means association ... we have to associate with devotees. Then we can ... process. Hearing and associating with devotees are the most <small>http://causelessmercy.com/TLK12.htm </small> 8. Causelessmercy - Ebook - Sri Caitanya-caritamrta - Madya-lila - 19.4 Kṛṣṇa is within everyone. Simply by associating with devotees, hearing their good instructions and chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, dormant love for Kṛṣṇa is <small>http://causelessmercy.com/Madhya19.4.htm </small> 9. Causelessmercy - Ebook - Sri Caitanya-caritamrta - Madya-lila - 24.2 kṛpā by the mercy of association with devotees; kimvā or; kṛṣṇera kṛpāya by the mercy of Kṛṣṇa; kāma-ādi material desires and so on; duḥsaṅga unwanted <small>http://causelessmercy.com/Madhya24.2.htm </small> 10. Causelessmercy - Ebook - Srimad-Bhagavatam - Canto 4 - 24.4 Therefore by sat-saṅga, or association with devotees, one becomes perfectly pure in heart. One who is pure in heart is never attracted by the external energy, which urges the <small>http://causelessmercy.com/SB4.24.4.htm </small>

So far what I heard is that a siksa-guru has to be activated and authorized by the diksa-guru and nobody else. Such a siksa-guru is almost on the same level to be worshiped like the diksa-guru. Just like Srila Swarup Damodar Goswami - Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu entrusted him to look after and instruct Srila Raghunath Das Goswami. In this way Srila Raghunath Das Goswami worshiped Srila Swarup Damodar Goswami as his authorized siksa-guru. Due different reasons, Srila Prabhupada never installed such a system of senior disciples becoming deliberate siksa-gurus for newly joined godbrothers, but instead put so much endeavour to write so many books for giving siksa through his writings. Reading and learning from Prabhupada's books became a central topic for all his followers. Since ISKCON is based upon Prabhupada's books it should be clear that Prabhupada's books are the source of siksa for all the members of ISKCON. To pass a resolution 601 in 2000, announcing that new disciples can take siksa from Prabhupada's books looks a bit like an error of reasoning. Where is there siksa within ISKCON not originating from Prabhupada's books? In fact all ISKCON's diksa-gurus give evidence based upon Prabhupada's books. At least that's what they say.

Science News Burning Incense Is Psychoactive: New Class Of Antidepressants Might Be Right Under Our Noses http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080520110415.htm ScienceDaily (May 20, 2008) — Religious leaders have contended for millennia that burning incense is good for the soul. Now, biologists have learned that it is good for our brains too. An international team of scientists, including researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, describe how burning frankincense (resin from the Boswellia plant) activates poorly understood ion channels in the brain to alleviate anxiety or depression. This suggests that an entirely new class of depression and anxiety drugs might be right under our noses. "In spite of information stemming from ancient texts, constituents of Bosweilla had not been investigated for psychoactivity," said Raphael Mechoulam, one of the research study's co-authors. "We found that incensole acetate, a Boswellia resin constituent, when tested in mice lowers anxiety and causes antidepressive-like behavior. Apparently, most present day worshipers assume that incense burning has only a symbolic meaning." To determine incense's psychoactive effects, the researchers administered incensole acetate to mice. They found that the compound significantly affected areas in brain areas known to be involved in emotions as well as in nerve circuits that are affected by current anxiety and depression drugs. Specifically, incensole acetate activated a protein called TRPV3, which is present in mammalian brains and also known to play a role in the perception of warmth of the skin. When mice bred without this protein were exposed to incensole acetate, the compound had no effect on their brains. "Perhaps Marx wasn't too wrong when he called religion the opium of the people: morphine comes from poppies, cannabinoids from marijuana, and LSD from mushrooms; each of these has been used in one or another religious ceremony." said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "Studies of how those psychoactive drugs work have helped us understand modern neurobiology. The discovery of how incensole acetate, purified from frankincense, works on specific targets in the brain should also help us understand diseases of the nervous system. This study also provides a biological explanation for millennia-old spiritual practices that have persisted across time, distance, culture, language, and religion--burning incense really does make you feel warm and tingly all over!" According to the National Institutes of Health, major depressive disorder is the leading cause of disability in the United States for people ages 15--44, affecting approximately 14.8 million American adults. A less severe form of depression, dysthymic disorder, affects approximately 3.3 million American adults. Anxiety disorders affect 40 million American adults, and frequently co-occur with depressive disorders. <hr> Journal reference: Incensole acetate, an incense component, elicits psychoactivity by activating TRPV3 channels in the brain. Arieh Moussaieff, Neta Rimmerman, Tatiana Bregman, Alex Straiker, Christian C. Felder, Shai Shoham, Yoel Kashman, Susan M. Huang, Hyosang Lee, Esther Shohami, Ken Mackie, Michael J. Caterina, J. Michael Walker, Ester Fride, and Raphael Mechoulam. Published online before print May 20, 2008 as doi: 10.1096/fj.07-101865. [link] Adapted from materials provided by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

Looks like the news media is propagating this movement but as pointed out below, facts are censored. "We usually never read that, "Spousal violence was twice as common among homosexual couples compared to heterosexual couples. Fifteen percent of gay and lesbian relationships experienced violence." (Statistics Canada, Oct 2006) This is because they want the homosexual "lifestyle alternative" to appear as attractive as possible. Homosexuality is the inability to form a permanent bond with a member of the opposite sex due to gender identity confusion. The goal of social engineers is to spread this form of arrested development to society at large. Also, social engineers want homosexuals to have the glamor of being "victims" of straight violence. In her excellent "Crafting Gay Bisexual Children" (p. 291) Judith Reisman cites gay authors David Island and Patrick Latellier who estimate 650,000 gay men are battered by a partner every year. They estimate the rate of gay-on-gay violence is three times straight-on-gay intimidations or assaults. They estimate 20% of gay relationships are poisoned by domestic violence." ("Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them") Henry Makow © 2008

Many people have taxed their brain without end to find this out. Except the explanation that Hitler must have been mad and totally insane they couldn't find out anything. When Hitler knew that 330,000 young unexperienced German soldiers were caught up and closed in at Stalingrad without winter clothing and starving in temperatures down to -30°C and surely wouldn't return he started to go against Jews. Whereas at Dunkirchen where the Germans had surrounded the Allies and easily could have finished them off, he ordered withdrawal and let the Allies march in. Hand writing of a psychopathic personality or master of orchestration, opinions are split. The guy lived for three years in a doss house, applied three times in vain for acceptance at an Academy of Arts, had no high school diploma. How this rascal got to power is a great mystery.

Looks like the ongoing debate Evolution vs Intelligent Design is clearly pro atheistic Evolution. When studying the internet you'll find tons of articles strongly against Intelligent Design - so that's the world we're living in, no need to preach, these people only understand lessons from the material energy. Something like, ok, your religion is that everything ends below a gravestone, but isn't then all that you do right now an illusion? The Evolution of the Intelligent Design Creationism Hoax wordpress.com May 20, 2008 — Lou FCD Jim Lippard pointed out this new video from the National Center for Science Education. It’s concise and well done, concentrating on the transitional fossil found that chains the “Intelligent Design” movement solidly to its evolutionary ancestor, Creationism. “Intelligent Design” was itself an intermediate form, as The Hoax then mutated into “Teach the Controversy” and most recently into “Academic Freedom”. These of course are just cheap disguises designed to fool federal courts into believing that there is a non-religious motivation behind attacks on Science education in America. Besides being scientifically without merit, they are both unconstitutional and dishonest. It’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from the crowd that pushes them. Fortunately, federal judges, even “good old boy brought up through the conservative ranks” and “appointed by GW hisself”” have thus far seen right through the veil of sciency sounding words. Enjoy the video. <embed src=" " type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="350" width="425"> And for a bonus video, here’s one on the subject to which I am especially partial, with special guest star Dover Area School District Board-member, William “I never said Creationism” Buckingham. <embed src=" " type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="350" width="425">

We understand the enormous interest of American Vaishnavas in rumors and hearsay about Hitler is to justify the great plunder and total demolition they performed to bring down Vaishnavism in German speaking countries for the past 30 years by sending one by one "suddenly corrupt" GBC men in the name of Prabhupada. However, as soon someone points out the bank connections where the Hitler regime was getting all the bank loans from and especially all the million tons of petrol for the huge war machinery these folks immediately change topic or keep quiet. Also see article below about Hitler's teachers. This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/09/ING9C2QSKB1.DTL Edwin Black Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a so-called Master Race. But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little-known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing. Eugenics was the pseudoscience aimed at "improving" the human race. In its extreme, racist form, this meant wiping away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in 27 states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries. California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the 20th century's first decades, California's eugenicists included potent but little-known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles Goethe, as well as members of the California state Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents. Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America's most respected scientists from such prestigious universities as Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims. Stanford President David Starr Jordan originated the notion of "race and blood" in his 1902 racial epistle "Blood of a Nation," in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood. In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established a laboratory complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, as researchers carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines and whole peoples. From Cold Spring Harbor, eugenics advocates agitated in the legislatures of America, as well as the nation's social service agencies and associations. The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, confinement or forced sterilization. The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz. Much of the spiritual guidance and political agitation for the American eugenics movement came from California's quasi-autonomous eugenic societies, such as Pasadena's Human Betterment Foundation and the California branch of the American Eugenics Society, which coordinated much of their activity with the Eugenics Research Society in Long Island. These organizations -- which functioned as part of a closely-knit network -- published racist eugenic newsletters and pseudoscientific journals, such as Eugenical News and Eugenics, and propagandized for the Nazis. Eugenics was born as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age. In 1863, Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, theorized that if talented people married only other talented people, the result would be measurably better offspring. At the turn of the last century, Galton's ideas were imported to the United States just as Gregor Mendel's principles of heredity were rediscovered. American eugenics advocates believed with religious fervor that the same Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man. In a United States demographically reeling from immigration upheaval and torn by post-Reconstruction chaos, race conflict was everywhere in the early 20th century. Elitists, utopians and so-called progressives fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented Galton's eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: Populate the Earth with vastly more of their own socioeconomic and biological kind -- and less or none of everyone else. The superior species the eugenics movement sought was populated not merely by tall, strong, talented people. Eugenicists craved blond, blue-eyed Nordic types. This group alone, they believed, was fit to inherit the Earth. In the process, the movement intended to subtract emancipated Negroes, immigrant Asian laborers, Indians, Hispanics, East Europeans, Jews, dark- haired hill folk, poor people, the infirm and anyone classified outside the gentrified genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists. How? By identifying so-called defective family trees and subjecting them to lifelong segregation and sterilization programs to kill their bloodlines. The grand plan was to literally wipe away the reproductive capability of those deemed weak and inferior -- the so-called unfit. The eugenicists hoped to neutralize the viability of 10 percent of the population at a sweep, until none were left except themselves. Eighteen solutions were explored in a Carnegie-supported 1911 "Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder's Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population." Point No. 8 was euthanasia. The most commonly suggested method of eugenicide in the United States was a "lethal chamber" or public, locally operated gas chambers. In 1918, Popenoe, the Army venereal disease specialist during World War I, co-wrote the widely used textbook, "Applied Eugenics," which argued, "From an historical point of view, the first method which presents itself is execution . . . Its value in keeping up the standard of the race should not be underestimated.Applied Eugenics" also devoted a chapter to "Lethal Selection," which operated "through the destruction of the individual by some adverse feature of the environment, such as excessive cold, or bacteria, or by bodily deficiency." Eugenic breeders believed American society was not ready to implement an organized lethal solution. But many mental institutions and doctors practiced improvised medical lethality and passive euthanasia on their own. One institution in Lincoln, Ill., fed its incoming patients milk from tubercular cows believing a eugenically strong individual would be immune. Thirty to 40 percent annual death rates resulted at Lincoln. Some doctors practiced passive eugenicide one newborn infant at a time. Others doctors at mental institutions engaged in lethal neglect. Nonetheless, with eugenicide marginalized, the main solution for eugenicists was the rapid expansion of forced segregation and sterilization, as well as more marriage restrictions. California led the nation, performing nearly all sterilization procedures with little or no due process. In its first 25 years of eugenics legislation, California sterilized 9,782 individuals, mostly women. Many were classified as "bad girls," diagnosed as "passionate,oversexed" or "sexually wayward." At the Sonoma State Home, some women were sterilized because of what was deemed an abnormally large clitoris or labia. In 1933 alone, at least 1,278 coercive sterilizations were performed, 700 on women. The state's two leading sterilization mills in 1933 were Sonoma State Home with 388 operations and Patton State Hospital with 363 operations. Other sterilization centers included Agnews, Mendocino, Napa, Norwalk, Stockton and Pacific Colony state hospitals. Even the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed aspects of eugenics. In its infamous 1927 decision, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough." This decision opened the floodgates for thousands to be coercively sterilized or otherwise persecuted as subhuman. Years later, the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials quoted Holmes' words in their own defense. Only after eugenics became entrenched in the United States was the campaign transplanted into Germany, in no small measure through the efforts of California eugenicists, who published booklets idealizing sterilization and circulated them to German officials and scientists. Hitler studied American eugenics laws. He tried to legitimize his anti- Semitism by medicalizing it, and wrapping it in the more palatable pseudoscientific facade of eugenics. Hitler was able to recruit more followers among reasonable Germans by claiming that science was on his side. Hitler's race hatred sprung from his own mind, but the intellectual outlines of the eugenics Hitler adopted in 1924 were made in America. During the '20s, Carnegie Institution eugenic scientists cultivated deep personal and professional relationships with Germany's fascist eugenicists. In "Mein Kampf," published in 1924, Hitler quoted American eugenic ideology and openly displayed a thorough knowledge of American eugenics. "There is today one state," wrote Hitler, "in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception (of immigration) are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States." Hitler proudly told his comrades just how closely he followed the progress of the American eugenics movement. "I have studied with great interest," he told a fellow Nazi, "the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock." Hitler even wrote a fan letter to American eugenics leader Madison Grant, calling his race-based eugenics book, "The Passing of the Great Race," his "bible." Now, the American term "Nordic" was freely exchanged with "Germanic" or "Aryan." Race science, racial purity and racial dominance became the driving force behind Hitler's Nazism. Nazi eugenics would ultimately dictate who would be persecuted in a Reich-dominated Europe, how people would live, and how they would die. Nazi doctors would become the unseen generals in Hitler's war against the Jews and other Europeans deemed inferior. Doctors would create the science, devise the eugenic formulas, and hand-select the victims for sterilization, euthanasia and mass extermination. During the Reich's early years, eugenicists across America welcomed Hitler's plans as the logical fulfillment of their own decades of research and effort. California eugenicists republished Nazi propaganda for American consumption. They also arranged for Nazi scientific exhibits, such as an August 1934 display at the L.A. County Museum, for the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association. In 1934, as Germany's sterilizations were accelerating beyond 5,000 per month, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe, upon returning from Germany, ebulliently bragged to a colleague, "You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought . . . I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people." That same year, 10 years after Virginia passed its sterilization act, Joseph DeJarnette, superintendent of Virginia's Western State Hospital, observed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, "The Germans are beating us at our own game." More than just providing the scientific roadmap, America funded Germany's eugenic institutions. By 1926, Rockefeller had donated some $410,000 -- almost $4 million in today's money -- to hundreds of German researchers. In May 1926, Rockefeller awarded $250,000 toward creation of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry. Among the leading psychiatrists at the German Psychiatric Institute was Ernst Rüdin, who became director and eventually an architect of Hitler's systematic medical repression. Another in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute's complex of eugenics institutions was the Institute for Brain Research. Since 1915, it had operated out of a single room. Everything changed when Rockefeller money arrived in 1929. A grant of $317,000 allowed the institute to construct a major building and take center stage in German race biology. The institute received additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation during the next several years. Leading the institute, once again, was Hitler's medical henchman Ernst Rüdin. Rüdin's organization became a prime director and recipient of the murderous experimentation and research conducted on Jews, Gypsies and others. Beginning in 1940, thousands of Germans taken from old age homes, mental institutions and other custodial facilities were systematically gassed. Between 50,000 and 100,000 were eventually killed. Leon Whitney, executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society, declared of Nazism, "While we were pussy-footing around ... the Germans were calling a spade a spade." A special recipient of Rockefeller funding was the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Berlin. For decades, American eugenicists had craved twins to advance their research into heredity. The Institute was now prepared to undertake such research on an unprecedented level. On May 13, 1932, the Rockefeller Foundation in New York dispatched a radiogram to its Paris office: JUNE MEETING EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE NINE THOUSAND DOLLARS OVER THREE YEAR PERIOD TO KWG INSTITUTE ANTHROPOLOGY FOR RESEARCH ON TWINS AND EFFECTS ON LATER GENERATIONS OF SUBSTANCES TOXIC FOR GERM PLASM. At the time of Rockefeller's endowment, Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a hero in American eugenics circles, functioned as a head of the Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics. Rockefeller funding of that institute continued both directly and through other research conduits during Verschuer's early tenure. In 1935, Verschuer left the institute to form a rival eugenics facility in Frankfurt that was much heralded in the American eugenics press. Research on twins in the Third Reich exploded, backed by government decrees. Verschuer wrote in Der Erbarzt, a eugenics doctor's journal he edited, that Germany's war would yield a "total solution to the Jewish problem." Verschuer had a longtime assistant. His name was Josef Mengele. On May 30, 1943, Mengele arrived at Auschwitz. Verschuer notified the German Research Society, "My assistant, Dr. Josef Mengele (M.D., Ph.D.) joined me in this branch of research. He is presently employed as Hauptsturmführer (captain) and camp physician in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Anthropological testing of the most diverse racial groups in this concentration camp is being carried out with permission of the SS Reichsführer (Himmler)." Mengele began searching the boxcar arrivals for twins. When he found them, he performed beastly experiments, scrupulously wrote up the reports and sent the paperwork back to Verschuer's institute for evaluation. Often, cadavers, eyes and other body parts were also dispatched to Berlin's eugenic institutes. Rockefeller executives never knew of Mengele. With few exceptions, the foundation had ceased all eugenics studies in Nazi-occupied Europe before the war erupted in 1939. But by that time the die had been cast. The talented men Rockefeller and Carnegie financed, the great institutions they helped found, and the science they helped create took on a scientific momentum of their own. After the war, eugenics was declared a crime against humanity -- an act of genocide. Germans were tried and they cited the California statutes in their defense -- to no avail. They were found guilty. However, Mengele's boss Verschuer escaped prosecution. Verschuer re- established his connections with California eugenicists who had gone underground and renamed their crusade "human genetics." Typical was an exchange July 25, 1946, when Popenoe wrote Verschuer, "It was indeed a pleasure to hear from you again. I have been very anxious about my colleagues in Germany . . . I suppose sterilization has been discontinued in Germany?" Popenoe offered tidbits about various American eugenics luminaries and then sent various eugenics publications. In a separate package, Popenoe sent some cocoa, coffee and other goodies. Verschuer wrote back, "Your very friendly letter of 7/25 gave me a great deal of pleasure and you have my heartfelt thanks for it. The letter builds another bridge between your and my scientific work; I hope that this bridge will never again collapse but rather make possible valuable mutual enrichment and stimulation." Soon, Verschuer again became a respected scientist in Germany and around the world. In 1949, he became a corresponding member of the newly formed American Society of Human Genetics, organized by American eugenicists and geneticists. In the fall of 1950, the University of Münster offered Verschuer a position at its new Institute of Human Genetics, where he later became a dean. In the early and mid-1950s, Verschuer became an honorary member of numerous prestigious societies, including the Italian Society of Genetics, the Anthropological Society of Vienna, and the Japanese Society for Human Genetics. Human genetics' genocidal roots in eugenics were ignored by a victorious generation that refused to link itself to the crimes of Nazism and by succeeding generations that never knew the truth of the years leading up to war. Now governors of five states, including California, have issued public apologies to their citizens, past and present, for sterilization and other abuses spawned by the eugenics movement. Human genetics became an enlightened endeavor in the late 20th century. Hard-working, devoted scientists finally cracked the human code through the Human Genome Project. Now, every individual can be biologically identified and classified by trait and ancestry. Yet even now, some leading voices in the genetic world are calling for a cleansing of the unwanted among us, and even a master human species. There is understandable wariness about more ordinary forms of abuse, for example, in denying insurance or employment based on genetic tests. On Oct. 14, the United States' first genetic anti-discrimination legislation passed the Senate by unanimous vote. Yet because genetics research is global, no single nation's law can stop the threats. Edwin Black is author of the award-winning "IBM and the Holocaust" and the recently released "War Against the Weak" (published by Four Walls Eight Windows), from which this article is adapted. This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

He was surely influenced by those who presented "belief in God". And this you find almost anywhere. Beware of Fake Swamis and Hindu God Men posted May 20 2008 http://www.hindu-blog.com/2008/05/beware-of-fake-swamis-and-hindu-god-men.html Fake Hindu swamis, sanyasis, babas, gurus and godmen thrive in a society which lacks awareness about the true essence of Hindu spirituality. Therefore Hindus and other sections of the society which provide the opportunity and fertile ground for fraudsters to thrive in the name of Hinduism are equally at fault. No fake swami can survive without ignorant and fortune-seeking followers. The Bhagavad Gita which narrates the essence of Hindu spirituality contains only 700 verses. There are excellent translation and commentary of Bhagavad Gita which cost less than 100 rupees. But majority of the Hindus have no time to read the 700 verses but spend money, energy and time visiting ashrams and spiritual centers of such fake babas and gurus. If you make this an issue, immediately comes the answer, Bhagavad Gita is hard to digest for common people like us, we are ignorant. It is for the common people that the learned men of yesteryears have translated the Gita into all regional languages. They have provided excellent translations and have interpreted the great dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna into the simplest language. Is not understanding Gita the real issue? NO The real issue is that Gita doesn’t talk about methods to become super rich overnight. Neither do Gita have mantras to find treasures hidden underground or to get promotions or provide miracle cure to diseases. Gita also does not recommend pujas to destroy your enemies. And above all Gita does not predict the future. But the fake swamis and godmen only talk about future, money and predictions, pujas and innumerable homams to cure diseases where medical science has failed. Sadly, this is what many Hindus want to hear. Daily we get to hear about such fake swamis and their notorious activities – which include rape, amassing wealth through dishonorable means – but this has not deterred many Hindus from approaching fraudsters. But, why? Both the fake Godmen and his followers are fortune seekers. Godmen is using religion to become rich and conduct other antisocial activities. Followers are fortune seekers who want the help of an outside agency to reach God and bribe God and amass wealth and know future. Shri Krishna never fought for Arjuna. Arjuna had to do all the fighting in Kurukshetra. The ultimate truth that we have to do our work and no God will come to do it is not still acceptable to many. A true Sanyasi will never advertise. He/She is like a flower. People reach them following the fragrance. They will not even bother to talk to fortune-seekers. Silence is there best weapon which frustrate most fortune seekers in minutes. They might open up the knowledge treasure to a genuine seeker whom a true Sanyasi will easily identify – just like Ramakrishna identified Vivekananda. No Sanyasi or Godmen has said anything new that is not found in the Upanishads, Gita, Ramayana, Yoga Vasishta and Mahabharata. All these texts are readily available in the market. Pick any of these Holy Scriptures and read a few pages daily. Soon we will realize the futility of going to such fake gurus. Hinduism believes in individual self realization and not borrowed or rented or bought self realization. Always remember the Brahman that resides in the most respected guru or spiritual leader also resides in us. The only difference is that we have not bothered to realize it. If we are falling into the trap of fake Sanyasis and Godmen, it is our fault. And if you find that a swami is fake, never hesitate to report it to the authorities. Such fake swamis and Godmen should not find protection in Hindu religion.

Interesting post by Sitapati prabhu - emergent ISKCON. Emergent ISKCON <!-- begin content --> Posted On: Tue, 2008-05-20 02:55 by sitapati http://www.atmayogi.com/node/789 <center> <embed src=" " type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></center> Read a brief article on this. Keep your finger on the pulse. It's happening everywhere. Hippy was the cultural context of the 60's and 70's. Emergent is part of the contemporary cultural context. Play to the terrain. Orthodox at the core. Innovative at the edge sitapati's blog | login or register to post comments

"No need to worry", V. S. Ramachandran, a brain scientist, see below, at the University of California, San Diego, says something similar, don't worry, there may be soul in the sense of “the universal spirit of the cosmos,” but the soul as it is usually spoken of, “an immaterial spirit that occupies individual brains and that only evolved in humans — all that is complete nonsense.” Belief in that kind of soul “is basically superstition,” he said. May 16, 2008 <nyt_headline version="1.0" type=> Science of the Soul? ‘I Think, Therefore I Am’ Is Losing Force </nyt_headline> <nyt_byline version="1.0" type=> </nyt_byline>By CORNELIA DEAN <nyt_text> </nyt_text> <nyt_correction_top> </nyt_correction_top> NEW YORK TIMES In 1950, in a letter to bishops, Pope Pius XII took up the issue of evolution. The Roman Catholic Church does not necessarily object to the study of evolution as far as it relates to physical traits, he wrote in the encyclical, Humani Generis. But he added, “Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.” Pope John Paul II made much the same point in 1996, in a message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, an advisory group to the Vatican. Although he noted that in the intervening years evolution had become “more than a hypothesis,” he added that considering the mind as emerging merely from physical phenomena was “incompatible with the truth about man.” But as evolutionary biologists and cognitive neuroscientists peer ever deeper into the brain, they are discovering more and more genes, brain structures and other physical correlates to feelings like empathy, disgust and joy. That is, they are discovering physical bases for the feelings from which moral sense emerges — not just in people but in other animals as well. The result is perhaps the strongest challenge yet to the worldview summed up by Descartes, the 17th-century philosopher who divided the creatures of the world between humanity and everything else. As biologists turn up evidence that animals can exhibit emotions and patterns of cognition once thought of as strictly human, Descartes’s dictum, “I think, therefore I am,” loses its force. For many scientists, the evidence that moral reasoning is a result of physical traits that evolve along with everything else is just more evidence against the existence of the soul, or of a God to imbue humans with souls. For many believers, particularly in the United States, the findings show the error, even wickedness, of viewing the world in strictly material terms. And they provide for theologians a growing impetus to reconcile the existence of the soul with the growing evidence that humans are not, physically or even mentally, in a class by themselves. The idea that human minds are the product of evolution is “unassailable fact,” the journal Nature said this month in an editorial on new findings on the physical basis of moral thought. A headline on the editorial drove the point home: “With all deference to the sensibilities of religious people, the idea that man was created in the image of God can surely be put aside.” Or as V. S. Ramachandran, a brain scientist at the University of California, San Diego, put it in an interview, there may be soul in the sense of “the universal spirit of the cosmos,” but the soul as it is usually spoken of, “an immaterial spirit that occupies individual brains and that only evolved in humans — all that is complete nonsense.” Belief in that kind of soul “is basically superstition,” he said. For people like the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, talk of the soul is of a piece with the rest of the palaver of religious faith, which he has likened to a disease. And among evolutionary psychologists, religious faith is nothing but an evolutionary artifact, a predilection that evolved because shared belief increased group solidarity and other traits that contribute to survival and reproduction. Nevertheless, the idea of a divinely inspired soul will not be put aside. To cite just one example, when 10 Republican presidential candidates were asked at a debate last month if there was anyone among them who did not believe in evolution, 3 raised their hands. One of them, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, explained later in an op-ed article in this newspaper that he did not reject all evolutionary theory. But he added, “Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order.” That is the nub of the issue, according to Nancey Murphy, a philosopher at Fuller Theological Seminary who has written widely on science, religion and the soul. Challenges to the uniqueness of humanity in creation are just as alarming as the Copernican assertion that Earth is not the center of the universe, she writes in her book “Bodies and Souls or Spirited Bodies?” (Cambridge, 2006). Just as Copernicus knocked Earth off its celestial pedestal, she said, the new findings on cognition have displaced people from their “strategic location” in creation. Another theologian who has written widely on the issue, John F. Haught of Georgetown University, said in an interview that “for many Americans the only way to preserve the discontinuity that’s implied in the notion of a soul, a distinct soul, is to deny evolution,” which he said was “unfortunate.” There is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the diversity and complexity of life on earth. For Dr. Murphy and Dr. Haught, though, people make a mistake when they assume that people can be “ensouled” only if other creatures are soulless. “Evolutionary biology shows the transition from animal to human to be too gradual to make sense of the idea that we humans have souls while animals do not,” wrote Dr. Murphy, an ordained minister in the Church of the Brethren. “All the human capacities once attributed to the mind or soul are now being fruitfully studied as brain processes — or, more accurately, I should say, processes involving the brain, the rest of the nervous system and other bodily systems, all interacting with the socio-cultural world.” Therefore, she writes, it is “faulty” reasoning to want to distinguish people from the rest of creation. She and Dr. Haught cite the ideas of Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century philosopher and theologian who, Dr. Haught said, “spoke of a vegetative and animal soul along with the human soul.” Dr. Haught, who testified for the American Civil Liberties Union when it successfully challenged the teaching of intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism, in the science classrooms of Dover, Pa., said, “The way I look at it, instead of eliminating the notion of a human soul in order to make us humans fit seamlessly into the rest of nature, it’s wiser to recognize that there is something analogous to soul in all living beings.” Does this mean, say, that Australopithecus afarensis, the proto-human famously exemplified by the fossil skeleton known as Lucy, had a soul? He paused and then said: “I think so, yes. I think all of our hominid ancestors were ensouled in some way, but that does not rule out the possibility that as evolution continues, the shape of the soul can vary just as it does from individual to individual.” Will this idea catch on? “It’s not something you hear in the suburban pulpit,” said Dr. Haught, a Roman Catholic whose book “God After Darwin” (Westview Press, 2000) is being reissued this year. “This is out of vogue in the modern world because the philosopher Descartes made such a distinction between mind and matter. He placed the whole animal world on the side of matter, which is essentially mindless.” Dr. Haught said it could be difficult to discuss the soul and evolution because it was one of many issues in which philosophical thinking was not keeping up with fast-moving science. “The theology itself is still in process,” he said. For scientists who are people of faith, like Kenneth R. Miller, a biologist at Brown University, asking about the science of the soul is pointless, in a way, because it is not a subject science can address. “It is not physical and investigateable in the world of science,” he said. “Everything we know about the biological sciences says that life is a phenomenon of physics and chemistry, and therefore the notion of some sort of spirit to animate it and give the flesh a life really doesn’t fit with modern science,” said Dr. Miller, a Roman Catholic whose book, “Finding Darwin’s God” (Harper, 1999) explains his reconciliation of the theory of evolution with religious faith. “However, if you regard the soul as something else, as you might, say, the spiritual reflection of your individuality as a human being, then the theology of the soul it seems to me is on firm ground.” Dr. Miller, who also testified in the Dover case, said he spoke often at college campuses and elsewhere and was regularly asked, “What do you say as a scientist about the soul?” His answer, he said, is always the same: “As a scientist, I have nothing to say about the soul. It’s not a scientific idea.” <nyt_correction_bottom> </nyt_correction_bottom>Correction: May 12, 2008 An article in Science Times on Tuesday about evolution and the soul misstated the views that Nancey Murphy, a philosopher at Fuller Theological Seminary, expresses in her book “Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?” Dr. Murphy argues that neither humans nor animals have souls, not that both have souls. She cited the ideas of Thomas Aquinas on animal and human souls to contrast with her view, not to support it. <nyt_update_bottom> </nyt_update_bottom>

Lots of interesting goodies here http://www.iskconbangalore.org/

The walls still keeping untouchables out http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7404062.stm <!-- S BO --> <!-- S IBYL --> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="466"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="bottom"> By TN Gopalan Tamil Nadu </td> </tr> </tbody></table> Page last updated at 15:56 GMT, Monday, 19 May 2008 16:56 UK <!-- E IBYL --> <!-- S IIMA --> <table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="226"> <tbody><tr><td> The wall dividing the upper castes and Dalits being brought down Pic: G Moorthy </td></tr> </tbody></table> <!-- E IIMA --> What do many higher castes Hindus in parts of India's Tamil Nadu state still not share with the Dalits, formerly known as untouchables? They insist on separate glasses for drinking tea and they do not allow the untouchables to go to the same barber shops. They ban them from temples, cremation grounds and river bathing points, among other examples. All this in a state that prides itself on being one of the most politically progressive and educationally advanced parts of the country. But studies have found at least 45 different forms of "untouchability" being practised by upper caste Hindus against the Dalits in Tamil Nadu. Social liability So a recent news item about a wall segregating local higher caste Hindus residents from their Dalit counterparts in Uthapuram village in Madurai district barely 600km (350 miles) from the state capital Madras (Chennai) didn't exactly come as a surprise. The higher caste Hindu residents say they won permission for the wall after inter-caste violence in the late 1980s. The wall kept Dalit people out of the main parts of the village. Dalits comprise the majority of residents in Uthapuram and most of them are not badly off either. The authorities demolished part of the wall following an order from the state government to allow Dalits to go where they wanted in the village. Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi himself announced the decision in the state assembly. <!-- S IIMA --> <table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="226"> <tbody><tr><td> Discrimination against Dalits remains widespread </td></tr> </tbody></table> <!-- E IIMA --> About 800 higher caste Hindus are reported to have decided to leave the village and seek refuge on a nearby hillock in protest against the decision. So does the decision of the authorities to back the demolition of the wall mark a turning point for the Dalits in Tamil Nadu? Ravi Kumar, a leading Dalit intellectual, is doubtful. "I don't expect this to galvanise the Dalits for you don't have such walls elsewhere. The fight against other forms of untouchability would prove far tougher." Dalits or the Scheduled Castes, the official name for the lowest castes, constitute roughly 19% of the Tamil Nadu's 62.4 million people. They can swing election results by voting together for one candidate or a party. Raw deal Still they continue to receive a raw deal. Economically their lot has improved in recent years, but they continue to languish at the lower end of the income scale. They have their constitutional quota of members in the state legislature. They also have a couple of ministers in the cabinet. But the Dalit ministers have to content themselves with relatively unimportant portfolios. But this isn't just about discrimination within Hinduism. More than 60% of Christians in Tamil Nadu are Dalits - most converted hoping to find more freedom. But they still have very little voice and are largely shunned in the church. They again find themselves humiliated, with separate pews, services, churches, corteges, enclosures in cemeteries and so on. <!-- S IIMA --> <table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="226"> <tbody><tr><td> Even in areas they are in a majority, Dalits continue to languish </td></tr> </tbody></table> <!-- E IIMA --> Recently a tentative effort was made in a village called Erayur to integrate the Dalits in all the services. But a group of Christians protested and threatened to go back to Hinduism if the Catholic church went ahead with its initiatives. The diocese had to back down. Right now it is trying to persuade the protesting group to re-open the church they had locked in the first flush of the protest. But they appear want an undertaking that the church would not do anything to "hurt" their sentiments. "It is all unfortunate, but then bishops cannot go beyond a point in pushing the integration agenda," says Father Vincent Chinnadurai, chairman of the State Minorities Commission which advises the Tamil Nadu government on how to improve minority rights. "The congealed mindset takes a pretty long time to come to terms with the realities of the modern world." Clearly it is going to be a pretty long haul for the untouchables - Hindu or Christian - in one of India's most developed states.

The principal of this school says students now find it easier to concentrate, and classrooms are getting crowded. <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BN5KGrFzUc&hl=en&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"> PRINCIPAL (Translation): This program has made a great impact. It's increased twofold. When we started we had 60 students attending school. Now we have 120. Today the cooks are preparing sambar, a staple south Indian dish that's like a soupy vegetable curry with lentils. This simple meal is also being used as an instrument of social change. The state government insists at least one cook in every kitchen must be from the so-called untouchable castes. COOK (Translation): When we're working we have to treat everyone equally. We cannot discriminate based on caste. We have to get used to that idea. In many states, lunch has become a one-stop shop for children's health. Apart from the nutritional value of the cooked lunch, these kids also get vitamin A, iron, folic acid and de-worming tablets with their meals. ABHILASH (Translation): Come here. Abhilash is responsible for supervising the meal. ABHILASH (Translation): My title is Food Minister. When the little children come with their plates I make them sit in a row. I tell them not to talk while they eat. And I send them out in a line. WOMAN (Translation): How does the Food Minister like the food? ABHILASH (Translation): The rice is good. The sambar is great. It's very tasty to eat. WOMAN (Translation): You've cleaned up your plate. How was the food? GIRL (Translation): It was good. It's very good. If I don't eat at school every day I feel very hungry. At least one of the children here doesn't even get one home-cooked meal. He has to beg for his supper. LITTLE BOY (Translation): At night, I get food from my neighbours and then I go to bed. In the morning I eat what's left from dinner, then come to school. PRINCIPAL (Translation): Now when we see some of the students, compared to four years back when there was no midday meal, I can show you some of them who used to be very skinny. They had no strength. Now we're noticing how they've put on weight. We're happy about that. REPORTER: Do you look forward to lunch each day? ABHILASH (Translation): Yes, I look forward to it. Well, I don't know what Australian kids would make of this meal, but I thought it was delicious, and it certainly beats the sandwiches that I took to school. But more importantly, while governments in the West and celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver agonise over what to do about nutrition for kids, India has actually gone ahead and done something about it. And after a satisfying lunch, what better way to relax than by reading the paper. Instead of running around after their heavy meal, the kids here are taught to read aloud from old newspapers. While most Indian schools cook their own lunches each day, some are getting outside help on a massive scale. Many schools now have their midday meals mass-produced in high-tech kitchens like this one. COOK: We can see the blending of the masala powder. OK. It's the result of collaboration between state governments and a religious group familiar to many in the West. COOK: Now we are entering the production area The Hare Krishna movement prepares 820,000 lunches in kitchens like this every school day. They call it a "gravity-force kitchen". COOK: We have three storage silos on the top of this floor. One for dhal and two for rice. Rice and lentils come from silos on the roof and are washed on the top floor of the kitchen. This is also where the vegetables are prepared, spices are ground, and chillies and curry leaves are fried. Then they're all poured down chutes into waiting cauldrons on the floor below. The food is cooked with steam generated by giant furnaces, and then it's ready to drop down to the next floor. COOK: Now the sambar is ready from the processing area and it is going to the packing area through this chute and this channel. Finally the containers of food are packed onto a fleet of custom-built vehicles which deliver the meals to schools in and around Bangalore. The logistics are so remarkable that MBA students from Harvard Business School are using it as a case study of time management. MADHU PANDIT DAS, HARE KRISHNA MISSIONARY: I think there is a….. not I think, we definitely feel that there is a divine touch in the food that comes out of these kitchens. There's a divine touch, there's a special taste to it. This is called raita. REPORTER: Raita? So yoghurts and some vegetables? Madhu Pandit Das is the Hare Krishna missionary and engineer who designed the gravity-force kitchen. MADHU PANDIT DAS: You know, some of these processes are so laborious, we could have done away with but still we do it. For instance, coconut grating. To grate coconut to put in sambar for 100,000 children is no joke. We could easily avoid coconut. It doesn't make much difference. But it makes a difference in the taste. Because sambar means it has to have coconut. REPORTER: If the dish is called sambar.. MADHU PANDIT DAS: Yeah, it has to have coconut. There are 4,500 schools eagerly waiting for their meals, and each van visits roughly a dozen of them. Considering the state of the roads and the traffic, it seems miraculous that the lunches reach the schools on time. REPORTER: This road's pretty rough. DRIVER: Oh, most of the roads are similar. This is a better road which we are travelling. There are a few roads which vehicles which go on a very bad road. They cannot go even 2km/h. That's slow it will go. Such a horrible roads. Because the Hare Krishna movement tops up government funding with donations from its members, it can spend more on meals than individual schools. It also adopts regional menus in different parts of India, churning out roti and meat curries in the north, for example. The man who designed the kitchen says it can be replicated anywhere in the world and it could even help cure the obesity epidemic in the West. MADHU PANDIT DAS: So let's say if we are going to go to the US and do something like this for the children. We'll find out what's the local palate. And then we'll use the technology and we'll scale it up. And it's possible to design a menu that will address obesity, junk food, which destroys the children's health. Even in India schools are becoming targets for junk food. There's been a push recently by biscuit manufacturers to have their products included in the lunch menu. But the man who runs the program here says there will be no cookies in Karnataka. VIJAY BHASKAR: Well, I would only say that children would like only a hot cooked midday meal. Because any person who has seen children eating a hot meal, would know that no cookie can substitute for it. REPORTER: How important are these meals to these particular children? PRINCIPAL (Translation): Before they used to collapse in the hot sun. It's made all the difference. Their faces are radiant now. Credits Reporter/Camera AMOS ROBERTS Editors ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS DAVID POTTS Producer AARON THOMAS Fixer SARITHA RAI Subtitling CHANDRA DEVUDU Original Music composed by VICKI HANSEN

Article below says that meat is served, someone can verify? ASIA-PACIFIC India's Free Lunch http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/india39s_free_lunch_543882 Wednesday, 2 April, 2008 <!-- have a clearing div here for now... --> <!-- probably should've made these spans --> <dl><dt id="vidlink1">INDIA'S FREE LUNCH</dt></dl> This week Amos Roberts travels to India's Bangalore and reports on an inspiring story of how the nation is feeding almost 150-million school children - many of whom would otherwise go without lunch. Following a landmark decision by the Supreme Court in 2001, India’s state governments were ordered to provide free meals for all primary school children aged 10 and under. Have Your Say: What can western countries learn from India's school lunch initiative? * Poverty In India * A Sense Of Community * The People Of India Last year, the scheme was expanded to include children up to the age of 13 and now some states have even gone further, providing meals for children up to year 10. Prior to the free lunch program, parents living below the poverty line often sent their children to work and as a result, about one million kids were out of school. One of the program administrators tells Roberts that the initiative has seen a significant spike in school attendance in all grades. While the some schools take responsibility for providing the food, others schools handover the job to the Hare Krishna movement, which provides meals for 820,000 children every day. So while Western governments and celebrity chefs agonise over how to improve nutrition for children, India has actually gone ahead and done something about it. Keep up to date with all the latest stories with our newsletter. TRANSCRIPT In India, that old adage "there's no such thing as a free lunch" is just about dead, it seems, at least for millions of that teeming country's schoolkids. Dateline's Amos Roberts recently took a look at what the Indians claim is the world's most ambitious scheme aimed at feeding children a free, healthy lunch. REPORTER: Amos Roberts It's early morning in a small village not far from the city of Bangalore. Kumar is cleaning the rickshaw that provides his family's livelihood. His wife, Nagamma, is washing the family's few dishes. And their children are getting ready for school. Abhilash, however, can't find his school shirt. KUMAR (Translation): Put on your uniform. ABHILASH (Translation): It's not there. NAGAMMA (Translation): You just throw it anywhere. I haven't seen it. Kumar doesn't earn enough to buy spare shirts for the children. After paying for the hire of his rickshaw, he's lucky to make $4 or $5 a day, so clothes get held together with safety pins for as long as possible. While Abhilash helps his dad fix a puncture, his brother and sister have leftover rice for breakfast. Their parents go without. KUMAR (Translation): As the children got older we worried about paying for school and food. We'd prepare food at home. We were worried about money. We just managed the expenses by saving money on the food we ate. These kids are lucky, millions of Indian children go to school on empty stomachs, their families too poor to give them breakfast or even lunch. But thanks to a quiet, culinary revolution, they don't have to go hungry any longer. In a tiny kitchen on the school grounds, these two cooks are preparing lunch for 120 children. They've been doing it six days a week for the past four years. They clearly remember their own long, hungry school days. COOK (Translation): After breakfast we'd be out until the evening and only ate again at dinner. Compared to ours, today's generation is better off. Right now, meals like this are being prepared for 150 million school children across India. Following a landmark decision by the Supreme Court in 2001, state governments were ordered to provide free meals for all primary school children aged 10 and under. Last year the scheme was expanded to include children up to the age of 13. But some states are going even further. The southern state of Karnataka is extending its lunch scheme all the way up to Year 10. VIJAR BHASKAR, KARNATAKA GOVERNMENT: The scale of the program is mind-boggling. This is the largest such program in the world and largest such program in the country itself. Vijay Bhaskar administers the scheme in Karnataka. He's responsible for feeding 7 million children every day. He says that before the lunches were provided, poor parents often sent their children to work, and about a million kids were out of school. VIJAY BHASKAR: After about six years of this program, the latest data census which ended in 2007 shows that the number of children who are out of school has reduced to 70,000. So from 1 million, it has come down to 70,000. So this, I would largely say impact is due to the midday-meal scheme. to be continued

Thanks cbrahma, great post - association with the vani of the pure devotee - this realization is actual happiness! "When the individual soul is specially empowered by the Supreme Soul, that is called āveśa." "Svayaṁ-rūpa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, He is called svayaṁ-rūpa, His personal feature. Then tad-ekātmā. Tad- ekātma-rūpa means not exactly the same person, but almost the same. Tad-ekātma-rūpa. And āveśa. Āveśa means that empowered. There is always difference between the individual soul and the Supreme Absolute Soul. When the individual soul is specially empowered by the Supreme Soul, that is called āveśa. He can act almost like God. We accept, according to this āveśa, āveśa-avatāra incarnation, authorized incarnation, we accept, my Guru Mahārāja accepted Lord Jesus Christ and Hazrat Muhammad, this āveśa incarnation, almost the same power." Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā 20.164-173 by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda New York, December 13, 1966 661213CC.NY

Great point - well spoken Bishadi! At PONTIFICIA ACADEMIA PRO VITA, vatican.va it says something very similar, the spirit soul is an unique amazing individual, "The spiritual soul, which is the essential constituent of every subject belonging to the human species and is created directly by God, cannot be generated by the parents, produced by artificial fertilization or cloned. Furthermore, psychological development, culture and environment always lead to different personalities; this is a well-known fact even among twins, whose resemblance does not mean identity. The popular image or aura of omnipotence that accompanies cloning should at least be put into perspective. Despite this impossibility of involving the spirit, which is the source of personality, the thought of human cloning has already led to the imagining of hypothetical cases inspired by the desire for omnipotence: duplicating individuals endowed with exceptional talent and beauty; reproducing the image of departed loved ones; selecting healthy individuals immune from genetic diseases; the possibility of choosing a person's sex; producing selected frozen embryos to be transferred in utero at a later time to provide spare organs, etc. By regarding these hypothetical cases as science fiction, proposals can soon be advanced for cloning considered "reasonable" or "compassionate": the procreation of a child in a family whose father suffers from aspermia or to replace the dying child of a widowed mother; one could say that these cases have nothing to do with the fantasies of science fiction. But what would be the anthropological significance of this activity in the deplorable prospect of applying it to man?"

This is of course a fairy tale teller - Prabhupada repeatedly warned not to worship him after he left like Christians worship Christ. Where're those quotes, there're none! Caranamrita left in the temple room? - there's never anything left. valaya rr - whoever that maybe, was he ever inside a temple?

Good point, excellent post! Since you present rumors and hearsay, there is even more. The Thule Society Hitler was trained to be a supreme adept in the arts and ritual of Black Magic by Dietrich Eckart. the leader of a powerful, secret society called the Thule Society. Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorf, an avid fan of Helena Blavatsky, founded the "Thule Society", a spiritualist group which borrowed heavily from Blavatsky's "The Secret Doctrine". Thule in occultic, Greek and Viking lore was the capital of an ancient ice-island called Hyperborea (known in Hindu legend as the "White Isle"), inhabited by superhumans with psychic powers who eventually founded the Aryan race. After an unexplained disaster, survivors of Hyperborea took refuge first in the "West" [meaning west of India, perhaps Babylon?], then in the Gobi desert, and later in Tibet; their spirit mentors retreated to a hidden spiritual center called "Asgard", located in a subterranean city. These beings, headed by one known in Hindu/Buddhist tradition as "the Lama of lamas" or "King of the world", can only be contacted on the spiritual plane. The symbol of this "Master" is the swastika, "symbol of the central power of the gem of Heaven".

Since it is now in the Vaishnava school-books - biological life is what the world of living entities is made of - these questions were asked by some students. "Does that mean that a soulless animal gave birth to and raised the first 46-chromosome homo sapien with a soul? How did that work? Did that person mate with another soulless animal? Is the soul gene recessive or dominant?" Is intelligent design pseudo scientific? "All this jibber-jabber is beneath contempt. If the adjunct professor has a point, he has concealed it to perfection. Plato and Aristotle were pre-scientific thinkers and have absolutely nothing to do with the modern Intelligent Design™ movement, which is a pseudo-scientific disguise for fundamentalist theology." Survey "Which of the following comes closest to your view of human nature? 1. Humans are composed of three parts; e.g., body, soul, and spirit. (trichotomism) 2. Humans are composed of two parts: (dualism) 2a. A body and a soul. 2b. A body and a mind. 3. Humans are composed of one 'part': a physical body. (physicalism) 4. Who cares?" Was this first human infant born by a soulless ape? "That is, humans were said to have evolved from apes, and it made sense to assume that humans had souls but apes did not. However, this image cannot be pressed too far: was this first human infant born by a soulless ape?"

Because they worship the Deity of Lord Buddha they will be one day delivered. Harikeśa: This Māyāvādī philosophy, is this…? Prabhupāda: They are atheist. They are first-class atheist, more than the Buddhist. Veda na maniya bauddha haila nāstika. The Buddhists, they did not accept Vedic authorities; therefore they are considered as nāstika. But vedāśraya nāstikya vada. These rascals, they accept Vedas and preaches atheism. So they are more dangerous than the Buddhists. This is Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s version. (aside) Hare Krishna. Bauddha ke adhika: “They are more dangerous than the Buddhists.” The Buddhists, although they are supposed to be atheists, they worship the Deity Lord Buddha. But they say it is māyā. And more advanced than these atheists. Brahmānanda: The Māyāvādīs. Prabhupāda: More… Not advanced. More degraded. These atheists, they have been taught to worship the form of Lord Buddha, and Buddha is incarnation of Krishna, so one day they will be delivered. But these rascals will never be delivered. full conversation: http://causelessmercy.com/t/t/750913mw.vrn.htm?i=1975 Morning Walk Conversation with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda September 13, 1975, Vṛndāvana

They say it was Helena Petrovna Blavatsky who invented the whole concept and while living in India also selected the svastika as logo.