Indian voters overturn auspicious stars of bjp

[Guest guest]

this article, debunking astrology,vivekananda,is a call to the anti-

spiritualists to gather and hype

up the ongoing campaign to separate us all from our spiritual

foundations. anyone here catch the bjp loss b4 the outcome was

revealed?

>

> By Meera Nanda

>

> A principled insistence on drawing clear distinctions between

> science and religion is crucial in India.

>

>

>

> MURLI MANOHAR Joshi has learned the hard way that astrology does

not

> work after all. The will of the Indian voters has overturned the

> alignment of auspicious stars in the astrological charts of the

BJP,

> just as it has defied the numerology of the pollsters.

>

> Indian voters have thrown out the obscurantist-in-chief and the

> party he represented. Even though most of the 370-million-strong

> voters did not consciously set out to punish the BJP for its

> obscurantist cultural and educational policies, they have

> inadvertently created the conditions where secularism has a second

> chance to succeed. This by itself is reason enough to cheer and

> hope.

>

> But it is also a time to reflect and reaffirm the role of

> rationalism in the Indian society. Sure, throwing out the peddlers

> of superstitions is no mean task. But harder still is the task of

> creating a society where superstitions lose their hold on the

public

> imagination. Ridding the government of those who would freely and

> arbitrarily mix science and spirituality is undoubtedly a great

> achievement. But greater still is achieving a society that has

> internalised the principle of separation between science and

> spirituality. Without this deeper secularisation of the cultural

> commonsense of the Indian people, secularism will remain a shallow

> legalism, forever at the risk of a saffron take-over.

>

> This is where the intellectuals come in: the Indian voters have

done

> their part, now the intellectuals must do theirs. Secular-minded

> citizens, scientists, writers, intellectuals, and the liberal,

> forward-looking clergy of all faiths will have to join the battle

> for a deeper secularisation of the Indian society. Scientists will

> have to step out of their laboratories and humanists will have to

> give up their haughty disdain for modernity. Those Left-inclined

> intellectuals seeking a "third position" between wholesale

> Westernisation and a nostalgic traditionalism will have to get

over

> their preoccupation with cleansing modern science of its

> Eurocentrism. It is time for a no-nonsense commitment to the much-

> trashed idea of "scientific temper."

>

> The objective of a genuine and sustainable secularisation is not

to

> denigrate the religious impulses of ordinary people — that would

be

> foolish, because all societies need a sense of the sacred in order

> to celebrate the rhythms of life and death. The purpose of

> secularisation is not to hasten the disappearance of the sacred,

but

> to keep it within the limits of reason. In the case of Hinduism,

> secularisation must involve a critical engagement with those

aspects

> of Hindu sacred teachings that make empirical claims regarding the

> presence of a disembodied spiritual element in nature "seen" in

the

> mind's eye by mystics and yogis.

>

> The fact is that people everywhere need a way to reconcile their

> faith with modern learning driven by science and technology.

> Fundamentalists (and unfortunately, many postmodernist defenders

> of "alternative epistemologies" as well) offer one way to

reconcile

> faith with science: they relativise science and, in effect,

declare

> religious cosmologies to be as rational within their own

> assumptions, as modern science is within its own materialistic and

> Western (or "Semitic") context. This road leads to Vedic sciences

> and the phony Hindutva slogans of "all truths being different only

> in name." Indian secularists have to offer a more honest way to

> reconcile Hinduism with modern science. They must refuse the cheap

> comforts of relativism. They must insist that all truths are not

> equal. In the name of respecting popular religiosity, they must

not

> close their eyes to the glaring contradictions between what we

> scientifically know about how nature actually works, and what our

> sacred books, our gurus and our godmen preach.

>

> The first challenge before India secularists is to carefully but

> firmly un-twine the wild and uncontrolled intertwining of science

> and spirituality that has been going on in Hinduism since the time

> of Swami Vivekananda in the late 19th century. Public

intellectuals,

> in collaboration with progressive scientists, will have to

explain —

> over and over again, through demonstrations and argument — why

> modern science is not another name for the same truths known to

our

> Vedic forefathers. Indeed, Indian secularists will have to

challenge

> the deep-seated and self-serving habit of Hindu apologists to draw

> wild parallels and equivalence between just about any shloka from

> the Vedas and the laws of quantum mechanics and other branches of

> modern science. The second challenge will be to bring what we know

> about the natural world through science to bear upon the

> cosmological assumptions of such "Vedic sciences" as astrology,

> vaastu, Ayurveda, yagnas, Vedic creationism, "consciousness

studies"

> and the like. Indian secularists must sow seeds of doubt in the

> popular imagination about these "sciences" so that the masses

reject

> the worldview of Hindutva on rational grounds.

>

> A principled insistence on drawing clear distinctions between

> science and religion is crucial in India because Hinduism

maintains

> a grip on this-worldly affairs by claiming to be "just another

name"

> for science and reason. Hindu gurus and godmen stake a claim to

> extraordinary and extra-constitutional powers not by invoking

God's

> commandments or by a literal reading of a sacred book — such

> stratagems are easy to laugh off in this day and age. Hindu

> apologists instead stake a right to intervene in secular matters

by

> claiming for Hinduism a rational and empirical "holistic"

knowledge

> of the "higher" and "subtle" levels of the material world.

>

> Indeed, even a cursory reading of the voluminous writings of Murli

> Manohar Joshi, K.S. Sudarshan (or any number of RSS ideologues),

> David Frawley, Subhash Kak, N.S. Rajaram and the host of other

> apologists associated with the Ramakrishna Mission and Aurobindo

> Ashram can show that Hinduism's unique "scientificity" constitutes

> the central dogma of Hindutva.

>

> Hindutva ideologues stake their claims to make "Hindu India" into

> a "guru of nations" on the notion that only Hinduism is compatible

> with modern science, while all the "Semitic" faiths have been

proven

> to be false by modern science. Hindutva's self-serving and

entirely

> fallacious equation of Hinduism with modern science — Hindutva's

> central dogma — can be summarised as follows:

>

> Hindu dharma is rooted in the eternal, holistic or non-mechanistic

> laws of nature discovered "in a flash" of insight by the "Vedic

> Aryans." These laws have been affirmed by modern science and

> therefore, Hinduism is uniquely scientific. Because the Hindus

live

> in accord with a scientifically proven order of nature which

unifies

> matter with higher levels of spirit, they are more rational and

> ecological as compared to those of Abrahamic faiths who derive

their

> moral laws from an imaginary supernatural being, and who treat

> nature as mere matter, devoid of spiritual meaning. Because

Hinduism

> is so scientific, there is no need for an Enlightenment style

> confrontation between faith and reason in India. To become truly

and

> deeply scientific, Indians — indeed, the entire world — must

embrace

> the teachings of the Vedas and Vedanta.

>

> It was this central dogma that gave Dr. Joshi and his fellow

> travellers the chutzpah to install departments of Vedic astrology

in

> public universities, to pour taxpayers' money into every

> superstition under the sun, and to try to take over public

> institutions like IITs and IIMs.

>

> It should now become the first order of business of Indian

> intellectuals to demolish this central dogma. We must demolish

this

> dogma not because we do not want India to shine and prosper and

take

> its rightful place in the community of nations. We must demolish

> this dogma because it is based upon false parallels and

> correspondences between modern science and Vedic metaphysics. We

> must demolish this dogma because it denies the existence of deeply

> oppressive superstitions, including the occult notion of the

> presence of consciousness in matter. And we must demolish this

dogma

> because of its deeply Hindu and Aryan supremacist overtones.

>

> This dogma can only be demolished by drawing clear distinctions

> between scientific evidence and the evidence of religious and/or

> mystical experience. Clarifying what is science and what is

> superstition must become the top priority of India's freethinkers.

> --- End forwarded message ---

--- End forwarded message ---

[Guest guest]

There is nothing "wrong" in such criticisms if its made just to point out the

lack of karma on part of the pro-BJP forces in the first place.

 

The irony here is that actually Astrology won by hiding failure of its champions

(BJP- MM Joshi) for the very reason they thought they would win. In doing so, it

has given a yet another opportunity to learn from mistakes (if that is really

going to happen).

 

Ignoring good Karma is never an option for anyone no matter on what side of the

fence you are. BJP and its supporters ignored this and paid the price. Those

who are in power will also not get it any better and will go down the familiar

path.

 

Why do you think 10th house is described as the most powerful bhava ? It

determines the potential of what we can do and has the power to shape and

change things in all other areas to a large extent. A strong 10th house and its

lord is a great blessing. Of course, bad 9th house can ruin it. But then aren't

we all born to suffer and work towards the goals (12th house Moksha) which few

seem to understand anyway ?

 

We are all lucky here in the sense that at least we get a chance to discuss and

understand what we really are. Others unfortunately are not even close to this

realisation. When authors like the one below talk about science and technology

they are attempting to inject their individual self (read EGO) into the process

of inquiry of the universe - what essentially is a grand scheme full of divine

grace for lesser mortals like us to explore and liberate ourselves. It will be

very foolish for us to dismiss them as non-spiritualists just because what they

say seems to hurt us and make us look like fools. They might be pointing to us

something that we could have overlooked in our deep belief that we are right.

 

In general, I have observed that people with lot of focus on 6th, 8th and 12th

houses (from L, AL, Paka L, Moon) often get more opportunities to get

self-realisation than others whose charts are well balanced and planets are

away from dustanas, who invariably, deep in material enjoyments, often forget

that the other side might as well have a point.

 

Rather than focussing our energies on such criticisms and reactions to it, we

should ask ourselves a more important question. Were we all right in jumping

into the task of predicting things when the basic message (do good karma with

what you know) itself did not seem to get across with the losers ?

 

Raju

 

-

vrnparker

vedic astrology

Sunday, May 23, 2004 1:50 AM

[vedic astrology] Indian voters overturn auspicious stars of bjp

this article, debunking astrology,vivekananda,is a call to the

anti-spiritualists to gather and hype up the ongoing campaign to separate us

all from our spiritual foundations. anyone here catch the bjp loss b4 the

outcome was revealed?> > By Meera Nanda > > A principled insistence on drawing

clear distinctions between > science and religion is crucial in India. > >

MURLI MANOHAR Joshi has learned the hard way that astrology does not > work

after all. The will of the Indian voters has overturned the > alignment of

auspicious stars in the astrological charts of the BJP, ...

....

....