Great stuff! And I think I may have found the quote for my tombstone: "an atheist and a reviler of the Veda!"
I figure this hedges my bet a bit. If it turns out that the Christians are right, then I will get some brownie points for bashing the Vedas enough to get myself into purgatory. Then once I am on the inside, I will use my philosophical Macgyver skills to hack my way into heaven using a liberal dose of ass kissing duct taped together with a piece of wire I unwrapped from a broom to form an epistemological prison shank. (Gotta figure the Christan afterlife is chock full of cleaning supplies!) As soon as I get into heaven I will start love bombing Jesus to get close,(he eats that up, just go to any church service). At the same time I'll be dripping poison into the ears of Big Daddy himself about how Jesus seems to be resting on his laurels lately and hasn't done a thing to promote the cause since his resurrection except influence a few football games which only helps bookies. It won't be long till Mr. Unmoved Mover is asking ME for advice on how to deal with the infidels. That's when the real fun begins, me with the infinite power of the creator himself wrapped around my little finger. I won't tip my hand by describing what we are going to do (popping the domes like bubble wrap just for the sound) but certain posters around here might want to start doing a bit of love bombing in advance of my future Godly ungodly powers. And there is nothing that can thwart my plan unless I get to heaven and it turns to be: Zoroastrianism! DAMN I didn't see that one coming! They don't even have a crystal cathedral or a presence on basic cable or a hot celeb spokesperson or anything. WTF! God is suuuuuch a douchebag, NO ONE saw that coming. He could have at least given us a hint down here. You know a tortured martyred spokesperson would have been nice, or a tradition of chanting mind numbing phrases in a dead language about cartoon characters at least? Sonovabitch! Even Madonna was wrong with her red string bracelets and even Brittney Spears was into that Kabbalah show for around a minute before she shaved off all her hair for us. It would have been a nice heads-up if under her golden locks was a freak'n birthmark tattoo that said: "ZOROASTRIANISM is the right answer, use it or lose it." Would that have really been sooooo hard God? With a cranium that size you could have tattooed a whole scripture. And we were ALL watching! Or how about a blimp drive-by over the Super Bowl... was that out of your budget Mr. I'm-a-little-short-this-week-so-we're-gunna-have-to-pass-the-collection-plate-at-church-again. But noooooo, it had to be those freaks that wear the...uh...you know...they are always...well you see them...uh... Damn, I don't even know anything about them, that's the point! Curses, foiled again. But just you wait God, I'm working a deal right now with somebody from the extreme Southern direction who has floated a few interesting proposals my way. I don't want to drop any names, but I think you'll recognize him even though he has gotten considerably tanner since you saw him last. And although you may be the lord of the afterlife he is the prince of this world. I am speaking, of course, about Melania's husband... --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <vajradhatu@...> wrote: > > > On Dec 29, 2011, at 10:33 AM, curtisdeltablues wrote: > > > This excellent quote really strikes at the heart of Maharishi's > > intellectual arrogance and fantasy. > > > > It illustrates a fascinating quality of our brains to misjudge the > > value of hindsight. Looking forward you can't predict 9-11, but > > once it has happened it all looks so obvious how it got there, that > > it seems ridiculous that we missed the "signs". But its surety is > > an illusion that we are vulnerable to. We forget how complex the > > data is looking forward and how impossible it is to predict in a > > advance in the deluge of date. > > > > Turning back to our Vedic predictors, we have a metaphorical > > language and once we know the scientific principles, may give more > > of an illusion than is warranted that they knew about what we know > > today. > > > > This is not to demean the tremendous contributions to science and > > culture, which may have included facts like the true planetary > > relationships ahead of these discoveries in the West. The point > > that in the West we have a triumphalist attitude and a lack of > > understanding of the true contributions of the East is well taken. > > > > But lets not get carried away with how much detail they actually > > had nailed down. We actually have learned a few things since Vedic > > times, and our application of the scientific method, where > > appropriate, had advanced our clarity of understanding our world > > tremendously. It is one thing to say Surya carries the sun across > > the sky in a chariot, it is another to make a solar panel to power > > a TV that can play the Jersey Shore. (Oh is Snooky drunk AGAIN!) > > > Well such freethinking is un-Vedic! > > Manusmriti, described as the "pivotal text of the dominant form of > Hinduism" (Doniger and Smith 1991, xvii) declared free thinking one > of the cardinal sins to be punished by ex-communication: "The Veda > [shruti] should be known as revealed canon, and the teachings of > religion [smriti] as the tradition. These two are indisputable in all > matters, for religion arose out of the two of them. Any twice-born > man who disregards these two roots of religion, because he relies on > the teachings of logic, should be excommunicated by virtuous people > as an atheist and a reviler of the Veda" (Manusmriti, chapter 2, > verse 10 - 11, emphasis added, see Doniger and Smith 1991). > > Not exactly a ringing endorsement of scientific temper! (For even > more radical proscriptions against questioning the Vedas, as laid out > in some of the most revered texts, see Chattopadhyaya 1976, 191 - 194,) > > The law book of Manu and the ethos it prescribed had already become > an established source of authority by the early centuries of the > Common Era. Theories were rejected or accepted depending upon their > agreement with tradition. The heterodox schools which did not accept > the authority of the Vedas were either reduced to a caricature > (especially the materialist schools of Charvaka and Lokayata), or > absorbed into the Vedic tradition (as with the originally > materialistic school of Sankhya which was assimilated into the > Upanishadic teachings in the Bhagavad Gita, and as with the > Brahminization of the teachings of Buddha). Those who sing praises of > Hindu hospitability to reason and innovation turn a blind eye to the > contrary historical evidence described famously by Alberuni (973 > 1048 CE, the renowned Islamic mathematician, astronomer, and > political philosopher who has left behind a vivid record of his > sojourn in India in the early years of the eleventh century. Alberuni > describes how the most eminent Indian astronomers like Varahamihira > (sixth century CE) and Brahmagupta (seventh or eighth century CE), > knowing fully well the cause of lunar and solar eclipses, bowed to > tradition and accepted the myth of a demon's head swallowing the sun > or the moon. > > These are well-known facts of Indian intellectual history. The myth > of critical thinking in the dominant Hindu tradition can only be > maintained by ignoring these facts. > > (ibidem) >
