For six decades, generations of Indians have been taught to believe that the colonial rulers saw India through the lens of ignorance and prejudice. The Britishers used to believe that Hinduism could not build up a nation because of one 'vital structure' i.e. 'Caste' . National allegiance was secondary to the loyalty each (Hindu) owed to his caste, since his caste was his Karma, determining much more than his present life, namely, all his lives still to come.
Consequently, we may mirror India as a land obsessed by caste and unable to rise above it. Since the foreign rulers never aimed at being social reformers, they attempted to accommodate this caste obsession in public policy. They documented caste in all its bewildering complexities in the Gazetteers and most importantly, attempted to quantify caste allegiances in the Census operations from 1881.
However, even after the Independence, the 'vital structure' is still now supported in practice by India's political and religious leadership. Consequently, caste has become the bases of the government’s elaborative redistributive programmes. Sixty years of experiments with modernity have proved to be mere ripples on the surface; the depths of India’s ‘vital structure’ have been unmoved.
It is our nationalist modernizers who have been defeated by the ‘real’ India, wherein, the future appears to belong to the same old structure. As per the findings of some research scholars caste was the worst form of racialism and we may as well acknowledge it as per the ground situation in India.
To honestly deal with such situations (be it racialism or caste), in recent times, Germany has apologized to the Jews for the Holocaust, Japan has said sorry to the US for Pearl Harbour; the Pope has publically taken the burden of his errant clergy on himself and bowed his head in shame; Russia has apologized to Poland for Stalin’s massacre of its non-communist leadership in 1939; the federal government of Australia has apologized to its aborigines for willfully killing so many of them; and one & a half decade back, the Queen apologized for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Further, the British Parliament have legally declared casteism as tantamount to racialism, just to ensure that this contagious disease of caste may not grip their country, because of the deep-rooted mindset of the Indians settled there.
Are both the religious and the political leaders sleeping in India, and now to start with & to honestly follow all other civilized countries on this planet, can't they even pass resolutions expressing their resolve to revolutionize the the Indian society?
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
SOUL AND ITS RE-INCARNATION
A Rationalist observation on 'Soul' & its 'Re-incarnation':
The fear of not achieving salvation, in majority cases, may be charged directly to religious fanaticism. For hundreds of millions of years man has been asking the still unanswered question—“Whence” and “Whither”— from where did his soul come at birth and where it is going at death?
The thought of eternal punishment destroys interest in life and makes happiness impossible. The religious leader may not be able to provide safe conduct into heaven. But, the very thought of hell hold the imagination in such a realistic way that it paralyzes reason, and sets up the fear of death.
Since the dark ages of the past, more cunning and crafty, as well as the honest but credulous of the human race have been active to offer the answer to these questions, along with their explanation of “Salvation” for a price. In fact, the answering of these questions has become one of the so called “learned” professions, despite the fact that but little learning is required to enter this profession. Nobody knows wherefrom our souls come at birth and where the same go after death. Any person claiming otherwise is either deceiving himself or he is a conscious imposter who makes it a business to live without rendering service of value, through play upon the credulity of humanity. The doctrine of “Salvation” is based upon the notion that certain portion of human personality called the “Soul” survives after death. The hope of “Salvation” has filled the coffers of the Priest-Parasites with more gold and silver, as they have reduced ethics to ignoble commercial arithmetic and have prospered on fraud and superstition. Liberation of humanity from superstition is necessary to achieve scientific ethics in the interest of human growth. Actuality and growing civilized human personality rule the Earth.
The various religious denominations are but competing brands in the market-place or public perceptions and consumer loyalty. Indeed, many schools of metaphysics go far beyond the borders of religion. Religion is good so long as it preserves and promotes humanity. Beyond that we are compelled to reject it, because religion is for humanity and not humanity for religion. Therefore, take life as it comes to you by developing a positive attitude, without the fear of death created by superstition.
The fear of death is not as common now as it was during the old ages. Men of science have turned the spotlight of truth upon the world and this truth is rapidly freeing people from this terrible fear of death. Through the aid of biology, astronomy, geology and other related sciences, the fears of dark ages which gripped the minds of men have been dispelled.
The entire world is made up of two things, energy and matter. In elementary physics, we learn that neither matter, nor energy (the only two realities known to man) can be created, nor destroyed. Both matter and energy can be transformed, but neither can be destroyed.
Life is energy, if it is anything. If neither energy, nor matter can be destroyed, of course life cannot be destroyed. Life, like other forms of energy, may be passed through various processes of transition, or change, but it cannot be destroyed. Therefore, “death” is mere transition.
If death is not mere change, or transition, then nothing comes after death except a long, eternal, peaceful sleep, and sleep is nothing to be feared. Thus, you may wipe out, for ever, the false concept of re-incarnation of souls.
The fear of not achieving salvation, in majority cases, may be charged directly to religious fanaticism. For hundreds of millions of years man has been asking the still unanswered question—“Whence” and “Whither”— from where did his soul come at birth and where it is going at death?
The thought of eternal punishment destroys interest in life and makes happiness impossible. The religious leader may not be able to provide safe conduct into heaven. But, the very thought of hell hold the imagination in such a realistic way that it paralyzes reason, and sets up the fear of death.
Since the dark ages of the past, more cunning and crafty, as well as the honest but credulous of the human race have been active to offer the answer to these questions, along with their explanation of “Salvation” for a price. In fact, the answering of these questions has become one of the so called “learned” professions, despite the fact that but little learning is required to enter this profession. Nobody knows wherefrom our souls come at birth and where the same go after death. Any person claiming otherwise is either deceiving himself or he is a conscious imposter who makes it a business to live without rendering service of value, through play upon the credulity of humanity. The doctrine of “Salvation” is based upon the notion that certain portion of human personality called the “Soul” survives after death. The hope of “Salvation” has filled the coffers of the Priest-Parasites with more gold and silver, as they have reduced ethics to ignoble commercial arithmetic and have prospered on fraud and superstition. Liberation of humanity from superstition is necessary to achieve scientific ethics in the interest of human growth. Actuality and growing civilized human personality rule the Earth.
The various religious denominations are but competing brands in the market-place or public perceptions and consumer loyalty. Indeed, many schools of metaphysics go far beyond the borders of religion. Religion is good so long as it preserves and promotes humanity. Beyond that we are compelled to reject it, because religion is for humanity and not humanity for religion. Therefore, take life as it comes to you by developing a positive attitude, without the fear of death created by superstition.
The fear of death is not as common now as it was during the old ages. Men of science have turned the spotlight of truth upon the world and this truth is rapidly freeing people from this terrible fear of death. Through the aid of biology, astronomy, geology and other related sciences, the fears of dark ages which gripped the minds of men have been dispelled.
The entire world is made up of two things, energy and matter. In elementary physics, we learn that neither matter, nor energy (the only two realities known to man) can be created, nor destroyed. Both matter and energy can be transformed, but neither can be destroyed.
Life is energy, if it is anything. If neither energy, nor matter can be destroyed, of course life cannot be destroyed. Life, like other forms of energy, may be passed through various processes of transition, or change, but it cannot be destroyed. Therefore, “death” is mere transition.
If death is not mere change, or transition, then nothing comes after death except a long, eternal, peaceful sleep, and sleep is nothing to be feared. Thus, you may wipe out, for ever, the false concept of re-incarnation of souls.
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