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ਰਾਗੁ ਸਿਰੀਰਾਗੁ | Raag Siree-Raag
Gurbani (14-53)
Ashtpadiyan (53-71)
Gurbani (71-74)
Pahre (74-78)
Chhant (78-81)
Vanjara (81-82)
Vaar Siri Raag (83-91)
Bhagat Bani (91-93)
ਰਾਗੁ ਮਾਝ | Raag Maajh
Gurbani (94-109)
Ashtpadi (109)
Ashtpadiyan (110-129)
Ashtpadi (129-130)
Ashtpadiyan (130-133)
Bara Maha (133-136)
Din Raen (136-137)
Vaar Maajh Ki (137-150)
ਰਾਗੁ ਗਉੜੀ | Raag Gauree
Gurbani (151-185)
Quartets/Couplets (185-220)
Ashtpadiyan (220-234)
Karhalei (234-235)
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Chhant (242-249)
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Thittee (296-300)
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Baavan Akhari (340-343)
Thintteen (343-344)
Vaar Kabir (344-345)
Bhagat Bani (345-346)
ਰਾਗੁ ਆਸਾ | Raag Aasaa
Gurbani (347-348)
Chaupaday (348-364)
Panchpadde (364-365)
Kaafee (365-409)
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Chhant (435-462)
Vaar Aasaa (462-475)
Bhagat Bani (475-488)
ਰਾਗੁ ਗੂਜਰੀ | Raag Goojaree
Gurbani (489-503)
Ashtpadiyan (503-508)
Vaar Gujari (508-517)
Vaar Gujari (517-526)
ਰਾਗੁ ਦੇਵਗੰਧਾਰੀ | Raag Dayv-Gandhaaree
Gurbani (527-536)
ਰਾਗੁ ਬਿਹਾਗੜਾ | Raag Bihaagraa
Gurbani (537-556)
Chhant (538-548)
Vaar Bihaagraa (548-556)
ਰਾਗੁ ਵਡਹੰਸ | Raag Wadhans
Gurbani (557-564)
Ashtpadiyan (564-565)
Chhant (565-575)
Ghoriaan (575-578)
Alaahaniiaa (578-582)
Vaar Wadhans (582-594)
ਰਾਗੁ ਸੋਰਠਿ | Raag Sorath
Gurbani (595-634)
Asatpadhiya (634-642)
Vaar Sorath (642-659)
ਰਾਗੁ ਧਨਾਸਰੀ | Raag Dhanasaree
Gurbani (660-685)
Astpadhiya (685-687)
Chhant (687-691)
Bhagat Bani (691-695)
ਰਾਗੁ ਜੈਤਸਰੀ | Raag Jaitsree
Gurbani (696-703)
Chhant (703-705)
Vaar Jaitsaree (705-710)
Bhagat Bani (710)
ਰਾਗੁ ਟੋਡੀ | Raag Todee
ਰਾਗੁ ਬੈਰਾੜੀ | Raag Bairaaree
ਰਾਗੁ ਤਿਲੰਗ | Raag Tilang
Gurbani (721-727)
Bhagat Bani (727)
ਰਾਗੁ ਸੂਹੀ | Raag Suhi
Gurbani (728-750)
Ashtpadiyan (750-761)
Kaafee (761-762)
Suchajee (762)
Gunvantee (763)
Chhant (763-785)
Vaar Soohee (785-792)
Bhagat Bani (792-794)
ਰਾਗੁ ਬਿਲਾਵਲੁ | Raag Bilaaval
Gurbani (795-831)
Ashtpadiyan (831-838)
Thitteen (838-840)
Vaar Sat (841-843)
Chhant (843-848)
Vaar Bilaaval (849-855)
Bhagat Bani (855-858)
ਰਾਗੁ ਗੋਂਡ | Raag Gond
Gurbani (859-869)
Ashtpadiyan (869)
Bhagat Bani (870-875)
ਰਾਗੁ ਰਾਮਕਲੀ | Raag Ramkalee
Ashtpadiyan (902-916)
Gurbani (876-902)
Anand (917-922)
Sadd (923-924)
Chhant (924-929)
Dakhnee (929-938)
Sidh Gosat (938-946)
Vaar Ramkalee (947-968)
ਰਾਗੁ ਨਟ ਨਾਰਾਇਨ | Raag Nat Narayan
Gurbani (975-980)
Ashtpadiyan (980-983)
ਰਾਗੁ ਮਾਲੀ ਗਉੜਾ | Raag Maalee Gauraa
Gurbani (984-988)
Bhagat Bani (988)
ਰਾਗੁ ਮਾਰੂ | Raag Maaroo
Gurbani (889-1008)
Ashtpadiyan (1008-1014)
Kaafee (1014-1016)
Ashtpadiyan (1016-1019)
Anjulian (1019-1020)
Solhe (1020-1033)
Dakhni (1033-1043)
ਰਾਗੁ ਤੁਖਾਰੀ | Raag Tukhaari
Bara Maha (1107-1110)
Chhant (1110-1117)
ਰਾਗੁ ਕੇਦਾਰਾ | Raag Kedara
Gurbani (1118-1123)
Bhagat Bani (1123-1124)
ਰਾਗੁ ਭੈਰਉ | Raag Bhairo
Gurbani (1125-1152)
Partaal (1153)
Ashtpadiyan (1153-1167)
ਰਾਗੁ ਬਸੰਤੁ | Raag Basant
Gurbani (1168-1187)
Ashtpadiyan (1187-1193)
Vaar Basant (1193-1196)
ਰਾਗੁ ਸਾਰਗ | Raag Saarag
Gurbani (1197-1200)
Partaal (1200-1231)
Ashtpadiyan (1232-1236)
Chhant (1236-1237)
Vaar Saarang (1237-1253)
ਰਾਗੁ ਮਲਾਰ | Raag Malaar
Gurbani (1254-1293)
Partaal (1265-1273)
Ashtpadiyan (1273-1278)
Chhant (1278)
Vaar Malaar (1278-91)
Bhagat Bani (1292-93)
ਰਾਗੁ ਕਾਨੜਾ | Raag Kaanraa
Gurbani (1294-96)
Partaal (1296-1318)
Ashtpadiyan (1308-1312)
Chhant (1312)
Vaar Kaanraa
Bhagat Bani (1318)
ਰਾਗੁ ਕਲਿਆਨ | Raag Kalyaan
Gurbani (1319-23)
Ashtpadiyan (1323-26)
ਰਾਗੁ ਪ੍ਰਭਾਤੀ | Raag Prabhaatee
Gurbani (1327-1341)
Ashtpadiyan (1342-51)
ਰਾਗੁ ਜੈਜਾਵੰਤੀ | Raag Jaijaiwanti
Gurbani (1352-53)
Salok | Gatha | Phunahe | Chaubole | Swayiye
Sehskritee Mahala 1
Sehskritee Mahala 5
Gaathaa Mahala 5
Phunhay Mahala 5
Chaubolae Mahala 5
Shaloks Bhagat Kabir
Shaloks Sheikh Farid
Swaiyyae Mahala 5
Swaiyyae in Praise of Gurus
Shaloks in Addition To Vaars
Shalok Ninth Mehl
Mundavanee Mehl 5
ਰਾਗ ਮਾਲਾ, Raag Maalaa
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The Brahma Dilemma. Why Don't Indians Give Back To Society?
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<blockquote data-quote="harbansj24" data-source="post: 118538" data-attributes="member: 4544"><p><strong><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">Why Indians don’t give back to society</span></span></strong></p><p> <em><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">by Aakar Patel, Mint, July 4, 2009</span></span></em> </p><p> <em><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">Some characteristics unite Indians.</span></span></em></p><p><em><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">The most visible is our opportunism</span></span></em><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">Why don’t we worship Brahma? We know he’s part of the Hindu trinity as the creator, but we worship Vishnu, manager of the cosmos, and Shiva, its eventual destroyer. The answer lies not in religion, but in culture. But in what way does our religion shape our culture?</span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">Weber explained the success of capitalism in the US, Germany and Britain as coming from their populations’ Protestant faith. This ethic, or culture, was missing from the Catholic populations of South America, Italy and Spain. Protestants, Weber said, extended Christianity’s message of doing good deeds, to doing work well. Industry and enterprise had an ultimate motive: public good. That explains the philanthropists of the US, from John D. Rockefeller to Andrew Carnegie to Bill Gates.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">What explains the behaviour of Indians? What explains the anarchy of our cities? To find out, we must ask how our behaviour is different.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">Some characteristics unite Indians. The most visible is our opportunism. One good way to judge a society is to see it in motion. On the road, we observe the opportunism in the behaviour of the Indian driver. Where traffic halts on one side of the road in India, motorists will encroach the oncoming side because there is space available there. If that leads to both sides being blocked, that is fine, as long as we maintain our advantage over people behind us or next to us. This is because the other man cannot be trusted to stay in his place.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">The Indian’s instinct is to jump the traffic light if he is convinced that the signal is not policed. If he gets flagged down by the police, his instinct is to bolt. In an accident, his instinct is to flee. Fatal motoring cases in India are a grim record of how the driver ran over people and drove away.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">We show the pattern of what is called a Hobbesian society: one in which there is low trust between people. This instinct of me-versus-the- world leads to irrational behaviour, demonstrated when Indians board flights. We form a mob at the entrance, and as the flight is announced, scramble for the plane even though all tickets are numbered. Airlines modify their boarding announcements for Indians taking international flights.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">Our opportunism necessarily means that we do not understand collective good. Indians will litter if they are not policed. Someone else will always pick up the rubbish we throw. Thailand’s toilets are used by as many people as India’s toilets are, but they are likely to be not just clean but spotless. This is because that’s how the users leave them, not the cleaners.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">The Indian’s reluctance to embrace collective good hurts his state. A study of income-tax compliance between 1965 and 1993 in India (Elsevier Science/Das- Gupta, Lahiri and Mookherjee) concluded that “declining assessment intensity had a significant negative effect” on compliance, while “traditional enforcement tools (searches, penalties and prosecution activity) had only a limited effect” on Indians. The authors puzzled over the fact that “India’s income tax performance (was) below the average of countries with similar GDP per capita”.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">We do not think stealing from the state is a bad thing, and our ambiguity extends to corruption, which also we do not view in absolute terms. Political parties in India understand this and corruption is not an issue in Indian politics. Politicians who are demonstrably corrupt, recorded on camera taking a bribe or saying appalling things, or convicted by a court, can hold legitimate hope of a comeback—unthinkable in the West.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">The opportunist is necessarily good at adapting, and that explains the success of Indians abroad. We can follow someone else's rules well, even if we can’t enforce them at home ourselves. The Indian in the US is peerless at the Spelling Bee because the formula of committing things to memory, which in India passes for knowledge, comes naturally to him. But this talent for adapting and memorizing is not the same as a talent for creation.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">The question is: Why are we opportunists?</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">In his great work 'Crowds and Power', Elias Canetti observed that the rewards religions promised their faithful were all far off, in the afterlife. This is because a short goal would demand demonstration from god and create sceptics instead of believers. There is an exception to this in Hinduism. Hinduism is not about the other world. There is no afterlife in Hinduism and rebirth is always on earth. The goal is to be released entirely and our death rites and beliefs -- funeral in Kashi -- seek freedom from rebirth.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">Christianity and Islam are about how to enter heaven; Hinduism is about how not to return to earth, because it’s a rotten place. Naipaul opens his finest novel with the words “The world is what it is”, and Wittgenstein (“The world is all that is the case”) opens his Tractatus similarly.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">Hinduism recognizes that the world is irredeemable: It is what it is. Perhaps this is where the Hindu gets his world view -- which is zero-sum -- from. We might say that he takes the pessimistic view of society and of his fellow man. But why?</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">The Hindu devotee’s relationship with god is transactional: I give you this, you give me that. God must be petitioned and placated to swing the universe’s blessings towards you. God gives you something not through the miracle, and this is what makes Hinduism different, but by swinging that something away from someone else. This is the primary lesson of the Vedic fire sacrifice. There is no benefit to one without loss to another. Religion is about bending god’s influence towards you through pleas, and appeasement, through offerings.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">Society has no role in your advancement and there is no reason to give back to it (in any way, including leaving the toilets clean behind you) because it hasn’t given you anything in the first place. That is why Indian industrialists are not philanthropists. Rockefeller always gave a tenth of his earnings to the Church, and then donated hundreds of millions, fighting hookworm and educating black women. Bill Gates gave $25 billion (around Rs1.2 trillion), and his cause is fighting malaria, which does not even affect Americans. Warren Buffett gave away $30 billion, almost his entire fortune. Andrew Carnegie built 2,500 libraries. Dhirubhai Ambani International School has annual fees starting at Rs47,500 (with a Rs 24,000 admission fee) and Mukesh Ambani’s daughter was made head girl.</span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p> <span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'"></span></span></p><p><span style="color: maroon"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'">An interesting thing to know is this: Has our culture shaped our faith or has our faith shaped our culture? I cannot say. To return to the question we started with: Why is Brahma not worshipped? The answer is obvious: He has nothing to offer us. What he could do for us, create the universe, he already has. There is no gain in petitioning him now.</span></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="harbansj24, post: 118538, member: 4544"] [B][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style]Why Indians don’t give back to society[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style][/FONT][/COLOR] [I][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style]by Aakar Patel, Mint, July 4, 2009[/FONT][/COLOR][/I][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR] [I][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style]Some characteristics unite Indians. The most visible is our opportunism[/FONT][/COLOR][/I][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] Why don’t we worship Brahma? We know he’s part of the Hindu trinity as the creator, but we worship Vishnu, manager of the cosmos, and Shiva, its eventual destroyer. The answer lies not in religion, but in culture. But in what way does our religion shape our culture? Weber explained the success of capitalism in the US, Germany and Britain as coming from their populations’ Protestant faith. This ethic, or culture, was missing from the Catholic populations of South America, Italy and Spain. Protestants, Weber said, extended Christianity’s message of doing good deeds, to doing work well. Industry and enterprise had an ultimate motive: public good. That explains the philanthropists of the US, from John D. Rockefeller to Andrew Carnegie to Bill Gates.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] What explains the behaviour of Indians? What explains the anarchy of our cities? To find out, we must ask how our behaviour is different.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] Some characteristics unite Indians. The most visible is our opportunism. One good way to judge a society is to see it in motion. On the road, we observe the opportunism in the behaviour of the Indian driver. Where traffic halts on one side of the road in India, motorists will encroach the oncoming side because there is space available there. If that leads to both sides being blocked, that is fine, as long as we maintain our advantage over people behind us or next to us. This is because the other man cannot be trusted to stay in his place.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] The Indian’s instinct is to jump the traffic light if he is convinced that the signal is not policed. If he gets flagged down by the police, his instinct is to bolt. In an accident, his instinct is to flee. Fatal motoring cases in India are a grim record of how the driver ran over people and drove away.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] We show the pattern of what is called a Hobbesian society: one in which there is low trust between people. This instinct of me-versus-the- world leads to irrational behaviour, demonstrated when Indians board flights. We form a mob at the entrance, and as the flight is announced, scramble for the plane even though all tickets are numbered. Airlines modify their boarding announcements for Indians taking international flights.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] Our opportunism necessarily means that we do not understand collective good. Indians will litter if they are not policed. Someone else will always pick up the rubbish we throw. Thailand’s toilets are used by as many people as India’s toilets are, but they are likely to be not just clean but spotless. This is because that’s how the users leave them, not the cleaners.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] The Indian’s reluctance to embrace collective good hurts his state. A study of income-tax compliance between 1965 and 1993 in India (Elsevier Science/Das- Gupta, Lahiri and Mookherjee) concluded that “declining assessment intensity had a significant negative effect” on compliance, while “traditional enforcement tools (searches, penalties and prosecution activity) had only a limited effect” on Indians. The authors puzzled over the fact that “India’s income tax performance (was) below the average of countries with similar GDP per capita”.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] We do not think stealing from the state is a bad thing, and our ambiguity extends to corruption, which also we do not view in absolute terms. Political parties in India understand this and corruption is not an issue in Indian politics. Politicians who are demonstrably corrupt, recorded on camera taking a bribe or saying appalling things, or convicted by a court, can hold legitimate hope of a comeback—unthinkable in the West.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] The opportunist is necessarily good at adapting, and that explains the success of Indians abroad. We can follow someone else's rules well, even if we can’t enforce them at home ourselves. The Indian in the US is peerless at the Spelling Bee because the formula of committing things to memory, which in India passes for knowledge, comes naturally to him. But this talent for adapting and memorizing is not the same as a talent for creation.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] The question is: Why are we opportunists?[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] In his great work 'Crowds and Power', Elias Canetti observed that the rewards religions promised their faithful were all far off, in the afterlife. This is because a short goal would demand demonstration from god and create sceptics instead of believers. There is an exception to this in Hinduism. Hinduism is not about the other world. There is no afterlife in Hinduism and rebirth is always on earth. The goal is to be released entirely and our death rites and beliefs -- funeral in Kashi -- seek freedom from rebirth.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] Christianity and Islam are about how to enter heaven; Hinduism is about how not to return to earth, because it’s a rotten place. Naipaul opens his finest novel with the words “The world is what it is”, and Wittgenstein (“The world is all that is the case”) opens his Tractatus similarly.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] Hinduism recognizes that the world is irredeemable: It is what it is. Perhaps this is where the Hindu gets his world view -- which is zero-sum -- from. We might say that he takes the pessimistic view of society and of his fellow man. But why?[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] The Hindu devotee’s relationship with god is transactional: I give you this, you give me that. God must be petitioned and placated to swing the universe’s blessings towards you. God gives you something not through the miracle, and this is what makes Hinduism different, but by swinging that something away from someone else. This is the primary lesson of the Vedic fire sacrifice. There is no benefit to one without loss to another. Religion is about bending god’s influence towards you through pleas, and appeasement, through offerings.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] Society has no role in your advancement and there is no reason to give back to it (in any way, including leaving the toilets clean behind you) because it hasn’t given you anything in the first place. That is why Indian industrialists are not philanthropists. Rockefeller always gave a tenth of his earnings to the Church, and then donated hundreds of millions, fighting hookworm and educating black women. Bill Gates gave $25 billion (around Rs1.2 trillion), and his cause is fighting malaria, which does not even affect Americans. Warren Buffett gave away $30 billion, almost his entire fortune. Andrew Carnegie built 2,500 libraries. Dhirubhai Ambani International School has annual fees starting at Rs47,500 (with a Rs 24,000 admission fee) and Mukesh Ambani’s daughter was made head girl.[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=maroon][FONT=Bookman Old Style] An interesting thing to know is this: Has our culture shaped our faith or has our faith shaped our culture? I cannot say. To return to the question we started with: Why is Brahma not worshipped? The answer is obvious: He has nothing to offer us. What he could do for us, create the universe, he already has. There is no gain in petitioning him now.[/FONT][/COLOR] [/QUOTE]
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The Brahma Dilemma. Why Don't Indians Give Back To Society?
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