[Reader-list] When was the first time you were told there is God?

Sun Aug 2 19:39:06 IST 2009

Ram! Ram! Pheeta Ram Ji

Ram Naam Satya Hai. The proof of that is evident in my chanting your name and being blessed with Murali Ji guiding me to Shri Satya Baba's wisdom on Gayatri Mantra.

Verily in chanting your name the portals of "Swarga" will open up in This World and the Other and in the somewhere in-between World of this Reader List. You have already designed one such "gated community Swarga" where there will be no religion other than the religion of "No Religion". 

Past your gates there will be "Humanity", "Respect", "Compassion" which these foolish subscribers to Religions claim are resident in the teachings they follow but little do they know those are 'illusions' propagated to hold them captive in their illusory worlds. How dare they talk of "Tolerance", that is "fascist" deviousness. These Spiritual Seekers (SS)  are Nazis. Ban them all.

We shall also ban all those in whose name there has been any kind of blood-letting or blood-sucking, the Capitalists, the Communists, THIS-ists and THAT-ists. We shall tear apart all seams and if left threadbare, that is how we shall be. No "carnivore" will exist in our 'Swarga". Human and Beast shall turn vegetarian. Sifting out fish-eat-fish Marine Life might pose a problem. Dekha jayega.

Incidentally I loved this sentence of yours :

""""""   Sadly though you are futilely beating innocent air that fills the empty space between the tips of your fingers and the heads of your computer keys. """""

You seem to think that I disagree with your philosophical comments on Religion and/or Those-Of-A-Religion. I do not, even if I find you tunnelling your comments into bays of generalised dismisiveness. Not surprising, since you seek "Revolution". I plug for "Evolution". The Ocean is the "Swarga" though, be the flow leading to it placid or ferocious.  

Yes, your use of the word "shocked" was rather shocking considering that it was devoid of any meaningful insight in what you were trying to say, in an otherwise 'ferocious' but interesting commentary. "Interesting" might have been more interesting.

All ends where it begins. Ram! Ram!

Kshmendra 

--- On Sun, 8/2/09, Pheeta Ram <pheeta.ram at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Pheeta Ram <pheeta.ram at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] When was the first time you were told there is God?
To: "Kshmendra Kaul" <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
Cc: reader-list at sarai.net
Date: Sunday, August 2, 2009, 5:18 PM

Kshmendraji, with due regards...

You still don't seem to have gone through my previous postings otherwise you certainly would have
beaten me sentence by sentence and rendered "threadbare" my juvenile arguments and enlightened me
of your stance and my failings deeply desirous of correction. I would love to accompany your enlightened self on a textual discovery of what i have written in order not only to understand myself but also to understand what i "think" about things around me when i write them. Sadly though you are futilely beating innocent air that fills the empty space between the tips of your fingers and the heads of your computer keys. You can savour the "interest" that you have found in how i "'view' religions and the role played by them and what you would like to be done about them." I hope you won't mind sharing this "interest" with others on the discussion forum so that 'we' can at least enter into a constructive discussion, or argument if you will. 

You obsessively compulsively seem to have been stuck on my usage of the word "shock". I might use the word "interesting" to probe the matters further and construct a valid and definable "problem" which still eludes me and you are reluctant to help me in doing that. Some people have hinted that the things i have been suggesting and writing have already been discussed in the "history of ideas" and i need to plough more to get the hang of things. Now if that be the case and that certainly is, would you mind putting my pseudo-problems/questions/suggestions in perspective. One of my friends has diagnosed the scene in the temple as a simple case of "contemporary urban divided/schizophrenic selves." 

I admit i am "not in [that much] touch with the realities around" as you are - which to my mind are mighty complex and multi-layered and need a few more loaded "drags" to atleast access their textural nuances. 

Now something regarding my name: Many people seem to have reserved the hallowed portals of "swarga" just by chanting my name "Ram ! Ram!". I don't have any objection provided they get some breathable space in an already crowded "swarga." I wonder if Indra is thinking of going for skyscrapers. Some of the inhabitants, i am told, are already thinking of building "gated communities" in "swarga": a swarga away from swarga...     

On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

Ram! Ram! Pheeta Ram Ji

There is no unease over your contribution to the 'threads'. It was on the contrary interesting to see how you 'view' religions and the role played by them and what you would like to be done about them.

I only wanted to understand why were you 'shocked' """" to see many kewl guys fitted in branded jeans chanting Hanuman Chalisa when i dragged myself out of curiosity to a temple in Delhi.""""""

- were you shocked because they were 'guys'?
- were you shocked because they were 'kewl' guys?
- were you shocked because they wore 'jeans'?
- were you shocked because the jeans were 'branded'?
- were you shocked  because they were in a 'temple'?
- were you shocked because they were 'chanting'?
- were you shocked because they were chanting 'Hanuman Chalisa'?

I also found it interesting that it took your being 'dragged' (by yourself) 'out of curiosity to a temple' to have this "shocking" revelation dawn upon you.

Maybe you are not in touch with the realities around you. Please do 'drag' yourself around a bit more.

Kshmendra

--- On Sat, 8/1/09, Pheeta Ram <pheeta.ram at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Pheeta Ram <pheeta.ram at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] When was the first time you were told there is God?
To: "Kshmendra Kaul" <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
Cc: reader-list at sarai.net
Date: Saturday, August 1, 2009, 10:08 PM

Is it necessary to reinvent the wheel Kshmendraji? Please refer to the threads i have been following and let me 
know "the point" of your unease. I would like to be corrected if there is scope.

Yours sincerely
Pheeta Ram

On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 3:47 PM, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

Ram! Ram! Pheeta Ram Ji

You wrote:

"I was shocked to see many kewl guys fitted in branded jeans chanting Hanuman Chalisa when i dragged myself out of curiosity to a temple in Delhi."

Could you please elaborate on why you were "shocked"?

Kshmendra

--- On Sat, 8/1/09, Pheeta Ram <pheeta.ram at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Pheeta Ram <pheeta.ram at gmail.com>
Subject: [Reader-list] When was the first time you were told there is God?
To: reader-list at sarai.net
Date: Saturday, August 1, 2009, 2:35 AM

Dear All,
I know this won't go down well with most of you but here it is:
Religions are the basic source of strife and as long as there will be
religions
(belief in this God and that) there will be such hostilities. By professing
one religion
i simultaneously create an other being who, by inference, is either follower
of some religion
or a pagan. The basic contradiction in all religions is that despite their
moral-ethical discourse
regarding oneness of all humanity they are the principal segregators. All
the saints who have
walked the earth deluded themselves with such fancies.

Religion is not just a system of belief but also an economy. We depend a lot
upon our religious capital
for our subsistance. A person who professes to be a member of certain
community (primarily religious)
also depends upon it as a kind of umbilical cord and draws sucour.

By now earth has soaked so much blood because of religious strifes that
sometimes i wonder isn't it time
to abandon all religious badges and create a ethical moral code drawn from
all the religions and start believing
in one community: that is Human.

I think we need to believe in our brother next door and one walking on the
street or the worker on a Metro site.
We need to believe that for the survival of humanity we need to believe in
each other and not on some transcendental
agency. I wonder why we haven't learnt from our history. The primary reason
why we have failed terribly in creating a
community of all human beings that walk the earth is because we are afraid.
Afraid to believe in somebody who is in
front of us in flesh and blood. I remember a man sitting in Blue Line who
was highly uncomfortable when a profusely sweating migrant labourer got in
and found a seat, to his great relief, by his side. It is certain that he
didn't know of the
religion of that worker but the stench of his sweat and his dirty clothes
were enough for him to get up and keep standing
for the rest of his journey. I wonder when we have such intolerence for a
'fellow' human beings' honest sweat how would we
ever begin even thinking about such a Human community. The perils that face
the earth now are reasons enough that we
start believing in each other and work for the future of humanity by
shunning all our sectarian tags. But strangely we are busy
inventing/refurbishing new messiah who would deliver us from the mess that
we have ourselves created on this earth.

I wonder what stops us from creating a new religion of Humanity.

The advice that comes from scholarly circles regarding all this religious
intolerance is : Tolerance!
That we need to tolerate each other. Tolerance is another form of fascism or
nazism, what ever. I won't agree with substituting
the word toleracne with "respect" or "compassion". Why tolerate the very
root of strife in the first place.

And yet, sadly, things are not as simple as that. But  a time comes when we
have to call a spade a spade.
We have to shun God to love human beings. There is no other way. Just
visualize the situation: Two guys are standing in a big stadium in front of
each other, just a metre apart but with their faces 'heaven'wards. Why are
they afraid to see each other directly.
Why does the need arise to travel so many light years and then come to ones
brother standing just a meter away.

I know it is plain foolishness to ask somebody whose bread and butter
depends upon religion to shun it and enter the fold of Humanity where people
believe in people and work with mutual responsibility. But we
need neo-believers who are foolish enough to
believe in such a possibility and are ready to work for it. It's a
long revolution but a possible one.

But, the roadblocks are mighty hard to surpass. Take for instance my case:
I have a primary school in my neighbourhood, a government one. And
every morning even before i have got up their assembly begins and the chants
of sacred Hindu mantras begin. All this atma and parmatma stuff. Though i
don't dispute the sense inherent in the prayer yet aren't we or rather the
supposedly and proffessedly secular government entering into the business
of 'mass conversion'. When i have all these religious prayers embedded into
my consciousness right from my childhood can you imagine how much i would
have to suffer to convert back to the religion of humanity if i convert at
all and not turn into some religious fanatic. Less said of the schools run
by one religion or the other the better.

Though the proposal seems indecent yet i think there are madmen enough to
believe in this long long revolution.

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