At young age i was very atheist and very proud of my thought. I never used to visit temple neither paid any attension to learn anything about our past. I don't know when first i got to know about Indian Philosophy but when i started reading it i found that it is for all type of person being intellectual or non intellectual. When i started reading more and more i really started understanding why different concept was put to suit different kind of people. It may be that during yound age i might me more inclined towards knowledge path but ost of surrounding was following Bhakti marg. When i started reading scripture's sublime philosophy i was amazed. I also learn that something in life is not very easy to understand sitting outside. Like i never understood meaning of selling your share at right moment while making loss unless i entered the market and made lossed myself. I realised after many experiance in life that how much difficult it would be for the person who would have realised the God but can not explain to others because it is not possible unless he follows the same path. When is started following real dharma i began to understand how difficult it is to speak truth or follow Ahimsa. It is path of Brave soul. It is not for wekperson or it is not to escape from something. At a same time it is true that many of the people are following so called Dharma to escape from something and we need to think of a system where everyone gets proper knowledge about Dharma. We also need to cleanup bad things which has entered into Dharma by some way like casteism. I found every one of my friend talking about how bad reservation is and at a same time we upper class people can't see that even today in our temple we appoint Temple's Pujari on basis of his birth but not on basis of his character. i'm sure there are many good people in lower cast and many bad in upper cast. We upper class should start bridging gap at social grass root level to erdicate this caste problem and we should be ready for some sacrifice at our end as our fellow brother who has suffered so far and are still suffering in villages get Justice.
RE:Dharma is for brave soul
by sridhar gorantla on Apr 21, 2007 11:05 AM Permalink
Dear alpesh patel, HERE IS THE GOOD EXPLANATION OF INDIAN CASTE SYSTEM IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM. This original division of people in to 4 different types is purely based on character and nothing else. This is excerpted from the world famous spiritual masterpiece "Autobiography of a Yogi" by "swami paramahamsa yogananda". Here is the explanation given in the foot note of the books chapter number 41. The link to this book online is at http://www.crystalclarity.com/yogananda/chap41.html
Above book is the spiritual masterpiece and here are the acclaims that this book gained worldwide:
http://www.srf-yogananda.org/special_ancmnts/ayanniversary/intro.html ------------------ Inclusion in one of these four castes originally depended not on a man's birth but on his natural capacities as demonstrated by the goal in life he elected to achieve," an article in East-West for January, 1935, tells us. "This goal could be (1) kama, desire, activity of the life of the senses (Sudra stage), (2) artha, gain, fulfilling but controlling the desires (Vaisya stage), (3) dharma, self-discipline, the life of responsibility and right action (Kshatriya stage), (4) moksha, liberation, the life of spirituality and religious teaching (Brahmin stage). These four castes render service to humanity by (1) body, (2) mind, (3) will power, (4) Spirit. "These four stages have their correspondence in the eternal gunas or qualities of nature, tamas, rajas, and sattva: obstruction, activity, and expansion; or, mass, energy, and intelligence. The four natural castes are marked by the gunas as (1) tamas (ignorance), (2) tamas-rajas (mixture of ignorance and activity), (3) rajas-sattva (mixture of right activity and enlightenment), (4) sattva (enlightenment). Thus has nature marked every man with his caste, by the predominance in himself of one, or the mixture of two, of the gunas. Of course every human being has all three gunas in varying proportions. The guru will be able rightly to determine a man's caste or evolutionary status. "To a certain extent, all races and nations observe in practice, if not in theory, the features of caste. Where there is great license or so-called liberty, particularly in intermarriage between extremes in the natural castes, the race dwindles away and becomes extinct. The Purana Samhita compares the offspring of such unions to barren hybrids, like the mule which is incapable of propagation of its own species. Artificial species are eventually exterminated. History offers abundant proof of numerous great races which no longer have any living representatives. The caste system of India is credited by her most profound thinkers with being the check or preventive against license which has preserved the purity of the race and brought it safely through millenniums of vicissitudes, while other races have vanished in oblivion."
Dharma in many places have been confused for religion. Dharma is Righteousness- Dharmo rakshati rakshitahah; Righteousness protects the one who protects righteousness. That's why more than arthasastra, kamasutra it is dharmagyana very intricate.
Purusha Shooktam gives us a hint on casteism:
Let us assume Society as a Body -bhramnosa mukha masitha= The implied meaning is Brahmins or bramhacharis (Bramho acharitha ithi Bramhachari- means one whose conducts befits Bramhan alone is Bramhacharis). People with such pure conducts are face of the society who does planning and interfacing.
- bahu rajanya kritaha= Kshatriyas who focus on body building are for defence aking to arms of human
- Vaishyas are like stomach who are resource allocators
- Padhyagum Shudro ajayatha= Who else Shudras can implement the plans and ideas well
Casteism was for team work " Saha Vavathu" and never meant for rating.
Some crooked and indisposed ppl manipulated pure things like this
RE:Dharma is for brave soul
by sudhanshu shekhar singh on Apr 21, 2007 11:43 AM Permalink
You guyz sound like you are too much into some religious clan. I dont know if you will read this or not, but I just want to say this. The philosophy of of dharma is indeed very intriguing. It all seems so logical and so correct. When we read it, we realize how well it describes the human character, our weaknesses and ways of overcoming them. But all it says is that if one has the appropriate attitude towards different aspects of life, life becomes very simple. All that dharma tries to teach you is to see things in right perspective, so that one doesnt get attached to mundane aspects of life, or one doesnt feel hurt when one has to face the inevitable laws of nature. The concepts of truth, Ahimsa and god are just the means the guyz who proposed these philosophies used to convey their ideas to people. If one gets too much attached to these concepts, one basically loses the gist of the messages, even though one may become a great scholar. Losing that gist, of cultivating the right kind of attitude (which can be done by feeding the mind with right kind of thoughts), just makes one a dogmatic ideology follower. That creates terrorists and other kind of irritating people who think they know whats best for the world (and they do whats the best for the world). But they do not really do that. They just confuse and pollute young minds, make them dogmatic followers like themselves. By the way, a lot of stuff in the scriptures is total crap - a lot of it is just total imagination of some crazy mind (I am talking of the scriptures which claim to be the records of hostory of mankind, history of sat, treta and dwapar yug). Some guyz say that those stories are just symbolic, meant to teach you lessons. But many seriously believe that crap. Now, many people would say - before airplanes were invented, people mocked the idea of human beings flying. But know everybody knows that it works. similarly, since we do not see things like those described in those puranas happening around us, we may think of them as craps. This seems to be a very good logic, but actually it is not. Those who say so, deep down their hearts, know that they are cheating themselves and the other. And one more thing - I did a philosophy course in my undergrad, and the prof told the class - the only religion which is considered to be based on pure logic is buddha dharma - all others are based on some faith or dogma.
