|
|
Hi there!This page contains links to some of my writings on a variety of subjects and has been created with the objective of making them available to you easily. I first started writing to save my own time since writing had several advantages:
- When a lot had to be communicated, I could put down my thoughts systematically, at my own time and convenience. Important points didn't get left out.
- The process of writing down itself helped in achieving clarity. Something undefinable happens to you when you put things in black-and-white. Things which were vague and 'in-the-air' get clarified and definite. Plus you commit yourself to it!
- The other person could get the whole of the communication, at his own time and convenience.
- The reader could formulate his response at his own time and convenience, systematically and without missing out important points.
- The process avoided heated arguments and emotional upsets. These occur when the other person does not have an idea of why you are doing what you are doing (and it is difficult to communicate verbally because there is a lot needed to be communicated to convey the whole picture). Since I am something of a non-conformist, I got into plenty of those situations and writing proved very useful.
- Written communication could be shared with a large number of people easily.
On the other hand, personal and face-to-face communication is better in situaions where
- Emotions too have to be communicated and sensed.
- A personal rapport has to be built.
- There has to be a larger amount of unstructured and spontaneous interation according to the situation.
Since late 2004, I have again taken some radical steps, which have negatively surprised quite a few of my dear friends (and positively surprised others). The details of these are found in the write-up Myself. By 2006, I found that I was sending the files to too many people as email-attachments and that process was becoming time-consuming. And so I created this site, so that the stuff could be shared with even more people as easily. And save me some more time.
Not all the articles on this page are done. If I were to wait for all of them to be done before making the others public, I would have had to wait for a long time. Since the purpose of this site was more practical, I had taken the liberty to make public whatever was done and create stubs for those which were partially done. The ones which are done are marked
. The dates indicated are the dates of primary completion of the essay. Minor changes that don't affect the principal statements or arguments of the essays (correction of spelling mistakes, minor modifications of phrases, addition of few paragraphs of new, interesting or sheer fun-stuff etc.) continue even today.
I would love to hear from you. Even if you don't agree with me. And especially if you don't agree with me! I have benefited far more from those who disagreed with me than from those who agreed. If I was right and those who disagreed were wrong, I got strenghthened in my beliefs. If I was wrong and they were right, I was better off getting corrected anyway!
So send your response to: valuesystems@yahoo.com. Do include "Response to..." and the name of the article as the subject. Have fun reading.
Awdhoot Khandekar.
Karjat, India.
Awdhoot and Urmila Khandekar's Notes on the Bhagavad Geeta (Part 1)
This can be looked at as the base essay for all other writings on this
site. The ideas and principles laid out here are what are
practically worked out in most of the other essays; the spirit of this
essay pervades them. A practical plan for the reader would be to
browse through this home page to get a general idea of the subjects covered,
then read The Voice, then read through this essay,
and then in detail the essays on the subjects that interest him.
In the nineteenth century, Albert Schweitzer made a real contribution with
his unbiased historical survey, "The Quest for the Historical Jesus," in which he showed how both the
extremes were wrong; how the extremes of anti-church beliefs were as wrong
as some of the beliefs propagated by the church. The truth was somewhere in
between and throwing historicity about Jesus out was like throwing the baby
out with the bathwater. There are historical tests to judge what are claimed
to be historical facts; and these have to be applied appropriately to test
what are facts and what are not.
Today, we are in a position that the historicity of Jesus is a settled issue.
Jesus was indeed a real person who existed in the first century. Even though the
only evidence about him comes from the pages of the Bible, it has proved
to be no reason for believing that Jesus was not a historical person and the
dust over the question has largely settled. But
there are still some beliefs about Jesus, most notably amongst Muslims, that
contradict the church's beliefs about Jesus. Which of these is true?
The anti-idolatry stance of the Bible and the Quran is well-known. What may come as a surprise is that even in Hinduism, idol-worship is condemned in the Vedanta, i.e. the Upanishads, which being part of the Vedas, are considered the "Word of God" by Hindus. Says the Maitreya Upanishad in II-27: “To one desiring liberation worship of idols made of stone, metal, gem and clay results only in the experience of rebirth; hence the sage should perform the worship of his heart alone. To prevent rebirth he shall avoid external worship.” Says the Yajnavalkya Upanishad, verse 12, “If an ascetic remains in identity with the highest self-effulgent Brahman which is beyond name, etc., then to whom shall he, the knower of the Atman, pay obeisance? Then the activity of bowing ought not to be done.”
Idol-worship is a late development in Hinduism, finding no mention in the Vedas or in the Geeta. Religions don't 'develop,' they don't get better over time. They get corrupted and degrade as time passes by. The reason is simple - religions get started when a person or a group of people (Jesus, Buddha, Krishna) reach such an exalted state of being that they bring a radical freshness into the deadness of the existing practices (Judaism, Hinduism, Vedic religion). They communicate their insigths to their followers, who being personally close to them reach almost the same level, but not quite the same. The second rung of followers is on an even lower rung and the third even lower. Farther and farther away from the originators, the original message gets more and more corrupted (like the 'pass the message' game in which the message becomes more and more corrupted as it passes on). Being relayed by people who are not operating from the same state of being, all kinds of irrelevant things get added, diluting and sometimes even neutralising the original message. Hinduism, Christianity, and Buddhism have all degraded over time as idol-worship, the worship of other gods and the exaltation of saints crept into all three of them.
In this essay, we also examine the arguments put forward in favour of idol-worship by even highly respected teachers like Swami Chinmayananda and Pandurang Shastri Athawale, and see how hollow and superficial they are.
I have gone through the Quran myself. There is great emphasis on the oneness of God, on the Day of Judgment, on heaven and hell, of not associating or equating any other being (human or otherwise) with God, and on not worshiping idols. All these are right and in order. But these are only the most basic beliefs. After that what? The real richness of what a relationship with God is like, is found in Jesus' words, which Muslims ignore. Muslims may have done away with the wrongs prevalent in Christianity such as the Trinity, Paul's letters, and idolatry, but unfortunately they have also thrown the baby out with the bathwater by ignoring Jesus' teachings, even though they regard Jesus highly and consider him to be a prophet of God, even the most anointed prophet of God, and the one who is going to judge the world. The real richness of what a relationship with God is like, is found in Jesus' words.
I am not a Muslim for the same reason that I no longer consider myself a "Hindu", or a "Christian," or a follower of any other religion. My concern is primarily with truth and with God, and since I find that the real richness is found in Jesus' words, I don't need to follow any religion.
This has tremendous practical implications for our day-to-day lives. If we are to pick out the main subjects of these texts, we can say that the Bible is primarily concerned with love and righteousness (=doing the right things), the Quran with righteousness, and the Geeta with freedom of action in day-to-day life (=Moksha or Mukti, living your life from a state of "wanting to do" rather than "having to do"). It's not that the Geeta does not speak about righteousness, or the Bible or the Quran about freedom, but these are secondary topics in these texts. In a sense freedom and righteousness are the primary struggles of man, both in work and home life, and it seems that the more you have of one, the less you can have of the other! Adultery and marital faithfulness are mutually exclusive! The "freedom" that the Geeta offers has been misunderstood and misused in some of the most famous "communes" of today, which had their origins in Pune. Can we have the "righteousness" of marital faithfulness along with the right freedom of the Geeta? I believe we can, and this essay explores the possibility as it seeks to put the teachings of the three religious texts together.
Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest leader of the twentieth century, lived this way. He operated from a high level state of "wanting to do" rather than "having to do" the things he did, plus a high level of truth, love, righteousness, and character. It is no wonder, since he drew his inspirataion from both, the Geeta and the Bible. This, I believe, is also the way to produce not just good, but great leaders.
This essay explores the possibility of taking the best of all the texts. Many people talk about it theoretically and pay lip-service to the concept, but most are too tied to their own religions, nor are well-aware of the teachings of the other religions, to do a good job of it. Since I am no longer tied to any religion (see Truth and Religion above), and am well-aware of the teachings of all the three, and since I have applied the concept practically with good results in my own life, maybe this essay will make a meaningful contribution towards the objective.
What will the end be? Nobody knows, but the Unites States is in a very precarious condition. Today, the USA is the biggest debtor nation in the world. Its Federal debt is more than 10 trillion dollars. Besides the federal debt, the state debts, business debts, and consumer debts are all at all-time highs and show no indications of coming down since the people involved don't seem to be even concerned. The profligacy of the politicians, the inability of the common people to live within their means, their self-centered consumption-mania, have all brought the U.S. to this pitiable state. What happens when a human being gets into excessive debt? If he sees sense, he gradually reduces his indebtedness by being tough on himself. If he doesn't, his creditors soon demand their money back or take over his assets. Today, the US dollar is essentially a worthless piece of paper. The U.S. economy is still standing today because no nation wants it to fall. And no nation wants it to fall for two reasons - one, because most of the nations hold their reserves in U.S. dollars, and two, because the U.S. is the biggest market for their products. (Plus of course, the US has an edge in technological innovation and military superiority.) But all that can't go on forever. Other nations are not fools, much as Americans like to believe it. Some nations (like China) have already started converting their dollars into other currencies. If more and more nations do that, the tipping point may be reached and the U.S. economy itself may collapse. And we may see in America, what was seen during the Great Depression - queues of people for their daily quota of rice and dal. The whole nation itself would then be needing a bailout.
Will that happen? Nobody knows. I certainly don't, and am not foolish enough to make predictions. These things can take many years to play out when entire economies are involved. But one thing is sure - if it does happen, it will happen very fast. The politicians will be saying "Everything is fine, we are on the road to recovery"; the business leaders will be saying "Everything is fine, we are on the road to recovery." And by the end of the week, it would have all collapsed - remember the turkey in "The Black Swan?" Because that's how things happen once the tipping point is crossed.
How can I stick my neck out and make such statements? Because I believe that the very foundation on which the U.S.economy today runs i.e. a "borrow-and-consume, borrow-and-consume, borrow-and-consume" mentality, goes against God's laws, and cannot go on forever. God's laws take time to work out, but they do work out in the end, even if it is slowly and surely. More important than the borrow-and-consume mentality, the methods used by the powers-that-be in trying to "solve" the problem, also go against God's laws. The primary method being used is to give more money to those who have proved themselves to be bad handlers of money, whearas God's way is to give more to those who have proved to be good handlers of money and take away from those who have proved themselves to be bad handlers of money until they learn and become good handlers of whatever little money they have. Luke 19:26, "to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away," and Luke 16:10 "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much" though applicable in the spiritual realm, have been very much spoken by Jesus in the context of handling money and are applicable there too. The U.S. reached unprecedented levels of prosperity because it started out on God's laws and stuck to them for years. But somewhere in the middle of the twentieth century, it started moving more and more away from them. Today, the U.S. finds itself mounted on a running tiger, almost impossible to get off. Neither is it showing any desire to slow down the "borrow-and-consume, borrow-and-consume, borrow-and-consume" and the "take more money from the competent (taxpayers) and give more money to the incompetent (bankers)" mentality. That may work in the short term in "saving" the economy, but in the long term, it will make the bankers worse. Who cares for financial prudence when there will always be a bailout ready if their bets go wrong? Who can resist the lure of betting even more if they know that if their bets go right they get to pocket the money, if not, the taxpayer is always there to bail them out since they are 'too big to fall'! For God, even entire countries and civilizations are not 'too big to fall' as world history shows. But in the long run, it may have been actually better to let the "bad" financial institutions die. That may have caused a short-term tremor, but people living in earthquake-prone zones know that short term tremors have a salutary effect of releasing energy slowly, which if allowed to accumulate unreleased, can lead to a disastrous earthquake later on. Since the U.S. shows no desire to take the small tremors (letting bad financial institutions die), the inevitable big earthquake will come. The US may keep up its numero-uno position in the world due to its innovative edge and technological superiority for a time, but once it slips on that, anything can happen.
That is precisely why I can safely stick my neck out and make such statements as I have. The inevitable is bound to happen sooner or later. (October 2008)
The following are some statements made by Mr. Mukesh Ambani in a recent interview: "We are are going to see massive resets in world economies in the next few years", ""The rules of the game are going to change in the next 10-20 years", "We will no longer be doing things the way we are now", "The balance sheets of companies have to look healthier", "The balance sheets of entire economies have to look healthier", "Debt levels have to reduce drastically". (October 2009)
The interesting thing about most of these traits is that they cannot be developed in isolation - you cannot develop them by cutting yourself off from others, going to the Himalayas or a monastary, and living an isolated life. They are developed through interaction with others. Schools naturally provide environments where these traits can be consciously developed in children in their formative years, when their hearts are more malleable and their minds are more eager to learn, and they can be made better equipped for life more easily. Unfortunately our schools do nothing in this most crucial area, leaving even post-graduates to develop them the hard and time-consuming way (if at all), by trial-and-error through actual experiences of life, when the focus is more on earning their livelihoods than on learning new things.
How does this fit in with my belief that "the purpose of life is to know God better?" What has character got to do with "knowing God better?" Aren't people supposed to do things like go to the Himalayas etc. to "know God better?" Answer: NO! "Knowing God better" is not some vague, mystical thing. It is a practical, down-to-earth process to be carried out in the day-to-day activities of life and an important part of it is to develop God's character within us - righteousness, love, joy, peace etc., right in the middle of the rough-and-tumble of life - e.g. righteousness right in the middle of an environment full of temptations, love in an environment full of unloving and unlovable people, joy in the middle of circumstances which are not naturally joyful, peace in circumstances which make us worried and anxious etc. God has not put us in the middle of the world so that we can run away from it. He has put us in the middle of the world so that we can develop these character traits right in there. There is of course an important place for cutting yourself off from the world from time to time, but that is only to sharpen yourself so that you become more effective in the world in the exercise of these characteristics. It is like taking time out periodically to sharpen an axe which gets blunt by the regular chopping of wood. Life has a naturally wearying quality about it and there is no point in wasting your time with a blunt axe. I personally spend 30% of my waking time alone - in study, prayer, or simply being with nature. It takes the pattern of two hours every day and one full day every week. This is "my time," alone with God, and no one (not even family members) has a right to it. If I don't do this, I find I get dull and ineffective in the world, losing the above character traits. I am one of the unfortunate ones who have been trained by an education system which gave no importance to the above qualities, and have to make these special efforts to overcome my natural disadvantage. How I wish I was trained in these qualities when I was a child! Which brings me back to my main point - To repeat, our education system does not impart real education. Real education is the training of character - the development of righteousness, love, joy, peace, contentment, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, commitment, gentleness, self-control, selflessness, friendliness, fairness and justice, forgiveness, appropriate humility, truthfulness, courage, honesty, integrity, dependability, reliability, proper handling of authority, sense of responsibility and accountability, ability to overcome adversity. These are the qualities for the development of which, God works on us continuously through the day-to-day experiences of life and which matter in the long-term. God is more interested in the development of these qualities than in the imparting of the book knowledge dished out by our education system. Which is also why, ultimately, people are judged by, and remembered for these qualities, and not for how much knowledge or wealth or fame or power they have accumulated. Even "religious" people and "gurus" are judged by, and remembered for these qualities, and not for how well they can quote the Geeta or the Bible or the Quran or how "wonderful" their discourses are. "Knowing God" is not just about knowing the Geeta or the Bible or the Quran, it is about developing a relationship with God by responding positively by obeying him in his dealings on us in developing the above character traits through the day-to-day experiences of life. And so, maybe, an atheist, who denies the existence of God, but who shows the above character traits actually "knows" God much better than a "guru" or a preacher who can quote the Geeta or the Bible or the Quran impressively, but who doesn't show the above character traits! (May 2009)
