'caste' discrimination is part of equality bill in UK

[dogra]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/h...mmons-22266175

Hindu alliance wanted time for talking for a change, nevertheless Hindu alliance and anti caste alliance are both against caste discrimination.
Word caste come from casta-Portugese word, so caste system is not in Vedas.
Often Purusha Sukta talks as an allegory for all parts of body to work together, non higher nor lower.
B.G. 5.18 Lord Krishna says to look at different people with equal eye.
Moksha-end game for hindu faith, is to merge with God only if you lead a noble life ie accept fellow human beings.

Cultural social evil of caste needs defeating, and law will not change hearts and minds of those number that discriminate. Such individuals do not recognise humane verses in Sanantan Dharma.

Reject label of 'dalit' and 'untouchable' we are all spritually equal. Every function has dignity of labour, not birth based, but on qualities and education.

[ShivaFan]

Namaste

I am in a technical forum today, and the rest of the week. In fact, I am at a hotel and have to engage and speak in a session in 30 mins, so there is no time to give a response from the perspective of what I have been taught by Hindus of authority and in perspective of a Hindu of no caste regarding jati.

This has been a subject of previous posts which generated jalpa, sad hearts, even name calling, closure of posts. This could be the case here. So before I can think about a response it may take this route, cut and paste wall papering of web content and scripture, but as for full disclosure if another proclaims some caste their own I have never taken a position that they must renounce their adherence, in the light no other human is going to tell me that I am a dalit, that me, my family or children will only be enslaved to degrading economic servitude.

You do not need to live wealthy to be wealthy. Yes, we should not be attached to materialism. But as a "community" in this world of today full of abominations we need to be united and not divided, therefore I wish every Hindu and their families wealth, prosperity and safe homes because it is power, as a minority facing those, some of which literally want to enslave or kill all of us, we must be powerful, we must be advisors to power, we will be.

Om Namah Sivaya

[shiv.somashekhar]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/h...mmons-22266175

Hindu alliance wanted time for talking for a change, nevertheless Hindu alliance and anti caste alliance are both against caste discrimination.
Word caste come from casta-Portugese word, so caste system is not in Vedas.
Often Purusha Sukta talks as an allegory for all parts of body to work together, non higher nor lower.
B.G. 5.18 Lord Krishna says to look at different people with equal eye.
Moksha-end game for hindu faith, is to merge with God only if you lead a noble life ie accept fellow human beings.

Cultural social evil of caste needs defeating, and law will not change hearts and minds of those number that discriminate. Such individuals do not recognise humane verses in Sanantan Dharma.

Reject label of 'dalit' and 'untouchable' we are all spritually equal. Every function has dignity of labour, not birth based, but on qualities and education.

People who are familiar with Hindu and the Indian way of life ought to already know that caste is a deeply ingrained culture that has been around for thousands of years now and is not going away anytime soon.

It is not a religious thing and therefore, what the Veda or Krishna or Santana Dharma would say on this subject are completely irrelevant. Again, one who is familiar with local culture ought to know this already.

[philosoraptor]

People who are familiar with Hindu and the Indian way of life ought to already know that caste is a deeply ingrained culture that has been around for thousands of years now and is not going away anytime soon.

It is not a religious thing and therefore, what the Veda or Krishna or Santana Dharma would say on this subject are completely irrelevant. Again, one who is familiar with local culture ought to know this already.

That's because "caste discrimination" is just another form of "class discrimination," which is ubiquitous in human society and is the logical result of diversity of beliefs, values, strengths, weaknesses, etc. The religious element is the tying of certain castes to heredity, which was an integral part of both Indian and Vedic culture. Trying to outlaw that in all spheres of life is basically an attack on Hinduism. Think about it. If a temple wants to hire a priest, but limits its selection to priests of brahmin ancestry (as any traditional Hindu temple would), then it is now guilty of "caste discrimination."

The irony of this is that, in the above situation, the temple staff would be "punished" by members of the ruling class, who themselves do not attain their positions by merit, but rather by lying to their constituents and/or stroking their fears and prejudices entirely based on emotional arguments. Want to build a new community hall for your temple? Too bad, because the temple was fined $20,000 of your hard-earned donation money for the caste-discrimination case against it last year. You know what I'm talking about - it was outlawed by Mr. XYZ politician who habitually cheats on his wife and lies to the world about it, and still gets re-elected year after year.

[wundermonk]

Does this bill imply that discriminating against Brahmins when it comes to jobs and college seats is now disallowed?

In any case, there are a few options now left for Hindus.

(1)Equality bill is wrong.
(2)Equality bill is right and Hinduism is right because Hindu sruthis do NOT support birth-based caste discrimination. What Hinduism talks about is varna and that is NOT based on birth but on gunas which can be cultivated by a person in one's lifetime.
(3)Equality bill is right and Hinduism is wrong because Hindu sruthis DO support birth-based caste discrimination.

Have I left out any option?

I am asking for the Nth time on HDF - can anyone please define a "Brahmin" without using the word "Brahmin" or its derivatives in the definition?

[philosoraptor]

Does anyone know of any traditional Hindu temples who routinely employ priests who are not of brahmin ancestry? As long as we are going to deny the obvious, let's look at the evidence. Because aside from ISKCON, Ramakrishna Math, and a few other new religious movements, I certainly am not aware of too many temples who hire non-brahmin priests.

[shiv.somashekhar]

I am asking for the Nth time on HDF - can anyone please define a "Brahmin" without using the word "Brahmin" or its derivatives in the definition?

I believe this issue has been discussed over N times on this forum and you were part of at least some of them.

Unfortunately, asking the question again is unlikely to help much as the people who may respond to your question belong to the same old set and therefore the responses will be the same.

[Eastern Mind]

Does anyone know of any traditional Hindu temples who routinely employ priests who are not of brahmin ancestry? As long as we are going to deny the obvious, let's look at the evidence. Because aside from ISKCON, Ramakrishna Math, and a few other new religious movements, I certainly am not aware of too many temples who hire non-brahmin priests.

Vannakkam:

Mauritius has tons of them, but it is a special case, and certainly not representative of Indian Hinduism, but as a result of their particular unique history.

The indentured labour classes were all mixed, perhaps even a few Brahmins. But they took Hinduism with them, and built very small koyils and temples on their allotted lands over in the corner of the sugar estate. There were no priests at all, so volunteers took over these positions, and that lasted for 150 - 200 years. Some Hindi, Telegu, Marathi, Tamil filtered down through the generations. Anybody could sign up to become a Hindu priest, and pujas were and still are often conducted in non-Sanskrit, like Tamil, or Hindi. After several generations, most didn't know the difference, and some still don't. On my trip, one local priest asked how his chances would be for working as a priest in Canada. I didn't have the heart to tell him, "Slim to none." A couple of temples have hired Indian Brahmin priests in the last few years, but it has also created conflict amongst the community, as many prefer to stick with their local priests, out of pure comfort. Some people do recognise that the Indian preists are better trained (by far) yet the local ones have a lot of bhakti too.

But like I said, it's probably unique to just the places where indentured labour spread Hinduism. Not sure about Fiji, Guyana, South Africa, etc.

Aum Namasivaya

[philosoraptor]

Vannakkam:

Mauritius has tons of them, but it is a special case, and certainly not representative of Indian Hinduism, but as a result of their particular unique history.

The indentured labour classes were all mixed, perhaps even a few Brahmins. But they took Hinduism with them, and built very small koyils and temples on their allotted lands over in the corner of the sugar estate. There were no priests at all, so volunteers took over these positions, and that lasted for 150 - 200 years. Some Hindi, Telegu, Marathi, Tamil filtered down through the generations. Anybody could sign up to become a Hindu priest, and pujas were and still are often conducted in non-Sanskrit, like Tamil, or Hindi. After several generations, most didn't know the difference, and some still don't. On my trip, one local priest asked how his chances would be for working as a priest in Canada. I didn't have the heart to tell him, "Slim to none." A couple of temples have hired Indian Brahmin priests in the last few years, but it has also created conflict amongst the community, as many prefer to stick with their local priests, out of pure comfort. Some people do recognise that the Indian preists are better trained (by far) yet the local ones have a lot of bhakti too.

But like I said, it's probably unique to just the places where indentured labour spread Hinduism. Not sure about Fiji, Guyana, South Africa, etc.

Aum Namasivaya

I think you will find that the above is true of other developing countries with large Indian communities descended from indentured servants. I happen to know that Trinidad has a female pujari, for example.

I'm glad that these expatriate cultures have kept their religion alive, even in the absence of true brahmin priests. But this just underscores my point - the rule is that Hindu priests are of brahmin ancestry. In India, and also in major countries like America and Canada where immigration is attractive and employers have their pick, priests in traditional temples are invariably of brahmin ancestry. That's quite a coincidence for a culture in which varna was supposedly not related to birth. Any explanations for that forthcoming? Probably not. And yet we continue to hear that claim over and over again from the revisionists....

That these expatriate cultures in other places like Mauritius find ways to keep the priestly tradition alive is a testament to the fluidity of Hindu culture and the spirit of bhakti. These will flourish even when regulations cannot be satisfied. Then again, it's not unfair to point out that at least some of these communities (in my observation at least) have, how should we say, modified understandings of how things are supposed to be? This may be of no concern to people with a theology-neutral attitude towards Hinduism. It's a bit more concerning to those of us who are selective about where we wish to worship.

It's also been my observation that, in places like India, USA, etc, even non-brahmin people seem to prefer proper male, brahmin priests in their temples. Casteist? I suppose so....

[Eastern Mind]

It's also been my observation that, in places like India, USA, etc, even non-brahmin people seem to prefer proper male, brahmin priests in their temples. Casteist? I suppose so....

Vannakkam: I'm not sure. It's partly just training too. The Brahmin priests are generally very well trained. I'd rather hire an electrician with some credentials than some guy working out of his garage because he likes playing with wires.

Just for your info, I served as the priest here for about 5 years before we could afford a Brahmin, just like someone in Mauritius may have done 200 years ago. Nobody seemed to mind. Even the Brahmins who weren't temple Brahmins didn't mind. In fact they appreciated it, or so they told me. But being poorly trained, I had to make up for that in bhakti, or at least fake it.

A few people have since told me they wished I could have continued.

Aum Namasivaya