Religion is Poison

[Devi Dasi]

Hare Krsna,

Please allow me to share a few things from my humble views.

śamo damas tapaḥ śaucaḿ
kṣāntir ārjavam eva ca
jñānaḿ vijñānam āstikyaḿ
brahma-karma svabhāva-jam

Peacefulness, self-control, austerity, purity, tolerance, honesty,
knowledge, wisdom and religiousness — these are the natural
qualities by which the brāhmaṇas work.42

-Bhagavad-gītā As It Is 18.

(āstikyam — religiousness)

āstikyam — faith in the scriptures, the spiritual master and the Supreme Lord; SB 7.11.23

"So these things should be observed. Brāhmaṇa, a brāhmaṇa's duty is to present himself an ideal human being. Satyaṁ śamo damas titikṣā. Titikṣā means toleration. "Oh, it is very cold. No, I cannot take bath." No. You must tolerate. You must tolerate. Titikṣā. Ārjavam, simplicity; jñānam, full knowledge; vijñānam, practical application. Jñānaṁ vijñānam āstikyam. Āstikyam means completely convinced of God and his relationship with God. That is called āstikyam. Or full faith in the statement of the Vedas. Whatever Veda says, that's right. Yes. No argument. That is called āstikyam. No argument."
-His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada, Lecture on BG 2.32 -- London, September 2, 1973

Middle English, from Anglo-French religius, from Latin religiosus, from religio. First Known Use: 13th century.

Definitions:

1. obligation
2. rite
3. sanction
4. sanctity
5. supernatural constraint/taboo
6. worship

In my humble opinion, sometimes the modern Western culture is about breaking every taboo and restraint, legitimizing even abusive or scandalous things, and hugely disrespecting life and the planet, as earlier post mentioned:

"But Hitchens himself was not, as he was a major proponent of the United States' invasion of Iraq (in which hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed) largely because of his hatred of Islam."

Actually, the figure of Iraqi casualties related to the US invasion is closer to 1-2 million. The introduction of death squads, igniting a sectarian Sunni-Shia civil war, the use of incredible permanent toxins like depleted uranium are unconscionable, especially given that Iraq had no relationship with al Qaeda or the 9-11 attacks, and was a fabricated justification, later acknowledged by General Colin Powell.

To say this media figure, Mr. Hitchins had become a mouthpiece for a government military agenda (Both US and UK), which is now deemed to have been a colonialist business venture for oil... certainly does say something about the agenda of such a mouthpiece. It is the same US government which promotes fluoridation of water, a toxic by-product which calcifies the human pineal gland (believed by yogic schools to be the seat of spiritual consciousness). Recently a video surfaced which is a Pentagon briefing where a vaccine is being created which will destroy the centers of the brain discovered to be centers of religious thinking (The God Gene), or VMAT 2(vesicular monoamine transporter). Some call the video authentic, others fake. Personally, with the US government staging an anti-terrorist level war against raw milk with agents armed with machine guns against farmers... with the history of mind control experimentation, drugging, lobotomies, and even vaccine bioweapons like SV-40 cancer viruses and perhaps creation of polio epidemics... it's possible there is reality to this.

But the key is... why the warlike antagonism, against "religion" as if religion is something evil and not these governments? When in fact, even in the most egregious, colonialist crimes of the abrahamic religions... they marched lock step with the politicians/kings/government. And furthermore, a collusion between al Qaeda and the Pentagon can be established politically since the Reagan era.


So the worst criminals on the planet, even with "religious" justification, have acted for materialistic gain, to promote the power and wealth of a certain political elite. Now there seems to be developing technologies to destroy the religious thinking capacity of the brain, which includes water fluoridation. It certainly does nothing to prevent tooth decay but actually accelerates it. And it makes no logical sense for a government to dump toxic wastes into the water supply without... an agenda.

"An American molecular geneticist has concluded after comparing more than 2,000 DNA samples that a person’s capacity to believe in God is linked to brain chemicals... The higher their score, the greater the person’s ability to believe in a greater spiritual force and, Mr. Hamer found, the more likely they were to share the gene VMAT2." -http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...-111404-8087r/

I rather respect the human body as it was designed, intact and whole, without putting "religious belief" in science or societies in Kali Yuga to warp and distort the design of the body to yoke itself with God. We understand from our great sages that the causes of criminality, sinfulness, evil-doing, are laid bare in Mahabharat as 3 gates leading to hell on earth: 1. Greed, 2. Lust 3. Anger. By learning the spiritual disciplines under a true guru, bowing the egotism down to a spiritual Master, one transforms the hellish consciousness.

I dare say, persons like Hitchins are dangerously wrong, in that they subvert the natural inclination to worship God, and begin to worship their own self-interest, or by extension, the interests of those who buy them off. This leads to a literal war on all religion, and in turn those religious principles, discipline and limits which, in proper context are designed to put an end to individuals who blindly follow a state. The state atheism of communists or Mr. Hitchins is downright diabolical.

And the reality is, religion is misused as a tool... for political and economic thefts which are achieved by mass murders (wars).


Trusting the atheistic paradigm that makes a god of science and
wages war on the humanity like rakshasas. (Pre-frontal lobotomy
performed on Howard Dully, 12 years old, because his step-mother
thought he was acting out, and the psychiatrist thought damaging
his frontal lobes would make him more compliant. circa 1960)

Pentagon Vaccine To Kill Religious Center of Brain
(Some have claimed this video was debunked because the brain scans are from a published medical journal in 2011 and the video is claimed to be from 2005. Others have pointed out the room number BC232 exists as a room located in the Pentagon (http://www.hqda.army.mil/aoguide/Pentagon_Map.htm). I believe it to be authentic because the US govt has been engaged in very similar experimentation for decades, even without consent of the public.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8Lsvt1z0n4

-please forgive my mistakes

[RVR]

The statement "religion is poison" is attributed to Mao Zedong, Chinese Leader. He made the statement to Dalai Lama, Tibet Freedom fighter.

Mao Zedong was a communist and well known atheist. He made the statement implying all religions. Majority of the Chinese don't follow religion and his statement was probably reflecting his countries attitude to the religions.

However Christopher Hitchens seems to have not understood what is religion and what is not religion. While criticizing religions formed by individuals may be correct, criticizing "Sanathana Dharma" is not at all correct.

There is no uniform command for "Sanathana Dharma". Nobody knows about its origin. It has different practices by different group of people. My aim is to expose the pseudo atheists like Christopher Hitchens who has assumed that "Osho" of self styled Godman like Rajneesh as Hinduism. There are several pseudo gurus like Rajneesh in India and they are all not part of "Sanathana Dharma". No body asks us to go to a temple. Nobody is enforcing us any particular practice in Sanathana Dharma. Let us differentiate ourselves from Sanathana Dharma and other religions.

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
namasté

That is their a way of escaping reality ...

I always found this notion curious. ( note I am not finding any fault with your post or offer); that is, escaping reality, or reality shows on T.V. for that matter - it is the furthest thing from ~reality~.

If a person knew reality one could not escape it; and if they were in reality there would be no imbalance or desire for something more, for something outside it. It would be a delight to talk to the original author who ever coined this phrase and figure out what his/her reality consists of ( by definition or experience).

iti śivaṁ

[Mana]

Namaste Yajvan,

A vary fair comment, my remark does imply rather a weighty assumption; that there is indeed a reality by which we can "measure" our perception in the first place.

I was hoping to put an emphasis upon someone not being at ease with, or comfortable in their own thoughts. We then create very convincing story's to hide this from our selves; collectivity, I think that we do this to a fantastic degree, as we confirm each others saṁsāra.

If everyone is in the same boat, it is quite logic to suppose the horizon to be moving and not the boat; in a large enough vessel how could this be wrong? Then, should you get seasick, well, best that we find out what is wrong with you, it must come from within!

But, and this is a large point of exclamation, as any good sailor knows; wealth is in ya'earing, all one need do is: to get on deck for some fresh air: fix your eye upon the horizon: and keep a close eye upon the stars ...

That said, I do have 7th lord in 6th; which may be altering my perception by reducing the subset of people that I meet.


Kind regards.

[Mana]

Oh dear ...

As if to highlight my statement, coincidence has led me me to discover a puddle of vomit next to my front door this morning.
I shall refrain from taking a picture if you will trust in the reality that is this incident; I must admit relief that it is not on my motorbike this time.

In regards to Reality TV, I am rather relieved that we do not have smell'o'vision.

Kind regards.

[RVR]

According to the following article, the term Hindu or Hinduism has emerged only in the last 200 years.

http://www.swamij.com/sanatana-dharma-hinduism.htm

Right from Vedic period we were following only Sanathana Dharma and only invaders have name us as Hindus

[Avyaydya]

The statement "religion is poison" is attributed to Mao Zedong, Chinese Leader. He made the statement to Dalai Lama, Tibet Freedom fighter.

Mao Zedong was a communist and well known atheist. He made the statement implying all religions. Majority of the Chinese don't follow religion and his statement was probably reflecting his countries attitude to the religions.

Namaste RVR,

This statement probably came from radical interpretation of the Words of Karl Marx. (creator of Marxism and thus intellectual father of communism). He wrote:

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

"Religion is the opium of the people" was in China understood as very evil. The Chinese will never forget the opium-wars with the English, who purposely enslaved hundreds of thousands of Chinese with opium from India to get the means to trade with the Chinese. Those wars destroyed the Chinese empire and created total chaos.

But in Germany where Marx lived (and for which his revolution was meant), opium was not used as a drug, but a pain-killer. Marx meant that religion made life for people bearable in unbearable times. Religion was not an evil in his view, but only in so far as it did keep people from revolting. Of course this was specially true for Christianity, as Jesus forbids people to revolt under any circumstance and preaches to accept suffering in stead as a path to heaven. So Marx objections were probably more against Christianity than religion in general. But in Germany there was only Christianity.

Another reason for rejecting religion is that the communist leaders are very suspicious of anything structured that can organize people in great numbers. Only the state Party is allowed to have this power. That is calculated from a pragmatic point of view. That is one of the reasons colonialists tried to destroy local religions and often murdered their establishment. The communists too killed all the establishment as potential threats.

There is no uniform command for "Sanathana Dharma". Nobody knows about its origin. It has different practices by different group of people. My aim is to expose the pseudo atheists like Christopher Hitchens who has assumed that "Osho" of self styled Godman like Rajneesh as Hinduism. There are several pseudo gurus like Rajneesh in India and they are all not part of "Sanathana Dharma". No body asks us to go to a temple. Nobody is enforcing us any particular practice in Sanathana Dharma. Let us differentiate ourselves from Sanathana Dharma and other religions.

Osho was a guru, nothing pseudo about him. And he was no charlatan either. In 1956 Osho received His M.A. from the University of Sagar with First Class Honors in Philosophy. He was the All-India Debating Champion and Gold Medal winner in His graduating class. For nine yeas he was a professor of philosophy on the University of Jabalpur. This guy was an incredibly intelligent and innovative free thinker. His outspoken criticism of socialism, Mahatma Gandhi (and many others) and institutionalized religion made him controversial. He advocated a more open attitude towards sexuality, a stance which earned him the sobriquet of "sex guru" in the Indian and (later) international press. Osho lived his last years in my country and he had a very positive influence on opening the minds of people in the higher classes.

He was however not a Hindu, and he made no secret of that. It is not his fault that Americans can not see the difference between a Indian and a Hindu.

Atheists simply keep the prejudices they inherited from their religion against other religions, they just add their own religion. They never studied any other religion in dept. As they are raised that those are inferior, they do not find it worth looking into, or they do it in a very biased way.

And as Hinduism is nowadays presenting herself as another form of monotheism, they reason what is the diff, this God or another. And you can not blame them, that is the message that people like Prabhupada have been spreading in the west: Gita, Bible, Koran, it is all the same God-consciousness.

[jasdir]

Religion means Re-union with from where we all started this journey of life in the beginning, or the nick name is God.

[RVR]

There are several self proclaimed Gurus among the followers of Sanathana Dharma. These self proclaimed Gurus are trying to convert their followers to their faith which is nothing but poisoning the people. The moment few people start following a self proclaimed Guru, they create divisions among the followers of the Dharma

Just like political parties trying to divide people, the self proclaimed Gurus also divide people. Right from Vedic period, people of India lived peacefully even though they were divided in their way of life and eating habits. While few sections offered only vegetarian foods, fruits and flowers to their Gods, few other sections of the society offered animal sacrifices, toddy etc. There were multiple Gods worshiped by several sections and there was no quarrel among the followers. Atheists also lived peacefully without interfering in the belief of others.

After initial Vedic period, when Buddhism and Jainism started flourishing, they started converting people to their faith. Conversion was the root cause of the problem at that time also where Kshatriyas who ruled then started following Ahimsa which resulted allowing invaders to come to our country. Invaders were not followers of Sanagthana Dharma and propagated their religion either through force or through other means.

The divisions which cropped up through local as well as foreign religions are the root cause of problems India is facing even today. Left to our selves, we would have happily continued Sanathana Dharma which doesn't divide people. Religions only divide people and are highly poisonous.

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
namasté

Religion means Re-union with from where we all started this journey of life in the beginning, or the nick name is God.

There is merit in what you offer... religion as a word, is rooted in latin re (again) + ligare (bind, connect). So, what do we get from this ? to bind one back again. But to what ? To the Supreme.

This mission has been missing. But it is not the religion's scriptures that have been remiss; it has been its application and that falls on man.

iti śivaṁ