Hinduism - The business,The Man-gods, The Devotees
An eye-opening article that explains the sad state of Hinduism in today's world...and how people with self-interests have exploited Hinduism as a profitable business...
I presume that it would cause copyright issues if i copy the article and post it here, hence sharing the link...
Hinduism- The Business, The Man-gods, The devotees
Please fwd it to any Hindu you know and spread awareness
New Member
Namaste,Originally Posted by internationalhindu
I do agree with writer - Vikas Mohan. It is very true that we have encashed our Dharma. We have made our Sanatan Dharma too Cheap. We, Hindus, denegrade our own deity and make a joke of them. Some Hindu intellectuals try to reason what is correct and what is wrong. Propar Dharma education is very much necessary to over come all superstitions and wrong doings of earlier generations. Present day westerns also like Hinduism, so our Hindu pandits have made a nice business to make dollars and these pandit only compromise Dharma just to make some money.
Namaskar,
AmIHindu ?
यज्ञानां जपयज्ञोऽस्मि ।
नाम्नोऽस्ति यावती शक्तिः पापनिर्हरणे हरेः । श्र्वपचोऽपि नरः कतुँ क्षमस्तावन्नकिल्विषम् ।।
गै
Namaste
I have two friends who have who have each undergone surgery in the last couple of months, quite severe at that. In my opinion both conditions were caused by imbalance of Ida and Pingala, genral tubulance from a lacking aspect of spiritual guidance in their lives. And could have been avoided with the help of an Ashram and some guidance.
Yet in a society where everything evolves around money and material education, how to bring about an even change; is a difficult undertaking indeed. I can only hope that India can learn from our mistakes, and not repeat them.
In my search for solace, and spiritual guidance, I have found nothing that does not involve money. Other than HDF of course.
Middle ground must be found. Research into left right brain dominance, may help with this (to my mind this is Ida Pingala).
praNAma
mana
On the Path
Hari Om!
I like the message that the atricle brings to light and I do agree. I hope that we can get some meaningful discussion on this for everyone's benefit.
Being a westerner, it is still difficult. Having not grown up in the tradition, I have seen these "Guru's" and had been led to believe that many of them were supposed to be avatars of God himself. Sai Baba for instance - am I correct that he is supposed avatar of Lord Shiva? I don't credit this, I don't discredit this because I don't follow his teachings to the degree more than a "take what works" attitude. I agree that Guru is a guide. I could name several that I have questions about and only mention Sai Baba because he is so widely known and truly worthy of some respect for his charitable work if nothing more although I do understand that this alone wouldn't make a man a God.
Since having learned some about SD, I've come to know a bit more. I think that there is a thread that relates to this Guru business, perhaps more than one in the forum.
I have deep feelings about the merchants who exploit not only the customers but the items used for puja, etc itself. It's totally disgraceful but that's for another thread.
Om Namah Sivaya
Jai Hanuman!
We definitely should emulate good regardless of the source...As C.Smith mentioned about Sai Baba, i too maintain a neutral stance about him, but we can try to imitate the charitable work he does...This applies for all the spiritual leaders...there are many who maintain their status as teachers and still undertake missions of societal transformation...such people should be encouraged and supported...If so, we would have a lot more effort and money at the disposal of charitable work instead of spending it on scams and fraudsters ...
This is one of the biggest problems for Hindu Dharma today. it is surprising that being in modern age with enough education we are being deceived by so called Gurus . Actually we do not know our shasra ( scripture) properly and those who claims to know , their knowledge based on biased translation of Granthas. So the article by shri Bikas Mohan will make Hindu to think before submitting to a Guru.
here and now
Eye opening? really?...anybody remotely familiar with Indian culture should be well aware of this fact. We might say it is surprising how so many educated, rational, successful persons still fall into the trap of these personalities or their organizations. Even in this forum, references from these dubious personalities and organizations are often mentioned in grab of good teaching, a philosophical insight etc. One can always find some good or good sounding (but mostly useless) words/phrases from a person who has made uncountable speeches, but we conveniently overlook the glaring flaws and many disturbing aspects. 99.99% of the well known divine personalities and their organizations (including some often praised here) have very dubious background, claims and operations which is never discussed. I find it amusing that people are always making fun at RCC or Jesus Christ, and ignoring the fact that most of those who are publicly known personalities and represent Hinduism by chance (since we are not organized religion) are running similar fake rackets like the Pope or the Imam.
Question is it these Guru impersonating fake businessmen we should blame?
Should we blame the materialistic pressures of life which makes people helpless and desperate to find and accept any possibility of redemption?
Or, is it the culture of hero worship that we have in India, which is behind all this?
In my assessment, it is the last 2 factors I put the cause on. These businessmen like any other businessmen are filling in a gap and obvious demand.
But the greatest culprit may be how easily our mind can play tricks on us. It is incredible how easy it is to experience temporal *spiritual* experiences, how easy it for us to believe that we are experiencing something profound in presence of certain individuals. For experiencing complete freedom and knowledge, intellectual sophistication is also necessary, and it was a genius on part of the kashmiri masters to realize that even a tivra shaktipata cannot remove the intellectual blemish. Hence the traditional central importance to shastras and not personalities. Ofcourse shastras does not mean putting a book on a pedestal and worshiping it, but reading, understanding, analyzing, thinking, applying and working on them.
Last edited by sm78; 30 November 2011 at 12:47 PM.
What is Here, is Elsewhere. What is not Here, is Nowhere.
Member
Namaste,
It has been my experience that the methods utilized by frauds are by and large the same the world over, regardless of the religious or cultural particulars. Preying on those who are desperate, and willing to clutch at any proffered straw, seems especially cold and sociopathic to those of us to whom such behaviour is anathema. As sm78 said, it can be surprising to think that well-educated, intelligent people can fall victim to con artists; however, such people can be easier targets, in a sense. I give two examples of how this can happen:
The first is an example of the person who is intellectually advanced, but emotionally and spiritually (and perhaps socially) hungry... this describes many of the devotees of Marshall Applewhite, the Heaven's Gate guru. Most members were highly educated, and had careers requiring degrees in scientific or technological fields... certainly not a group overly prone to irrational beliefs or fantasty-prone personalities, one might assume. Yet 38 people killed themselves because they had found in Applewhite and his beliefs something which seemed to fill their internal void, which traditional systems had failed to do.
The second example is the person who might be described as "book-smart, street-foolish"... in this case, I am referring to the Stanford Research Institute scientists that Uri Geller was able to fool- who had overlooked Geller's amazing ability to discern what number was being written on a piece of paper, though he no way of seeing the paper... by watching the path the TOP of the pencil made, since there was nothing blocking his view of that.
The story of "Clever Hans" is also instructive in the lesson that something is not necessarily what it appears to be.
Do not forget that shaming a rascal often has a very temporary effect- they will often resume doing what they know how to do best, if enough people have forgotten about their previous mischief, or a location where the news hasn't gotten around about them yet can be found...
The American religious fraud Peter Popoff was exposed as such on national television in 1987, and immediately declared bankruptcy. Yet, according to ABC News:
"In 2003 Popoff's ministry received over $9.6 million and by 2005 the amount had risen to over $23 million. In that year he and his wife were paid a combined total of nearly $1 million, while two of his children were receiving over $180,000 each."
I mention all of this simply to reinforce the idea that phony godmen have been with us in every time, in every culture, in every belief system... and in kaliyug they of course will flourish and proliferate.
May Maa bless us all with true discernment, that we may recognise such vampires whatever their guise, and deny them lodging in our minds, our hearts, our communities; may the Third Eye be opened against those who prey upon Her most vulnerable children!
JAI MATA DI
Last edited by JaiMaaDurga; 01 December 2011 at 01:20 AM. Reason: properly attributing quote
here and now
Most interesting! But I doubt human guru's will have such enhanced sense / mood pereception as Clever Hans. Yes, the phenominan is not particular to India. In India its perhaves more acute than present day west - but that's about it.
What is Here, is Elsewhere. What is not Here, is Nowhere.
New Member
The shastras have to be interpreted within the permissible narrow window of flexibility, because stretching it too far would invite suspicion and the swami fades into anonymity pretty fast. Therefore those swamis who lack depth in understanding of scriptures would prefer not to quote any sanskrit verses and keep away from analyzing the complex concepts; if at all do so minimally and lecture without any punctuating references. They thankfully don’t get to distort the sacred and timeless scriptures. How wonderful !!
Having escaped the scrutiny of shastra experts the oversight and regulation now gets tossed at the doorstep of the congregation or the followers in general. What keeps swamis stand sanitized in this ever tempting hedonistic existence of ours then?! Enter the private life. Simply there is none ! Personal (private) life of all gurus and swamis permits no transgressions whatsoever. Life of a hindu swami should closely resemble a renunciate in order to gain respect of followers. They should not touch tobacco,meat, wine, woman/man. Being propelled on to a pedestal, they will have round the clock company of swarming sishyas (close disciples), and thus they cant, for example, have a holiday all by themselves on a beach in a remote island.True, they do travel/stay first class, thats permissible to keep them stressfree. Jst imagine them living under leaky roofs and travelling in a crowded 3rd class rail coach. They would rather retire into a sannyasin life in Himalayas as often many other committed sadhus do. Once even a single sishya witnesses his swami doing something 'wrong', the sishya invariably leaves without any good byes, and then the entire congregation melts away like ice around him/her before he knows it. With unrestricted access to swamis very personal life, the sishyas are the unlikely surveillance cameras. Paradoxically, larger the following gets, greater gets the life restricted. Mere first class travel/stay wont sustain the drive, I know it gets tiresome pretty soon. Should one prefers to step out of the suffocating job description and looks for other pleasures then the Shishya factor kicks in.
(On acomparison note, western ‘independent’ preachers, like televangelists, can havea wife, eat, smoke and drink what they prefer and live a luxurious life in abig home driving expensive cars etc. Some of them divorce and remarry,invariably a younger woman !!)
So whats the role of these swamis and gurus who aren’t experts in shastras then ? They always stick to message of love, talk of tolerance and never preach militancy. Their wealth will be well spent on charity. Names like Puttaparti Saibaba and Maata Amritananda mayi comes to mind. So long as they help others in any which waythey can, I shall keep cheering them. Mere interpretation and translation of shastras wont do for me. Namaste.
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