Ishwa helper Reged: 03/03/02 Posts: 553

Re: Are the Brahmins Leaders of Hindu Religion? [Re: AKMehta] #14008 - 03/27/02 04:20 AM Edit Reply Quote

Dear AKMehta, It is very sad that these things happen. I'm aware of these unhuman socio-political practices in India. The very word 'caste' is wrong. It has nothing to do with Hinduism. The ancient word is Varna, from vr=to choose. Whatever was the ancient meaning, we have to deal now with malfunctions. Please don't feel offended, but Mohandas Gandhi is the wrong example for any improvement on social reform, because he's very controversial. The best way to have social reforms is at least doing it on many fronts ( but this is nothing new): 1. within the constitution 2. within the educational institutions 3. within the religious institutions 4. within the private spheres How idealistic this is. The very people who should give an example and a lead in this process are just content with keeping the power and exploit. The abusive groups of those people are just frogs like Rishi Vasishtha said in the RigVeda: They merely quack mantra's but don't understand what they are saying. There are many Brahmins who are great persons, but are knocked down by these groups. The Varna system of Vedic times is not what it is like afterwards. In the oldest Vedic period there weren't even Varnas at all in the modern sense ! Varna was only meant to denote the community as a whole with the same cultural package. Puru-sha is Consciousness and we are all the Manu-sha part of Purusha. If Purusha is symbolically and functionally described as fourfold but of one total personality, we as human beings can be fourfold too (It's not a must). But I believe basically only in this sense: Every individual IS potentially (being an 'drop' of Purusha) also Brahmanya, Rajanya, Vaishya, Shaudra in one person. It depends on (getting a) chance and choice how this is developed. Besides, when a person is busy with the devotional part he is connecting with his Brahmanya part, when he�s doing his household duties of organising and protecting he�s connected with his Rajanya part, when he�s bringing income and doing shopping and administration, etc he is connected with his Vaishya part, and when doing the most useful manual jobs in the househould he�s connected with his Shaudra part. (take house for household with families or for society or nation or globe, or even universe than we get a greater picture) It sounds maybe very progressive or even revolutionary, but it is very practical. No person doing all these functions will ever look down upon others. Because every function is then sacred to him as being a reflexion of Purusha-Brahman in himself. Since this is what Varna should have been in the first place, but nowadays it is not, the system should be reformed. But the system has in the incarnation of 'caste' a very bad (discriminatory) taste'. And we should get rid of that tamasika aspect. Give the functions again the flavour of fresh sattvika-ta, than it can become rajasika again = practical. There�s a lot of work to be done. Edited by Ishwa on 03/27/02 03:11 AM (server time).