A cocktail of the worst of the East and the West

Government agenda to control Hindu temples Dilip Lakhani Vivekananda Centre, London

Vivekananda had warned that if India loses its sense of perspective and moves away from spirituality and embraces a more secular stance, the state will crumble. Spirituality is ingrained in our blood, even if we try to move away from it, we are bound to fail as it goes against the grain of our inner constitution. The 'easy independence' we enjoyed through Gandhian methodology has come at a heavy price; our future being dictated by the Nehru clan and all that 'secular' ideology that came with it. We displaced our 'spiritual ideology' in favour of this 'crass materialism' that was imported from the West. The West has mastered this ideology and has harnessed its powers for the good of its people. We alas are unable to handle it. What we now have is a cocktail of the worst of the East and worst of the West in full play on the Indian subcontinent.

The Bollywood phenomenon is an example of this amalgamation: Escapism, sentimentality, pornography, greed and lust -- sheer poison laced with honey -- deceptively dished out through wonderful settings and music is eating away the spiritual fabric of this nation even in the remotest villages...but no one seems to notice or care...What to say of the politicians and their methods of promoting a 'secular' agenda. A Hindu nation where the real Hindus have to take cover by resorting to 'declassifying themselves from being defined as Hindus' in order to survive (as in the case of the Ramakrishna and Aurobindo Ashrams), reflects the desperate state of affairs.

Where is the dignity or freedom that should arise from our Hindu teachings? We may try and protest to the people, but they have gone back to their inertial sleep with easy fixes of the opium of popular Bollywood culture. The resolution of the Indian problem will come -- and it will come from the West. The spiritual salvation of India is through the spiritual salvation of the West. This nation is maturing itself out of a 'materialistic mode' and is shifting to a spiritual mode. It is only when this process matures and becomes established in the West, will India get a wake-up call from her slumber of degradation. The world is now a global village and things have a habit of developing rapidly ....In our lifetimes we will see these developments coming to fruition. Well, we hope and pray that this process happens sooner rather than later. # posted by swamijyoti Tuesday, February 28, 2006 @ 7:43 PM