Post by kingcobra on Aug 6, 2007 4:28:15 GMT -6
This essay was inspired by Dawkin's latest title, The God Delusion, which I bought yesterday with my gift certificate to Barnes & Noble, as was my thread Just Imagine on another topic here.
Nitaidas has advocated a sane Vaishnavism on his website. I am not sure that sanity and religious fervor can actually be reconciled any more than creationism and evolution can be. I think that what we really need to aim for is something sensible that distills the essence of bhakti without the nonsensical attitudes and infinite regresses, etc. of illogical premises. Otherwise, any rational person will summarily dismiss Caitanya's bhakti movement as a mere reductio ad absurdum. I recently designed a mantra meditation workshop in collaboration with the owner of a local yoga studio. It all seemed good on paper until the first session wherein the majority of the people that had signed up for the workshop balked at the notion of learning the correct pronunciation of Sanskrit as part of the curriculum. Apparently they just wanted some formula for stress reduction (or whatever) bereft of meaning and irrespective of the historical context of yoga darshan. They just wanted another 12 step program. I suppose it would not have mattered from a practical standpoint if we had designed the workshop to jump right into techniques of mantra meditation, and I could have just corrected their mangling of the Sanskrit mantras. Perhaps that is what I will do if I am ever called upon to design another such workshop. The type of meditation that is taught in Tai Chi classes at our health club far more resembles smaranam than sravanam/kirtanam or mantra japa. There is a certain expectation on the part of Americans when it comes to something like meditation, which they would rather take up outside of any religious context, unless of course they are on some retreat at a Christian monastery. [Excuse the stream of consciousness here, for I have been plagued with insomnia of late, which tends to disrupt my organization of thoughts. Not to worry, it is being treated by a team of medical experts, and so far some of their remedies sort of work.]
Granted CV in America is an Indic transplant, or perhaps a diaspora (especially in the case of individuals like JD33 who took the time to fully immerse themselves in the tradition), but it still needs certain cultural nutrients if it is to take hold, just as a sprouted seed requires essential nutrients from air, water and soil to grow into a mature and reproductive plant. It is up to us here and now to figure out how to, first for our own personal balance and then for the personal balance of others, present the tradition as a non-fanatical one. There is going to be a certain percentage of Americans that are not looking to jump from one religious dogma to another. They are more interested in ideas and philosophical constructs and a theology that is not at loggerheads with logic. That is the audience that should be our focus.
Nitaidas has advocated a sane Vaishnavism on his website. I am not sure that sanity and religious fervor can actually be reconciled any more than creationism and evolution can be. I think that what we really need to aim for is something sensible that distills the essence of bhakti without the nonsensical attitudes and infinite regresses, etc. of illogical premises. Otherwise, any rational person will summarily dismiss Caitanya's bhakti movement as a mere reductio ad absurdum. I recently designed a mantra meditation workshop in collaboration with the owner of a local yoga studio. It all seemed good on paper until the first session wherein the majority of the people that had signed up for the workshop balked at the notion of learning the correct pronunciation of Sanskrit as part of the curriculum. Apparently they just wanted some formula for stress reduction (or whatever) bereft of meaning and irrespective of the historical context of yoga darshan. They just wanted another 12 step program. I suppose it would not have mattered from a practical standpoint if we had designed the workshop to jump right into techniques of mantra meditation, and I could have just corrected their mangling of the Sanskrit mantras. Perhaps that is what I will do if I am ever called upon to design another such workshop. The type of meditation that is taught in Tai Chi classes at our health club far more resembles smaranam than sravanam/kirtanam or mantra japa. There is a certain expectation on the part of Americans when it comes to something like meditation, which they would rather take up outside of any religious context, unless of course they are on some retreat at a Christian monastery. [Excuse the stream of consciousness here, for I have been plagued with insomnia of late, which tends to disrupt my organization of thoughts. Not to worry, it is being treated by a team of medical experts, and so far some of their remedies sort of work.]
Granted CV in America is an Indic transplant, or perhaps a diaspora (especially in the case of individuals like JD33 who took the time to fully immerse themselves in the tradition), but it still needs certain cultural nutrients if it is to take hold, just as a sprouted seed requires essential nutrients from air, water and soil to grow into a mature and reproductive plant. It is up to us here and now to figure out how to, first for our own personal balance and then for the personal balance of others, present the tradition as a non-fanatical one. There is going to be a certain percentage of Americans that are not looking to jump from one religious dogma to another. They are more interested in ideas and philosophical constructs and a theology that is not at loggerheads with logic. That is the audience that should be our focus.
