Reform In World Religions

An integrated approach is needed to reform most of the world religions in which all the sciences and disciplines like physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, etc., etc. along with computer sciences help in the ethical and rational understanding of religious orders including their cleansing. This review is now due.

-Promod Puri

MULLER REPORT SPARES THE BIG ONE

March 25, 2019Edit

By Promod Puri

The Hindi phrase “khoda pahar nikla chuha (dug the mountain, got out a rat) or the English equivalent: much ado about nothing, is the essence of Robert Mueller’s partially-released report.

However, in this case instead catch of one single big rat, the two-year-long digging did find lot more casualties, 34 of them in all, much to the disappointment of many who were expecting an explosive closure.

It all began when Donald Trump was accused that he along with his election team conspired with Russians to influence the 2016 US presidential poll.

The high-profile investigation which involved many lawyers and dozens of FBI agents incurred an expense of over $30 million.

President Trump all along claimed that he was innocent and that he was being witch-hunted by his opponents. Nonetheless, the Mueller report did result in indictments of many of his lieutenants.

They included Robert Stone (former Trump advisor), Michael Cohen (former trump attorney), Paul Manafort (former campaign chair), George Papadopoulos (former campaign aide), Michael Flynn (former national security advisor, Konstantin Kilimnik (alleged Russian spy), etc., etc.

While the curtains are finally down for the Mueller-directed political drama, Trumps stands tall, happy, golfing and continues delighting and distracting the world with his daily treats of tweets.

DAVID SIDOO, A SACRIFICIAL LAMB

It is a case of compromising with ethics and risking his own reputation for the sake of securing a good future for his sons.

This could be a sacrifice for the kids, but the laws are blind when decorated businessman and celebrated donor to the University of British Columbia, David Sidoo was arrested in the United States last Friday.

The alleged charge is that Sidoo paid $100,000 in 2011 to have one individual to take the qualifying test in place of his older son for admission to a California University. The scheme worked, and the son got the required marks to the admission.

In another US Justice Dept. indictment, Sidoo paid $100,000 for his younger son to obtain the qualifying score in the US universities.

These are all allegations, with the presumption of his being innocent.

The case confronts with the situation where morality or ethically-wrong- doing poses a dilemma for the father who likes any other parent would do anything for their kids’ future.

But since he is caught, the long arms of the laws have made David Sidoo, a sacrificial lamb.

-by Promod Puri

Changing World Needs Changing World Orders

Many rituals, customs, and traditions related to our religions need a review for their practicality in our ever-changing world culture.

Moreover, in progressive development, the call of humanity seeks to re-evaluate each of our religions, rituals, customs, traditions, social and political institutions, including Left and Right isms, which impart values and behaviors impacting our societies.

This resolution is part of the evolution and management of civil society we live in. Evolution of civilization is natural as well as essential for the rational and intelligent creation of environments influencing our lives.

The contemporary world society needs Neologism.

Neologism means to introduce a new word or new senses of existing words. In its expanded definition neologism also involves “a new doctrine, especially a new interpretation of sacred writings”, according to the Dictionary.com.

-By Promod Puri

NO BASIS WHY INDIAN SUB-CONTINENT DIVIDED 72 YRS AGO

March 10, 2019Edit

Flip the coin and on one side India and Pakistan seem to be combating with each other forever. On the other side, they are sharing the same bread of common roots, common cultures, languages, and traditions.

This love and hate relationship between the two neighbors is both as a result of natural and historic bonding between the peoples of the two countries. At the same time, there is the hostility generated by militancy from Pakistan and India’s dithering stand in resolving the Kashmir problem.

In 1947 when the British colonial rulers left the Indian subcontinent Pakistan was established. It was on the basis that the Muslims population would have their own country. This was done by simply drawing a distorted boundary line along the north-western part of united India. A similar line was drawn in the northeastern part. Thus a geographically unique nation of Pakistan, with miles apart east and west regions, was constituted.

The partition of United India in practically three regions saw one of the worst communal riots. In this abrupt war of hatred, hundreds of thousands of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs were killed. Millions faced unprecedented miseries as a result of sudden uprooting of people from their ancestral homes and lands.

In that bloody anarchy, however, Pakistan got its Muslim majority.

But the genesis of Pakistan based on one religion could not represent the diversity within its Muslim population. Different languages, different cultures, along with different sects within Islam were part of the reality of Pakistan as well. The result East Pakistan was completely scratched out from the map. And a new nation of Bangladesh was born. This was a negation to the perception that a common religion would hold the nation together irrespective of its cultural, linguistic and ethnic pluralities.

In this context, one wonders why the subcontinent was divided in the first place. If carving a Muslim state was the main reason to establish Pakistan then it did not take in its fold all the Muslims in united India. Nor it could address the regional and diverse cultural and linguistic aspirations of its people. Urdu or Hindusthani speaking migrants settled in the Sind and Punjab provinces of Pakistan felt alienated.

Moreover, the division of the sub-continent generated a never-ending hostility between India and Pakistan which is dominated by the Kashmir problem.

By Promod Puri https://promodpuri.com/

LEADER OF CHOICE

His image may be soiled by the media-branded “explosive” testimony of ex-justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould last week, Prime Minister Justine Trudeau is still my choice of being the leader of the Liberal Party to win the next federal election in Canada. 

The alternative of the Conservative Party with its leader Andrew James Scheer is politically and socially retrogressive for the liberal-spirited, non-racist multicultural Canadian society. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh fits well as a dedicated socialist leader, but he needs to undergo more political baking to be better known and accepted by all Canadians from coast to coast.
-Promod Puri

MANUSMRITI AND WOMEN

Since bias knows no boundaries, Manusmriti not only expounds the social distance between the upper and lower castes, but it also delineates the status of women by curbing their rights. It lists guidelines for men in selecting marriage partners and puts a stamp of their superiority by creating gender inequality.
In chapter 3 with numbered paragraphs here it is what Manusmriti prescribes:
8. One should not marry women who have reddish hair, redundant parts of the body [such as six fingers], one who is often sick, one without hair or having excessive hair and one who has red eyes.
9. One should not marry women whose names are similar to constellations, trees, rivers, those from a low caste, mountains, birds, snakes, slaves or those whose names inspire terror.
10. Wise men should not marry women who do not have a brother and whose parents are not socially well known.
11. Wise men should marry only women who are free from bodily defects, with beautiful names, grace/gait like an elephant, moderate hair on the head and body, soft limbs and small teeth.
61. For if the wife is not radiant with beauty, she will not attract her husband; but if she has no attractions for him, no children will be born.
62. If the wife is radiant with beauty, the whole house is bright; but if she is destitute of beauty, all will appear dismal.
147. By a girl, by a young woman, or even by an aged one, nothing must be done independently, even in her own house.
148. In childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons; a woman must never be independent.
149. She must not seek to separate herself from her father, husband, or sons; by leaving them she would make both (her own and her husband's) families contemptible.
150. She must always be cheerful, clever in (the management of her) household affairs, careful in cleaning her utensils, and economical in expenditure.
151. Him to whom her father may give her, or her brother with the father's permission, she shall obey as long as he lives, and when he is dead, she must not insult (his memory).
154. Though destitute of virtue, or seeking pleasure (elsewhere), or devoid of good qualities, (yet) a husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by a faithful wife.
155. No sacrifice, no vow, no fast must be performed by women apart (from their husbands); if a wife obeys her husband, she will for that (reason alone) be exalted in heaven.
156. A faithful wife, who desires to dwell (after death) with her husband, must never do anything that might displease him who took her hand, whether he be alive or dead.
160. A virtuous wife who after the death of her husband constantly remains chaste, reaches heaven, though she has no son, just like those chaste men.
161. But a woman who from a desire to have offspring violates her duty towards her (deceased) husband, brings on herself disgrace in this world and loses her place with her husband (in heaven).
And in Chapter 9 Manusmriti further explicates under each numbered paragraphs that:
3. Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman is never fit for independence.
10. No man can completely guard women by force, but they can be guarded by the employment of the (following) expedients:
11. Let the (husband) employ his (wife) in the collection and expenditure of his wealth, in keeping (everything) clean, in (the fulfillment of) religious duties, in the preparation of his food, and in looking after the household utensils.
29. She who, controlling her thoughts, speech, and acts, violates not her duty towards her lord, dwells with him (after death) in heaven, and in this world is called by the virtuous a faithful (wife, sadhvi).
30. But for disloyalty to her husband a wife is censured among men, and (in her next life) she is born in the womb of a jackal and tormented by diseases, the punishment of her sin.
Manu's architected gender relationship molded the mind of Hindu male's psychology toward the woman. The latter also conditioned her to behave as per the Manusmriti texts. That behavior requires a woman to be passive and submissive. The management restricts her to family and domestic chores. In this structured framework lower caste women are triply discriminated by caste, class, and gender.
(Excerpts from Hinduism Beyond Rituals, Customs, and Traditions, Chapter 9