[MannoFr]

Dr. Carl Sagan, (1934-1996) famous astrophysicist,in his book, Cosmos says:

"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still."
There is the deep and appealing notion that the universe is but the dream of the god who, after a Brahma years, dissolves himself into a dreamless sleep. The universe dissolves with him - until, after another Brahma century, he stirs, recomposes himself and begins again to dream the great cosmic dream."

[autoloanexpert]

"Immanuel Velikovsky (the author of Earth in Upheaval) in his book Worlds in Collision, notes that the idea of four ancient ages terminated by catastrophe is common to Indian as well as to Western sacred writing. However, in the Bhagavad Gita and in the Vedas, widely divergent numbers of such ages, including an infinity of them, are given; but, more interesting, the duration of the ages between major catastrophes is specified as billions of years. .. "
"The idea that scientists or theologians, with our present still puny understanding of this vast and awesome cosmos, can comprehend the origins of the universe is only a little less silly than the idea that Mesopotamian astronomers of 3,000 years ago – from whom the ancient Hebrews borrowed, during the Babylonian captivity, the cosmological accounts in the first chapter of Genesis – could have understood the origins of the universe. We simply do not know.
The Hindu holy book, the Rig Veda (X:129), has a much more realistic view of the matter:

[vipBrooriErok]

I am sorry to have missed your poll. Great thread.

[FoetAgerhot46]

*** T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (1888-1965) American-English Harvard educated poet, playwright, and literary critic, a leader of the modernist movement in literature.
Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948. He drew his intellectual sustenance from the Bhagavad Gita. He considered it to be the greatest philosophical poem after Dante's Divine Comedy. (source: Resinging the Gita). Also, he kept a copy of The Twenty-eight Upanishads in his personal library for ready reference. (Among the books from Eliot's library now in the Hayward Bequest in King's College Library is Vasudev Lazman Sastri Phansikar's The Twenty-Eight Upanishads (Bombay: Tukaram Javaji, 1906). Inscribed on the fly-leaf is the following note: Thomas Eliot with C.R. Lanman's kindest regards and best wishes. Harvard College. May 6, 1912. At Harvard, Eliot studied Sanskrit and Pali for two years (1920-11), probably in order to acquaint himself with Indian philosophical texts in the original, for he later admitted that though he studied "the ancient Indian languages" and " read a little poetry," he was "chiefly interested at that time in philosophy." As early as 1918, Eliot reviewed for The Egoist an obscure treatise on Indian philosophy called Brahmadarsanam or Intuition of the Absolute by Sri Ananda Acharya.

(source: T. S. Eliot Vedanta and Buddhism - By P. S. Sri p. 10-11 and 126). Eliot wrote in 1933: "Their (Indian philosophers') subtleties make most of the great European philosophers look like schoolboys."

[Lillie_Steins]

David Bohm (1917-1992) Born in Wiles-Barre, Pennsylvania on December 20, 1917, he studied under Einstein and Oppenheimer, received his B.Sc. degree from Pennsylvania State College in 1939 and his Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1943. He was the last graduate student to study with Oppenheimer at U.C. in the 1940s, where he remained as a research physicist after Oppenheimer left for Los Alamos to work on the atomic bomb. Bohm was one of the world's greatest quantum mechanical physicists and philosophers and was deeply influenced by both J. Krishnamurti and Einstein, was one of the world's greatest quantum mechanical physicists and philosophers. David Bohm explains his theory that there is something like life and mind enfolded in everything. Bohm was profoundly affected by his close contact with J. Krishnamurti. "Yes, and Atman is from the side of meaning. You would say Atman is more like the meaning. But then what is meant would be Brahman, I suppose; the identity of consciousness and cosmos....This claims that the meaning and what is meant are ultimately one, which is the phrase 'Atman equals Brahman' of classical Hindu philosophy."

[Binuilienzync]

Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901-1976) German theoretical physicist was one of the leading scientists of the 20th century. Heisenberg spent some time in India as Rabindranath Tagore's guest in 1929. There he got acquainted with Indian philosophy which brought him great comfort for its similarity to modern physics. Heisenberg is best known for his Uncertainty Principle and was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics.

"the startling parallelism between today's physics and the world-vision of eastern mysticism remarks, the increasing contribution of eastern scientists from India, China and Japan, among others, reinforces this conjunction. Physical science has now become planetary and draws into its fold an increasing number of non-westerners who find in its new vision of the universe many elements that are quick to note, one cannot always distinguish between statements made by eastern metaphysics based on mystical insight, and the pronouncements of modern physics based on observations, experiments and mathematical calculations."

[Rinkeliacasse]

Dr. Jean LeMee born in France in 1931, Studied Sanskrit at Columbia University. Author of the Hymns from the Rig Veda says:

"Precious stones or durable materials - gold, silver, bronze, marble, onyx or granite - have been used by ancient people in an attempt to immortalize themselves. Not so however the ancient Vedic Aryans. They turned to what may seem the most volatile and insubstantial material of all - the spoken word ...The pyramids have been eroded by the desert wind, the marble broken by earthquakes, and the gold stolen by robbers, while the Veda is recited daily by an unbroken chain of generations, traveling like a great wave through the living substance of mind. .." "The Rig Veda is a glorious song of praise to the Gods, the cosmic powers at work in Nature and in Man. Its hymns record the struggles, the battles, and victories, the wonder, the fears, the hopes, and the wisdom of the Ancient Path Makers.

Glory be to Them!"

[realnilkless]

this is a heartwarming story, in today's toronto globe and mail.

this is an upbeat story of hope amisdst despair, and ofcourse, it is also a story of hinduism, as viewed by a foreigner - the canadian resident correspondent in india of the globe.

many of us living deep south, may not be aware of people like poonam of this report. elsewhere, when we list, 'dalits' who are prominent, it might well do us good to remember that most of them who are in the villages, still live in serfdom.

without much ado, here is from today's globe

the story of poonam and a few others.../

[wvbwxol]

this is a heartwarming story, in today's toronto globe and mail.

this is an upbeat story of hope amisdst despair, and ofcourse, it is also a story of hinduism, as viewed by a foreigner - the canadian resident correspondent in india of the globe.

many of us living deep south, may not be aware of people like poonam of this report. elsewhere, when we list, 'dalits' who are prominent, it might well do us good to remember that most of them who are in the villages, still live in serfdom.

without much ado, here is from today's globe

the story of poonam and a few others.../

The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom.
- bell hooks

[DYjLN8rF]

Alan Watts(1915-1973) a professor, graduate school dean and research fellow of Harvard University, drew heavily on the insights of Vedanta. Watts became well known in the 1960s as a pioneer in bringing Eastern philosophy to the West.

"There is an unrecognized but mighty taboo--our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are. Briefly, the thesis is that the prevalent sensation of oneself as a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin is a hallucination which accords neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy religions of the East--in particular the central and germinal Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism. This hallucination underlies the misuse of technology for the violent subjugation of man's natural environment and, consequently, its eventual destruction. It is rather a cross-fertilization of Western science with an Eastern intuition". "To the philosophers of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of innumerable ways of applying it."

[XarokLasa]

There are many Hindu Abhiman these days. The Sanaatan religion owes a lot to Adhi Shankaracharya for
its Survival. I submit here a version what I read about the Gayathri, which which we chant daily -

Om - The primeval sound that represents Brahma
Bhur - The physical world that embodies the vital spiritual energy or "Pran"
Bhuvah - The mental world and destroyer of all sufferings
Swaha - The celestial and spiritual world that embodies happiness
Tat - That or God, referring to transcendental (extremely great) Paramatma (Ultimate Spirit)
Savithur - The Bright Sun or the Creator and Preserver of World
Varenyam - Best or Most adorable
Bhargo - Destroyer of all sins
Devasya - Divine Deity or Supreme Lord
Dheemahi - Meditate upon and take in
Dhiyo - The Intellect
Yo - The Light
Nah - Our
Prachodayaat - Inspire or Enlighten

Balasubramanian
Ambattur

[vulikox]

The above information gives intellectual pursuits and it is for me for the first time, I go
through this. Thank you very much.

Balasubramanian
Ambattur

[Haftdrarp]

Alan Watts(1915-1973) a professor, graduate school dean and research fellow of Harvard University, drew heavily on the insights of Vedanta. Watts became well known in the 1960s as a pioneer in bringing Eastern philosophy to the West.

"There is an unrecognized but mighty taboo--our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are. Briefly, the thesis is that the prevalent sensation of oneself as a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin is a hallucination which accords neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy religions of the East--in particular the central and germinal Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism. This hallucination underlies the misuse of technology for the violent subjugation of man's natural environment and, consequently, its eventual destruction. It is rather a cross-fertilization of Western science with an Eastern intuition". "To the philosophers of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of innumerable ways of applying it."

It gives lot of information for people like me to know many things. Thank you very much.

Balasubramanian
Ambattur

[Faigokilix]

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) German philosopher, poet and critic, clergyman, born in East Prussia. Herder was an enormously influential literary critic and a leader in the Sturn und Drang movement. He saw in India the:

"lost paradise of all religions and philosophies," 'the cradle of humanity,' and also its 'eternal home,' the great Orient 'waiting to be discovered within ourselves.'

According to him, "mankind's origins can be traced to India, where the human mind got the first shapes of wisdom and virtue with a simplicity, strength and sublimity which has - frankly spoken - nothing, nothing at all equivalent in our philosophical, cold European world." Herder regarded the Hindus, because of their ethical teachings, as the most gentle and peaceful people on earth. Herder's "Thoughts of Some Brahmins "(1792) which contains a selection of gnomic stanzas in free translations, gathered from Bhartrihari, the Hitopdesa and the Bhagavad Gita, expressed these ideals. Herder pointed out to the spiritual treasures of India in search of which later German Sansritists and Indologists had devoted their lives.

[vasyasvc]

Troy Wilson Organ a professor at Ohio University and author of The Hindu quest for the perfection of man and Hinduism; its historical development, wrote: "Hindu thought is not a philosophy. It is a philosophical religion... "Hinduism is a sadhana which seeks to guide man to integration, to spiritualization, and to liberation......The concept of reincarnation is the Hindu way of asserting that there are no temporal nor developmental limits to the perfecting. "Hindu thought is natural, reasonable, and scientific. It is a process, not a result - a process of perfecting man". In the Hindu Monism (Advaita) God is not anthropomorphic being. He is All; He is not a despot or autocratic God.

[repldoinfo]

“We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made”. — Albert Einstein

When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous. - Albert Einstein

“India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grandmother of tradition”. — Mark Twain

“If there is one place on the face of earth where all dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India”. — French scholar Romain Rolland

“India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border”. — Hu Shih (Former Chinese ambassador to USA)
more…

“So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.” - Mark Twain

“Civilizations have arisen in other parts of the world. In ancient and modern times, wonderful ideas have been carried forward from one race to another…But mark you, my friends, it has been always with the blast of war trumpets and the march of embattled cohorts. Each idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood….. Each word of power had to be followed by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows. This, many other nations have taught; but India for thousands of years peacefully existed. Here activity prevailed when even Greece did not exist… Even earlier, when history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of that intense past, even from until now, ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it. We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live….!” - Swami Vivekananda, Great Indian Philosopher

“If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India” - Max Mueller

“India was the mother of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe’s languages. She was the mother of our philosophy, mother through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother through Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother through village communities of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.” -Will Durant

“In India, I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it, inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything, but possessed by nothing” - Apollonius Tyanaeus (Neo-Pythagorean)

Greeks, Scythians, Parthians, Kushans, Huns, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, Muslims, Portuguese, French, English, all went after one civilisation: India and prospered. It lost everything except its soul (spirituality). It will regain its true place in this world and its Sun will rise again. - Aggyatt Manav

"She (India) has left indelible imprints on one fourth of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries. She has the right to reclaim … her place amongst the great nations summarizing and symbolizing the spirit of humanity. From Persia to the Chinese sea, from the icy regions of Siberia to Islands of Java and Borneo, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales, and her civilization!" - Sylvia Levi

"There has been no more revolutionary contribution than the one which the Hindus (Indians) made when they invented zero." - Lancelot Hogben

"India – The land of Vedas, the remarkable works contain not only religious ideas for a perfect life, but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all were known to the seers who founded the Vedas." - Wheeler Wilcox (American poet)

"After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense." - W. Heisenberg (German Physicist)

"Our present knowledge of the nervous system fits in so accurately with the internal description of the human body given in the Vedas (5000 years ago). Then the question arises whether the Vedas are really religious books or books on anatomy of the nervous system and medicine."- Rele (Jewish writer)

"The Indian way of life provides the vision of the natural, real way of life. We veil ourselves with unnatural masks. On the face of India are the tender expressions which carry the mark of the Creator’s hand." - George Bernard Shaw (Irish playwrite)

"After a study of some forty years and more of the great religions of the world, I find none so perfect ,none so scientific, none so philosophical and no so spiritual that the great religion known by the name of Hinduism. Make no mistake, without Hinduism, India has no future. Hinduism is the soil in to which India’s roots are stuck and torn out of that she will inevitably wither as a tree torn out from its place. And if Hindus do not maintain Hinduism who shall save it? If India’s own children do not cling to her faith who shall guard it? India alone can save India and India and Hinduism are one." - Annie Besant (English theosophist)

"To the philosophers of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of innumerable ways of applying it."- Alan Watts (English philosopher)

"India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe’s languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy.

Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all. Nothing should more deeply shame the modern student than the recency and inadequacy of his acquaintance with India….This is the India that patient scholarship is now opening up like a new intellectual continent to that Western mind which only yesterday thought civilization an exclusive Western thing." - Will Durant (American philosopher)

"Going forward, you have a broad and beautiful street, full of rows of fine houses and streets of the sort I have described, and it is to be understood that the houses belong to men rich enough to afford such. In this street live many merchants, and there you will find all sorts of rubies, and diamonds, and emeralds, and pearls, and seed pearls, and cloths, and every other sort of thing there is on earth and that you may wish to buy" - Domingos Paes (Portuguese traveler who visited Hampi during (AD 1520-22) during the reign of Krishnadevaraya: Vijayanagar Empire)

"Towns and villages have inner gates; the walls are wide and high; the streets and lanes are torturous, and the roads winding. The thoroughfares are are dirty and the stalls arranged on both sides of the road with appropriate signs. Butchers, fishers, dancers, executioners and scavengers, and so on, have their abodes without the city. In coming and going these persons are bound to keep on the left side of the road till they arrive at their homes. Their houses are surrounded by low walls and form the suburbs. The earth being soft and muddy, the walls of the town are mostly built of bricks or tiles. The different buildings have the same form as those in China; rusher of dry branches, or tiles or boards are used for covering them. The walls are covered with lime and mud, mixed with cow dung for purity. At different seasons, flowers are scattered about. Such are some of their different customs." - Huen Tsiang (Chinese traveler visited India 629-645 A.D.)

"The most elegant and sublime of these is a representation of the creation of the universe at the beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. The god, called in this manifestation Nataraja, the Dance King. In the upper right hand is a drum whose sound is the sound of creation. In the upper left hand is a tongue of flame, a reminder that the universe, now newly created, with billions of years from now will be utterly destroyed. These profound and lovely images are, I like to imagine, a kind of premonition of modern astronomical ideas." - Dr.Carl Sagan (American astrophysicist)

"The writers of the Indian philosophies will survive, when the British dominion in India shall long have ceased to exist, and when the sources which it yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrances." - Lord Warren Hastings ( first governor general of British India)

[avaicavum]

I believe, there is nothing in the World that can be compared to Hinduism.
Secondly our Hindu Philosophy is just so unique and it has every and all the
back-ups and plenty of information that gives the justifying reason for believing
and proving it to be true at any point of time.

Balasubramanian
Ambattur

[xLQLRcXh]

bala,

i notice that all the quotes are from learned folks, ie folks who are interested, erudite and scholars of hinduism. these people, i think
have already a bias in favour of and have a feeling of goodwill towards our culture and heritage.

to the normal westerner in the street, i think, we are an unknown. not many would have heard of us. not many would care either. not
that it matters anyway. but many of them, may have some warped or distorted view of our way of life, same as we do of the west.

for example, the detailed reporting of the toronto globe and mail, will be an eye opener to many in canada. the concept of caste is
unknown in the west, or for that matter, outside of india. i think, it will do us good, to possess sufficient knowledge, not to deny the warts
in our background. people are human enough, to acknowledge shortcomings, for every religion and culture has its own negatives.

but it is important, how we recognize it, in today's india, and what we are doing, to rectify the wrongs. that is more impressive, i think,
than all the quotes by a few scholars, whose works or even names are not known, beyond their own circle of study.

my children grew up on amar chitra kathas. they know more about hinduism than i do. they can defend the good, and abhor the bad.
i think they have a more healthy attitude towards our faith, than me, warped as i am by the half attempted regimentation imposed on a
tambram kid of the 50s and 60s, from parents, who themselves were ambiguous about the rightness of it all.

hope this post to you, and to you only, makes some sense. if not, just ignore it.

thank you.

[SobiquYo]

Andre Malraux (1901-1976) author of Anti-memoir, profound thinker and French prolific writer, an essayist, novelist, art-historian, and political speech writer, Malraux did give his readers a philosophy.

"The problem of this century is the religious problem and the discovery of Hindu thought will have a great deal to do with the solving of that particular problem". “Europe is destructive, suicidal,” said André Malraux to Nehru in 1936, whom he would meet several times until the 1960s, trying in vain to persuade him of the relevance of India’s spirituality in today’s world.
Malraux also reflected :
"...The West regards as truth what the Hindu regards as appearance (for if human life, in the age of Christendom, was doubtless an ordeal it was certainly truth and not illusion), and the Westerner can regard knowledge of the the universe as the supreme value, while for the Hindu the supreme value is accession to the divine Absolute.

But the most profound difference is based on the fact that the fundamental reality for the West, Christian or athiest, is death, in whatever sense it may be interpreted --- while the fundamental reality for India is the endlessness of life in the endlessness of time: Who can kill immortality?

[Seisyvose]

talwar,

something very interesting i noticed.

all these quotes and praises, are about hindu thought. not about the hindus themselves

there is a story about hermann hesse the famous german author, 'siddhartha' 'journey to the east', two books about india that i have read during my teen years.

hermann, when he was so young, was simply fascinated by hindu philosophy that he had this overwhelming desire to visit india.

which he did. he was so upset and disappointed with what he found, in the india of the early 1900s, 'the physical experience... was to depress him."[28] Any spiritual or religious inspiration that he was looking for eluded him'.

just like the greeks of today populate greece, now corrupt and bankrupt, but with an ancient philosophy which the modern european civilization claims to be rooted from, sometimes i think, that it is only by accident that we today live in an india of ancient texts and cultures, and of which if we claim any credit, it looks anachronistic, to say the least.

the purity and the wisdom of the ancients simply do not dovetail with the narrow casteism and corruption of today's india. n'est pas?

our claims may be, even sound, hollow? the ancient hindus, may be as alien to us as ancient greeks are to the people who populate modern greece or turkey, ie the same land mass. that is just it.