[Advaita-l] Advaita and Caste System

[Dr D Bharadwaj]

''And that's racist''

Dear Sri Suresh,

Praveen is right. He is simple and straight..calls a spade a spade, by
boldly acknowledging the Scripture.

That its racist is *your view*. It is not racism..at least need not be so..
What is interesting is that you seem to be absolutely sure that it is
racism, as if it need not even be discussed.

In the first place, there is no race issue here, except a reference to
birth-acquired attributes. Even if we are justified to extend the definition
and  the scope of the term race and read racism there, there is a flaw.

Acknowledging race is not racism. Race bias is racism. Acknowledging caste
is not castesm. Caste bias is. Acknowledging the gender and the gender
attributes is not gender bias.

Where is the bias in what Praveen had truthfully averred?

We need not hasten to repudiate the race and the race attributes out of any
misapprehensions of being called racist.


శ్రీరమణార్పణమస్తు

Dr. D. Bharadwaj
dr.d.bharadwaj at gmail.com

<dr.d.bharadwaj at gmail.com>
sarvE bhavantu sukhinaH |
sarvE santu nirAmayAH |
sarvE bhadrAni paSyantu |
*mA kaschit duHkha bhAg bhavEt || *








On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Praveen R. Bhat <bhatpraveen at gmail.com>wrote:

> Apologies, I meant Suresh ji.
>
> Kind rgds,
> --Praveen R. Bhat
> /* Through what should one know That owing to which all this is known!
> [Br.Up. 4.5.15] */
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 3:04 PM, Praveen R. Bhat <bhatpraveen at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hari OM, Satish ji,
> >
> > I've already answered this when I said "Orthodox systems believe in
> > the same thing but the span is *not* restricted to this life, its
> > spread across lives, which an average human being cannot see. The
> > present life is a result of such acquisition
> > across past lives and hence the birth in a particular caste in this
> > life, defining the eligibility."
> >
> > Either you conveniently ignored it or you misunderstood it. The word
> > *acquisition* is a loaded word which means both merits and demerits
> > acquired in previous lives, which includes education, experience,
> > intelligence, etc. I wonder if you are aware
> > of karma theory at all? Without learning that, your stand that I
> > presented a flawed reasoning is meaningless.
> >
> > Kind rgds,
> > --Praveen R. Bhat
> > /* Through what should one know That owing to which all this is known!
> > [Br.Up. 4.5.15] */
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:21 PM, Suresh <mayavaadi at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Dear Praveen,
> >>
> >> Thanks for your reply.
> >>
> >> I have a problem with the following statement of yours:
> >>
> >> "modern thinking
> >> suggests that the eligibility of a person to do anything is to be
> >> based on the education, experience and level of intelligence he
> >> acquired. Does anyone question this and if not, why not call all equal
> >> and fight that out?"
> >>
> >> Your reasoning is flawed because in this case, eligibility is determined
> by education and NOT by birth. You cannot become a doctor unless you have
> MBBS; merely taking birth in a family of doctors isn't enough. But in caste
> system, even a crook is a Brahmin provided he is born to Brahmins. A good
> person is a non-Brahmin if he's born to non-Brahmin.
> >>
> >> As you can see, there is no consideration of experience, education,
> intelligence, or virtues - birth alone seems to be the criterion. And that's
> racist.
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Archives: http://lists.advaita-vedanta./archives/advaita-l/<http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/>
> http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.culture.religion.advaita
>
> To unsubscribe or change your options:
> http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/advaita-l
>
> For assistance, contact:
> listmaster at advaita-vedanta.org
>