[Advaita-l] Logical Basis of Apaureshyatva

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

I agree with Shri Vidyasankar. We should be conscious of political motives
of the Church and the western countries but not be xenophobic. We should
also not be scared of the Church. In 1989, the Pope said that "Yoga is a
cult of the body". He was hoping to take people away from yoga. But now the
Church has to embrace Yoga. Good things and truth will truimph.

In ISKCON, CIA planted many agents to understand its rapid progress and
objectives so that it can keep it in check. When this brought to the notice
of Srila Prabupada, he said, "Give them Halawa. We have nothing to
hide". Some of them rose to the highest echelons and engaged in child abuse
destroying the institution temporarily but rebounded. Some of them got
purified by the devotional mercy in the prasadam and some got destroyed by
the high cholesterol content of the Halawa :)

Anyway, we need to nurture traditional scholars so that they can publish
critical works. Shri Subrahmanian wrote about people memorizing entire text
and commentary. None of the western scholars I have seen can match that.
 Many of them such as Prof. Witzel cannot even speak in Sanskrit though
they translate books. Our traditional scholars, who not only have knowledge
but also anushtanam, should be able to live and raise a family comfortably.
There are many disparate organisations which do that to their capacity.
Raja Sastrigal of Pondicherry, my family priest, runs a veda patashala and
goshala with 50 cows. He gets 50000INR per month for brahmanas who join his
team to do vaidhika work! I do not know enough about Shri Mani Dravid
Sastrigal but think his trust to give rewards for traditional scholars. We
need more of it and concerted effort so that traditional scholars do not
have to struggle for existence. When this happens, we do not have to rely
on translations of scholars who do not have anushtanam.