Western Feminism as a Counter-Terrorism Doctrine

A small sample of statements by leading lights of Western feminism (WF):

(via @DeepikaBhardwaj on twitter to explain why she is not a feminist as she states in the last line of the picture above)

If these statements represent a more violent expression of a widespread but latent fear and rage among the persecuted women of some western societies, then it is both fair and useful to also analyze Western Feminism as a counter-terrorism doctrine. This suggestion should not be surprising, as the facts unearthed in the aftermath of 'India's Daughter' video show, the per-capita rate of violent crime against women in such societies are orders of magnitude worse than India (with significant under-reporting in most societies). Of course, India clearly has an emerging problem, but one that should and is being tackled boldly, and perhaps with a lot more wisdom, by women leaders in its society. More on that later. A limited point raised in this blog is this:
WF must also be analyzed as a counter-terrorism doctrine because, as data will show, there exists ample evidence to suggest that it was created to counter gender chauvinist terror inspired by History-centricAbrahamic male-dominated theology adopted in those societies. Terror victims respond violently by attacking the other gender, with scant or no regard for collateral damage in terms of destroyed families, innocent lives lost, and cultures exterminated. At best, the WF approach tolerates the male who accepts 'defeat', just like the MCP tolerates women who do the same, resulting in a constant state of tension that boils over repeatedly. In fact, one could say, that the WF members have become male gladiators for all practical purposes, in order to be successful in executing their adharmic counter-terrorism strategy. And this strategy, which looks more like a race to the bottom, is being promoted and marketed in all parts of the world as 'progressive'.

On the other hand, the Indian response is dharmic, and focuses on harmony and restoring balance via mutual respect, rather than myopically and foolishly thinking in terms of order versus chaos, of triumphant victor tolerating sore loser, and seeks to return the feminine to the highest place in the society it has traditionally occupied. This article is a good place to start.  For a detailed comparative analysis of the idea of mutual respect in dharma versus Abrahamic ideology, read Rajiv Malhotra's book Being Different'. The data has shown (read the books by Dr. R. Vaidyanathan, or the talks by S. Gurumurthy on this subject, for example) that the practical success of the traditional Indian economy (Mahalakshmi), its learning models (Saraswati), and its strength against aggression (Durga), are because they are rooted in the divine feminine. Thus, it seems clear to me that these particular choices of Lakshmi, Saraswati, Durga arose from the actions of ancient Indians who were actually practicing this successful approach, i.e., ground up, and in turn these deities served as exemplars for future generations to follow and be successful too. The ideas of eco-feminism, Yoga, vegetarianism, etc. that have become popular in the west, especially among women, also come from dharmic India. This is not surprising, since the very idea and source of strength is Shakti, which is important in the dharmic traditions of India. One can also understand the Indian versus western response as that of a Yogi versus the Gladiator.

Should one respond to gender-based fault-lines in societies by widening them using a counter-terrorism doctrine to achieve victory? or should one employ a dharmic solution to achieve harmony? Seems like a no-brainer.

Digestion of Hinduism: A Self-Study

Introduction
This is the first update on an ongoing self-study to improve my own understanding of 'digestion' using the example of Yoga. This is work in progress.

'Digestion' is a term coined by Rajiv Malhotra. My reading is that it represents the calculated misappropriation of methods and concepts from Indian (dharmic) knowledge systems, which are subsequently reassembled and integrated into an existing western or non-dharmic framework with the final goal of maintaining or enhancing the latter's balance of power, and if necessary, discarding the original dharmic method/concept/source/context as redundant and obsolete. Rajiv Malhotra explains this via the tiger-deer metaphor, which is discussed in other blog posts and in his forum.

Background
(Read 'Being Different' book for the complete and accurate details)
Fundamental Christianity, like its Islamic and Judaic counterparts, are history-centric systems. In more general language, their core is dogmatic and tied to a finite number of unique supernatural top-down intervention(s) in human-recorded history. On the other hand, Indic religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism are based on Dharmic thought systems that are not history-dependent. Dharma is a Sanskrit non-translatable that roughly means ~ 'that which sustains or upholds'. I view dharma as 'that which is essential', and Sanskrit as the best available language to explain the essence of the cosmos. Though there are significant and deep metaphysical differences between these different dharmic systems and a pluralism of their dharmic sub-variants, they all adhere to a common set of Dharmic truth claims, including Punar Janma (rebirth) and Karma (cause and effect). All these systems believe in one more forms of Yoga as a dharmic path to reach the ultimate truth without external crutches or textual/historical artefacts.

Being Different
Dharmic truth-claims are permanently irreconcilable with a history-centric core.  For example, if Christianity becomes dharmic, the idea of original sin, the need for a son of God, intermediary prophet, etc. become totally irrelevant. Dharma and Dogma are incompatible. Islam, and Judaism have similar issues. Furthermore, these history-centric religions are themselves incompatible with each other, since each rejects the other's record of unique divine interventions in history. Thus there is also a need for a HC systems to augment it's own idea inventory to appear superior to its HC competitor when they fight for global market-share.

Why Digestion and Not Complete Borrowing?
If the HC west were to attempt to openly borrow and adopt authentic Yoga, it would immediately clash with their dogmatic core, because Yoga as path of achieving self-realization, represents freedom from history and history-centrism (a full chapter in Rajiv Malhotra's book 'Being Different discusses this). Hence, Yoga in its original form, meaning, and context cannot be adopted by the west unless they give up their HC dogma. The Yogasanas may help them look better, feel healthier, but they cannot proceed beyond that to reach higher levels of consciousness without seriously comprising their dogmatic beliefs. Thus openly acknowledging and borrowing Yoga poses an existential question. What to do?

Visit India as students, humbly learn from Gurus for years. Then take a step back, analyze Yoga, de-construct it and strip it down to smaller components. Then pick and reassemble those pieces that are not in conflict with their dogmatic core, to synthesize a bastardized or cannibalized version of Yoga, and reject the rest as waste material.

This mangled synthesis of "Yoga" is initially considered as generic knowledge, and not unique to dharmic systems, but is eventually retro-fitted and back-traced to some obscure Western source, over time. Thus, history-centricity is preserved, while also allowing their followers to get real but highly limited benefits of Yoga, while still keeping them dependent on prophets and supernatural interventions. To increase the comfort level, "Yoga" practititioners can mechanically chant "Hallelujah" or "A.Hu.A", or recite the Torah instead of the essential and profound 'Om'.

Interestingly, look at the reverse case. Dharmic thought systems can happily and openly borrow from progress achieved by western science and technology since it is compatible their dharmic 'operating system' core that is based on the scientific idea of cause and effect. No digestion is required and the original ideas are neither distorted, nor misrepresented. Science has always been compatible with dharma, but not always with a HC core.


Summary
To summarize, Digestion is a method of:
1) extracting the 'nutrients' out of a dharmic concept,

2) discard the crucial dharmic constituents itself as unnecessary waste,

3) reassembling non-dharmic nutrients to synthesize a new distorted concept (rename it as "Christian Yoga, Christu-natyam for comfort and acceptance) that is of limited use and importantly, is fully compatible with history-centric dogma,

4) obfuscate, alter, or delete the original context, depth and meaning of the concept (e.g. the true, deep meaning and intent of Yoga and Bharatanatyam is lost)

5) deny credit to the dharmic primary source, and erase it over time, and even sell the mangled form back to Indians


Outcomes
I count at least two crucial practical benefits of digestion to the west. Let's use HC Christianity as an example.

Once we have a Hindu-DNA enhanced Christianity , there is
OUTCOME 1) SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN EFFORT TO FORCE OR COERCE CONVERSIONS OF HINDUS.

OUTCOME 2) REDUCED MOTIVATION FOR DOGMA-FOLLOWERS TO TURN DHARMIC


why? Aren't these positive outcomes?

To see (outcome 1), History-centric religion will now have all the externally observable equivalent features contained in Hinduism - Christian Yoga, Christunatyam, Christian Veda, Jesus Pooja, etc.  The myth of sameness becomes incredibly strong. The message to dharmic peoples will simply be:
YOU DO NOT EVEN NEED TO CONVERT ANYMORE. WE ARE THE SAME. PLUS WE DO NOT HAVE CASTE/COW/SATI/DOWRY PROBLEMS. YOU MERELY NEED TO UPGRADE.

For (outcome 2), the message to dogma-followers will be:
YOU DO NOT NEED TO CONVERT OUT OF YOUR FAITH. WE ALREADY HAVE EVERYTHING DHARMIC FAITHS HAVE, AND WE ARE MODERN.

To summarize, hte net outcome of digestion is that the HC system gets stronger, and the dharmic system gets weaker. Thus a digester like Phil Goldberg will have no problem criticising conversion because:

After digestion is complete, there is no need to coerce and convert! Digestion allows HC religions claim equivalence and even superiority in features and benefits, even though they are only superficially the same as dharmic religions. The myth of sameness becomes incredibly strong.

Furthermore, since these digested concepts are delinked from dharma, existing dharmic systems will be seen as obsolete relics of a bygone era that never contributed much, and fit only for a museum. Where are the original native thought systems of Africa, North America, Australia, Middle East? They have been digested into one of the history-centric systems. Only India still remains their unfinished business, and barely so, because of the remarkable anti-fragile properties of Hinduism.








How Phil Goldberg made the Vedas Kosher
Now take the case of Phil Goldberg. His ideas and views have been covered in the 'hitchhiker's guide to BD' blog. His American Veda book deliberately makes no mention of Hinduism. anywhere. Why? This is not mere semantics. His audience is the west. His goal, as he himself has openly stated is that the western peoples can retain their existing (history-centric) faiths but be able to get the benefits of 'sprituality' (without caste/cow/sati/dowry etc). Thus, the only way out for him to be successful while also achieving this goal is employ digestion. Platitudes at other times keeps the Indians convinced that all is well and hunky-dory.

Digestion (as a strategy) relies on treating Hindus as useful idiots.

To summarize, we can now see that Goldberg's actions results in:

a) The original Vedas being stripped of their context, ideas appropriated and digested into an "American Veda" that is 'kosher' and compatible with history-centrism dogma.

b) The full meaning,and context of the original, Hindu Vedas get diminished over time and eventually lost.

c) The AV becoming a ready-to-consume all-American, self-contained reference textbook for Vedic ideas that gives it's readers a comfortable western interpretation of dharmic concepts. See how Hinduism is bypassed? This can only result in further degradation of Hindu dharma's 'brand' in the west, which Phil Goldberg does not see as his problem.

d) Any random person can latch on to this approach as a cookie-cutter to create a Scientology Veda, or a Timbuktu Veda, and sell books, patent, commercialize, and make money. A lot of "Yoga" methods have been similarly appropriated, commercialized, patented, and even weaponized by the Pentagon (e.g. Yoga Nidra). Just like the west has "paddle boat Yoga, Power Yoga, Aqua Yoga, ...".
 
e) Note that this digested multiplicity does not represent genuine and dharmic pluralism, since such proliferation is dharma nirpeksha (sans dharma), thereby only leading to corruption and adharma in the form of egoistic patent quarrels, practitioner injuries and disillusionment, marketing wars, greed, etc. 
 
f) Furthermore, since the west controls the global discourse, these mangled meanings and definitions become the accepted ones, show up in Wikipedia, western school textbooks, and eventually accepted by the leftist-controlled textbooks consumed by Indian students.

g) Net result, as Rajiv Malhotra states: the history-centric tiger has eaten up the deer, the deer nutrients are converted into tiger DNA, making the tiger stronger. What is left of the dharmic deer is a pile of poop.


Phil Goldberg Celebrated in India
How have the dharmic deer welcomed folks like Phil Goldberg?
Some samples that I am aware of:

1) He was invited to give a talk organized by Ms Nirmala Seetharaman's foundation, which was promoted by a prominent RSS intellectual/spokesperson. Attempts to contact Ms. Seetharaman on twitter prior to this talk got zero response.

2) His HuffPost article that condemns conversion was reproduced on a reputed Indian website (IndiaFactsOrg) that promotes dharma. Note that these articles in themselves are not a problem and such sites have every right to publish any material they deem worthy. However, such articles help Hinduism very little, but boosts the digester's credibility a lot. As Rajiv Malhotra tweeted "it is like Rahul Gandhi talking about evils of corruption". Does Hinduism need a 'facts lecture' from the Goldbergs of the world to tell us that the coerced conversions represents a clear and present danger to India?

3) Monetary funding from Sanathana Dharma institutions.

4) Have his book cited as an shining example of positive Hindu influence on the west, even by strong 'Hindutva' proponents, when all that AV really does is to make it easier for the west to remain rooted to dogma by incorporating useful (intellectual/textual but not the deep dharmic) benefits of Hinduism.
 
Note: I look forward to IndiaFactsOrg uncovering the complete facts about digestion of dharmic ideas and methods, and disseminate it to a wider audience.


Questions to Ponder
1. Do some Hindutva giants and organizations even realize that they are celebrating an end-product that is Hindu-DNA enhanced Fundamental Christianity and not some pluralistic western branch of Hinduism as they foolishly believe it to be?

2. That this history-centric Christianity running on digested Hindu energy needs even less effort to convert dharmic peoples to their side, while also keeping their own followers bound in Dogma?

3. How is the cause of dharma served by celebrating this digestion?

Not just Phil Goldberg, Rajiv Malhotra has identified several westerners who have digested (for example) Aurobindo's ideas, repackaged it to suit Western audiences, and are now paid high fees and invited back to India by big companies to "educate" their management trainees.

The dogmatic tiger's conquest is being celebrated by dharmic deer.

Part-2 of self study is continued here.

Transcription of Narendra Modi's IAA talk

I found Modi's IAA speech (marketing India to the world) yesterday quite remarkable in terms of the original Indian ideas it contained - thoughts that went beyond rhetoric and deeply substantial, in sync with some Rajiv Malhotra's novel ideas in his book 'Being Different' that Rajiv has also explained via his videos. I've tried to transcribe some of his observations into English to the best of my ability with some limited annotation (words in italics)



Why he attended this event
Modi: I could not escape attending this event because of Swami Dayanand Saraswati and Swami's father (aged around 90?). His father used to work and scrutinize each issue and I observed how there are different angles of examining the same issue.

Colonized Mindset

There are many topics where we have our own personal problem entangled, and because of this, 'Brand-India' is not displayed to the world with any strength of conviction. The first requirement for being able to so is self-belief and self-confidence. If you are taking an product or topic to the world, but you don't believe in it yourself, then you just cannot do it. After 1200 years of slavery, we Indians have developed just a colonized mindset, that when we find a white man, a six-footer, who rattles off English vocabulary, we retreat into our shell. Consequently, even after 60 years of independence, haven't been able to overcome this problem.

Gandhi
There are some things that have symbolic value. Everything has symbolic value that opens door, and the belief you have in this symbolic value is crucial. You may find great orators and speakers who deliver nice lines, but communicators are few.  In the last century, the greatest communicator was Mahatma Gandhi. In this world where people resort to shortcuts (cutting corners), the focus is on impressive marketing. We have a choice. whether to go with inspiring marketing or impressive marketing. If you look at Gandhi's personality, there was nothing "impressive" about him, but was truly inspiring in totality. Simply dressed, humble-living. He talked about Ahimsa, but carried a stick. Today's world hasn't paid much attention to this communication of contrast. He did not wear a cap, but many wear the Gandhi cap! What strength!
In those days, there was little media coverage. extremely tough to transmit information. Gandhi's words, spirit, without any dilution, diversion, or loss in translation, reached every last person. Friends, such communicating skills are rare, but on this point, nobody in marketing has written a book on this topic. Please form a committee, and next year, please research and launch a book "Gandhi, the great communicator". it must become a case study for world top universities. This also means that branding of India has also been accomplished! This is how its done. Even today, our mental colonization, we talk of Tulsidas as India's Shakespeare, and Sardar Patel as India's Bismarck. Why? It's because of our lack of confidence. We should be saying the reverse (Shakespeare is England's Tulsidas, Germany's Sardar Patel). This is how we must express comparisons, but we have lost our identity.

If we want to talk of a brand India, we have to understand our core competencies, only then can we effectively market our brand. The world knows MLK, but we don't know if the world views Gandhi in a similar manner. When the Gandhi movie was made in the1980s, a publisher friend remarked that all his Gandhi books were sold out after the movie and reprints were required. Friends, Attenborough did a job. If in the last 50 years, for the benefit of humanity, if we presented the values of Gandhi to the world, and force them to think about it, we would not even had to strive for a brand-India, the world's universities would be coming to India searching for Gandhi here.

Global Warming and Environment
The world is abuzz with talk about global warming. When people are in search of something, when they find what is necessary, it is immediately accepted and in marketing u go to the top. The world worries about global warming and searching for solutions. Who worries the most? Those societies who most exploited nature the most. Those who most toyed with nature and today, are the champions in the fight against global warming. Winning Nobel prizes (as a society)! We are the people, whose nature, whose Sanskriti and cultural heritage if protected and popularized, can convince the world that we have the best answer to global warming. We don't have that confidence. Ganga did not get polluted as long as it was considered Mother Ganga. Once it was viewed as some H20, the degradation began. Our ancestors called it 'mother', plants were called 'Paramatma' (highest souls) so trees were not cut, living in harmony with nature. People mocked us for worshiping trees, cows, and rivers, and labeled us 'backward'  We believed this criticism and began to destroy our natural heritage. Today the world talks about protecting the environment, while we received this as a cultural treasure. Gandhiji would pour back half a glass of Sabarmati water because that was what he wanted. Nothing more. No exploitation or milking of nature. Such lofty ideals and vision our ancestors had, and the world desperately seeks a solution to global warming. With such ideas for brand India, via these ideas, with a scientific approach, and keeping with modern terminology and presentation, move forward.

Heritage Sites and Tourism
In the world of architecture or heritage building, France is well known. Suppose India was as small was France, and all of its monuments and heritages were present in the same space, then we would encounter a heritage building every three steps. Why can't we globally market this heritage? For those in tourism, this can be such a big deal. But for us, this is just some vague building built by some old king. We have the world's oldest port, 5000 year old Lothal, oldest citiy Dholavira. Have we every wondered - how great our ancestors were. If you go to Dholavira, you will surprised to know, 5000 years back, road signs are there! Which means people from other parts of the world must have come there. Did we market this with pride? No. Dholavira had a 5000-sitting capacity stadium for sports. Sports, entertainment, social gathering must have been there 5000 years ago in India! If the world hears about this, they would be most interested in visiting. We must have faith in our cultural heritage and values.

Music and Soft Power
(India's real soft power (not the superficial Bollywood type) is one of the key ideas that Rajiv Malhotra has promoted) 
 
If you just take only music and market it to the world, then we can give a lot, which doesn't even know that the 5am music is different from the music during sunset. The afternoon music is different from that at night. Let them know about this heritage. Did i market this? No. Dance, Drama .... My ancestors gave me this heritage that I haven't presented to the world. Even when our kings were fighting, the world was not running on military power or economic power, even though that is important, it is soft power that built relationships. History is witness to this. Two potentially warring kings ceased hostility when a sister of one king tied a Rakhi to the other king. This is an example of soft power.  We are more rich in soft power than any other country in the world. The power of music is immense. Why are people united by music? You must have attended concerts too. Music is not just meant for the ear. It is tied to the mind and heart. If you listen to an hour of loud western music, take a break, and then listen to an hour of any original Indian music with rhythms. Western music enthralls the body, but Indian music deeply influences the heart and mind. Impact on bodily senses is shortlived joy. The joy that reaches the mind can even be Chiranjeev (eternal). The difference between western and Indian music is just as wide as listening to mighty ocean waves, versus listening to a small stream. Have we branded this? No.

Yoga
(Rajiv mentions this is already multi-billion dollar industry and India has missed the boat big-time)
The world is crazy behind Yoga. If you know how to breathe in and breathe out, regardless of how low the rupee falls, dollars will fill your pockets :) There is no bigger market for India's knowledge industry than Yoga. If you ask our govt, why we aren't exporting Yoga, the world is ready to accept it ... We did not brand it. who first taught the world how to breathe in and out are not marketing Yoga. Today is about holistic health and healing. Desperate for it, sick of medical drug based treatment. Such a big market. Have we a brand-India that markets our traditional medicine and treatment approach? Herbal medicine is our ancestral treasure. We performed the world's first surgery! In Mahabharata, Karna was born via genetic science :)) We are pioneers in medicine. What the world desperately seeks, we have. But we need to have belief in ourselves, but we don't have that belief today. During Pandit Nehru's time, there was Haathi commission about marketing Ayurveda. Due to the craze of socialism in those days, there wasn't any emphasis on marketing. The report came out that Ayurveda is fine as far as its substance, but it can only be popularized by improved packaging. Friends, China is #1 in the world in Herbal medicine export, when it OUR ancestral treasure. If we properly package, perform value addition, and brand it, we can market it to the world as traditional food if not medicine, and make it part of a holistic heath care offering and preventive care solutions. The market is ready for this.

Youth and youngsters are committing suicide today all over the world. In such a situation, are there ways to prevent them from taking this extreme step?  Our ancient texts and treatises on Yoga, Pranayama, etc. focus on the inner sciences (adhyatma vidya, in Rajiv Malhotra's terminology). We can't sell Taj Mahal to everybody. We can only sell what a person needs. We still haven't progressed beyond Taj!!

Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism is another popular movement today. When Clinton was first elected, I visited the US. Our team visited a hotel in Houston. ... If we are late, we say "this is Indian time, isn't it"? If every Indian says this, insulting India, then how can we do branding of India?? This has to change. So I reached early. The Gujarati person (secretary) there embraced me. I asked why. He said he was vegetarian, and there were many Gujarati veg restaurants. He was proud of it. The world is receptive to it. Have we ever done an Indian food festival? In Japan, our curry is popular. Did you know that Subhash Chandra Bose's brother introduced Indian curry to Japan. This is again our cultural treasure. Not just food travels when we market this properly, the entire Indian identity goes along!

Science and Literature
When we talk about Nobel winners, we talk about Einstein, but not our people. When we talk about literary greats, why do we take the name of some random western guy but not the name of Rabindranath Tagore? To effectively do brand India, we have fill our minds with India. Like the cricket ad that does "i eat, sleep cricket etc', If we do "India, India ...." every moment, then we can do effective branding of India :))

Organic Lifestyle Market
My background is in RSS. There are stories about what we can and cannot do. We cannot do fashion shows it seems. I organized a fashion show. I was sure those who "love" me would call me out. I held it in Porbunder. I  know how to create a stir :) Our NIFT/NID students in their campus totally live in their western world, no sign of India whatsoever there. We selected those kids and make them come on the ramp. They liked doing such stuff anyway :) We played Vaishnav Jan song, used Khadi costumes, in Porbunder, on Gandhiji's birthday, with Vinobha Bhave's disciple in the audience - we tried to market Khadi in a fully modern manner. VB's disciple was very impressed. The point is, the world is looking for chemical-free cotton, natural grown cotton. Our Khadi has that strength. The poor get their livelihood from Khadi, but we have limited it to politician's houses. If we make it a global market, it would light the cooking stoves of many poor people in India. Holistic lifestyle seekers would be proud to wear a Khadi that is chemical free and natural, and willing to pay a premium for it. Maybe 10% of our farmers still haven't used pesticides but continued to do natural, traditional organic farming all their life - our people don't know that in the global world, organic food market is massive. (Cow's milk example is given). Our farmers have traditionally done organic farming for centuries. We don't have certification facilities, authorization procedures etc., so we cant create an organic food market. If the farmer can sell his products with organic branding, he can command a premium price in the world market. The point is, from a farmer's livelihood perspective, we can fulfill our vision of Brand-India in a harmonious manner.

(Extempore again) Seeing Kiran ji, i recall that our nation is celebrating 100 years of our film industry. The world's biggest industry that feeds lakhs and crores. But we lost the opportunity to do global marketing. If I could, I would have done a branding of India just via Indian films. But fear not, I'm not entering this world :) But I've talked to (some names) for hours on such topics. We should stop trying to impress the world, but inspire the world. India must be branded properly, and this should be our dream. Thanks.