Overpopulation in India

Here are the numbers from wiki as of today

Country, Population(millions), Area(million sq. km), Density(persons/sq. km)
1) China, 1339, 9.59, 139.6
2) India, 1210, 3.28, 368.9
3) USA, 311, 9.62, 32.3
4) Russia, 142, 17.09, 8.3

The numbers speak for themselves. India is in serious trouble due to its over population problem. No one likes to talk about it. In fact there are arguments against talking about it because it intrudes into personal freedoms. Some say, being a tropical country we can produce enough food throughout the year to feed the people. Most of the population growth is among the illiterate population. Politicians want this for their vote banks. Unless India as a country wakes up and takes this problem seriously, there will be major food and water problems within one or two decades. There is study stating that Himalayan rivers might slow down due to global warming. If this really happens the major population belt in the Gangetic plain will have to endure great suffering. With the underground water table receding, other areas on the plateau and in the south will suffer too. I am really saddened at this prospect. I hope the intellectuals will raise alarm and try to put a plan in action to avert the major suffering predicted.

Indian Professors and Their Egos

This is a small post I want to write about the Indian professors and their ugly egos. This is dedicated all the research students who suffered under them. The more reputed the institution the more is the professor's ego. I am writing this post backed by my personal experience. Any student who has the misfortune of doing a thesis or a program which is not time bound will know this. The end date or finish date is in the hands and the whims and fancies of the sadist professor. Students who do courses where a project is needed which is a time bound program will not have any awareness of this bad fortune. I am not saying that 100% of the professors are like that. But most likely the percentage of egotistic professors will definitely be more than 70% in India. They treat students like slaves. They are sadists of the first order and do not care about innocent students. Their behavior leaves a permanent mark on the student's life forever. Most of the students who come under the unfortunate shadow of such professors are in their early 20s. And that is a very beautiful age that is killed by such professors. I wish that they suffer the karmic consequences for a long long time for many many lives. And Krishna and Buddha bless such students who suffer the professor's inhumane, immoral, insane, merciless, thoughtless, sadistic, insensitive deeds intended to further their own bloated ambitions.

Recovery from "Paramahamsa" Nithyananda

This post is dedicated all the sincere seekers who went a little bit too far into Nithyananda's sect to achieve their spiritual goals. I know it is a really bad day for all of you. It is shocking to see someone who has been revered in your families go astray. If this is all true, Nithyananda has truly tasted the reactions of his bad karma. Having sex is not the problem. Every human being would want to have sex. The problem is you are not expected to have sex when you have taken up the ocher robes. Anyway there is no point in talking about Nithyananda or his future plans or course of action. Nithyananda tasted Buddha's teaching now "Anitya -Impermanence, Dukkha - Suffering/Loss. He has brought a disgrace to the so called Acharyas and Hinduism.

You as the disciples of Nithyananda should try to find a way out for yourselves and your families (if they are involved) without getting depressed or overly saddened. I will try to give my 2 cents of advise in this post. If you have young children 5-18, I see that as the toughest part! They might have seen you listening and watching audio/video materials of Nithyananda or sat down to listen or see along with you. They might have seen you reading books/materials authored by Nithyananda. What will you tell them? How can you explain to them that whatever you considered precious a few days back are now untouchable? How will you deal with it yourself as elders? What will you tell your family friends whom you tried to bring to Nithyananda or who know that you follow Nithyananda? What will you tell your parents/brothers/sisters? How will you de-toxify your home from Nithyananda materials? I feel they will no longer be valid references now though in an unbiased opinion those materials are still good for a spiritual seeker! I hope lifebiss keeps all the youTube videos and not remove them, atleast to provide entertainment for future viewers! What should you do with your Satsangs, the organizations and the temples you have built. I think they should not be destroyed atleast outside of India. The name of Nithyananda can be systematically removed. Churches do not collapse if the spiritual leader turns out to be a gay! Why should the organizations you built with lot of effort collapse because of one guy? That is one of the problem with these gurus and Hinduism. They create their own programmes and agendas (though they might be based on Gita, Upanishads or Yoga!)

1) Fortunately Nithyananda was not a lemon and kumkum pujari type of guru whose main audience would be the uneducated and miracle seeking crowd. But he was a well read and eloquent speaker and was able to attract a large crowd of educated people and families both in India and abroad.

It is much easier for this kind of crowd to systematically remove Nithy baba from their lives and minds although it depends on the kind of involvement one has with this organization. For casual listners and watchers of his teachings and videos it is the easiest to walk away. But even for the people whose involvement is a lot larger, my sincere advise is that as long as you had a genuine intention to make your lives happier and to reduce stress, you can walk away with ease as long as you did not cling to the personality but were only interested in the teachings.

Buddhism is one religion where Buddha teaches not to cling to the teacher or the teachings. Even the teachings are like a boat to cross a river. Once crossed, take up a new vehicle. There is no use of the boat!

For those who were clinging to the personality of Nithy, it is time to unclutch! Please let your mind know that impermanence is everywhere and cannot be fought. It is a part of existence. For the future make sure that you get the honey but don't be attached to the flower.

2) If you have kids who are older than 5, and you are a family who got deeply involved in Nithy Baba, I pity you. If they are younger, just switch off Nithy Baba for a while and let time heal. They will forget that once dad and mom were involved with Nithy. If you have a little bit older kids, please tell them that he did something wrong and we cannot have his material at home. You might have to do a little explanation and I think they will take it without much trouble.

3) The society! It includes your family like moms. dads, brothers, sisters etc. What I would like to say is you need not be guilty. If anyone tries to ridicule you just ask them to shut up and tell them that you went to Nithya with a good intention to make your lives happier. Now that he turned out to be a person who does not practice what he preaches, you have decided to come out of it. Period. No more explanations. Believe in what you think about yourself and not what others think about you.

4) If you went to Nithy for attaining fame in trying to build temples or organizing events, just realize that your false pride has taken a beating and try not to do it again.

5) I donated/lost money to Nithy. Don't even worry. You have not lost anything. Be happy. You can earn it back!

6) Please have faith in dharmic religion and the law of karma. Dharmic religions are much more logical and broader than organized monotheistic religions. If you feel frustrated, please choose atheism instead. ( I had to add this after seeing some of the responses)

My personal opinion about Nithyananda is that if he is so interested in having sex, he should have quit the ocher robes and taken up family life after handing over the organization to someone else. But, if you get married you only get to have sex with one person :-) I really don't understand this sanyasi and celibate priest business. Did it start with Buddhism in India? Even Siddhartha had all the sex he wanted before he gave up worldly pleasures. Rama(7), Krishna(8) and Buddha(9), none of them were celibates. What is up with this swamis? I think 99% of humans would want to have sex.

...........I might add a few more points if something comes up......

Regionalism, Communalism & Communism

Regionalism, Communalism & Communism are the three words I would like to use as attributes to describe some of the current struggles and movements that are happening in India recently. The problem lies in the urban metros that have developed all over the country. Obviously people from all parts of the country would flock to these centers for livelihood and opportunities. People from some parts of the country are more industrious, outgoing and entrepreneurial than others. So they make it big in the metros. This is being seen with jealousy by the so called local people and regional agitations are started. These agitations try to seek something like reservations for the local people (Please see my article on reservations) and try to create fear among others. Whether it is Mumbai or Hyderabad, no one discouraged the local people from operating taxis, making movies or selling pickles and home made sweets. If someone else are successful at doing that there is no need to cry foul but just try to compete. And it would be much easier being a local to that region. If the agitations are directed towards corruption it would be better, rather than inciting hatred among people.

The underlying cause is overpopulation and not enough land. I will address this issue in an other post. But for now let me conclude by saying that communism and extreme socialism have failed all over the world. Even China is aggressively capitalistic. Finally whatever the reasons are behind the regionalism, the problems should be resolved outside the urban metros. Urban metros is where India is modernizing and building various industries (software, pharmaceutical, defense, electronics, food packaging, finance etc). Metros belong to all Indians and not to a narrow set of people. There is no point in disrupting the continuous development that is happening in the metros. Now Chennai, though notorious for its language fanaticism looks much better compared to Mumbai, Hyderabad!

Buddha for the Indian Middle Class

Buddhism from my point of view is the most sensible and the least dogmatic of all religions and can really help humans to get away from mental suffering (which leads to elimination of most physical suffering also!). But unfortunately it failed to make any inroads in the land where it originated. I am trying to list the reasons below and as always they are debatable!

1) After Dr. Ambedkar embraced Buddhism, the buddhists only tried to target the so called lower caste populations. This plan is not the most suitable for Buddhism because unlike the monotheistic religions Buddhism is not all about accepting a savior and attending a friday or sunday service and carry on. It is about thinking and thinking very deeply about life's suffering. Firstly the target should be educated at least a little bit and secondly the target should have the minimum prosperity to feed his family. Leave alone kapda (cloth) and makan (home). Also the target should have been brought up in a family where the elders thought about religion and morality at least a little bit. Other wise the target will have no interest in anything Buddha's teachings have to offer. If you notice from the Buddha's stories also, majority of his followers were brahmins!

2) The real targets for Buddhist teachings in modern Indian society are the educated great Indian urban middle class irrespective of caste. They are the bankers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, people from armed forces, merchants of the Indian cities. These people will be the most receptive audience for Buddhist teachings. Because they have the education and an ability to think deeply and have the problems and suffering which is common to everyone. If these people get influenced by Buddha's teachings they can make life better for themselves as well as for the so called lower caste and rural populations.

3) Though Buddhism had the greatest advantage in India, they alienated the real targets by portraying themselves more like monotheistic religion rather than a Dharmic religion. Hindu middle class already share the concepts of reincarnation/rebirth, karma and dharma though there are subtle differences. Also fortunately Hindus do not cling passionately to their gods unlike their monotheistic counterparts. But I saw that in India if one has to "accept" Buddhism they have to reject Hindu gods, practices etc. There is a list some where on wiki and it seems to be endless. There is nothing like "accepting" Buddhism. There is only benefiting from the ideas and realizing the truths spoken. I think it is just the arrogance of the Mahayana Buddhists (may be some theravada ones also). When you can take Buddha without dropping a savior in France or the United States, why should one drop Krishna to take up Buddha. Do not Hindus consider Buddha to the be the 9th avatar? Hindus do not destroy Buddha's statues like in South Korea!. The savior and Buddha have more distance between each other compared the distance between Krishna and Buddha. As long as Buddhists have this attitude, Buddhism will be a failure in India once again.

4) Think about the influence of Buddhism in Africa. Then you will understand why Buddhists targeted the wrong guys in India. Buddhists please show some consideration to the educated brown guy, because it was a thinking brown guy who gave you your philosophy and religion 2500 years ago ! and also gave Dalai Lama his Dharamshala !

Weaknesses of Hindu religion #4

Weaknesses of Hindu religion #4

4) Beggar Gurus and No Charity

One of the greatest misconception of Hindus is that the gurus or spiritual leaders should live like beggars and not have any worldly belongings. I think this concept has originated from the ancient sadhus and rishis who gave up all their wealth, other belongings and attachments and went to live in the forests. They were either naked or wearing dead animal skins. Buddha also did this initially but he found that this path is not really useful or is even a hindrance for achieving enlightenment. He came up with the middle path where there is no extreme indulgence nor extreme austerity and poverty. His idea is "Not letting go of things but letting go of clinging to things". False idea that is indoctrinated in almost all Hindus is that only beggars can live enlightened lives. But the problem is they do not realize that the beggar could be attached to the small piece of cloth that he is wearing whereas a millionaire could be unattached to his/her millions. Buddhism would not have spread to East Asian countries without the help of kings and emperors who spent lot of money erecting monuments and sending missionaries.

Because of this concept, a hindu religious or spiritual organization has failed in charity and social work. So only non guru landlords did charity if any. But obviously they were doing it for their own fame and political power in society. In modern times there are many gurus around whom organizations have been built and they have become capable to participate in social work and charity. And organizations need not be doing charity directly. They can also help by waking up more and more people to follow a path which in turn will lead to more charity and social work. But if an organization is getting rich, the doubting hindu mind wakes up and tries to defame and demonize it. There is no need for any other religious groups to do it. Hindus are capable of doing the damage needed!

Charity has to come from an organization. Individuals can do charity on their own but it is not going to be very effective. In India, I think the only charities that will survive are those who will call themselves secular or those from well organized monotheistic religious groups.

Weaknesses of Hindu religion #3

Weaknesses of Hindu religion #3

3) Vegetarianism presented from a moral high ground

India is the country where the concept of vegetarianism has originated. I do not think the ancient Hindus were vegetarian. But it seems to have taken root only after Siddhartha Gautama or the Buddha. Vegetarianism might have sprung up as an offshoot of the concept of showing compassion to all living beings. Some of the buddhist monks in the far east are also vegetarian. Even after buddhism was driven out (due to various reasons which I will discuss in a different post later) from India, many of its ideas and concepts have been incorporated into the Hindu religion by various teachers like Adi Shankaracharya because they might have seemed very logical for them. One of them is vegetarianism and it has been adopted mostly by Brahmins and Vaishyas. May be it was logical for them to take it up because of the sedentary occupations they do. Vegetarian diet might have helped them to live more healthy lives. Whereas for a farmer working in the fields or a soldier defending the country, it was logical for them to get the extra protein by eating meat.

But the problem lies not in vegetarianism but in the way it has been presented from a moral high ground. This gave rise to the "touch me not" attitude among the brahmins especially and it has isolated them more and more from the other sections of the society. This is long gone now in the present day. The brahmins and vaishyas tried to isolate themselves socially where as the land lord classes committed real atrocities on the dalits by using their labour and sexually exploiting their women. But because of the "touch me not" attitude of the past, brahmins are the ones who are blamed even to the present day. Finally I feel if some one likes vegetarianism, it should have been presented in a more scientific manner instead of an isolating manner.

Now turning to some aspects of vegetarianism, you can try searching the internet for interesting facts and thoughts. These are some that I found.
1) You need 10 times more land and water to produce the same amount of nutrition/calories from meat compared to say soy bean or lentils. (obviously it is more green!)
2) If the west can stop eating meat for one day, malnutrition in the world can be eliminated.
3) Good for health of people with sedentary life styles ?
4) Do not need to raise poultry and animals in hellish conditions.

Also one thing you will notice if you are Indian is that people who eat meat also eat it like a specialty only one day of the week. Obvious with so much population and so little land (comparatively) Indians cannot afford to get their protein from meat sources. May be meat should be imported from places like Australia. Also lot of people in the west are also reducing their meat intakes for health and ethical purposes.