Re: Why didnt Ghandi let himself be saved ?
DogDiesel
"Koyaanisqatsi Fahrvergnugen" <koyaan...@ziplip.com> wrote in message
news:a74c4e45-0527-40f0...@c28g2000prj.googlegroups.com...
> On Jul 24, 5:57 pm, Pontifex Minimus wrote:
>>
>> On Jul 23, 11:57 pm, missy wrote:
>> >
>> > http://history.eserver.org/ghandi-nobody-knows.txt
>>
>> Was Sir Ben Kingsley as Don Logan
>> in Sexy Beast much more honest?
>> http://tinyurl.com/SIR-BEN-KINGSLEY
>>
>> **********************
>> "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh
>> wgah'nagl fhtagn" --H.P. Lovecraft
>> **********************
>>
>> "... "In pre-Islamic days, called the Days of
>> Ignorance, the religious background of the
>> Arabs was pagan, and basically animistic. ..."
>> http://www.valdostamuseum.org/hamsmith/Islam.html
>
> <snip>
>
> The Gandhi Nobody Knows
> by Richard Grenier
> http://history.eserver.org/ghandi-nobody-knows.txt
>
> [From the magazine, "Commentary,"
> March 1983, published monthly by
> the American Jewish Committee,
> New York, NY.]
>
> I HAD the singular honor of attending an early
> private screening of Gandhi with an audience of
> invited guests from the National Council of Churches.
> At the end of the three-hour movie there was hardly,
> as they say, a dry eye in the house. When the lights
> came up I fell into conversation with a young woman
> who observed, reverently, that Gandhi's last words
> were "Oh, God," causing me to remark regretfully
> that the real Gandhi had not spoken in English, but
> had cried, Hai Rama! ("Oh, Rama"). Well, Rama was
> just Indian for God, she replied, at which I felt
> compelled to explain that, alas, Rama, collectively
> with his three half-brothers, represented the seventh
> reincarnation of Vishnu. The young woman, who seemed
> to have been under the impression that Hinduism was
> Christianity under another name, sensed somehow that
> she had fallen on an uncongenial spirit, and the
> conversation ended.
> [...]
> "Gandhi", then, is a large, pious, historical
> morality tale centered on asaintly, sanitized
> Mahatma Gandhi cleansed of anything too
> embarrassingly Hindu (the word "caste" is not
> mentioned from one end of the film to the other)
> and, indeed, of most of the rest of Gandhi's life,
> much of which would drastically diminish his
> saintliness in Western eyes. There is little to
> indicate that the India of today has followed Gandhi's
> precepts in almost nothing. There is little, in fact,
> to indicate that India is even India. The spectator
> realizes the scene is the Indian subcontinent because
> there are thousands of extras dressed in dhotis and
> saris. The characters go about talking in these
> quaint Peter Sellers accents. We have occasional
> shots of India's holy poverty, holy hovels, some
> landscapes, many of them photographed quite
> beautifully, for those who like travelogues.
> We have a character called Lord Mountbatten (India's
> last Viceroy); a composite American journalist
> (assembled from Vincent Sheehan, William L. Shirer,
> Louis Fischer, and straight fiction); a character
> called simply "Viceroy" (presumably another composite);
> an assemblage of Gandhi's Indian followers under the
> name of one of them (Patel); and of course Nehru.
>
> I sorely missed the fabulous Annie Besant, that
> English clergyman's wife, turned atheist, turned
> Theosophist, turned Indian nationalist, who
> actually became president of the Indian National
> Congress and had a terrific falling out with Gandhi,
> becoming his fierce opponent. And if the producers
> felt they had to work in a cameo role for an
> American star to add to the film's appeal in the
> United States, it is positively embarrassing that
> they should have brought in the photographer
> Margaret Bourke-White, a person of no importance
> whatever in Gandhi's life and a role Candice Bergen
> plays with a repellant unctuousness. If the film-makers
> had been interested in drama and not hagiography, it
> is hard to see how they could have resisted the
> awesome confrontation between Gandhi and, yes,
> Margaret Sanger. For the two did meet. Now *there*
> was a meeting of East and West, and *may the better
> person win!* (She did. Margaret Sanger argued her
> views on birth control with such vigor that Gandhi
> had a nervous breakdown.)
>
> I cannot honestly say I had any reasonable
> expectation that the film would show scenes of
> Gandhi's pretty teenage girl followers fighting
> "hysterically" (the word was used) for the honor
> of sleeping naked with the Mahatma and cuddling
> the nude septuagenarian in their arms. (Gandhi
> was "testing" his vow of chastity in order to
> gain moral strength for his mighty struggle with
> Jinnah.) When told there was a man named Freud
> who said that, despite his declared intention,
> Gandhi might actually be *enjoying* the caresses
> of the naked girls, Gandhi continued, unperturbed.
> Nor, frankly, did I expect to see Gandhi giving
> daily enemas to all the young girls in his ashrams
> (his daily greeting was, "Have you had a good bowel
> movement this morning, sisters?"), nor see the
> girls giving him *his* daily enema. Although Gandhi
> seems to have written less about home rule for
> India than he did about enemas, and excrement,
> and latrine cleaning ("The bathroom is a temple.
> It should be so clean and inviting that anyone
> would enjoy eating there"), I confess such scenes
> might pose problems for a Western director.
>
> 'Gandhi,' therefore, the film, this paid
> political advertisement for the government
> of India, is organized around three axes:
> (1) Anti-racism--all men are equal regardless
> of race, color, creed, etc.;
> (2) anti-colonialism, which in present terms
> translates as support for the Third World,
> including, most eminently, India;
> (3) nonviolence, presented as an absolutist
> pacifism. There are other, secondary precepts
> and subheadings. Gandhi is portrayed as the
> quintessence of tolerance ("I am a Hindu and a
> Muslim and a Christian and a Jew"), of basic
> friendliness to Britain ("The British have been
> with us for a long time and when they leave we
> want them to leave as friends"), of devotion
> to his wife and family. His vow of chastity is
> represented as something selfless and holy,
> rather like the celibacy of the Catholic clergy.
> But, above all, Gandhi's life and teachings are
> presented as having great import for us today.
> We must learn from Gandhi.
>
> I propose to demonstrate that the film
> grotesquely distorts both Gandhi's life
> and character to the point that it is
> nothing more than a pious fraud, and a
> fraud of the most egregious kind.
> [...]
> But even more important, because it is dealt
> with in the movie directly--if of course
> dishonestly--is Gandhi's parallel obsession
> with brahmacharya, or sexual chastity.
> There is a scene late in the film in which
> Margaret Bourke-White (again!) asks Gandhi's
> wife if he has ever broken his vow of chastity,
> taken, at that time, about forty years before.
> Gandhi's wife, by now a sweet old lady, answers
> wistfully, with a pathetic little note of hope,
> "Not yet." What lies behind this adorable scene
> is the following: Gandhi held as one of his most
> profound beliefs (a fundamental doctrine of
> Hindu medicine) that a man, as a matter of the
> utmost importance, must conserve his bindu, or
> seminal fluid. Koestler (in 'The Lotus and
> the Robot') gives a succinct account of this
> belief, widespread among orthodox Hindus:
> "A man's vital energy is concentrated in his
> seminal fluid, and this is stored in a cavity
> in the skull. It is the most precious substance
> in the body ... an elixir of life both in the
> physical and mystical sense, distilled from the
> blood.... A large store of bindu of pure quality
> guarantees health, longevity, and supernatural
> powers.... Conversely, every loss of it is a
> physical and spiritual impoverishment."
> Gandhi himself said in so many words, "A man
> who is unchaste loses stamina, becomes
> emasculated and cowardly, while in the chaste
> man secretions [semen] are sublimated into a
> vital force pervading his whole being."
> And again, still Gandhi: "Ability to retain
> and assimilate the vital liquid is a matter of
> long training. When properly conserved it is
> transmuted into matchless energy and strength."
> Most male Hindus go ahead and have sexual
> relations anyway, of course, but the belief
> in the value of bindu leaves the whole
> culture in what many observers have called
> a permanent state of "semen anxiety."
> When Gandhi once had a nocturnal emission
> he almost had a nervous breakdown.
> [...]
> In earlier days he had scoffed at the title
> accorded him, Mahatma (literally "great soul").
> But toward the end, during the hideous paroxysms
> that accompanied independence, with some of the
> most unspeakable massacres taking place in
> Calcutta, he declared, "And if the whole of
> Calcutta swims in blood, it will not dismay me.
> For it will be a willing offering of innocent
> blood." And in his last days, after there had
> already been one attempt on his life, he was
> heard to say, "*I am a true Mahatma.*"
>
> We can only wonder, furthermore, at a public
> figure who lectures half his life about the
> necessity of abolishing modern industry and
> returning India to its ancient primitiveness,
> and then picks a Fabian socialist, already
> drawing up Five-Year Plans, as the country's
> first Prime Minister. Audacious as it may seem
> to contest the views of such heavy thinkers
> as Margaret Bourke-White, Ralph Nader, and
> J.K. Galbraith (who found the film's Gandhi
> "true to the original" and endorsed the movie
> wholeheartedly), we have a right to reservations
> about such a figure as a public man.
> [...]
> On a lower level of being, I have consequently
> given some thought to the proper mantra for
> spectators of the movie 'Gandhi.' After much
> reflection, in homage to Ralph Nader, I have
> decided on Caveat Emptor, "buyer beware."
> Repeated many thousand times in a seat in the
> cinema it might with luck lead to 0m, the Hindu
> dream of nothingness, the Ultimate Void.
>
> http://history.eserver.org/ghandi-nobody-knows.txt
TCBEvolver
Pontifex Minimus
<snip>
morality tale centered on a saintly, sanitized
http://history.eserver.org/ghandi-nobody-knows.txt
--- On Fri, 10/1/10, Uri Geller <U...@UriGeller.com> wrote:
<> Thanks
<> Please visit my website at www.urigeller.com
<> I wish you plenty of good health, happiness and peace of
<> mind. Be positive, optimistic and believe in yourself.
<> Follow me on Twitter: gelleruri
<> Much energy and love
<> Uri
<>
<> From my BlackBerry
Nicely stated, Mahatma, Uri Geller!
I had a vivid dream several mornings ago
about Deepak Chopra. I was in some kind of
room or chapel sitting on a wooden bench amid
a row of such benches or pews. The room was
full of people likewise seated. Deepak Chopra
entered the room from a side passage, and
everyone stood up, myself included. Suddenly
it occurred to me that I was standing up for
Deepak Chopra out of respect for his 'great
spirituality', but I didn't really feel that
way at all, so I sat back down. Deepak Chopra
noticed this and came over to me placing his
hand on my back, visibly irritated, and
attempted to make me stand like the others.
I subsequently expressed my outrage with him,
telling him not to touch me, that regardless
of all his many books he is basically a
spiritual materialist, money making fraud,
and so on... His mighty ego grew visibly angry
indeed as I articulated this deep lack of respect.
Upon awakening, I was both amused and surprised
by this dream. I had recently heard a brief
radio interview with Deepak Chopra, about his
new book on Muhammad, and thought it sounded
very interesting and worth reading. I always
considered Deepak Chopra to be one of the cool
people on the planet. Perhaps I'm merely growing
weary of affect and conformity within myself,
and Deepak Chopra is simply an available icon to
cast off, archetypally speaking, or perhaps,
maybe Deepak Chopra really is an ass hole,
or, again, maybe he's just a convenient model to
hang my own 'ass holiness' upon! HAH! ... In any
event, it helps to remember the wise old cliche':
'hindsight is 20/20 vision.' However, if you have
a quantum mechanical bent toward 'back acting'
quantum wave forms collapsing a particle with a
specific history, then all bets are off! AHA!
And so it goes... take care. Your pal.
SUN|03|OCT|2010|5:15PM|PLANET|STAR|GALAXY...
P.S. 'Muhammad: A Story Of The Last Prophet'
by Deepak Chopra
http://www.amazon.ca/Muhammad-Story-Prophet-Deepak-Chopra/dp/0061782424
P.P.S. [...] Whether M-theory exists as a single
formulation or only as a network, we do
know some of its properties. First, M-theory
has eleven space-time dimensions, not ten.
[...] Also, M-theory can contain not just
vibrating strings but also point particles,
two dimensional membranes, three dimensional
blobs, and other objects that are more
difficult and occupy even more dimensions of
space, up to nine. These objects are called
p-branes (where p runs from zero to nine).
[...] The laws of M-theory therefore allow
for different universes with different
apparent laws, depending on how the internal
space is curled. [...] M-theory has solutions
that allow for many different internal spaces,
perhaps as many as 10^500, [a 1 with 500 zeros]
which means it allows for 10^500 different
universes, each with its own laws. [...] only
one of which corresponds to the universe as we
know it. [...] [Chapter 5, The Theory Of
Everything - pgs. 117-119] THE GRAND DESIGN
(c)2010 by Steven W. Hawking [www.hawking.org.uk]
and Leonard Mlodinow [www.its.caltech.edu/~Len]
Random House, Inc. - ISBN 978-0-553-80537-6
http://www.amazon.ca/Grand-Design-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553805371