The Vedas

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Tue, 20 Jan 1998, sadananda wrote:
>
> If I may add - genital organs are not the instruments of knowledge, to make
> a difference between man vs. women in terms of the learning process.
>
> All one needs is a mind and intellect that is eager to learn and has
> developed appropriate discrimination for the mind to be able to grasp the
> subtle truths expounded in the texts.
>

Throughout this thread, my opponents have been operating under the
assumption that it is some sort of deficiency in women that prevents them
from learning the Vedas.  So they try and prove women are not deficient.
But I'm not suggesting that at all.  So I wonder where that line of
thinking came from?

> It was unfortunate that scriptural statements have been misused to suppress
> women and sudras who are otherwise qualified to learn.

Sorry where is the evidence of this?  I see women and Shudras practising
there religion all over the place.  Isn't it rather chauvanistic of you to
assume if someone isn't doing exactly what you do, they are being
surpressed.

> That was the
> beginning of the downfall of our culture.

Your culture may have fallen down, mine has not.

> It is also unfortunate that even
> today in the name of the sanctity of the Vedas some still insist on their
> literary meaning.
>

You have been known to quote Vedic passages.  I don't recall any qualms
about expounding the literary (literal?) meaning then?  Is it only wrong
to be literal when it is inconvenient?

> As long as we are not in the deprived segment of the humanity, we can not
> appreciate the gravity of that discrimination.
>

Sure we can.  We have eyes, we have ears, we have hearts.  We can tell if
someone is opressed or not.  I'm hardly a hermit.  I'm active in the wider
world as well as my Gujarati community.  I see some Hindu women who
are happy with their lot and others who are oppressed.  I also see
some secular women who are happy and some who are oppressed.  The
proportions of one do not seem to greater than the other.   What doves
this prove?  Nothing at all.

Or are you saying all the Hindu women who worship Bhagavan the way
Bhagavan wants it are really oppressed but don't know it?   Please, that
kind of thinking went out with the Berlin wall.

> Vedas as the source of Knowledge is Unversal as they talks about the
> universal truths. Everyone who is qualified has a right to receive that
> knowledge.  And again the qualifications is definitely not based on the
> genital organs since they are not the means of this knowledge.
>

And is that all there is to men and women , their genital organs?

--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>