[Advaita-l] ADMIN: Reaffirming this list's focus

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Having read this news item about Muslim populations a couple of days ago, I was
wondering when it would make its way to here.

It seems to me that this forum's focus is getting diluted and frittered away by all
sorts of distractions nowadays - from something as elementary as food do-s and
don't-s (e.g. the recent discussion of the effect of onions and garlic on one's libido)
to things as esoteric as tAntrika rituals and practice (which vary widely and are
unique to each sub-tradition) or as political and controversial as world Muslim
populations. Discussions like these always seem to generate much interest, to the
detriment of issues that should be more pertinent to this forum.
 
I have a request to list members - can we all resolve to focus on advaita vedAnta
on this forum? No doubt some or all these other topics are interesting, and there
are multiple viewpoints that many of us entertain about them, but does that merit
an involved discussion here? Please re-read the welcome letter when you joined
this list and refocus your attention on issues that should matter to this list. There
are OTHER online outlets for these other kinds of discussion that seem to be very
interesting to many. THIS list needs to realign its focus on advaita. If members
cannot bring themselves to exercise some self-discipline before making posts to
the list, we lose our raison d'etre.
 
The moderators of this list have always tried to interfere minimally in the day to day
functioning of the list, believing that our members will have the wisdom to mostly
regulate themselves. So please live up to these expectations and please do not push
us to the extreme of having to approve each and every post to the list. 
 
Vidyasankar