The Hindu View of life

Below are some important quotes from the book 'The Hindu View of Life' By Dr S Radhakrishnan, the first President of India and a renowned scholar and philosopher

The material of this slim book was first delivered as a series of lectures in 1926 at Oxford.

pg 4
While fixed intellectual beliefs mark off one religion from another, Hinduism sets itself no such limits. Intellect is subordinated to intuition, dogma to experience, outer experssion to inward realisation. It is an insight onto the nation of reality (darshana) and / or the experinece of reality (anubhava).

pg7
The Hindu attitude to the Vedas is one of trust tempered by criticism, trust because the beliefs and forms which helped our fathers are likely to be of use to us also; criticism because however valuable the testimony of past ages maybe it cannot deprive the presentt age its right toinquire and sift the evidence.

pg9
Hindusim is therefore not a definite dogmatic creed, but a vast, complex, subtly unified mass of spiritual thought and realisation. Its tradition of the godward endeavour of the human spirit has been continuously enlarging through the ages.

If a tradition does not grow, it only means that its followers have become spiritually dead.

pg 10
Contact with the highly civilised Dravidians led to the transformation of vedism into a theistic religion

pp11-12
If religion is experience, the question arises, what is it that is experienced? No two religious systems seem to agree in their answers to this question. .........Religious experience is not the pure nvarnished presentment of the real in itself, butis the preentment of the real already infleunced by the ideas and prepossesions of the percieving mind.

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Gaza numbers

Escape Escape to where the mind does not count To when a smile is in tune To where mixing is matching And forest sounds talk to river gurgles And numbers fade and flow and fly.

Leaving Home - a documentary on the Delhi based band, Indian Ocean

Its the story of 4 people who got together and did what people do when they truly 'get together' - they transform, they surmount, they deepen the depths and they find without setting out to discover, they sway dangerously knowing there is somewhere to lean and they risk for magic, they make reaching somehwere seem like a waste of time coz they constantly kick up their goalposts, they remain manic and mysterious till they come together and feed off each other's hungry creative souls and finally, together, they make sterling music. I watched this documentary film last week at the premeir of its theater release. Its a rare one, not to be missed, by those who like music and films and those who want to watch a slice of contempoary indian life. This documnetary is showing in theaters in several cities in India and in New York. Watch whether or not you know Indian Ocean or their music; coz you will most certainly find yrself and yr yearnings in the film; watch the film c...

The ‘A’ Certificate For ‘Phullu’ Is Yet Another ‘F’ For The Government’s Judgment I n its wisdom, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), Government of India, has deemed the Hindi film Phullu , fit only for ‘adult’ viewing because its story revolves around menstruation. The CBFC Chief, Pahlaj Nihalani, has defended this decision saying that young people in India aren’t ready yet to talk openly about ‘that time of the month’ leave alone watch a film about it. Funny, tragic, outrageous, anachronistic. Add worse descriptors if you like, and they will fit. Even a couple of years ago, these responses would have sufficed, because underlying the outrage would be the hope that those in charge will learn the ropes and stop fooling around. However, after three years in government, high officials should not expect any longer to be spoon-fed the basics of well-established feminist and freedom of expression arguments. We must recognise a pattern when it is starin...

'People-work'

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