The urge to do too many things at once is nothing new: as long ago as 1887, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was bemoaning the way one thinks with a watch in ones hand, even as one eats ones midday meal while reading the latest news of the stock market. But for a variety of reasons overwork, digital distraction, plus the boundary-blurring consequences of the pandemic its probably never been worse. At new year, it often takes an additional form: the desire to implement a total life makeover, sorting out your work backlog and your relationship issues, your health and your home repairs all at once. The urge should be resisted, though. The single most effective ingredient for a happier and more meaningful 2021 is the exact opposite: to improve your capacity for doing only one thing at a time.

One main reason this is harder than it looks is that doing several things at once is usually a way of assuaging anxiety. When youre drowning in to-dos, its calming to feel that youre addressing lots of them simultaneously. And when you think your lifes a mess you should be exercising more, sorting out your finances, improving your relationship with your kids, and on and on its similarly reassuring to feel youre tackling all those critical issues, not just one.

But the feeling is deceptive. For a start, plenty of research testifies to the costs of task-switching: when you flit between activities, you waste time and energy regaining a state of focus again and again. Worse, each activity becomes a way of avoiding every other activity. So when a task feels difficult or scary as tasks that matter often do you can just bounce off to another one instead. The result isnt merely that you make a smaller amount of progress on a larger number of fronts; its that you make less progress overall.

Nobody likes being told that they should shelve (say) their fitness goals for a few months while they work on their marriage, or resign themselves to an overfilled inbox while they complete an important piece of writing; when everythings urgent, postponement feels like a luxury you cant afford. But thats the anxiety talking. The fact is that you cant afford not to postpone almost everything, at any given moment, if you want to make progress on anything. So a big part of the skill of doing one thing at a time is learning to handle the discomfort associated with knowing what youre not getting done.

Success is built sequentially. Its one thing at a time, the management experts Gary Keller and Jay Papasan point out in their book The One Thing, which does little but hammer home this simple yet somehow endlessly elusive truth. There are limits, of course: you cant put your job on hold while you work on your poetry collection, or press pause on parenting while you work on getting fit. But you can constantly seek to move your life in the direction of having as few projects as possible on your plate at any one time.

And this is more than an admonition against, say, checking your email while watching a presentation on Zoom. (Although you shouldnt do that and indeed you cant, since whats really happening is that your attention is alternating, rapidly and exhaustingly, between the two.) One thing at a time is a whole philosophy of life, one that treats your goals as important enough to be worth bringing into being, while not pretending your reserves of time or energy are infinite. It represents a commitment to actually achieving a few of your ambitions, rather than wallowing in comforting fantasies of one day achieving them all.

Use a personal kanban Divide a whiteboard into three columns ready to do, doing, and done then write your tasks on sticky notes, and move them across the columns as you make your way through them. (Or use one of many kanban-inspired apps, such as Trello.) By limiting the number of notes you allow in the doing column to just one or two, youll ensure you bring tasks to completion, rather than starting too many at once.

Batch your tasks Reduce the psychological costs of task-switching by grouping to-dos by type wherever possible. In one unbroken hour spent processing your email, youll get through far more messages than if that same hour were scattered in smaller chunks through the day.

Cultivate deliberate imbalance Instead of a life makeover, pick one area to focus on each month or each quarter, and consciously postpone the rest. Youre better off abandoning all hope of (say) decluttering your house while you get started on an exercise routine than trying to do both at once. Then relax about the clutter, safe in the knowledge that itll get its turn in the spotlight later on.

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Want to improve focus and productivity? Do one thing at a time - The Guardian

The grossly apocryphal reportage on the death of actor Anil P Nedumangad once again revealed the deep chasm that exists between cinema and other art forms and the undue hegemony it maintains over them. A few roles that Anil portrayed impressively in films were enough to bracket him as a promising actor, which in cinema lingo is an artful term for an upstart talent. What followed his untimely death in the glimmering green waters of Malankara Dam on Christmas Day was a deluge of reportage that not just lifted him out of the wavy, vile waters of the mundane world, but placed him up above the cycloramic sky, among the diminutive stars who suddenly lost their shimmering lights.

In fact, no one can be blamed for such excesses given that news media and cinema knew little about the trained actor, his potentials, and the person whom his friends and colleagues recall as a naive and hyperactive man with a notoriously acerbic tongue and a moonlit heart.

Anil is incomplete without his greed for acting, love for friends, and devotion to the works of Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Dostoyevsky. Far from being a novice, he was a veteran actor who made an indelible imprint in modern theatre. I had an opportunity to co-organize and watch his stunning performance in a play adaptation of Willian Goldings Lord of the Flies, if not mistaken, in 1996. Anil was second to none as a source of intense energy on the stage.

He played major roles in almost all plays directed by his bosom friend, guide, and classmate Jyothish M G besides appearing in dramas directed by Surjith and Deepan Sivaraman. He also acted with seasoned theatre actors like D Raghoothaman, Jose P Raphael, Gopalan, Rajan, and James Elia ..(the list is incomplete) Of course, cinema enthused Anil. He was not among those artists who declared stage as the only world from where they get the right kick. He joined the School of Drama and Fine Arts in Thrissur to chisel his acting talents and ready himself for the world of motion pictures.

But it was not fame and money that he was looking for. He got his kicks out of acting. His huge success as a trained theatre actor for over the past 25 years had made him an acting addict. The actor in him tormented him when he was out of action. The love and concern for those close to him is evident in a recent message he sent to a former school of drama student: In the time of corona you cant make plays, I know. You write a poem, instead. Im itching to pay you.

On another occasion, he sent a voice clip to Jyothish, the head of the acting department at K R Narayanan Film Institute: If I do something great in cinema, it could happen only in your film. My liver wont start giving trouble till then, Im sure.

But, mediums other than theatre got to see very little of his talent. There is no point in blaming those who know him only for his role in Ayyappanum Koshiyum when the refreshing talent vanished abruptly from the screen. However, it points at the intimidating level of authority that cinema as a medium has managed to establish over other art forms. For all his new admirers, he was the one whom they saw on screen. Nothing more, nothing less.

Media works in currency. What is most important for the news media is the immediate present. They connect only with it. The coverage is bound to be incomplete and is directly proportional to the fame, not merit. Look at the difference between the news coverages on the deaths of lyricist Anil Panachooran and poet Neelamperoor Madhusoodanan Nair. Celebration of the present and adoration of the larger-than-life-size image projected on screen outshine everything else, says film critic C S Venkiteswaran.

The challenge faced by obit writers in newsrooms is such that it wholly hinges on the immediately available information. A couple of unsolicited quotes from film stars and political leaders make the newsroom exercise relieving, if not gratifying. But to assess an actor only on the basis of his association with the silver screen is nauseating, if not loathsome. Given a chance, Anil would have repeated what Mark Twain had said about the reports on his death: The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated, adding in a derisive tone, I dont see myself in those reports.

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Theatre of the absurd - Economic Times

Editors note: The following, second in a three-part series, is adapted from an essay inNational Reviewand is republished here with permission. ProfessorAeschlimanis the author ofThe Restoration of Man: C.S. Lewis and the Continuing Case Against Scientism(Discovery Institute Press). Find the full series here.

Oscar Wilde (18541900), a witty Dublin Protestant-atheist Irishman like GeorgeBernardShaw, but of a very different class, stamp, and implication, wrote that natural science, by revealing to us the absolute mechanism of all action, [frees] us from the self-imposed and trammeling burden of moral responsibility. Wildes resultant, post-Christian aesthetic immoralism shocked and mocked the earnestness of late Victorian Britain in witty prose and plays, including the satirical wit (and homosexual implication) ofThe Importance of Being Earnest(1895). Both Shaw and G. K. Chesterton had an intimation that Wildes witty persiflage actually disguised deep decadence, an argument made brilliantly several decades later by the American Jewish moralists Philip Rieff (The Impossible Culture: Wilde as a Modern Prophet, 198283, reprinted inThe Feeling Intellect, 1990) and Daniel Bell (The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, 1976; Beyond Modernism, Beyond Self, 1977). From Wilde came the Bloomsbury aesthetes and, we may say, nearly the whole world of the modern arts.

Yet both Shaw and Chesterton were themselves noted wits (both sometimes even accused of being paradox-mongering buffoons), and in fact Shaw shared much of the iconoclasm of his countryman Wilde, becoming a self-described feminist, Nietzschean, Ibsenite, and Wagnerite. But for Chesterton one of Shaws great achievements was his deep, abiding hatred of aestheticism Shaw even insisted that the Puritan evangelist John Bunyan (The Pilgrims Progress) was a greater writer than Shakespeare, and frequently, unaccountably, made orthodox statements, such as There is a soul hidden in every dogma and Conscience is the most powerful of the instincts, and the love of God the most powerful of all passions. Along with T. S. EliotsMurder in the Cathedral(1935) and Robert BoltsA Man for All Seasons(1960), Shaws playSt. Joan(1924) is one of the wisest, wittiest, and most sympathetic dramatic depictions of Christian religious belief in the last hundred years.

Both Shaw and Chesterton believed that the root problem of modernity was Darwinism, the acceptance of which made it impossible to resist its moral corollary, social Darwinism, and therefore plutocracy, amoral capitalism, imperialism, racialism, and militarism. Shaw wrote in the preface toMan and Superman(1903): If the wicked flourish and the fittest survive, Nature must be the god of rascals.

Though Shaw was a small-p protestant religious heretic (he argued that Joan of Arc was an early Protestant, like Hus and Wycliffe), Chesterton asserted that he was a true if eccentric Puritan moralist. Shaws critique of Darwinism was profound, especially in the long preface to his mammoth playBack to Methuselah(1921): The literary critic R. C. Churchill has called this preface the wittiest summary of the Darwinian controversy ever written (see especially the sections from Three Blind Mice onward). In his own 1944 postscript to the play, Shaw, while still insisting on the need to give up the Protestant creed (and all other Jewish and Christian creeds) of his youth in the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy in Dublin, held that Darwins exclusion of mind and purpose from nature was wrong and destructive: Unless we can reclaim mind, will, and purpose as realities in some kind of non-Darwinian, creative evolution, we fall into the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism.

Shaws predecessor Samuel Butler (18351902), and his Franco-American successor and admirer Jacques Barzun (19072012), have made similar arguments, arguments given renewed strength more recently by the American philosopher Thomas Nagel (see my Rationality vs. Darwinism,National Review, 2012). Shaws resistance to determinism, and his insistence on the irreducible reality of human consciousness and will in nature and history, elicited Chestertons profound respect and admiration. In his final, 1935 chapter on Shaw, written in the last year of Chestertons own life, he said of the older mans achievements in drama over the previous 40 years: He has improved philosophic discussions by making them more popular. But he has also improved popular amusements by making them more philosophic. He added that Shaw was one of the most genial and generous men in the world.

Yet Chestertons admiration and approval were shadowed by a sense that Shaw had great deficiencies and that his influence was ambiguous and in some cases malignant. Born 18 years earlier than Chesterton, Shaw outlived him by another 16, his life encompassing both world wars, unprecedented destruction, and the fundamental disproof of his early progressivism and cosmopolitanism. His early Fabian socialism led him to become an influential communist fellow traveler. The famously exuberant, energetic Shaw told his biographer Hesketh Pearson, a close friend of Malcolm Muggeridge, that, in the postWorld War II world, he wished when he went to bed that he would never wake again.

Like H. G. Wells, he was threatened with an utterly discouraging pessimism when his political hopes came to seem almost completely vain. Commenting on the significance of Aldous Huxleys satirical dystopiaBrave New World(1932), even before George Orwells1984, an English writer quoted by Chesterton in his 1935 chapter said, Progress is dead; andBrave New Worldis its epitaph. Beyond the world of fiction, in the world of actual human tragedy, works such as Elie WieselsNightand SolzhenitsynsGulag Archipelagomay be said to have proved the point unanswerably: Human progress may be possible, based on willed choices, but there is certainly no mystical, progressive, propulsive purpose immanent within history.

Chestertons argument about Shaw from the beginning was that he was in three ways an outsider, ways that gave him a unique perspective and insight but that also prevented his understanding what Chesterton thought of as a fundamental piety that had been characteristic of Western civilization and Western societies at their best: Shaw was a Protestant Anglo-Irishman who disdained his own country and left it permanently for London; he was emotionally, intellectually, and politically a fastidious Puritan moralist who could not, however, believe any longer in the Puritan God; and he was a Nietzschean-socialist futurist whose disgust with the human past and its traditions made him an ultimate outsider to any particular historical community or continuity.

Free from what Chesterton called the vile aesthetic philosophy of his also-cosmopolitan Irish countryman Wilde, a philosophy of ease, of acceptance, and luxurious illusion, Shaw read and was deeply affected by Nietzsche after having committed himself, in mind, action, and loyalty, to the Fabian-socialist cause, making lifelong friends and allies of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, whom he was instrumental in getting buried with full honors in Westminster Abbey in 1947. But reconciling Nietzsche with socialism was a lifelong conundrum, and it should be no surprise that Shaw came to admire strong men beyond the bourgeois-democratic tradition and temper such as Mussolini, Stalin, and the British fascist Sir Oswald Mosley. Stalin has delivered the goods, the celebrity Shaw wrote in 1931, the year of his state-conducted tour of Russia with his friend Lady Astor. A photo of the two of them in a chauffeured car on Red Square in Moscow is on the cover of David Cautes indispensable bookThe Fellow Travellers: A Postscript to the Enlightenment(1973), a brilliant documentation of the lamentable credulity of Western intellectuals in confronting Lenin, Stalin, and what the Webbs called the new civilization of the Soviet Union. Shaw died in his English country house in 1950 with a signed photograph of Stalin on his mantelpiece.

Chestertons brief study of 1909 and its even briefer 1935 sequel were thus profoundly apt in assessing Shaws greatness and his folly. He saw that Shaw was really no democrat, that his admirable public spirit had in it something cold, abstract, theoretical, and even Platonist in the sense of Plato as an elitist authoritarian; whereas Chesterton himself was truly a kind of democrat, actually liking the common man and assuming that human beings across time had come to certain conventions, traditions, and sentiments that usually had in them some important truth. (This idea profoundly influenced the Chestertonian William F. Buckley Jr.)

Tomorrow, Shaw, Scientism, and Darwinism.

Excerpt from:
Darwinism as the Root Problem of Modernity - Discovery Institute

Editors note: The following, third in a three-part series, is adapted from an essay inNational Reviewand is republished here with permission. ProfessorAeschlimanis the author ofThe Restoration of Man: C.S. Lewis and the Continuing Case Against Scientism(Discovery Institute Press). Find the full serieshere.

Much of George Bernard Shaws greatness was properly destructive of illusions and self-interested shibboleths and bromides, what Kant called the radical evil the use of the language of ethics as a screen for self-interest or self-love. An outsider to Victorian England, Shaw saw how post-Christian Great Britain habitually used such screens, and he mocked them with hilarious and hygienic effect. Jacques Barzun claimed that Shaw was in the true dramatic tradition of Aristophanes and Molire, and Shaw himself said, My business as a classic writer of comedies is to chasten morals with ridicule. He was proud of reintroducing to English drama long rhetorical speeches in the manner of Molire. Barzun called him a 20th-century Voltaire.

Yet Shaws positive criterion by which to measure and ridicule folly and vice was fatally ambiguous, eclectic, and inconstant, as Chesterton pointed out, more in sadness than in anger. Shaw could deplore scientism, what he called the anti-metaphysical temper of nineteenth century civilization (preface toSt. Joan), and thus excoriate the inhuman and subhuman implications of Darwinism, and he could sincerely invoke the conception of a Godhead immanent in all human beings. His critique of scientistic imperialism in promiscuous, cruel vivisection finds a resonant echo in our time in our better protocols for animal experimentation, as John P. Gluck in hisVoracious Science and Vulnerable Animals(2016) has movingly shown.

But often his clear, confident moral rectitude is just a muddle; as his character Barbara Undershaft, the Salvation Army Major Barbara of his 1905 play, says after her loss of faith, There must be some truth or other behind this frightful irony. Shaws close friend Beatrice Webb castigated the play as amazingly clever, grimly powerful, but ending ... in an intellectual and moral morass. The same could be said of a number of the plays absurd outcomes, without the later, post-Shaw intention of celebrating absurdity (Beckett, Sartre, Pinter, Albee; Tom Stoppard is a salutary exception Shaws true successor). Some of the plays are almost unbearably tedious, such as the vastBack to Methuselah, despite its brilliant prose preface. In a notable attack on Shaw, the actor and playwright John Osborne, who had acted in provincial productions of many of the plays, asserted in 1977 that Shaw is the most fraudulent, inept writer of Victorian melodramas ever to gull a timid critic or fool a dull public. It is not difficult to agree with him that the much-praisedCandida(1900) is an ineffably feeble piece and that it is hard to think of anything more silly.

Shaws biggest box-office success was the poignant, strangely piousSt. Joan(1923), written especially for the actress Sybil Thorndike (18821976), which made her career. Some of the plays still make powerful reading and seeing Pygmalion,Androcles and the Lion, andArms and the Manare marvelous comedies. His prefaces are often lucid and profound, his music criticism expert, eloquent, and memorable for example, his early championing of Beethoven is deeply moving. His literary criticism is sometimes classic and even lapidary, as in his famous 1912 introduction to Dickenss novelHard Times.

But Chesterton was right to think that trying to synthesize Nietzsche and socialism and ultimately communism was to produce fools gold and destructive illusions. Writing after his own painfully revealing year in Moscow in 193233, as a correspondent for theManchester Guardian, Malcolm Muggeridge, a favored relation of Shaws close friends the Webbs, who was raised on Shaw in his London socialist home, deplored Shaws fellow-traveling propaganda for Communist Russia, whose reality the acute Shaw failed to recognize in his 1931 guided tour or for the 20 years of his life that remained. Chestertons ambivalence about Shaw as man and writer remains a superbly judicious guide to the most influential English-language dramatist of the 20th century; and Chestertons own body of writing, in several genres, remains a golden thread by means of which the sanest and most salutary elements of the classical-Christian literary, ethical, and political tradition made their way into the apocalyptic 20th century, and make their way to us.

Link:
Shaw, Scientism, and Darwinism - Discovery Institute

Representational Image.

Five people have been booked in Uttar Pradeshs Raebareli district for allegedly torching the house of a Muslim family that converted to Hinduism in September.

Police superintendent Shlok Kumar said the preliminary probe suggests that Dev Prakash, the convert, and Mohammad Tahir, the main accused, also had a dispute over a piece of land. We are probing the case from all angles. Tahir and his brother have been detained and are being questioned, he said. Kumar added a first information report has been filed and the accused have been booked for mischief by fire or explosive substance and rioting.

Police said the family managed to escape even as the house was gutted and that security forces have been deployed in the area.

Also read |UP:Dalit family claims beaten up by village strongmen for using hand pump, leaves home

Mohammed Anwar converted to Hinduism last year along with his three children and renamed himself, Dev Prakash.

Police said Prakash is a single-parent as his first wife died and his three subsequent marriages did not work.

In his police complaint, Prakash alleged that former village head Tahir and his associates were upset over his conversion.

He added he saw Tahir and his brother, Rehan, setting the house on fire.

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5 booked for torching house of family that converted to Hinduism in UPs Raebareli - Hindustan Times

As we step into a new decade, Hinduism, and its interpretation and practice, will play an increasingly pivotal role. We have seen the manifestation of hard political Hindutva, wedded to the goal of a Hindu Rashtra. It stands discredited not for its evangelism, but for its lack of knowledge of the basics of Hinduism. Another label bandied about is soft Hindutva, but with no real clarity about what it means. Since India is a deeply religious country, such notions need to be investigated before they distort the role religion plays in politics and, indeed, in our lives.

The pejorative phrase soft Hindutva is an outcome of a curious if unintended collusion between the ultra-Hindu right and the ultra-liberal left. The supporters of political Hindutva believe that they have a monopoly over public display of religion (PDR). They are overt in their passionate and sometimes fanatical belief in the need to project, promote and impose their warped view of Hinduism. Thus, they view PDR by any other section of the political class, as an attempt to usurp their ordained public space through a weak imitation, soft as against their hard religious commitment.

The ultra-liberal left is dismissive about religion per se, and believes that any public show of personal religious fealty by politicians is a betrayal of secularism. For its votaries, political Hindutva can be countered not by a saner practice of religion, but by not practising religion at all, least of all publicly.

I wonder what Mahatma Gandhi would have thought of these unseemly definitional shenanigans. He was, as Nehru said, a Hindu to the innermost depth of his being. During his first jail term in South Africa (January 1908), he read Rajayoga, commentaries on the Gita. During his second incarceration (October-December 1908) he read the Bhagwad Gita almost every day.

During his third imprisonment (February-May 1909) he read the Veda-Shabda-Sangana, the Upanishads, the Manusmriti, Patanjalis Yoga Shastra, and re-read the Gita. One of the first books published by his International Press in Phoenix, Natal, was an abridged version of Tulsidass Ramcharitmanas, which, as he wrote in his autobiography, was the greatest book in all devotional literature.

He did not, therefore, see anything wrong in espousing the utopia of Ram Rajya. But and this is critically important he combined his staunch belief in Hinduism with the fullest respect for all religions.

Let us take another example. Madan Mohan Malviya (1861-1946) was four times the president of the Indian National Congress, a follower of Mahatma Gandhi, and like him a devout Hindu. When, as a member of the Congress, he founded the Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha, for the welfare of Hindus and Hinduism, was he practising soft Hindutva or merely following his personal faith? He is credited for having begun the aarti puja at Har-ki-Pauri in Haridwar which continues to this day and the setting up of organisations for the protection of the cow, and for a cleaner Ganga.

He is also the iconic founder of the Banaras Hindu University, from where, as its vice-chancellor, he published a magazine called Sanatan Dharma to promote religious and dharmic interests. The national slogan Satyameva Jayate taken from the Mundaka Upanishad, was also his contribution. Did all of this make him a proud Hindu immersed in his faith, or just a practitioner of soft Hindutva, uncritically emulating Savarkar and the RSS?

Our assessments need to get away from such knee-jerk categorisations and aspire to a more reflective inquiry. The truth is that when Hinduism is reduced to cynical tokenism for short-term political dividends, it is soft Hindutva. When it is devalued to illiterate aggression for long-term political gain, it is political Hindutva. Both these extremes are a deliberate ploy to make genuine Hindus lose agency of the way they wish to practice their religion in conformity with republican values, democratic principles and constitutional secularism.

Swami Vivekananda, the towering symbol of Hindu renaissance, would have been impatient of such categorisations of soft or hard. His mission was to espouse an enlightened and inclusive form of Hinduism sans hatred, intolerance and violence. Once, when he was berated by conservative Hindu critics for staying with a Muslim lawyer in Mount Abu, he expostulated: Sir, what do you mean? I am a sanyasin. I am above all your social conventions I am not afraid of God because he sanctions it. I am not afraid of the scriptures, because they allow it. But I am afraid of you people and your society. You know nothing of God and the scriptures. I see Brahman everywhere manifested through even the meanest creature. For me there is nothing high or low. Shiva, Shiva!

Hinduism deserves a true renaissance based on its great wisdoms. But this will require its followers to study their religious legacy, and prevent its distortion by hard and soft Hindutva-vadis.

Lord Ram in the Ramayana says: Janani Janambhoomischa Swargadapi Gariyasi Mother and motherland are superior to heaven. Today, our motherland requires social harmony and stability to realise her destiny of becoming one of the great nations of the world. If Prime Minister Narendra Modis call, Sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas, is not to become just an expedient slogan, it must be based on Swami Vivekanandas vision and on Mahatma Gandhis inclusiveness.

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Warping a great faith: Both hard and soft Hindutva are expedient uses of religion for political ga - The Times of India Blog

Hinduism, like any religion, can produce fanatics, and the modern, essentially Secular State of India has to contend with them; but at their best the tradition of India, as reflected in her myths and stories, are all-embracing and tolerant. It has always been recognised in India that there are many paths to Truth, and what is appropriate for one person may not be appropriate to another. William Radice, Author of Myths and Legends of India 2001

Of all the religions in the world, Hindu religion seems to me to be absolutely different and multi-dimensional. There is no religion in the world that can compare even remotely with it except those religions that took their birth in the undivided India like Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism etc. These religions carry the flavour of the soil of the land of its birth, unlike other religions in India that had taken birth outside India. No wonder, the thoughts and practices, even rituals, of religions born outside ancient India do not sync with Hinduism like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism born on Indian soil.

Therefore, there is so much of discussion and debate about the name Hinduism itself, about its etymology and as being derived from that part of India, bordering Afghanistan, then known as Sindh; also attributed to Indus river in Punjab, river Sindhu. I guess Hinduism is the only religion in the world which is identified and known by its geographical area. Other religions that came from across the borders of India (Hindustan) and also those born in India have their identities known by their founders. But, Hindustan = Hinduism.

Enlightened people of today, like yours truly (pardon my immodesty and audacity) know very well that the so-called Age of Reason as enunciated in 18th century by Thomas Paine, as the time of life when one began to be able to distinguish right from wrong, has not yet arrived even in this 21st century. Well, can we have the refrain In God We Trust in an Age of Reason? Look what is happening in America today. Yes, even today Constitutionally they trust in God. Yet Science is the hope. Not God. Anyway, the book Paine wrote had its own contradictions is a fact. But let us not delude ourselves waiting for the Age of Reason to dawn upon this mankind.

As propounded by the French-Philosopher-Author Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is the only truth That is: Only by (we humans) existing (as we are) and acting in a certain way, do we give meaning to our lives! If we look at ourselves all over the world, in this time of COVID-19, we will be able to appreciate the theory of Jean-Paul Sartre. Let it be.

Why do I ramble about Hinduism of all religions of the world? The provocation or temptation came from my friend N. Raghavan of Raghulal & Co., the Pharmacist of our city, who for whatever reason sent me two books individually produced and hand-bound on Hinduism. One running to 500 pages, titled Roots, written by one Kadambi Srinivasan and importantly published in this format by Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, Tirupati in 2019. Another, titled Sanatana Dharma [An elementary textbook of Hindu religion and ethics]. This was published in digital technology by the Board of Trustees, Central Hindu College, Benares, in 1916.

READ ALSO Mysuru to host first Literary Fest on June 18

It is difficult, even impossible, for one to understand this book Roots which is in English. However, for those interested in understanding Hinduism, the introduction in Chapter I gives a fairly good idea as to what the book will discuss and delineate.

It says that in the world three religions are regarded as the oldest having come down to us from the pre-historic times. Those three religions are: 1. Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma); 2. Zoroastrianism; 3. Judaism.

Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas. And Vedas consist of a) Samhitas; b) Brahmanas and c) Upanishads. The metrical hymns in the Rigveda Samhita are regarded as composed by a man and the earliest one.

Let me leave this heavy tome Roots here at this and turn my attention to the book Sanatana Dharma. Other religions were founded by Prophets giving the followers of the faith a Holy Book. The book, believed to be immutable and followed to the last word. However, Hinduism is a name that got evolved over a period from Sanatana Dharma, and, as explained in the beginning of this article, given by foreign invaders and marauders. They wanted to give a name to a faith that was nameless and known merely as Sanatana Dharma and gave it the name of its land.

No wonder, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, the Philosopher of Hindu thoughts, defined this Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma as simply a way of life. Which is why, despite disparate languages, food habits, dresses one wore, ritual practices of the Gods they worshipped, variety of Gods and Goddesses, the variety of festivals in different parts of this Jambu Dweepa, the Akhanda Bharata extending beyond the present borders of India (from Kabul to Kamboja, Cambodia) survived. It is an eternal religion of the ancient law and based on Vedas.

An ancient, eternal civilisation survived despite onslaught on their way of life and faith by the invading forces following a totally different religion that always ventured to convert to their religion those in India who followed a different religion with different ethics and morals. Thus Hinduism is an eternal religion and after independence a national religion. Whether some people living in India following radically different religion accept this truism or not. Let it be. Just as Christianity is a national religion in America, England and other European countries and Islam is the national religion in Islamic countries, in India, Bharat or Hindustan, it is Hinduism which is the national religion but tolerates other religions also (secularism) like in many other countries. So be it.

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The book is too complex for me to understand easily, but not so intricate and incomprehensible like the other one Roots. The book Sanatana Dharma has many gems on morality, virtue and ethics which if followed in life will give us mukthi, liberation. For example, it says what kind of virtues people should aim at in the particular place and time. Position and power they find themselves is due to divine grace. As all men have not the power nor the time to find one for themselves, the Will of Ishwara, Shastras have been given to tell us that Will, and so to help us in distinguishing between Right and Wrong. There are special rules, given in the Shastras (difficult to apply but one must try). Such as:

1. To give joy to another is righteousness; to give pain is sin.

2. Let not any man do unto another any act that he wished not done to himself by others, knowing it to be painful to himself.

3. Let not any one do an act that injureth another, nor any that he feeleth shame to do.

4. Let him not do to another what is not good to himself.

Well, in short, it says watch out on your Karma. Bad Karma will haunt you even after death and rebirth.

The third book that I tried to read as important to understand Hinduism was Brahma Sutra by Swami Vireswarananda of Ramakrishna Order. I had earlier read another book by a Swamiji which was easy to understand for a simple-minded person. For example, there is a Sutra which asks a question: Why did God create this world?

Answer: Why does a child play?

I was delighted. There was, for sure, no earthly purpose in a childs play, except probably for self-joy. Since I was also a child I vouch for this explanation. At the end, it is dust unto dust.

One more interesting information I could glean from this book was about the contrary opinion to the claims of some that Buddha and Mahaveera preceded Ramayana and Mahabharata. They came many years (centuries) after the vedantic period that created these two Itihasa, epics. It says, Buddha and Mahaveera also were not the founders of any altogether new schools of philosophy but imbibed much of the thought current in the country at that time. In short, like Jesus who went about reforming the dogmatic, fanatic, intolerant Judaism and ended up as the founder of a new religion.

It could be that vedantic period must have been intolerant and very exclusive to only the upper-caste (if caste system had existed then) that the land of Sanatana Dharma threw up Reformers like Buddha and Mahaveera who in turn became the founders of their own religion. Enough for now.

Om, Sat, Chit, Ananda

e-mail: [emailprotected]

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Reflecting on Hinduism as a Religion and a Way of Life ! - Star of Mysore

Sir,

I am a regular reader of SOM and look forward to reading K.B. Ganapathys column. I particularly enjoy reading hitherto unknown stories of seemingly obvious legends, landmarks and artifacts in and around Mysuru.

Though I am not from Mysuru per se, I have close connections in that city and consider Mysuru to be cultural and educational centre in Karnataka, very much like Pune in Maharashtra.

KBGs Abracadabra on Dec. 30, 2020 titled Reflecting on Hinduism as a Religion and a Way of Life! covers the topic after my heart. I am a student of ancient India, emigration/immigration of people and vedic civilisation in general.

I am interested in what is wheat and what is chaff in our civilisation (or dharma as practised now). Thus I am thankful for any educative article I can read. KBG has provided one such article and I thank him for the same. Looking forward to more articles from KBGs pen.

Govindaraj Kuntimad, Dallas, TX USA, 31.12.2020

You can also mail us your views, opinions, and stories to [emailprotected]

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Reflecting on Hinduism as a Religion: A good read - Star of Mysore

In Uttar Pradeshs Rae Bareli, an attempt was made to burn alive family of a Muslim man which reverted to Hinduism about three months back. As per reports, on Saturday night, some men gathered outside their house and locked up the family inside. They then set the house on fire. Some how the man managed to break open the back door and escaped with his children.

Upon being informed, the police and fire brigade reached the spot and put out the fire. Five, including the village head, have been booked.

Mohammad Anwar, a resident of the village, about three months back had reverted to Hinduism. He changed his name to Dev Prakash Patel. He even changed names of his children to Devnath, Deendayal and Durga Devi. In September 2020, as per the vedic rituals, he had reverted to Hinduism.

On Saturday, after having his meal, he was sleeping in his house along with his children. A few hours later, at around 2:30 AM, some men gathered outside their house and locked them inside. After this, they set their house on fire and tried to burn the family alive.

When Patel woke up, he saw everything around him was on fire. He tried to escape but realised he was locked inside. He finally managed to escape with his children from back door.

Upon being informed, Circle Office Ramkishor Singh, Station Incharge Pankaj Tripathi reached the spot with force. Hindu organisations too reached the spot and expressed anger and rage. Dev Prakash Patel accused Village head Tahir, Dwarika Singh, Rehan alias Sonu, Ali Ahmed, Imtiyaz as well as a few members of the local madarsa for trying to burn him alive.

A case has been registered against the accused. As informed by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Media Advisor Shalabh Mani Tripathi, the village head Tahir is absconding while others are arrested. The police is raiding various locations to arrest the culprits.

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Uttar Pradesh: Muslim mans family reverts to Hinduism in Rae Bareli, members of madarsa, village head try to burn them alive - OpIndia

Although Malaysia is a multicultural country whose constitution guarantees the freedom of religion for those of all faiths, its recent politics has been heading in the direction of intolerance and bigotry. A case in point is the worrying trend in Hindu-Muslim relations.

For more than 1,000 years, Muslims and Hindus have co-existed in the Indian subcontinent. Due to the current conflicts that have their origins in the activities of political parties, many assume that Hindus and Muslims have been antagonistic towards each other for centuries. While it is true that there has been a great deal of friction and conflict between them, at the same time, the more than 1,000 years of occupying the same land led to the development of a rich culture that was a product of interaction, respect and mutual borrowing in many fields of life.

Although there has been peaceful coexistence between Hindus and Muslims in Malaysia, this is now under threat, partly due to the recent development of a more exclusivist orientation among certain segments of Malays that stresses a Malay-Muslim identity at the expense of non-Muslims. This politics of identity sometimes result in the denigration of other communities. A few years ago, there was the fiasco of the Technological University of Malaysia (UTM) Islamic and Asian Civilisations module, in which derogatory remarks were made about both Hinduism and Sikhism.

Photos of two presentation slides bearing UTMs logo went viral on social media. The module claimed that Islam had introduced civility into the lives of the Hindus of India. It was suggested that Hindus preferred to be dirty, and that Islam had taught Hindu converts to Islam the importance of cleanliness and healthcare. The module had also apparently taught that Hindus believe that dirt on the body is a form of ritual that could lead to the attainment of nirvana.

UTM identified the offending lecturer, conducted a probe and terminated his services. The university said the lecturer had not stuck to the curriculum provided by the ministry.

However, this was not the full extent of bigotry against the Hindu community. Several Hindu temples have been vandalised in past years, the most recent being in Penang at the Sri Muneeswarar Temple in Tengku Kudin Road in 2016.

Also read: Go, Amjad Hanuman, Go Lift The Mountain, Kill The Demons!

It is vital, for the sake of maintaining mutual respect and tranquillity in Malaysia, that its political and religious leaders continuously speak out against bigotry and violence in the name of religion. Muslim leaders in particular have a greater responsibility in this regard as Islam in the religion of state in Malaysia. This means that the Muslim political and religious elite should not merely tolerate the presence of non-Muslim minorities but actively protect their rights and property.

Muslims in Malaysia should think more about who their Hindu countrymen are. They may want to read and take advice from the great Muslim scholar, Abu al-Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni. Al-Biruni was born on September 5, 973, in Kath, Khwarazm (modern Khiva in present-day Uzbekistan) and died on December 13, 1048, in Ghazna, Afghanistan, at the age of 75.

During his youth, Khwarazm was part of the Iranian Samanid Empire. Al-Biruni spent his early years under the patronage of various rulers until finally becoming part of the court of Mahmud Ghaznavi (979-1030), the ruler of an empire that included parts of what is now known as Afghanistan, Iran and northern India.

Al-Biruni went to India with the troops of Mahmud and remained there for many years. During this time, he studied Sanskrit, translated a number of Indian religious texts and conducted research on Indian religions and their doctrines. Al-Biruni was the first Muslim and probably the first scholar to provide a systematic account of the religions of India from a sociological point of view. Al-Biruni can also be said to be the first to systematically study religions from a comparative perspective. He studied Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism and Zoroastrianism.

Typical of the great scholars of his period, Al-Biruni was multitalented, being well-versed in physics,metaphysics, mathematics, geography and history. He wrote a number of books and treatises. Apart from his Kitab ma li-l-Hind (The Book of What Constitutes India), he also wrote Al-Qanun al-Masudi (on astronomy and trigonometry), Al-Athar al-Baqia (on ancient history and geography), Kitab al-Saidana (Materia Medica) and Kitab al-Jawahir (Book of Precious Stones). His Al-Tafhim-li-Awail Sinaat al-Tanjim gives a summary of mathematics and astronomy.

As far as Hinduism is concerned, his most important work was his Kitab ma li-l-Hind, in which he presents a study of Indian religions. It is quite remarkable, in fact, that Al-Birunis work on India is considered to be a vital source of knowledge of Indian history and society in the 11th century, providing details of the religion, philosophy, literature, geography, chronology, astronomy, customs, laws and astrology of India.

Also read: In Todays Polarised India, This UP Village Is the Epitome of Hindu-Muslim Harmony

Kitab ma li-l-Hind aimed to provide a comprehensive account of what he called the religions of India and their doctrines. This included the religion, philosophy, literature, geography, science, customs and laws of the Indians. Al-Biruni considered what we call Hinduism as religion centuries before Europeans recognised Hinduism as not mere heathenism.

Al-Birunis approach was to make assessments of the religions of India based on what was logically acceptable. He was fully aware of the need to refrain from making value judgements about Indian religions from an Islamic perspective. He was very conscious of the need to present Indian civilisation as understood by Indians themselves. In order to do so, he quoted extensively from Sanskrit texts, which he had either read himself or which were communicated to him.

Malaysians are on the whole a tolerant and respectful people. However, the political developments of recent years which have seen an unhealthy development of identity politics in the form of, among other things, reckless statements made by politicians, religious leaders and educators threaten to upset the current harmony that informs our society. This will potentially affect Hindu-Muslim relations.

There is, therefore, clearly a need for dialogue between the Hindu and Muslim communities of Malaysia. The purpose of this dialogue is to examine the commonalities in values, beliefs and culture that exist between Hinduism and Islam and to reaffirm the commitment that the two communities have to peace and harmonious living. Al-Biruni should be considered a starting point for such dialogue.

Syed Farid Alatas is Professor at the National University of Singapores Department of Sociology.

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Al-Biruni and Hindu-Muslim Relations: Lessons from Malaysia - The Wire