Veda > Recent Status Updates

TWIMC,
I am neither a politician, nor an author, nor am I trying to be some famous well-loved/liked GoodReads reviewer, so I have zero reasons to be politically correct here.
If and when I come across any book that glorifies missionaries, peddles hate against pagans/kaafirs/non-believers, and all of that nonsense, I will unabashedly call it out without an iota of political correctness.

Contd. in comment section…

TWIMC,
I am neither a politician, nor an author, nor am I trying to be some famous well-loved/liked GoodReads reviewer, so I have zero reasons to be politically correct here.
If and when I come across any book that glorifies missionaries, peddles hate against pagans/kaafirs/non-believers, and all of that nonsense, I will unabashedly call it out without an iota of political correctness.

Contd. in next update…

Panna Dhaay ♥️🙏🏾

What unimaginable sacrifices and hardships our ancestors had to go through to keep dharma alive 💔

శిరస్సు వంచి పాదాభి వందనాలు sirasu vanchi padabhi vandanalu
to each and every one of them 🙏🏾

Of course, the author made that connection to Bhagavad Gita!

'just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord.. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and most beautiful spiritual teachngs in existnce, non-attachment to the fruit of your action is called karma yoga. It is described as the path of 'consecrated action'.

N this entire thing reminds me of 'the surrender experiment' book

(-) Pain body (= vasanas?)
(-) Clock time
(-) Psychological time
(-) 'See if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it'
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन । मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥

భోగి/Bhogi, మకర సంక్రాంతి/Makara Sankranthi, కనుమ/kanuma శుభాకాంక్షలు to everyone celebrating!
Happy Sankranthi/Lohri/Pongal/Bihu! 🌾🐄

To the farmers if there are any out here: Thank you for all the food you bring to our plates 🙏🏾🌺

This is reminding me so much about 'Vipassana' form of meditation and the philosophy behind it!

'There is some good in every person if you can find it. It is a teacher's duty to find and develop it.' ♥️

'Each girl has to read her story out loud and then we talk it over.......... Jane's stories are extremely sensible. Then Diana puts too many murders into hers. She says most of the time she doesn't know what to do with the people so she kills them off to get rid of them'

😆

I am quite enjoying this. Would have found the experience even better if not for those many glaring typos. Chapter 41 is by far my favourite. Loads of info that's giving a lot of clarity.

‘It is a story of our ancestors’ ❤️

I didn’t know it was possible to like Ami Ganatra (the author) anymore than I already do. Well, here I am, liking her a little more than I did yesterday.

Ashtami, Amavasya, Shukla Paksha, Krishna Paksha…
😭❤️🤌🏾

Okay. Transport me to this world, will you?

I have decided to not read any other book until I finish this one.
And so, I am doing everything else but reading.

A very poor attempt at humour and wit, in case the author was trying to be funny and witty with the way he’s portraying India and Indians. All he is doing is reinforcing the stereotypes and racism that Indians face everyday at the global level.

This book has it all! Everything!
And to think, I didn’t bother to check what it was about even though I came across it every single time I was in a bookshop, I used to find the cover page including the title, strange and ‘dupe’y. Ah, that ignorance and brashness!
I’m glad I didn’t pick it up though, forget recognising the wisdom within, I would’ve brushed it all away
Life’s small mercies, I say

IMO, a must-read for everyone who calls themselves a Hindu. While I am currently reading the KU copy, going to get a hard copy as a mark of support to the author. Feel that the book might find better acceptance if the tone is a li’l different, as in, ‘death cult of the desert, debauchers, stinking barbarians..’
Plenty of folks who’ll cry bout this instead of acknowledging what the Hindus had to go through.

What a start! What a start! Bowled over by the preface itself. Seems like it is going to be a hard hitting book. The tone is very unapologetic, the author has called out everyone responsible, including the current day Hindus, for the prevalence of false narratives around Hindu rulers.
Surprised to know that there were Jain Generals under the Maharanas and about the Andhra-Mewar connection.

Folks,

Are there any Indic Reading Clubs here on GoodReads. I stalked some of your profiles (👀 sorry!) to check if you are a member of any such groups. Just found a couple and they aren’t active either. Please let me know if any such active group exists. Thank you 🙏🏾

The author has stated something that portrays him and his fellow Western monks aptly - ‘ Ani Dawa’s mother was right: Westerners were insane. Their search for truth was just was just another delusion of grandeur, their Enlightenment nothing more than a nervous breakdown’.

Kudos to the author for being so honest. Looks like all is not lost yet.

So, why should I suffer alone?! 👀😈
‘In some strange way, these 3 images - the cosmic phallus, the poster about sexually transmitted diseases, and the body of the pyre- made perfect sense to me now. In the begn, there was Shiva’s enormous penis. In the end, your life was reduced to a handful of ashes and thrown down the river. In the middle, Dr.Singh took care of your haemorrhoids’
🤨😒

"I couldn't help but wonder how the actual god Shiva would have reacted to this 3-story-high replica of his penis towering autonomously above the Kangra Valley, making love to the low-flying clouds, and getting caressed by little girls in blue uniforms and white stockings returning home from school"

Says a foreign (so-called) Buddhist monk 😓

Wondrng what picture of India the author is trying to portray.
Seems like the he isn't ready to become a monk yet has become one.The caste trope has been used a couple of times, looks like every foreigner who has been to India is an expert on caste
Also, "a fierce man presiding... kerosene stoves, stirring a pot of aloo Gobi with one hand and massaging his testicles with the other"🙄

Reading this book might be akin to being shown a mirror. Just reading the foreword brought back memories of sitting through a lecture by an ‘eminent’ IAS turned social worker who ended his talk by declaring that there was nothing positive about Hinduism except that it has numerous gods. I was once a very apologetic, guilt driven Hindu, and this book might remind me all that I did and said while being that.

I can’t. DNFing this book. This is very infuriating. To top that, I just came across an article that says ‘Bharatanatyam was deliberately separated from Sudra bodies in the 1930s by upper caste cultural nationalists’.
Like what!!!
These folks don’t really have the guts nor the common sense to look into what separated the Devadasis from their arts, their inherited knowledge systems, their lifestyle… (contd)

Taking my time with this book.
I do not have any ideal place or time to read, I read whenever and wherever.
For some reason, I feel comfortable reading this book only at the beginning of the day after I have finished my sadhana. I think this book is becoming a part of my sadhana 👀

No! No! No! This book is so infuriating, in so many ways that I don't even know where to start.
*Taking a deep breath*
Will continue to read to know how a non-Indian who 'spent several months in South India learning about Devadasis' became an expert not just on Devadasis but also bhakti movement and various Hindu Saints and seers and their literature to an extent that each chapter (contd in comments)

No! No! This book is so infuriating, in so many ways that I don't even know where to start.
*Taking a deep breath*
Will read to know how a non-Indian who 'spent several months in South India learning about Devadasis' became an expert not just on Devadasis but also bhakti movement and various Hindu Saints and seers and their literature to an extent that each chapter (contd in comments, reached char limit)

I am planning to take a few online courses designed by Chinmaya Mission. Their 'Atmabodha' course description says this is one of the basic texts that one should read before reading texts such as Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, etc., and it was recommended to have a copy of this book. So, here I am :)

Looks like I am finally ready to read this classic 🙏🏾🕉️