Baba
AM teachings may vanish
Namaskar,
Everyone comes onto this earth with a role to play. Some just live an ordinary life of eating and drinking; some do heroic deeds and sacrifice for the welfare of others; and, some people become cowards and fearfully accept various dogmas, even when they know those things are wrong.
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Taraka Brahma's teachings lost
This letter focuses on this latter category: cowardly people who knowingly submit themselves to dogma in order to escape criticism, punishment, and the like. Because, over the ages, it is such persons who have allowed or enabled the teachings of Taraka Brahma to gradually become more and more diluted until finally they are reduced to a crude set of illogical and useless rituals. Such a tragedy has happened in the past, and if we are not careful it will happen in this present era also.
Both Lord Shiva and Lord Krsna took advent on this earth and taught the people of the day so many practical and philosophical tenets of dharma sadhana, morality, and spiritual realisation. The lives of these two Taraka Brahma's were densely filled with righteous actions and guidelines for others to see and follow. Yet step by step, those teachings were eaten away - very slowly, from one generation to the next. It did not happen all at once.
How & why cowardly people acquiesce
First a priest - in order to heighten the prestige of his own temple or out of his own greed - told that worshiping Lord Shiva at his temple / tiirtha will bring salvation. And so many other nonsense things they told for their own selfish gain.
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Those early followers who were aware of Lord Shiva's teachings knew that such priestly edicts were false. But, in their cowardly way, they did not protest due to fear of punishment and retribution by those priests. So the people kept mum, obediently followed those priests, and internally thought that Lord Shiva will save the situation. Huddled in their fearful ways, such cowardly people acquiesced to the dogmatic preachings of those priests.
Time passed. Their children saw this as did their grandchildren. In turn, those younger generations got it fixed in their mind that their grandfather was faithfully following the original and authentic guidelines of Lord Shiva by visiting that particular temple or tiirtha or by paying certain taxes to priests in order to marry a daughter or receive the graces of God.
This led to the indoctrination of a new generation into dogma. What started out as one generation of people knowingly and fearfully compromising with dogma, gradually rolled into a complete misunderstanding by the younger generations.
One generation to the next
Those newer generations took that dogma to be the golden road - the path of truth and excellence. Because that is all they knew, thanks to the fearful and timid dealings of those before them. They saw their grandfather and thought that must be correct, when in fact that grandfather was keeping silent and obeying those dogmatic and exploitative priests to save himself from being beaten, abused, victimised, harassed, or tortured.
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This is the way dharmic teachings get dismantled. It happened with Lord Shiva's teachings as well as with Lord Krsna's teachings. In both circumstances, cowardly people are at fault for failing to stand up and oppose those fraudulent priests.
The distortion of Lord Shiva's and Lord Krsna's teachings happened to such an extreme degree that when Baba delivered His two treatises - Namah Shivaya Shantaya and Namami Krsna Sundaram - those sets of dharmic discourses towered over the dogmatic rituals those followers were doing today. The dogma the present day followers of Lord Shiva and Lord Krsna were doing did not resemble the glorious teachings Baba had given in those books. The true teachings of Lord Shiva and Lord Krsna were utterly non-existent in the contemporary society. Such was the extreme degree to which dogma had taken root.
And again, what was the cause: The step-by-step compromise made by cowardly people who were too fearful and too scared to oppose the those cheats.
Baba's teachings tainted
And that is the operative factor in our AMPS as well. Certain opportunistic Wts went off the rails into the land of dogma, and, in response, a section of spineless followers acquiesce. They see (a) the Bangalization of Baba’s discourses, (b) the sinful dogma of holy land, (c) the dogma that central Wts are above conduct ruler, (d) the dogma that PP is above Caryacarya , (e) the elimination of Neohumanism, (f) the acceptance of groupism, (g) and so many other injustices going on, yet they keep quiet in exchange of a high post. Their mantra becomes: "Keep quiet - do not say anything - just accept it all." In the back of their mind they think that "others will fix", when in fact it is their duty to come forward and fight for what is right.
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"Yes man" or "goody-goodies"
Such cowardly people become "yes man" or "goody-goodies" to those in power. They think that this is the only way to survive; when in truth they are ruining their entire tantric career by turning themselves into the agents of dogma. Because what they accept out of fear, the next generations will blindly accept as truth, and Baba's true teachings will be lost.
The younger people will think, "Our elders were around Baba so what they were doing must be correct." In that case, dogmatic functions like so-called mahaprayan and the reading of Fake Ananda Vaniis will become normal and the real ideological foundations of AMPS will systematically vanish into thin air. There will not be a trace of Ananda Marga ideology left on this earth.
This is not some false dream or fictional horror story. This is the reality of what will most certainly happen if a strong stand is not immediately taken against the present dogmas that priests / wts have dragged into AMPS. Baba's advent will be for naught as His teachings will be gone.
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So we must not be cowardly or fearful of threats and rantings by those in power, rather we are to stand up and maintain His original teachings. Therein lies the establishment of dharma in AMPS and our debt to Guru.
Ananda Marga ideology says, "We cannot call people “good” if they cannot lead people of all walks of life towards welfare. We can call them “goody-goodies” but not good people. Those who are truly good people will move bravely forward and provide inspiration and strength to those mute masses to fight against all kinds of obstacles, and give a clarion call to them to march ahead." (1)
Ananda Marga philosophy guides us, "Intelligent people should no longer remain silent...They must not act like goody-goodies, seeing evil but continuing to tolerate it. This is very bad." (2)
Ananda Marga philosophy says, "The characteristic of good people is to fight against injustice, to firmly adhere to truth and righteousness, to protect the helpless and fight against all evil persons. Those who are merely simple and are of a meek and goody-goody nature are not good people." (3)
Conclusion
Whenever and wherever we see any dogma cropping up or in vogue - whether it be philandering by monks, priestocracy superiority, or scriptural distortions - we should wage a merciless war, upholding Baba's teachings. Failure to do so is only inviting the multiplication of dogma and the ruination of our AMPS. No one should fall into such a cowardly way of life.
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Sadguru Baba says, "I have already said that Ananda Marga is the first movement aimed at liberating spirituality from the unwholesome influences from dogma. Hence you must not in any way encourage dogma. Rather, you should carry on an endless fight against dogma. And while fighting against dogma, you will realize the actual truth, and when you will come in contact with truth, you will be established in real spirituality...human beings have got to be established in human excellence and carry on a ceaseless struggle against dogma." (4)
Namaskar,
In Him,
Shriidevi
How did phallic worship become equated with the tantra of Lord Shiva? Why did the worship of Sri Krsna become reduced to a mere set of rituals instead of an internal sadhana towards Godhood?
How is it that these two Taraka Brahmas lived on this earth for decades and decades and graciously gave a huge body of dharmic teachings, only for those guidelines to be distorted into something of little or no value - even harmful?
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What is the operative factor in this demise and what do we need to be wary of with respect to keeping our Beloved Baba's teachings and practices in their original form. That is what we seek to investigate here.
Avoid pitfalls
In our search, the review of history is important. Taking a look back into the past teaches us how to avoid pitfalls in the future. For instance, if we fail to study the history surrounding the partition of India and all its tragedies, then in the future we may think that dividing a country is a fine and noble enterprise. So a glance back - now and again - at history is most helpful. Thus, understanding what transpired with Lord Shiva's and Lord Krsna's teachings provides insight into how to properly manage Baba's divine ideological guidelines.
References
1. Saḿgiita: Song, Dance and Instrumental Music, Serve the Supreme by Kiirtana
2. Liberation of Intellect: Neo-Humanism, Bondages and Solutions (Discourse 2)
3. A Few Problems Solved - 5, Shrávańii Púrńimá
4. Prout in a Nutshell - 18, Various Forms of Exploitation
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The below sections are entirely different topics, unrelated to the above material.
They stand on their own as points of interest.
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== Section: Important Teaching ==
Suppression of languages across the globe
Prout philosophy states, “”For the all-round welfare and development of human beings, society needs to follow some fundamental socio-political principles. Without the firm foundation of such principles, disunity, injustice and exploitation will flourish. To avoid this and to safeguard the interests of all people, the leaders of society must ensure that cardinal socio-political principles are strictly followed. Otherwise, individual and collective progress can never be achieved.”
There are three cardinal socio-political principles which should never be violated…..Thirdly, no mother tongue should be suppressed.
Prout philosophy states, “In India, Hindi has been imposed on non-Hindi speaking people, resulting in much ill-feeling between many states and the centre. The imposition of Hindi amounts to Hindi imperialism, and those who do not speak Hindi feel suppressed. The important languages of Bihar, for example, like Bhojpuri, Maethilii, Angika, Magahii and Nagpuri, have been suppressed in favour of Hindi. The people of Bihar do not even know the pronunciation of Hindi words because they speak with their own intonation. Other languages like French in Canada, Basque in Spain and Sicilian in Sicily have also been suppressed.” (1)
Reference
1. Prout in a Nutshell-16, Three Cardinal Socio-Political Principles
== Section 3: Links ==
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