Insightful newsletter of Drishtikone - Issue #102: Civilization and my Mother's Recipe; Funding Wikipedia for our death
There is no empowerment in diminishing yourself.
Even when you have the opportunity to learn ways to nurture yourself and others, you choose to reject it in the name of empowerment, then something is fundamentally wrong.
Empowerment should be in learning something new and having the ability to enhance yourself to your fullest potential. Not in taking pride in rejecting basic skills in living.
When we equate progress with unlearning and dumping traditions that were built upon centuries of testing and trials, we are essentially ensuring that our generation will forgo the wisdom and work of the generations gone by.
Generations that looked at the ground and the rock under the feet and could visualize a three-story temple with intricate carvings, all carved out in that single rock (Kailash Temple in Ellora). Over generations of builders and artisans.
In a generation where managing a three months project with 5 team members requires costly certifications, we had a lineage which could not just visualize such impossible multi-generational projects but execute it. Without taking credit. And without the machines our builders have today.
They must have gotten something right!
When I dump my tradition without the necessary due diligence and understanding, I also forgo the combined wisdom that saw the Divine in the Quantum wave. And understood the significance of every aspect of this existence as its manifestation.
Traditions are built upon experiences which are most significant to people in a geography. For those whose lives are defined by seas, see the Divine in the waves of the sea. Those who live in the mountains have the Divine in every turn of the mountain and the rocks that hold it up.
That is why the first task of those who want to thrust their gods on others is to destroy the traditions. How else can a new definition of life and divine be forced down on millennia of living?
When new gods are installed, its never about the gods. It is about the destruction of civilizations and traditions. Traditions that live in every morsel and dish of every meal we eat, in the offering in the temple that we make, in the rituals of every festivals that we celebrate.
Our traditions are interwoven in our lives. When we let go of how we as a people live our lives, we are participants in the destruction of our own civilization.
“While it might take months of effort, years of training and centuries of accumulated knowledge to build a Greek temple, it took little more than zeal and patience to destroy one. At the end of the fourth century, as the laws against pagans were reaching an aggressive crescendo, the bishop Marcellus was said to have destroyed the vast and still hugely popular temple of Zeus at Apamea with prayers and the help of a man who was ‘no builder, or mason, or artificer of any kind’. Today, Marcellus is worshipped as a saint in the Orthodox Church.” ― Catherine Nixey, The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World
Source: Saksham Gangwar/Unsplash
empowerment or loss of civilization?
Per feedback from many people, my cooking skills are decent. I have the ability to cook a three course meal for 40 people within 4 hours flat. And have done so very often. By many accounts, among other dishes my eggplant curry (Bharta) comes out quite good.
But for years I was searching for that taste which wasn’t there. The look of the final product which wasn’t happening despite every attempt.
I was looking for the taste of bharta that my mother made.
Last year, we decided to get rid of all the other oils for cooking except Olive oil and Ghee. And, then one day, for the first time, I cooked my bharta in desi ghee. That was it! That’s what was missing. It finally gave me the taste of what my mother had left me with.
When I cook, I follow the tastes I have in my sub-conscious that my mother left me with. Made up by trial and error. And self-taught.
I never learned from her.
And, when I go looking around for those tastes and recipes, unfortunately no one, including my sisters, has them.
It is not a case of one taste or the other. It is a case of family heirloom. A lineage that never got passed on. It just stopped.
All that my mother learned from her mother, friends and other people, is lost.
She isn’t alone.
Many in our generations have only tasted things that they never had the patience or wisdom to learn.
Worse, in that avoidance to learn, the women in our generation found empowerment.
Empowerment was celebrated in not learning. In losing things that meant so much to us while growing up.
All gone.
Now, here is the worst part - in that loss of not learning the traditional recipes and tastes, we also lost the many rituals of our festivals.
Today, Ganesh Chaturthi started - how many in our generation know how to make the modhaks like our mothers or grandmothers made?
On Janmashtami, how many can make that special coconut and other types of prasaad/offerings that our mothers made?
Ask yourself.
Its not about not having the recipe.
It is about taking the celebration out of the festival and making it only about wishes.
When the prasaad or modhaks were made, so many in the family would participate. When before Holi, in many families the gujiyaas were made, all the kids were involved too.
That created the celebration for that festival. That made the festivities what they were. Not just the saying “Happy wishes….” and buying some present.
how the imported western feminism destroyed the traditions
Feminism was always central to our traditions. Feminine divine has remained a reality only in India.
The worshipping of the girls as kanjaks (small girls) during Navratri or songs in celebration of the Devi during Durga Puja, feminine was central to our ways.
Femininity did not feel the need to equate itself with the masculine. It didn’t have to. For, there was no competition.
Qualities of this existence which complement each other, do not compete to supplement the other!
Most of us are either a man or a woman. But the truth is that both, a man and a woman, went into creating us. So, it may be a fact that we are either a man or a woman, but the truth is that we are both.
While the masculine in us gives us the ability to survive and compete; the feminine in us gives us the ability to care and nurture.
Women have often taken the responsibility for food because nature provides only them the ability to give birth. One who gives birth and one who is to be nurtured share a bond.
A bond that joins them in ways that no two human beings can have. (In fact, for many women in the first 6 months after birth, it is very common to ‘feel’ when her infant moves in sleep in another room).
It is such a bond that makes the food cooked by our mothers so deeply a part of our being.
Even after so many years, actually decades, it still speaks to me. In a language that is difficult to explain.
That bond was what the Western feminism went after.
In a bid to equate our ability to nurture to the ability to merely survive, it reduced us all.
Instead of girls dropping the need to learn cooking and other areas of nurturing, if even the boys were given those lessons, we could have created a more beautiful society. Instead we dumped the very foundation of nurturing in the name of progress!
But more importantly, we willingly participated in destroying our civilizational essentials and taking the celebration out of our festivals.
jihadi backers and Hindu-hate spewing Democrats
For years most of the Indian-Americans were predominantly Democrats. They would also vote one way and watched NPR, CNN and MSNBC.
But as the Islamists and Jihadis took control of the Democratic party, Hindu-hatred became common place in NPR, CNN and other leftist media as well as Democratic party.
When India passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which provided citizenship to persecuted minorities (Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains etc) from Islamic theocracies like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan; the Islamists started an aggressive Hinduphobic campaign across the world. In US alone the Democrats passed resolution in 5 cities against India!
Democrat Congress men and women were at the forefront.
Joe Biden dinged the law which quite like the Lautenberg Amendment that was ratified and renewed by Barack Obama every one of the 8 years that Biden was the VP gives citizenship rights to non-Muslims from Iran, gave the Hindus, Sikhs and Christians persecuted from the Islamic theocracies some respite and rights.
Now, as the elections come close, Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris - another one who loses no opportunity to demonize Hindus, are trying to accost the Hindus for their votes and contributions.
So Biden comes up with this tweet.
However, on the other side, the Democratic convention includes Noman Hussain, imam of ISM Brookfield in Wisconsin as one of the religious leaders to give “welcome messages”. (Source)
Now, who is this guy?
He is a student and a so-called scholar at the Texas-based Qalam Institute. It is a Jihadi hate hotbed. Qalam’s officials openly advocate the “use of female sex slaves, the killing of adulterers and incite hatred against Jews and other non-Muslims.” (Source)
Sex, Masterbation _ Islam - The Cure by Mufti Hussain Kamani_FULL.mp4
These kind of hate-spewing institutions are being represented in the official Democratic conventions.
When the Democratic core has been so spectacularly sold out and infused with such strong anti-American values, is it any surprise that they have taken such strong stand against the persecuted minorities from Islamic theocracies?
Chinese putting up a surface-to-air missile site at Mansarovar
In one of the most startling developments in China, the Chinese Army has started building infrastructure near Lake Mansarovar. Twitter user @detresfa_ has shared images of where they are building the weapons launch capabilities. He says:
This image in his tweet shares the satellite image with what is going on there.
Satellite images reveal China is building surface-to-air missile site at Mansarovar Lake
New roads have been built and suspected red tents put up at the site, which stands near the India-Nepal-China tri-junction in the Himalayas.
Now, Lake Mansarovar and Mount Kailash are not just geographies. For many in the Dharmic traditions, they are like the ‘center of the universe’.
The writer has been to that place and it is no ordinary area. In one of the pilgrimages, Sadhguru shows a glimpse of what is happening there. There were many things that one can see, it is difficult to even explain in a normal way.
Sadhguru Talks About Aliens in Kailash Manasarovar Lake | Mystical Stories | Mystics of India
We are not one who give credence to “curse” or “God retaliating” for that isn’t the nature of God. And, certainly not Shiva.
You see Oceans don’t kill people. Those who don’t know how to swim get killed. Those who know can ride a 100 feet wave effortlessly.
When you tinker with something so fundamentally profound, you have lost the Ocean.
dawood IS in Pakistan
Pakistan has admitted that Dawood Ibrahim is within Pakistan. The establishment admitted he was in a building called the ‘White House’. This came when his name was mentioned in the list of terrorists within Pakistan, provided to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Pakistan admits Dawood Ibramin lives in Karachi, says it is freezing his funds - World News
The revelation about Dawood Ibrahim’s whereabouts was made when Pakistan placed his name on the list of designated terrorists. The list was submitted before the Financial Action Task Force, a global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog.
This when every administration in Pakistan has always denied it.
For years Pakistan denied the presence of Dawood Ibrahim on its soil, today it shares Ibrahim's addresses from Karachi, then includes him in the list of banned terrorists. https://t.co/LCOzLjlZgn
Dawood, who? https://t.co/g5GWYMfCS5
nota bene
Gandhi Glasses Auction for GBP 260k: One of the glasses worn by Mahatma Gandhi were recently auctioned in the United Kingdom for GBP 260,000 (Rs 2,55,00,463). East Bristol Auctions was the company that sold the glasses to a collector (Source)
Delhi HC - Tahir Hussain Led Muslim Mobs: Taking cognisance of the charge sheet filed against former AAP leader Tahir Hussain for his involvement in the Delhi Anti-Hindu riots, a Delhi court on Friday said that Muslims turned violent after AAP leader Tahir Hussain had provoked and started pelting stones on the Hindu community. (Source)
ISIS Terrorist nabbed from Karol Bagh: On Friday night, the Delhi police have reportedly arrested an Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist named Abdul Yusuf from North Delhi after a brief exchange of fire between the terrorist and the police personnel. The cops had also recovered 2 kg of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) and a weapon from the IS operative. ISIS terrorist Abdul Yusuf was nabbed on Ridge Road between Karol Bagh and Dhaula Kuan in Delhi after a shootout. The police also recovered a pistol from him post-firing. (Source)
AC spreading COVID: Dry air and air-conditioned rooms can help spread the coronavirus, according to an Indian-German research team that looked at the role of relative humidity in the transmission of infections. (Source)
Thailand’s Slave Monkeys: Snatched from his mother as a baby, chained up alone and forced to work at a coconut farm for ten hours a day, all little Kulap knows is suffering. The pig-tailed macaque is one of thousands of monkeys thought to be used as slaves on Thai farms - never knowing the freedom of the forest like they should, with their captors likely to work them to death. (Source)
funding your own death through wikipedia
Wikipedia has been playing a very dangerous game globally. Deeply compromised by ideological fanatics, it is trying to set in motion narratives that are false and fake. They are based on questionable sources.
One of the most respected channels is STRING. It does tremendous research to bring information that others don’t.
In this episode, they expose Wikipedia. WATCH IT!!
EXPOSED - Why WIKIPEDIA Asking For Donations? | Anti-Hindu Agenda | Part 1