इंसान और पशु-पक्षी भाग 4

इंसान और पशु पक्षी : भाग 4

पी के सिद्धार्थ
www.bharatiyachetna.org
www.pksiddharth.in
www.suraajdal.org

मैं और जोई आकाश मार्ग से उड़े जा रहे हैं। सहसा जोई मुझे ले कर एक मंदिर में उतर जाता है। मैं चाँद के प्रकाश में देख सकता हूँ कि यह एक जैन मंदिर है। जोई मंदिर की ऒर मुख कर पीछे के पैर पीछे और आगे के पैर आगे फैलाकर बिलकुल लंबा हो जाता है, जैसे साष्टांग प्रणाम कर रहा हो। फिर अपने पैर समेट कर वह मुझसे मुखातिब होता है।

जोई : पशु-पक्षी जिस धर्म को सबसे अधिक आदर देते हैं, वह जैन धर्म है। पशु-पक्षियों के प्रति इतना आदर और रक्षा-भाव किसी दूसरे धर्म में नहीं। ये लोग शाम को ही भोजन कर लेते हैं ताकि अंधकार में कीड़े-मकोड़े गलती से भोजन के साथ अंदर न चले जाएं। इनके संत मुख पर सफ़ेद पट्टियां बांध कर रखते हैं ताकि सांस के माध्यम से कोई छोटे जीव इनके अंदर प्रवेश कर क्षतिग्रस्त न हों।

वास्तव में भारत में पैदा हुए लगभग सभी धर्म पशुओं को बहुत आदर और प्रेम देते हैं। जितने ऐसे पशु-पक्षी हैं जिन्हें मनुष्यों ने अन्धविश्वास या उनसे होने वाले खतरों के कारण नुकसान पहुँचाना  शुरू किया उन सभी की रक्षा करने के लिए हिन्दू ऋषियों ने किसी-न-किसी देवी या देवता का वाहन या संगी बना दिया।

"जैसे?", मैं पूछ कर उसके ज्ञान की परीक्षा लेता हूँ। मुझे यह भान हो रहा है कि जोई जानवरों के अंतर्राष्ट्रीय संगठन का महासचिव बनने की क्षमता रखता है।

जोई : जैसे उल्लू को लक्ष्मी की सवारी बना दी: सांप को भगवान शिव के गले में लपेट दिया ताकि लोग साँपों को भी जीने दें और मारने से कतराएं। नागपंचमी-जैसे पर्व बना कर नाग-पूजा का विधान बना दिया। जिस पशु ने आदमी की अब तक सबसे ज्यादा मदद की - अपना दूध पिला कर - उसे माँ का दर्जा दे कर उसका ऐसा आदर किया कि ऐसा उदहारण कहीं पूरी दुनिया में नहीं मिलता।

मैं : ("जानवरों को इतना आदर दिया, मगर मनुष्यों के एक वर्ग को उनकी मदद और सेवा के बदले आदर क्यों नहीं दे पाये ये हिन्दू?", मैं मन-ही-मन सोचता हूँ।) मगर वैदिक कर्मकांड और यज्ञ में कभी-कभी पशुबलि भी तो हिंदुओं ने दी।

जोई : कुछ दिन वैदिक काल में यह परंपरा रही, मगर उसका विरोध भी हुआ, और वह रुक भी गयी।

मैं : मगर दुर्गा-काली के मंदिरों में तो अभी भी पशु-बलि चलती ही है।

जोई : इसे हिन्दूधर्म पर हम जानवर एक काला धब्बा मानते हैं। इसीलिए तो मैं तुम्हें सबसे पहले जैन-मंदिर में लाया।

...और तुमने 2011 की भारत की जनगणना के परिणाम देखे?

मैं : कौन-से परिणाम?

जोई : कि भारत में किस धर्म के लोग 70 साल से अधिक सबसे बड़ी संख्या में जीते हैं?

मैं : याद नहीं आ रहा। मगर तुम इतना ज्ञान कैसे रखते हो? तुम्हारे पास बुद्धि और सोच  की उच्चतम कोटि की जीन्स हैं, यह तुमने बताया। मगर थिंकिंग या इंटेलिजेंस की जीन्स तुम्हें बिना पढ़े-लिखे इतनी सूचनाएं तो नहीं दे सकतीं!

जोई : मेरे दिमाग में चिप्स लगायी गईं जो मुझे ऑनलाइन समाचारपत्रों और विकिपीडिया से जोड़ कर रखती हैं। मेरे एक ब्रेन-चिप में पूरी इनसाइक्लोपीडिया ब्रिटानिका और इनसाइक्लोपीडिया अमेरिकाना इंस्टॉल्ड हैं।

इस जानवर को देखते-सुनते मेरी हैरानी लगातार बढ़ती ही जा रही है। यह कमबख्त तो मुझसे भी अधिक इन्फर्मेशन अपने दिमाग में कैरी करता है!

मैं : तो 2011 की जनगणना के परिणाम क्या बताते हैं लंबे जीवन के बारे में?

जोई : कि जैन लोगों के बीच भारत में सबसे अधिक सेप्टुअजेनेरियन्स हैं?
वह कुछ देर चुप रह कर मेरी ओर ऐसी निगाह से देखता है जैसे भांप रहा हो कि मैंने उसके द्वारा प्रयुक्त अंग्रेजी शब्द का मतलब समझा या नहीं समझा।

मैं : मगर इससे क्या निष्कर्ष निकलता है कि जैनियों में सबसे ज्यादा सत्तर वर्ष से ऊपर के लोग हैं?

जोई : यही कि जो पशु-पक्षियों का मांस नहीं खाते वे, बाकी परिस्थितियों के सामान रहने पर, मांसाहारियों की अपेक्षा अधिक दिन जीते हैं। जैन लोग सबसे अधिक शाकाहारी होते हैं, और इसीलिए लंबा जीते हैं।

मैं  भी जैन मंदिर में नतमस्तक होता हूँ। महात्मा महावीर और अन्य जैन तीर्थंकरों के प्रति मेरी अगाध श्रद्धा उमड़ती है।

जोई मुझे आकाश मार्ग से फिर एक चर्च में ले जाता है। हम चर्च के प्रांगण में उतरते हैं।

मैं : अब मुझे इस चर्च में क्यों ले आए, जोई?

जोई : यह सामान्य चर्च नहीं है। यह सेवेंथ डे अड्वेंटिस्ट्स चर्च है।

मैं : सुना नहीं कभी।

जोई : यह ईसाइयत की एक शाखा है। बाइबिल में शाकाहार के लिए समर्थन साधारणतः नहीं पाया जाता। मगर 19वीं सदी में एक महिला ईसाई पैगम्बर हुईं एलन वाइट। उन्हें एक दिन ईश्वर ने यह ज्ञान प्रकट किया कि पशु-मांस मनुष्य के लिए बिल्कुल उपयुक्त नहीं है। यह उसे शारीरिक रूप से बीमार करता हैं, बौद्धिक और नैतिक रूप से कमजोर करता है और नीच पाशविक वृत्तियों को जगाता है। इसीलिए इस चर्च के अनुयायी ईसाई मांस-मछली नहीं खाते। एक सर्वेक्षण में यह सामने आया कि ईसाइयों के बीच सबसे लंबी उम्र इसी चर्च को मानने वालों की होती है।

मैं : बुद्ध के बारे में तुम्हारा क्या विचार है, जोई?

जोई : बुद्ध के ह्रदय में जानवरों के लिए अपार करुणा थी। मगर एक घटना ने बाद में बुद्ध के कुछ अनुयायियों को मांस खाने का बहाना दे दिया। बुद्ध एक ही बार खाते थे। वह भी भिक्षा में मिला हुआ भोजन। अपनी दोनों हथेलियों को जोड़ कर कटोरा बनाते थे और जितना उसमें अटता था उतना ही खाते थे।  एक दिन उनके इस कटोरे में किसी ने भिक्षा में मांस डाल दिया। लोग साधारणतः उन्हें निरामिष भोजन ही भिक्षा में देते थे, और बुद्ध मांस खाने की सोच भी नहीं सकते थे। मगर उन्होंने उस दिन भिक्षुक का धर्म समझ कर वह मांस खा लिया। हम जानवरों की निगाह में उन्होंने बड़ी भूल कर दी। उन्हें उस दिन भूखे रह जाना चाहिए था। इस दृष्टान्त का गलत मतलब निकाल कर कुछ बौद्ध सम्प्रदाय के लोग यह मानने लगे कि अगर जानवर को उन्होंने नहीं मारा, और उनके लिए ही वह जानवर नहीं मारा गया, तो उसका मांस खाया जा सकता है।

मैं : और मुसलमानों के बारे में तुम्हारा क्या ख्याल है?

जोई :  ह्म्म्म्म! (जोई थोडा चिंतित और भयभीत दिखता है।) उनके भी जानवरों के बारे में वे ही ख्याल हैं जो दूसरे सेमेटिक धर्मों के हैं : जानवर आदमी के खाने-पीने के लिए ही ईश्वर ने बनाये हैं। मगर मुसलमानों से जानवर सबसे ज्यादा भयभीत रहते हैं।

मैं : क्यों?
(क्रमशः)

पी के सिद्धार्थ
17 अक्टूबर, 2016

Islamic Version of the Gita Dham

The Bharatiya Chetna Kendra is working on an Islamc version of the Gita Dham, which may be creatd  in Muslim-majority vilages, and which will be more acceptable to the Muslims. The name is yet to be decided, but the objects are the same: harness the power of religions to bring enlightenment, remove poverty and  spread knowledge, social harmony and non-violence. The only difference will be that here the Qoran will be the principal guiding book. A Muslim friend Sheikh Badruddoja has offered land for this Centre. Though we always had it in mind to take up such endeavours after successfully putting in place a few Gita Dhams, it appears that there is no harm in starting the preparatory conceptual work now itself. I am in Delhi to talk to a few liberal Maulanas on the precise cconceptual architecture and name of the Centre.
The India  civilizstion is known for its tolerance, spirit of accommodation and respect for all modes of worship, and therefore of all religions. That all paths lead to the same goal and same God is one of the fundamental tents of the Indian culture.

Comments on My Post on #Non-violence by Justice Vikramaditya and My Response.

Justice Vikramaditya (on WhatsApp)

The food habit can't  be a deciding factor in support of ahimsa .Iin many Buddhist  country meat  / fish is eaten.food ,dress,,design  of houses  are the product of geographical  and climatic conditions.none violence intact  is an approach of mind which does not permit u to hurt others feelings and body .excepting for sustaining ur life and for no other purpose.if u think from this angle then condemning other religions to establish the superiority  of own religion wil amount to become violent and that is what jehadis are trying.


My Response (on WhatsApp)

Declaring superiority of a religion or a civilization is a value judgment. We have not said that non violence makes a civilization superior, even though it is possible that some one takes this stand. But we have not taken this stand. In addition, not a particular religion, but a civilization is being discussed: the Indian civilization. We have talked of Buddhism and Jainism too apart from Hinduism.

What has been done is to bring out some distinguishing features which are empirically verifiable. Just an empirical description.

Non-violence is both physical and mental. We talked of the physical aspects in this particular post. It is factually correct that no civilization except the Indian civilization expanded the concept of non-violence to include non-violence against animals. Is that untrue? Is there a harm in knowing this? But this is, again, not intended to mean that everybody in India could be persuaded to be vegetarian. Yet, a huge mass of humanity could be converted to vegetarianism here.

No religion has been condemned. To bring out differences amounts to condemnation?

As regards Buddhists being non-veg, yes, they are, in most countries. But Buddha was a vegetarian and preached non-violence towards animals. If in foreign countries the Buddhists are not following the Buddha, nothing much can be done by the Buddha about this, now that he is no more.

Our intention is not to declare superiority of the Indian Civilization, but to highlight its distinguishing marks. And if, from one or all points of view, a certain faith or civilization is proved superior, it would not mean annihilating people of other faiths, as the ISIS is trying to do. Far from it!

Hope the communication is set right now. As regards the Indian civilization, especially Hinduism, it has in practice been among the worst, if not the only one,  as regards subjugation and inhuman treatment of a huge mass of humanity called shudras. We will come to this aspects too. One by one.

#MaliAttack, #JihadistAttackInMali, #TerroristAttackInMali, #IslamistAttachInMali #HowtohandleIslamicTerrrorism

Islam and Terrorism - Part 1

One often comes across the general statement today that “not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.” Students of terrorism know that this, at least in one sense, is quite a flawed statement. An FBI report shows that only a meager six percent of terrorist attacks carried out on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 were perpetrated by Muslims. The FBI’s data shows that Latinos, which actually means Puerto Rican separatist groups, Cuban exile groups and the like, were responsible for 42 percent of the terrorist attacks, extreme left groups for 24 percent, communists for 5 percent, and Jewish extremists for 7 percent. 16 percent of the attacks were carried out by “others.” As regards Europe, the facts can be found in the Europol annual report entitled EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report. The report proves decisively that not all terrorists are Muslims.  In fact, a whopping 99.6% of terrorist attacks in Europe were by non-Muslim groups, and a good 84.8% of attacks were from separatist groups completely unrelated to Islam.  Leftist groups accounted for over sixteen times as much terrorism as radical Islamic groups.  Only a measly 0.4% of terrorist attacks from 2006 to 2008 could be attributed to extremist Muslims. Therefore, there is need for caution in declaring all terrorists to be Muslims. 

There is, however, one sense in which the statement that “all terrorists are Muslims” may be nearly true. If there is one religious community resorting to acts of terrorism to promote its religious or religious-political ends in a major way worldwide, it is only the Islamic community. There may be terrorist groups like Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) in Myanmar, or the Lord’s Resistance Army of the Christians in Uganda, but they are mostly local in impact. The acts of terrorism perpetrated by Muslims are also often so grandiose and the death tolls so massive that they attract worldwide attention, and. consequently, invite worldwide hatred. In the 9/11 World Trade Centre attack they claimed nearly 3000 lives in the USA. In the Mumbai attack they claimed in one incident over 150 lives. The Paris attack has claimed around 150 lives and yesterday in  Mali 18 lives were lost  No wonder the idea of terrorism always instantly brings to a lay mind the picture of a Muslim.

(To be continuued)

#JIHADIST GENOCIDE IN #PARIS : #ParisAttack, #Terrorism, #IslamicTerrorism,

REASON AND RELIGION: THE CONTEXT OF RELIGION INSPIRED GENOCIDES

Organised religions of the world have made a great contribution to humanity by binding humans, by and large, to rules of ethical conduct in the initial phases of the growth of human civilization. In fact all of them have, in varying degrees, been great civilizing influences on humanity. However, blind faith in the words of holy books and messengers of God has led to considerable distress to sections of humanity. It is wrong to presume that science and rationality on the one hand and religious faith on the other cannot go hand in hand - that you can be either religious or rational! There is much rationality in religions too, and much 'faith' in science, especially where the truth lies beyond the reach of senses and empirical verification with complete finality (one such area is the origin or the universe, or quantum physics).

Religions are based primarily on REVELATION and then on interpretation of revelations or elaboration of the revealed word with the hep of human understanding. If only we are able to apply common sense with a little bit of the scientific temper, we would understand why it is very risky to take every word of our holy books - the Gita, the Bible and  the Koran etc, as without doubt the WORD OF GOD. We would then understand the need to be careful in accepting every word of the holy books.

Presume somebody starts getting revelations in the form of sounds to be heard by the physical ears or by the 'ears of the mind', and the sound explicitly claims to be the sound of God. The person receiving the REVELATION will without doubt be thrilled and presume that he was the privileged and chosen one to whom God spoke directly? How does that person know that the claim of being 'God' was correct? May be God, or may be some other celestial being claiming to be God!

When the word of 'God' is so revealed, the person receiving the revelation will suffer some loss of memory (is ordinarily bound to), and when he conveys the revelation to others he is bound to, in some degree, put his own words and interpretations into it. Then the people receiving the REVELATION from the messenger of God, will interpret in their own way, adding their own imagination and information. In many cases the prophets did not pen down the revelations themselves and conveyed to others by spoken word. Those who heard them took notes when they went back, or the sayings were recorded after a long time based on hearsay. This is what happened  in the case of Rama, Jesus, Mohammad and the Buddha. In fact the Koran was compiled after the prophet's death by the their Calif Uthman who constituted a committee to collect and compile the notes of those who had heard Mohammad speak about the word of God. The Committee found differences in the accounts of the different followers of the prophet and chose the accounts that they found most amenable to their taste (or the taste of the third Caliph). Then the Caliph ordered that all other accounts be burnt. The friends of the prophet refused to to do and they became so angry that they together murdered their Caliph. This is what you may find in the introduction to the new translation of the holy Koran published by Penguin, The translator is an eminent Islamic scholar Tarif Khalidi. Penguin books are sold worldwide and read worldwide, and if this were wrong there would be world-wide protests. Khalidi says that although there were differences in the different accounts as to what Mohammad said, the differences were 'minor'. If the differences were so minor, why did the friends and followers of Mohammad become so angry as to kill the Caliph? In addition, what may be considered  'minor' may be of major significance sometimes. Shifting of a comma in "Kill not, leave' to 'Kill, not leave' may be 'minor' linguistic issue, but may leads to a major happening.

Religious pundits may say that when God reveals something to His chosen one, He also gives him infallible memory to bring God's word to humanity in the form He conveyed it. Possible. But how to decide whether the Word truly emanated from God, and not from some other celestial entity?

In other words, how to verify the truthfulness of the revelation in any religion? 

To address this issue, we may go to the three theories of Truth propounded by Bertrand Russell in the Problems off Philosophy.

One of the tests of Truth is 'coherence' or lack of inner contradiction where empirical verification is not possible, Example: God is very kind, all powerful, all knowing, and present everywhere. All these four cannot be true together. If He is kind, and knows about miseries of His creatures, and has power to remove those miseries, then why does He not do it if He is really so kind? This has to be explained in a coherent manner, which may theologians have tries to do with varying degrees of success or failure.

When a certain assertion in the REVELATION is empirically verifiable in some manner, in some degree, it can be straightaway be put to test. In the Vedas there is a revelation that states the time taken by the sunlight to reach earth. This revelation was made thousands off years back. But now this is empirically verifiable. But the messengers of God are seldom found, including in the Vedas, stating such empirically verifiable
facts. Yet there are many. Take the theory of rebirth. It is, in a manner, empirically verifiable. The Virginia university parapsychology department has documented 3000 positive cases of this kind where children claimed memories of their previous lives and the claim was verified and found to be true But a man with a scientific temper would not allow this verification to lead one to believe that whatever Hinduism, Buddhism or Jainism (which believe in rebirth) say is all true. It should be on a case to case basis.

As regards ethical norms preached by the religions, the theory of empirical verification does not apply as ethical norms are not statement of facts; they are prescriptions. The sole judge of the godliness of these prescriptions is our inner conscience that knows how to judge what is godly and what is not, what is truly good and what is not. Sometime ethical prescriptions may be manufactured by the seers and messengers of God. Sometime these ethical prescriptions may be inserted into the Holy books by vested interests. Therefore, one has to be careful, and has to go to his inner conscience to judge if the prescription is of God or of a well-intentioned 'messenger' of God, or was manufactured by an unholy mind with his or his clan's interest in mind. The system of segregation of the class of people called shudras is a case in point as regards Hinduism. Chopping off the heads of all those who did not believe in Allah ('atheists' as interpreted by liberals, and 'people of non-Muslim faiths' as interpreted by fundamentalists) , as found in the Holy Koran, is a case in point too which is casing so much of genocide even today.

The point is that some amount of rationality can make one more truly religious than the one who does not apply his or her mind at all to the sayings in the holy books.