Not necessarily. As Belushi said before, you can be exposed to this and still be merely projecting whatever junk you have in your mind about such a place and people.
Where did the idea that India is a spiritual country come from?
- Thread starter savoloysam
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Not necessarily. As Belushi said before, you can be exposed to this and still be merely projecting whatever junk you have in your mind about such a place and people.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
Exactly. You could define spirituality as projecting what ever junk you have in your mind! Put yourself in an alien environment and unless you are determined not to you a human response is to think about the big things.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
The difference, perhaps, is that a spiritualism is for those who don't have the conviction to accept the dogma of organised religion.
Cobblers. Why does it have to be India? Put yourself into an alien environment closer to home and think about the 'big things.'
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
I never said it had to be India. However in my first post I explained why I think it's often India.
Goodness Gracious Me did a very funny sketch about this once 'Indian Backpackers in England'
"I have had a spiritual awakening, I have become an Anglican"
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
But there's alien and there's alien. The culture shock of being abroad is likely to be more shocking isn't it? I think Pickman's is on to something with the historical stuff about the religious shock of India to European culture. The whole assumption of western cultural and religious superiority which was underwriting imperialism is laughable in a country like India. Polytheism is a bit of a eye-opener anyway but polytheists who completely outnumber you, regard your religion as just another interesting path, who've seen foreign rulers come and go a few times before - and *gasp* might have a superior culture to your own? That's a bit of a headfuck for a colonial culture that had got used to patronising noble savages like the maoris or whoever.
Please, I've known what it's like to be living somewhere 'alien,' although not India. I've spent a lot of time in Russia, and my partner is Kyrgyz. I don't waffle on about it like some dunderhead.
) is held periodically in India and is a religious/spiritual thang.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
And indeed I wasn't saying you haven't. Just talking about the impact of India on westerners over the centuries. Why that might give rise to the idea it's a spiritual place. As per the thread title. Why that might be more likely to provoke that response than spending time in another part of your own society. As per your post.
eatmorecheese
He's fallen out of the car again
I suppose I could accept that, if that was a reasoned explanation. That's probably the best definition of "spiritualism" in that sense. But I rarely got that impression with some of those I met. It was more a pose to justify themselves as a thinker and came across as a self-imposed label. A very "western" individualised version of spirituality (with a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance almost a compulsory accessory!)
Yep, I know it's a crass generalisation, but hey...
Louloubelle
Well-Known Member
Theosophy = load of racist wank.
Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn (or down LOL) fake order based on forgeries
Your post just consolidates for me the idea that India is somewhere where spiritually impoverished white people project their fantasies of spirituality
Also, let's not forget Pierre Barnard aka the Omnipotent Oom, the spiritual leader and guru* who brought tantric yoga to the west
*or sexual predator and serial con man - depending on how you look at it
Gromit
International Man of Misery
Conviction?
Or the intelligence to recognise the inherent flaws you get when religion is organised. Namely self interest.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
quite possibly it is where 'spiritually impoverished white people' project spiritual fantasies, the grass being always greener etc. but it is imo a bit disappointing that the genealogy of the notion of india as a store of eastern spiritual promise has become somewhat swept under the carpet to the extent that the johnny-come-lately beatles are seen not as following in a load of other people's footsteps but being forerunners.
as for the gd being based on forgeries, it's fair enough to say that the cipher manusciprt or whatnot was not in fact the work on one anna sprengler of stuttgart.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
You might find this interesting:Gandhi and a couple of Beatles on holiday does not make a country "spiritual"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...mir-all-girl-rock-band-forced-to-disband.html
http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/oriental-enlightenment/
Reviewing JJ Clarke’s Oriental Enlightenment, Malik says:
I think it's absolutely not cricket to visit a place as a tourist where an averagely poor person wouldn't be able to afford to travel to wherever you're from.
Maurice Picarda
Actually, might as well flounce.
Even apart from the economic benefits that tourism brings, that's an absurd thing to say.
Nah, tourism distorts the local economy. AFAIC anyone who travels to a third world country as a tourist is only one step up from a paedophile. Saying that though, they might well be a paedophile jetting around the world on some twisted sex tour jolly. Filthy bastards.
Gromit
International Man of Misery
I hate poverty tourism. Like when people pay to get taken on tours of slums to gawk at the poor people and how they live.
Some slum occupier will get some money for letting peeps into their home for a gawk which though could be considered opening people's eyes still seems like using the desperate for sideshow purposes to me.
But normal tourism where real jobs are created and injects foreign income into the economy. Better that they do it in India than in rich South of France imo.
Gromit
International Man of Misery
Working on the assumption that the local economy is sustainable and sufficient for the local population?
What if it isn't?
Maurice Picarda
Actually, might as well flounce.
Gawking definitely brings money into the slum; and is more likely to be distributed locally than in "normal" tourism, where money accrues to land speculators and supranational hotel chains. The more stars your hotel has, the more likely the workforce is to be imported from a city.
The greater the income disparity between the tourist and the people with whom they interact, the greater the chances of income redistribution.
The greater the income disparity between the tourist and the people with whom they interact, the greater the chances of income redistribution.
Gromit
International Man of Misery
India may have a lot of poverty but it also has a current rate of economic growth that the British government would sell their mothers for.
A growth rate that they are moaning about atm because it was even higher previously but it still kicks the shit out of most countries.
A growth rate that they are moaning about atm because it was even higher previously but it still kicks the shit out of most countries.
Oh I don't know. Still you wouldn't catch me going to India though.
Sanal Edamaruku of Rationalist International is currently in exile, after showing that Jesus wept because of faulty plumbing rather than the miracle that god-botherers were peddling.
Gromit
International Man of Misery
Slum dwellers in the BBC article above dispute this.
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