Independence Day II
"India is constipated with a lot of humbug. TAke religion. For the hindu, it means little besides caste and cow-protection. For the Muslim, circumcision and kosher meat. For the sikh, long hair and hatred of the muslim. For the christian, Hinduism with a sola topee. For the parsi, fire-worship and feeding vultures. Ethics, which should be the kernel of religious code, has been carefully removed. Take philosophy, about which there is so much hoo ha. It is just muddleheadedness masquerading as mysticism. And yoga, particularly Yoga, that excellent earner of dolars! Stand on your head. Sit cross-legged and tickle your navel with your nose. Have erfect control over the senses. Make women cry "Enough!" and you can say "Next, please" without opening your eyes. And all the mumbo jumbo of reincarnation. Man into ox into ape into beetle into eight million four hundred kinds of animate things. Proof? we do not go into such padestrian pastime as proof! That is Western. We are of the mysterious East. No proof, just faith. No reason; just faith. Thought which should be the sine qua non of a philosophical code, is dispensed with. We climb to sublime heights on the wings of fancy. We do the rope trick in all the spheres of creative life. As long as the world credulously believes in our capacity to make a rope rise skyward and a little boy climb it till he is out of view, so long will our brand of humbug thrive." -- Train to Pakistan by Khashwant Singh.
"India is constipated with a lot of humbug. TAke religion. For the hindu, it means little besides caste and cow-protection. For the Muslim, circumcision and kosher meat. For the sikh, long hair and hatred of the muslim. For the christian, Hinduism with a sola topee. For the parsi, fire-worship and feeding vultures. Ethics, which should be the kernel of religious code, has been carefully removed. Take philosophy, about which there is so much hoo ha. It is just muddleheadedness masquerading as mysticism. And yoga, particularly Yoga, that excellent earner of dolars! Stand on your head. Sit cross-legged and tickle your navel with your nose. Have erfect control over the senses. Make women cry "Enough!" and you can say "Next, please" without opening your eyes. And all the mumbo jumbo of reincarnation. Man into ox into ape into beetle into eight million four hundred kinds of animate things. Proof? we do not go into such padestrian pastime as proof! That is Western. We are of the mysterious East. No proof, just faith. No reason; just faith. Thought which should be the sine qua non of a philosophical code, is dispensed with. We climb to sublime heights on the wings of fancy. We do the rope trick in all the spheres of creative life. As long as the world credulously believes in our capacity to make a rope rise skyward and a little boy climb it till he is out of view, so long will our brand of humbug thrive." -- Train to Pakistan by Khashwant Singh.
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