My Pursuit

Hello,

This thread is and will be about my trials as I try to pursue what i think is a true service to our brahmin community.

Who am I:

Abhivaadhayae. Athreya, Aarchanasva, syavaswa, threya rishayae, Pravaran-nidhaha, Athreya Gothraha, Aabasthambha sootraha, yadhushyaa gaathyayae, Sri Venkata krishnan sarma namaham, asmibhooho.

I am one of the many tamil brahmins who knows enough to say the above but also one who does not know enough to understand what I just said even though I have a general idea. Like many of today's generation who is around 36 yrs old, I too have travelled to and worked in foreign lands (which usually alludes to US).

To present a less convoluted picture, I am a 36 year old unmarried thenkalai iyengar who has done his MS in the US and worked there. I have also worked in Singapore and have now come down to India. Currently working in coimbatore. Like the Shah Rukh Khan movie Swades which a few of you might have seen, I have am unscratchable itch to do something for my own society irrespective of whether it is financially rewarding or not.


What is my pursuit:

I am interested in and am trying to create a curriculum which teaches both western education and vaideeham ( irrespective of Saiva/Vaishnava but currently concentrating on vaishnava as a starting point). I want to create this curriculum with a full set of prescribed publications/textbooks to go with it. I am hoping that one day somehow I can present it to currently running veda patasalais and/or the government and/or private schools to somehow persuade them to follow it as a syllabus to create a future generation which is well versed in both vedantam and western education by the time they pass out of 12th standard.

My ultimate pursuit is somewhat far bigger than the initial starting point that I mentioned above. I would eventually like to create a university campus spread across multiple acres where you have engineering and medical colleges where students do vedhaabhyaasam in the morning and pursue technical studies in the evening. The eventual aim is not only to practice and prescribe vaideeham to the common man like Sri Ramanuja had at one stage tried to spread the universal truth to the masses, but also to research the vedas as we currently know them to try and figure out things like astrology and/or if atharvana vedam really does teach magic and/or things along similar lines.

To achieve the above, I need proper guidance, support and money.


What have I done:

To gain money

I know I am going to need a lot of money if I want to achieve my dreams as they are today. The government of india had recently announced a bidding for oil fields in India. I have spent all my savings of 40 Lakhs on posting a bid for an oil field in tamilnadu. I am thinking that If I were to get the oil field exploration rights for the cauvery basin in tamilnadu, I will eventually hit oil and make money enough to purchase around 300 acres of land to start setting up my dream university. I have also tied up with a Singaporean oil and gas firm with a MoU stating that they will take care of all technical activities in relation to drilling for oil in tamilnadu. I intend to apply for a loan with some international bank like the Asian Development Bank or the Japanese Sofbank for funds to actually drill an oil well once I win in the bidding for the oil exploration rights for tamilnadu.

The bidding closed on Nov 21st under the aegis of Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) which falls under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG).

I am now awaiting the results of the bidding.

To gain Support and Guidance

To get the necessary guidance on my pursuit for creating a vedic curriculum to go hand in hand with western curriculum, I have decided to approach a non-profit trust in Srirangam Trichy who are currently running a veda padasalai. Currently, I have only approached them but since their swamigal is currently involved with upanyaasams in udumalpet, I have not been able to take a concrete step in that direction. We expect the swamigal to be back in thai maasam and I intend to try to meet them the week after first week of thai which will be around Jan21st. I hope to post again at that time under this thread.

I will post the name of the trust here once there is confirmation of concurrence of the views of the padasalai and myself.


What can you do:

1. Kindly follow what I post here and try to comment. I will be happy to entertain advice from this community. I am but a very small person so I will also take constructive criticism as and when it is dealt to me.

2. Being a Iyengar, I do not know anything about Saiva teachings. I would also like to include a saiva curriculum along with the vaishnava curriculum that I want to create. If you know where I should go or who I should contact, please comment on this thread or contact me.

Adiyen
Madurakavi Dhaasan.

Namaskaram Krishnan Garu,

Very nice thread. You are lucky to have freedom to pursue risk-rewards, as well as interests on the side. Best wishes for your endeavors.

If suggestions are welcome, wish to put forth below:

(1) Attitude - Competition versus Partnerships:
It is sad when kids and adults alike claim we indians are most intelligent, ancient, capable and so on. Such attitude incapacitates learning attitude in the true sense. In addition sadly, we have made competitors out of everyone and everything (esp in today's world). With such attitude, it is impossible to make meaningful relationships, or progress which matters. Hopefully your system will inculcate the right attitude in children -- that it is better to make partnerships out of diversity. Neither western science nor non-Indians are our competitors. We all grow together and help explain each others knowledge base; including religion.

(2) Curriculum
Am sure you will get many people suggesting many books for your proposed curriculum. My humble suggestion is to inculcate explanatory ability to the vedic curriculum. Currently many priests cannot explain what they are chanting; or how it matters. Request you to include following books in your curriculum:

(a) Gopatha Brahmana - A Critical Study. Written by Tarak Nath Adhikari. The only comprehensive book which does comparative study of all works by different authors on the Atharva/Gopatha.

(b) Philosophy of Pancaratra. Written by Late Dr.S.Rangahar. The book is a fairly detailed work touching on the development of agamas, yamalas, tantras, concepts of para, antaryamin, gunas, archavatara and so on.

(c) A Study of Select Temples of Chitoor District. Written by Dr.P.N.Naidu. The book details architectural styles from different time periods. Today, if a child sees an idol / temple, he cannot say which religion it belongs to; is it Vaikhanasa or Pancharatra style; or is it Pallava architecture or Chola architecture. We Indians have little appreciation for our structures (we dirty them, vandalize them with names and heart drawings) due to lack of awareness.

Also new temple are cropping up everywhere making religion a business. They ruin the meaningfulness of geographical coordinates of old temples. The only way to deal with this is awareness. Hope your curriculum will include few books on temple architecture so that future generations will better appreciate it.


(3) On Atharvaveda:
Since you mention Atharva, it is worthwhile to note less than 1/4th of Atharva is abhichara (which unfortunately our own people, let alone foreigners, have dubbed that into "magic / withcraft". It is neither). Abhichara is psychological phenomenon. Hope you have seen the movie Iru Mugam (when a mother sees a car, in danger of running over her child, suddenly she gets strength to lift the entire car - how does it happen). Brain chemicals are altered by many things. Under fear or with intake of chemicals, brain cannot give sustained performance in battle. But with sound waves, brain can bring about the needful in a measured and sustained manner. Abhichara basically plays on the psyche to bring about extraordinary mental and physical strength; which humans do not display under normal circumstances; although usage can be as trivial as obtaining a lover or as complex as battlefield strength.

(4) Astrology
It may or may not be a hoax. But definitely our predictive methods have not adapted with changes (like earth's tilt, calculation of longitude/latitude, and so on. Cyclones which normally go to Andhra are coming to northern Tamilnadu now. Chennai's rainy season used to be July to Sep; but now it is Oct to Dec. Such weather pattern is here to stay. This change must tell us that our old calculations require tweaking / updating). All said, at individual level, whatever we do, finally things happen in a split second; and nothing is in our control. Which is why am in complete agreement with KRN's post in the astrology thread. We can only endeavor to make our predictive algorithms better performing ones, if He so wills.

What am saying is, hope your curriculum will teach children how important it is to adapt with changing times, absorb information from all directions (including using modern science) to improvise our knowledge base . If we fail to do so, we are in danger of becoming a superstitious religion; the kind which depends on tolerance level rather than knowledge itself.

Thanks and best regards.

Wishing you all success.

Dear mssg,

I thank you for your thoughts.

I am responding to what I feel is most important of your observations. It does not mean that the other concerns that you have stated are not noted.

I feel you are absolutely right when you say that there is a contingent of people who think that we are the best.. We need to induce rationality in people with such thoughts and inculcate a feeling of trying to learn from each other or create partnership with other civilisations as you have put it so kindly.

And yes, I will do my best to see that explanations of chants, hymns and traditions are properly addressed. I feel that explanations are properly given through padasalai method of teaching but since there is no proper written expose's of such explanations, we the products of western education, are unable to get it.

Finally, my whole hearted thanks for including your views on atharvana veda and astrology.

Adiyen
Madurakavi Dhaasan

mssg said:

Namaskaram Krishnan Garu,

Very nice thread. You are lucky to have freedom to pursue risk-rewards, as well as interests on the side. Best wishes for your endeavors.

If suggestions are welcome, wish to put forth below:

(1) Attitude - Competition versus Partnerships:
It is sad when kids and adults alike claim we indians are most intelligent, ancient, capable and so on. Such attitude incapacitates learning attitude in the true sense. In addition sadly, we have made competitors out of everyone and everything (esp in today's world). With such attitude, it is impossible to make meaningful relationships, or progress which matters. Hopefully your system will inculcate the right attitude in children -- that it is better to make partnerships out of diversity. Neither western science nor non-Indians are our competitors. We all grow together and help explain each others knowledge base; including religion.

(2) Curriculum
Am sure you will get many people suggesting many books for your proposed curriculum. My humble suggestion is to inculcate explanatory ability to the vedic curriculum. Currently many priests cannot explain what they are chanting; or how it matters. Request you to include following books in your curriculum:

(a) Gopatha Brahmana - A Critical Study. Written by Tarak Nath Adhikari. The only comprehensive book which does comparative study of all works by different authors on the Atharva/Gopatha.

(b) Philosophy of Pancaratra. Written by Late Dr.S.Rangahar. The book is a fairly detailed work touching on the development of agamas, yamalas, tantras, concepts of para, antaryamin, gunas, archavatara and so on.

(c) A Study of Select Temples of Chitoor District. Written by Dr.P.N.Naidu. The book details architectural styles from different time periods. Today, if a child sees an idol / temple, he cannot say which religion it belongs to; is it Vaikhanasa or Pancharatra style; or is it Pallava architecture or Chola architecture. We Indians have little appreciation for our structures (we dirty them, vandalize them with names and heart drawings) due to lack of awareness.

Also new temple are cropping up everywhere making religion a business. They ruin the meaningfulness of geographical coordinates of old temples. The only way to deal with this is awareness. Hope your curriculum will include few books on temple architecture so that future generations will better appreciate it.


(3) On Atharvaveda:
Since you mention Atharva, it is worthwhile to note less than 1/4th of Atharva is abhichara (which unfortunately our own people, let alone foreigners, have dubbed that into "magic / withcraft". It is neither). Abhichara is psychological phenomenon. Hope you have seen the movie Iru Mugam (when a mother sees a car, in danger of running over her child, suddenly she gets strength to lift the entire car - how does it happen). Brain chemicals are altered by many things. Under fear or with intake of chemicals, brain cannot give sustained performance in battle. But with sound waves, brain can bring about the needful in a measured and sustained manner. Abhichara basically plays on the psyche to bring about extraordinary mental and physical strength; which humans do not display under normal circumstances; although usage can be as trivial as obtaining a lover or as complex as battlefield strength.

(4) Astrology
It may or may not be a hoax. But definitely our predictive methods have not adapted with changes (like earth's tilt, calculation of longitude/latitude, and so on. Cyclones which normally go to Andhra are coming to northern Tamilnadu now. Chennai's rainy season used to be July to Sep; but now it is Oct to Dec. Such weather pattern is here to stay. This change must tell us that our old calculations require tweaking / updating). All said, at individual level, whatever we do, finally things happen in a split second; and nothing is in our control. Which is why am in complete agreement with KRN's post in the astrology thread. We can only endeavor to make our predictive algorithms better performing ones, if He so wills.

What am saying is, hope your curriculum will teach children how important it is to adapt with changing times, absorb information from all directions (including using modern science) to improvise our knowledge base . If we fail to do so, we are in danger of becoming a superstitious religion; the kind which depends on tolerance level rather than knowledge itself.

Thanks and best regards.

Wishing you all success.

Click to expand...

Hello,

I was supposed to post again on Jan 21st but I could not. I apologize for this.

Regarding my pursuit:

I did try to speak to the swamigal at srirangam after thai maasam had begun but I could not. Unfortunately I am able to travel to srirangam only on saturday/sunday and for the past two weeks the swamigal was busy giving upanyasams at chennai over the weekends.

But, I did talk to a childhood friend of mine who has embraced the path of a vaideehan and is also helping the swamigal at srirangam. His view was that.. all said and done.. the school would need to recruit only brahmin kids as the vedas will only be taught to brahmins. Hmmm.. this is a major hurdle.. My thinking was that, us (ie me, my friend, the swamigal and ppl in srirangam) being thenkalai iyengars and devout followers of Sri Ramanuja, we would be more open to teaching the uneducated..

Given the above, I will have to necessarily look to change my model of education to (atleast initially) encompass only brahmin kids. Eventually, I will be trying my best to teach the 18 puranas, 2 itihasas and the vedangas to all interested people if not the four vedas themselves.

Let us see.. I believe it is too early in my journey to determine what will be the result of my pursuits..

Regarding Money:

I have also not heard from the Government in terms of the application for oil exploration rights. But realising that I do need cash flow for my pursuits, I have turned my company into a startup venture capitalist firm and invested in two other companies. They have promised that dividends will be paid on a monthly basis. It is a start.. let us see how things go.

Adiyen,
Madurakavi dhaasan

Dear Sri Krishnan,

Your enthusiasm is amazing. I only wish that things are that simple in our country.

Though I may sound pessimistic I would suggest the following:

1. Right at the start why do you go for a large project. I would suggest that you try to do some research and find out a place in Chennai for starting a school. There are many outlying residential colonies which are fashionably called condominiums these days in Chennai's suburbs. You may plan to acquire a piece of land which will be sufficient for the next five or ten years for a school to start and grow. You can implement your curriculum plans, design a suitable syllabus which takes care of teaching of vedas and bhakti literature in addition to normal teaching of a Govt. prescribed syllabus. You may go for adequate space for sports related infrastructure too. You may even choose to locate your campus either in Tamilnadu or Andhra or Kerala depending on which State is accommodative of your dream institution.

2. Funding the venture is the trickiest of the tasks. I would suggest you incorporate a company and take the help of the community for this. Selling the idea to investors will be very tough but is feasible.

More as the thoughts come.

All the best.

hi sir,

just a thought....i studied veda and western education from veda patashala in kerala...it is more conservative and liberal

western education too...its rare in india...especially in south....generally all veda patashalas are running by some matams....

very conservative system...you can proceed ur dreams...as vaagmi sir said...go with some business corporations and

with the community...try ur level best...best of luck...

I am saddened to acknowledge that my bid for oil exploration rights has not been successful.

I now have to see what else I can do.

Dear tbs, thank you for replying to my post and letting me know that there is a person like you around. I will most certainly be approaching you for advice once I get my financial act together.

Dear Vaagmi, thank you for your valuable thoughts. But even for acquiring land (size supportive of a school with a small playground) in the suburbs of chennai, the minimum cost would be 80 Lakhs.. add to this the cost of building class rooms and this would quickly become prohibitive to me. But yes, as you have suggested, I will also try to find investors. Its just that I dont know where to look for these kind of investors. If you or anyone else has information, kindly share here.

Krishnan

Dear Mr Krishnam,
l a, in Chennai L have retired from Ordnance factory service. If you like& have faith in Astrology, please write your Dt of Birth/ time/ place & balance dasa.
you may send scanned horoscpe to : [email protected]
A.Srinivasan

Dear Mr Venkata Krishnan,

Greetings.

I appreciate you for your noble pursuit.

I think the Banaras Hindu University is doing something on the same lines as your pursuit.

I am most willing to offer my best assistance possible.

I also suggest you visit Rishi Valley in Andhra Pradesh to get some inputs from the JK Foundation School.

How may I contact you?

Please confirm how I may address you since you have signed off as Madurakavi Dhaasan.

GNANA SUNYAM said:

Dear Mr Venkata Krishnan,

Greetings.

I appreciate you for your noble pursuit.

I think the Banaras Hindu University is doing something on the same lines as your pursuit.

I am most willing to offer my best assistance possible.

I also suggest you visit Rishi Valley in Andhra Pradesh to get some inputs from the JK Foundation School.

How may I contact you?

Please confirm how I may address you since you have signed off as Madurakavi Dhaasan.

Click to expand...

Hi Gnanam,

Please post here your advices and tips so that others too benefit instead of through PMs. Thanks.

Krishnan.vp said:

I am saddened to acknowledge that my bid for oil exploration rights has not been successful.

I now have to see what else I can do.

Dear tbs, thank you for replying to my post and letting me know that there is a person like you around. I will most certainly be approaching you for advice once I get my financial act together.

Dear Vaagmi, thank you for your valuable thoughts. But even for acquiring land (size supportive of a school with a small playground) in the suburbs of chennai, the minimum cost would be 80 Lakhs.. add to this the cost of building class rooms and this would quickly become prohibitive to me. But yes, as you have suggested, I will also try to find investors. Its just that I dont know where to look for these kind of investors. If you or anyone else has information, kindly share here.

Krishnan

Click to expand...

Dear Sri Krishnan,

Your intention is noble...Do not brood over the failure to get the drilling license...Failures are stepping stones to success. Andhra & Telengana Governments are friendly to such initiatives..You can get in touch with them through contacts

Dear Mr.Srinivasan,

I have sent you an email with my horoscope to your email id. I am also attaching it here if any other members are interested.


Thanks,
Krishnan

rishikesan said:

Dear Mr Krishnam,
l a, in Chennai L have retired from Ordnance factory service. If you like& have faith in Astrology, please write your Dt of Birth/ time/ place & balance dasa.
you may send scanned horoscpe to : [email protected]
A.Srinivasan

Click to expand...

Dear Mr.Gnanam,

You may call me as Krishnan. I have also sent you a pm with my email on it. For others who might want to contact me, my email address is my username @gmail.com.

I will be most happy to talk to you further about this. As vaagmi had mentioned, other people reading this thread might also get information. I hope I do not fail in my pursuit but in the case that I do, the details listed in this thread my help others who are also interested in similar pursuits. So I request you to kindly post information which you deem fit on this thread.

Adiyen,
Madurakavi dhasan

GNANA SUNYAM said:

Dear Mr Venkata Krishnan,

Greetings.

I appreciate you for your noble pursuit.

I think the Banaras Hindu University is doing something on the same lines as your pursuit.

I am most willing to offer my best assistance possible.

I also suggest you visit Rishi Valley in Andhra Pradesh to get some inputs from the JK Foundation School.

How may I contact you?

Please confirm how I may address you since you have signed off as Madurakavi Dhaasan.

Click to expand...

dear Krishnan, I saw your reply mail regarding Astrology, but inadverdently got Deleted. Hence, i would request you to consider the following if you would like to discuss on Astrological aspects
You have mentioned that you are in Chennai. I would like to clarify that my wife Mrs Janaki is the experienced Astrologer. & you can talk to her over land line Ph 044/24806871.On knowing your requirement / questions she will mutually fix the timing & the Fees If you agree she will give our House Address at Kodambakkam. We can then meet
Sincerely.
A.srinivasan (Rishikesan/ for this forum )

Reopening the thread.

Its been a long time since I posted here. A lot of things have transpired in this time. I now hold an Australian PR, have travelled to Australia for stamping and returned to Chennai now.

Recently in my efforts I have started contacting veda padashalais directly and have found that atleast three of them have expressed interest in getting their kids 10th and 12th education. Incidentally, they are already giving school related computer and english education to their kids.

The concurrence among the three patashalas I have visited is that it would be prudent to attempt setting up a vedic patashala secondary education board to unite all vedic institutions and given them a secondary education.

How much this will be feasible.. only time will tell.

Right now, I am in the process of collecting addresses of veda patashalas to go visit them and advice them of our efforts and see if they will be interested in our march to include basic western curriculum in their studies so their kids can also enter the mainstream and get regular degrees.

If you happen to know the address/phone contact of any veda patashalas in tamilnadu, please post here so I may contact them.


Thanks,
Krishnan

Hello All,

I had become ill and could not follow up for a month now. I have also spent considerable amount of savings.. this combined with the loss in attempting to get an oil field earlier last year has played havoc with what I had. Let us see.

I have also encountered some stiff opposition from some of the rural area vaideehans who do not want to even have a sniff of english given to their students. I am unsure what to say.

I have also found that SASTRA university is offering a diploma in vedic studies specifically for kids from veda patashalas. If they complete this diploma, it seems it is equivalent to 12th std. How much this is valid, I do not know. But do feel free to share this information with any vaideehan that you might know. Maybe it will help them. I contacted the professor in sastra who worked on this.. his name is kannan. I introduced myself and spoke of my intentions, for some reason, he has not picked up his phone after that.

I also have to give attention to my own financial situation.. therefore, I am trading forex on my own. For the last 5 months, I have been profitable and gained around 2-4% profit every month. I am planning to set up a company to seek investments from common people so I can trade for them and share the profits... or give a fixed return of 1.5% per month on their investments with me. I think 1.5% will be approx 18% per year which is much higher than 7% returns in a bank currently. Let us see. My grandfather suggested that Nov 19th is a good day to start. So I am planning to start on that day and give an advt in Hindu classifieds for chennai area. Hopefully, I generate enough finance to support myself and my cause to support patashalas.

Thats it for now..

Thanks,
Krishnan