Dear Sri RVR Ji,
Thank you for your first post here. Yes, learning Tamil from the NC giants you have mentioned was a delight. I still remember the almost "katha kalepshekam' manner in which our dear Professor Radhakrishnan used to teach us. Thanks for reviving old memories.
Regarding the topic of this thread, one has to understand the total culture and the history of various peoples around the world to understand why they do certain things. For example, a Catholic from France is totally different from one fron the US, in terms of culture, despite their religion may be the same (even here some differences exist).
I do not know how a group of people can adapt some other culture's best features, without it sprouting from that culture by itself. For example, somehow from a very young age, without anyone teaching me, I had a very strong egalitarian streak. And to me, this is one of my top three living principles. It is so personal to me, I would not like to live permanently in any country whose culture does not practice it. I'll feel miserable otherwise.
Today, all micro based 'cultural' practices are under attack all over the world, because of modernism. Your account of Japan's treating her elders, which formed through Shinto, like our own religion faces similar challenges like we face today.
So, on one hand, march of time and history shape a culture over time. Food, fashion, marriage, child rearing, social interaction, day to day living all are affected by it. Today, some of us perform no sandhyavandanam, some of us repeat gayathri japa alone many times, some of us dutifully perform the ritual either one, two or all three times. Most of us do not complete the prescribed nithya karmas, let alone Maha Purusha Yagnas required of us.
So, what gives? I think that our religion has already provided the wherewithal to live in a modern world, adapting to it's requirements, while at the same time fulfilling our destiny through our religion. Our religion understood that religion is for people and not the other way around, and this is why every religious practice ever existed existed in the world, exists in our religion. Religion is a tool. People are unique and diverse. What our religion allows is to give the proper tool to a person, based on that person's make up, in terms of intelligence - both mind and emotion, and personality, to attain his/her destiny.
The reason I am saying all this is because, the 'best practices' to be adapted, by definition has a meaning that we as a community either practice 'not a best' practice or do not practice anything in that realm. Let us take an example: Corruption. We cite a country like USA as an example where it is minimal. Why is it minimal here? Because the culture and the society in general look down upon it and one have laws with teeth to deal with it. But in India, it is viewed as something that can not be overcome. So almost everyone contributes to it's existence and even thriving. We pay corrupt money or other favors to get daily things done. If we do not do it, then we or our family gets hurt. So, to adapt this best practice means that either a movement is started capturing the imagination of the people or each one of us not give in to corruption, regardless of the injury it will cause.
Following this logic, I do not think that the best practices can then be 'adapted' by a community easily. It can only be adapted by individuals, having particular passions. Just because many may not adapt, based on the cost/benefit analysis to them, should not make them any lesser human beings.
By the way, if we think through the values taught us by our religion (not the ritual aspects, as they are for a different purpose), the best practices are there to be adapted for the current times: Egalitarianism, level playing field for everyone, charity, respect to all human beings, respect to diversity, living for the Truth etc., etc., etc.
Most of the 'best practices' practiced by other cultures today are also embedded in our religion as well. I remember about 20 years ago, listening to a particular Methodist preacher every Sunday morning on TV for a couple of years when I lived in a particular city, because what all he preached conformed profoundly with my own Hindu view of the world. I learnt a lot about my own culture by listening to a Christian!
Lastly, I want to clarify a few things about the Jews, as I lived with one for 3 decades: Because of their history and constant persecution by the Christians, they were allowed in to only a few professions that the Christians thought 'dirty'. Handling, lending money is one such profession. Hence there is a perception that the jews in general are only 'money minded'. When one looks at this culture, one is surprised to find that they have a somewhat similar societal structure to ours. They have a priestly class, keepers of the Torah. Out of this class has sprung mostly the current day intellectuals, leaders, artists, scientists etc, who dominate their fields. So actually within the community there is somewhat a division of those who think that they have a higher mission in life and those who always think about money, with the former somewhat looking down on the latter. But in general, they are also profoundly religious people across the spectrum, like our larger Hindu society.
Regards,
KRS
