Sad that 'unethical' practises like corruption is prevalent in India: Dalai Lama

[prasad1]

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Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Tuesday said it was a contradiction that Indians were indulging in "unethical" practises like corruption despite being religious-minded.


Indians are "highly religious-minded" and it is very sad that corruption is prevalent in this country, he said while denouncing the menace.


"I recently went to Ladakh and someone told me for example if government gives them Rs 100, only Rs 20 reach them. Rest 80 per cent disappears. This is very sad. Indians are religious-minded people and they fear god," he said at a function at the Ramakrishna Mission here.


When poverty remains a major issue in the country, corruption is not acceptable and everyone should think on this count, he said.


"It is a big contradiction. On one hand they pray in the morning and through the day they do corruption. This is not done. When you deny god and deny spirituality then at least one can understand," he said.

Indian_express

 

[Iyyarooraan]

It looks like that if you talk of corruption in India you will be considered an anti-national.

 

[vgane]

And sedition charges will be put against you...Look at the cases filed against the leading lights of the graft movement...This will lead to more frustration.

 

[biswa]

What if there is corruption in religion as well? AFAIK very people care about God. They seem to care more about rituals, festivals, caste and other paraphernalia.

Notice that politicians are some of the most prominent visitors to temples. To them God is just another entity they can payoff so that they can continue with their corruption.

 

[prasad1]

Mr. Biswa,
You are so right when you say:

They seem to care more about rituals, festivals, caste and other paraphernalia.

But you are an NRI (like me), you are not in TN. So your interpretation of religion differs from them.

[video=youtube;sX7hFKjm_n4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sX7hFKjm_n4[/video]

 

[sravna]

The problem is not with religion. The problem firstly, is in the type of people that rule the country. It is at the top and people have no choice than going with the system.

Secondly, a dangerous thing, that is happening in India, is when your conscience disappears and ego takes its place, though Indians are still the most spiritual in spite of that being continuously under assault by the alien culture and by the machinications of the politicians.

The problems are that the Indians are not inwardly strong because of waning spirituality and external system makes the situation even a lot more worse.

But it is definitely not that Indians are donning both spirituality and corruptedness.

 

[tbs]

hi
i have seen many religious places are corrupted than any where....there is no caste for corruption....like santri to mantri......means

from peon to minister.......corruption is state of mind......money in physical form...there are many mentally corrupted.....

 

[renuka]

"It is a big contradiction. On one hand they pray in the morning and through the day they do corruption.

Indian_express

Ha Ha Ha..I had a nice experience this time in India.
I feel people do not really Love God.
They love themselves!LOL

For them God is their Santa Claus to shower gifts on them.
Some actually think praying might cancel some negative Karma accumulated by corruption,cheating etc.

Like once a doctor out here told me that since he does abortions he goes to Tirupathi once a year and shaves his hair and gives some donation to cut off the "bad" karma of doing abortions.

I told him "next time cut off your head itself and donate it there..you are confident your hair will grow back that's why you are shaving only your hair..and your donation is no big deal cos as it is it is under declared money(black money)..this type of money you can't keep it in bank cos income tax will come after you..your house money safe must be full..so you are trying to "donate" it'

I had noted that this time people in India were out to make a kill with anyone they see.
As I said before even truth is delayed truth..in other words the untruth!

I feel their prayer in the mornings would be "Dear God please send me some இளிச்சவாய்
to make my day and don't worry I will donate some share to You too"


Frankly speaking the act of praying is not always wedded to spirituality.

 

[vgane]

The contradiction is pretty stark in India....It is not a question of poor vs rich in terms of corruption...In fact all categories of people indulge in corruption

Let us not blame absence of faith or morality in this...For everything we look up to God..IMHO if this is to be analyzed & root cause determined, it has nothing to do with God

If we have a strong system of retributon, this would not happen

Our legal system is full of loopholes & delays.

We need to break the criminal, politician & bureaucrat nexus

Let us stengthen the laws & punish the offenders...Let us cut bureaucratic red tapism & reduce chances of delays...The country will become more efficient & progress faster

But who is to bell the cat?

 

[renuka]

But who is to bell the cat?

For that you will have to bribe someone too!

 

[mkrishna100]

Let us stengthen the laws & punish the offenders...Let us cut bureaucratic red tapism & reduce chances of delays...The country will become more efficient & progress faster

But who is to bell the cat?

[h=3]“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.”- Mahatma Gandhi [/h]

 

[mkrishna100]

Frankly speaking the act of praying is not always wedded to spirituality.

The problem is not with the act of Prayer but with the type of people who pray . In Indian Culture be it dance , spiritual lecture , classical music , eating, studying, Yoga etc we start with Prayer and End with Prayer .So prayer is built in to our Culture and it has a very positive aspect if we understand the correct significance for it and use it where it should be used . Unfortunately today Prayer is used by people only for selfish reasons .
Swami Dayananda ( of Arsha Vidya ) has explained beautifully the purpose of Prayer in the book "Purpose of Prayer " published by Arsha Vidya Centre .
A more comprehensive work on Prayer is the book "Prayer Guide" by Swami Dayananda that explains various types of prayer and shlokas and their meaning . Never have I seen a much clear explanation for prayer and its purpose .

 

[renuka]

The problem is not with the act of Prayer but with the type of people who pray . In Indian Culture be it dance , spiritual lecture , classical music , eating, studying, Yoga etc we start with Prayer and End with Prayer .So prayer is built in to our Culture and it has a very positive aspect if we understand the correct significance for it and use it where it should be used . Unfortunately today Prayer is used by people only for selfish reasons .
Swami Dayananda ( of Arsha Vidya ) has explained beautifully the purpose of Prayer in the book "Purpose of Prayer " published by Arsha Vidya Centre .
A more comprehensive work on Prayer is the book "Prayer Guide" by Swami Dayananda that explains various types of prayer and shlokas and their meaning . Never have I seen a much clear explanation for prayer and its purpose .

Dear sir,

Agreed but I feel to a certain extent we humans have been thought by elders that prayer = asking God a favor.

I had written before once in forum that as a child I used to pray by saluting God like a soldier and asking Him "Hello, How are you?"

My mother used to scold me and tell me "what type of prayer is this..ask God to bless you in studies etc"

I used to tell her "why everyone asks things from God but no one cares to ask Him how He is?"

She used to wonder why I never prayed like my brothers who had a long list of favors to ask God.

That's why now when I am a mother..I tell my son to pray to God out of love and not think what God can give you.(My mother still disagrees with me BTW!)

I feel when we pray to God with purely self vested interest we fail to rectify ourselves and just treat prayer as a launching pad for prosperity in all aspects of live.

Our first act of "corruption" is prayer itself.
Many of us do pray in a transaction manner and make a deal with God..."if you grant me this..I will offer this and that to You"

We actually try to bribe God!

So when we actually even try to bribe God..what is so hard for humans to bribe fellow humans and the vicious cycle of corruption comes into action.

So we have to change our mindset.

Ask not what God can do for you..Ask what you can do for God cos whatever is done solely for God can never be Adharmic.

 

[mkrishna100]

Agreed but I feel to a certain extent we humans have been thought by elders that prayer = asking God a favor.

Unfortunately it is a wrong teaching and still being practiced by Majority .Lord Krishna talks about 4 levels of devotees and devotees asking for favor comes under the lower level .We need to distinguish between the 4 levels of devotees and of course I do agree that majority comes under the bottom level and very few come under top level devotees .

Our first act of "corruption" is prayer itself.

Agreed, but I would modify it to selfish prayer and not just prayer .Upanishad Prayer are quite Universal and encourages self growth through positive affirmations rather than selfish quick fixes .

 

[sarang]

When you say "So we have to change our mindset", I take it is a royal we, meaning 'I'. We are taught to treat god as a friend, parent, lover, master and even a servant. We are free to ask him any favour and he is there to give. Our divine literature is full of demands on god.

Perhaps, a realised souls like Periazhwar can sing 'kappu' for narayana in 'pallandu, pallandu'. We lesser souls can pray and demand anything - wealth, education, health, knowledge, moksha.

Dear sir,

Agreed but I feel to a certain extent we humans have been thought by elders that prayer = asking God a favor.

I had written before once in forum that as a child I used to pray by saluting God like a soldier and asking Him "Hello, How are you?"

My mother used to scold me and tell me "what type of prayer is this..ask God to bless you in studies etc"

I used to tell her "why everyone asks things from God but no one cares to ask Him how He is?"

She used to wonder why I never prayed like my brothers who had a long list of favors to ask God.

That's why now when I am a mother..I tell my son to pray to God out of love and not think what God can give you.(My mother still disagrees with me BTW!)

I feel when we pray to God with purely self vested interest we fail to rectify ourselves and just treat prayer as a launching pad for prosperity in all aspects of live.

Our first act of "corruption" is prayer itself.
Many of us do pray in a transaction manner and make a deal with God..."if you grant me this..I will offer this and that to You"

We actually try to bribe God!

So when we actually even try to bribe God..what is so hard for humans to bribe fellow humans and the vicious cycle of corruption comes into action.

So we have to change our mindset.

Ask not what God can do for you..Ask what you can do for God cos whatever is done solely for God can never be Adharmic.

 

[ozone]

We lesser souls can pray and demand anything - wealth, education, health, knowledge, moksha.

They appear very acceptable and even reasonable.
The problem is that people have started praying for unethical things and including God in those activities, whether he likes it or not.

 

[mkrishna100]

Bhagavatgeeta Chapter 7, verse 16, describes four types of devotees.

"chaturvidha bhajante maam janaah sukritinorjuna
arto jijnaasurartharthi jnaani cha bharatarsabha"

First type is called Aartaha- It has people who remember God and pray when in distress in their bad times seeking relief from physical or mental agony.
The second type is known as Artharthi- It has those people who want to have wealth and comfort. They pray and try to get prosperity by the grace of God!
The third type is jijnasuhu- It has people who due to their inquisitiveness want to know about God. Such people have faith in God & want to know more about Him. They try to read, hear from knoledgable people, debate about God, and pray for God's grace for enhancement of knowledge .

Fourth type contains the jnaanis- people who are of True knowledge about God and worship him for the sake of worship without expecting any thing. They are the realized sages, who have attained to the stage of reaching the supreme goal.

Majority of people are in First and Second Category and Lord Krishna likes only the fourth type of Devotees and if we have to reach the fourth level , we need to move away from the first ,second level and reach the third level and invest time there for sometime to reach the highest level.

 

[renuka]

When you say "So we have to change our mindset", I take it is a royal we, meaning 'I'. We are taught to treat god as a friend, parent, lover, master and even a servant. We are free to ask him any favour and he is there to give. Our divine literature is full of demands on god.

Perhaps, a realised souls like Periazhwar can sing 'kappu' for narayana in 'pallandu, pallandu'. We lesser souls can pray and demand anything - wealth, education, health, knowledge, moksha.

Fair enough...but any prayer is fine as long we do not try to "bribe" God.
That is the point I was trying to get across.

By treating God as a Santa Claus one faces the risk of giving up the believe in God all together.
We must learn to accept that sometimes God also give us No for an answer.

Many people have become Atheist owing to the fact that their prayers did not get "answered".
I can safely bet 99.999999999999999% of Atheist have become so becos of some bitter incident in life.

They would have thought "if only there was a God..surely this would not have happened"

That's why it is better to teach a child to pray to God out of love and let everything else fall into place.

When something does not go right in life...do not blame God..it is just time for introspection.
Rectify what we can and that which can not be undone..leave it and move on.

 

[ozone]

I can safely bet 99.999999999999999% of Atheist have become so becos of some bitter incident in life.

I know of more than the 00.000000000000001 % who are Atheist because they are very well off and they think they did not need God to get there and dont need him any more to stay there.

 

[renuka]

I know of more than the 00.000000000000001 % who are Atheist because they are very well off and they think they did not need God to get there and dont need him any more to stay there.

Yes to a certain extent I agree.

I knew a doctor who before starting his own clinic used to be always reciting mantras and checking astrology.

After he became a successful owner of multiple clinics he now says there is No God.

But he still sees astrology saying that astrology is a science and nothing to do with God.

 

[prasad1]

The spirituality we pretend is also corrupt. We will not participate in corruption if we are spiritual. Having been forced to contribute to the corruption, we are jaded and pretend to be spiritual.
Unless we rise above corruption we can not be truly spiritual.

 

[zebra16]

Fair enough...but any prayer is fine as long we do not try to "bribe" God.
That is the point I was trying to get across.

This very concept of prayers trying to "bribe" God is the seed sown by non-believers. Let us analyse the situation more clearly:

For every bribe there should be a bribe giver and bribe taker. Even if I, a pashAnda bhaktha, try to bribe the God, I know (or scriptures/prayers declare) that God is incorruptible and he stands to gain nothing from my bribe.

If I pray that God please give me $ 1M and I will give you 10% cut, even a dullard will know that God does not need the second leg of transaction and just give $0.9M.

Some of the prayers include some type of willingly shouldering additional hardships (like going to a thirtha-yatra on foot or some such thing). This is just expression of gratitude for "Grace" and has been switched over to the "bribe" method by the critics.

At least in Hindu concept, a bhakthA views his Lord as "poorNam" and he prays that "poorNam" be bestowed on bhakthA also, explicitly pointing out his deficiency in certain areas and requesting the Lord to fulfill the same. What is wrong in that?

Now what has corruption got to do with spirituality or prayers? Nothing. Corruption is paying something extra or premium for a service or product whose rate is fixed by the people themselves
A physician never consulted the God while fixing his consultation fees, nor did the Government consult the God for fixing the price of a service or the rate of taxation. What has God got to do in this competitive battle between the bhakthAs or between the bhakthA and Government? Nothing

The social malady is sought to be passed on to the God by making statements such as "he is a bhakthA, but still pays bribe"... as if paying bribes by others are okay.

 

[ozone]

T
Unless we rise above corruption we can not be truly spiritual.

In todays world, there is no incentive to give up corruption unless being reprimanded - which is one sure way to turn some one spiritual.
On the other hand, one needs to get spiritual to stay away or give up corruption.

 

[ozone]

Now what has corruption got to do with spirituality or prayers? Nothing. Corruption is paying something extra or premium for a service or product whose rate is fixed by the people themselves

Well, a religion is supposed to teach morals and values and people who are spiritual also turn out to be religious.
People are using God as a means to ward of their guilt and the non believers just jump in to demean everything connected with religion sighting this.

The social malady is sought to be passed on to the God by making statements such as "he is a bhakthA, but still pays bribe"... as if paying bribes by others are okay.

Lets agree that it does not augur well to see some one visiting temples also indulge in things that are not moral. Instead of
trying to defend ourselves from this group, I would accept these as a mis use of religion and God just as they mis use everything.
Such people can never be called spiritual or religious, nor would (should) anyone heed to their religious or spiritual advices.

 

[sarang]

Recently I read in a different context that the fertility rates of atheists and atheist countries is half that of theists. Even Russia, which, under putin, is reinventing christianity, and birth rate is expected to rise. The inference was atheists will vanish mainly because replacement birth is less than natural loss despite inflow from disgruntles theists.

In our religion, dharma and faith in god are not directly related. Dharma is for self and society, whereas faith is god is for personal moksha.

Recently, Kamalhasan's daughter is reported to have said that she believes in god, and visits temples regularly, even though she was not taught religious faith by her parents.

One can be dharmic without being religious and vice versa.

I can safely bet 99.999999999999999% of Atheist have become so becos of some bitter incident in life.