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Docta Ignorantia LXXII Compulsory Chapel And Vedas One of the little moments Bill and I shared was on the realization that whereas Lucien Truscott had got rid of compulsory Chapel at the Academy, and never been forgiven in many circles, I had accomplished the same service at the University of Redlands, in 1968, when I was on intern year from Union as Assistant Chaplain to the University, at cost of my career in academe. We reminisced that whereas both actions were correct and someone had to do it, they were incalculably costly actions personally. Vedas are the foundational religious literature of the race, written in Sanskrit and dating from an incalculable time. By their own witness, they date from the moment of creation. They cannot be dated. They were brought West in recent memory by the great German scholars of some 200 years ago who translated them and realized that Sanskrit is the root of most European languages and numerous others spread around the globe. Our scholars haven't been able to stand the racial leveling this insight implies and have since decided Sanskrit is a result of a meta-language they speculate and call Indo-European. Actually, Sanskrit itself is the meta-language and the others, such as German and English, derive from it, as the Germans pointed out. Vedas have undergone several major collations, the most recent about 3800 BC by Sage Vyasa. The word itself means "whisperings," meaning, Vedas are the whisperings of God in the ears of Sages. Vedas cover every aspect of human activity -- every single one. Their content varies widely, from legalistic proscriptions and prescriptions to ecstatic Huzzahs. In addition, Vedas express all three of the fundamental philosophical points of view which it is possible for someone to have: dualism, qualified non-dualism and non-dualism. They also express the the view-less view, the overview, and it was this which caused certain Germans, following Hegel, to develop by way of distortion the notion of the superman or ubermensch and then the uber-race. As you know, weak minds are prone to take great insights and deform them for ends not contemplated by those insights. Humanity is rather continuously dealing with the effects of this phenomenon. The reason we have theologians and philosophers, actually, is to keep before humanity the real reason and the real nature of these great insights: namely, catholicity, inclusiveness. Vedas are mankind's foundational catholic literature -- despite the vagaries of weak minds.
Adwaitha Hermitage
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