[Advaita-l] Interesting URL

[Sundaresan, Vidyasankar (GE Infra, Water)]

>Just to give a balanced perspective, I feel westerners
>are 'more' qualified to understand our traditions.
>This is because they're alien to our culture, and
>hence they can be a bit more objective. Whereas most
>Indians make it a habit to ridicule our traditions
>without even bothering to read a single book.

Quite frankly, I find a complete lack of correlation between
one's geographical origin on earth and one's ability to be
objective or analytical. In a counterpoint to what you say
above, people alien to a culture can seriously misunderstand
it, while other people steeped in a culture may either ridicule
it or place it on the highest pedestal without question. For
every Indian who ridicules Indian traditions because it is hip
to do so, there is another who ridicules everything "Western".
And for every Westerner who is able to view Indian traditions
with objectivity, there is another who looks down upon them
with faintly concealed contempt.

>Nor does one understand why the author tries to relate
>neo-vedanta (which was started by Indians like
>Vivekananda) to the alleged shortcomings of western
>culture. There seems to be no correlation at all. 

At the risk of repeating myself, the author of the article that
started this thread is NOT talking of the neo-Vedanta trend
initiated by Swami Vivekananda and others. If he had been
referring to this, I would NOT have posted that URL to this
list as something worth reading.

Regards,
Vidyasankar