I seek to know my fellow man and to learn from him. In order to do that I have to belong to the moment body and soul…

I don’t doubt that you were deeply affected by your experience but like Michael H., I am skeptical about the worth of the ‘knowledge’ you’ve gleaned. Your citation of the experiences of a Bodhisattva only obscures the issue and is question-begging to boot since many argue that Bodhisattva-hood is an incoherent notion (read, e.g., the Dvaitin critique ‘Jewel Necklace of Argument’ aimed at Advaita Vedanta but also applicable to many strains of Buddhism etc.).

SepiaMutiny is, of course, not a philosophy blog but I don’t think it pedantic to point out that you are using ‘know’ in a rather loose sense. I would be interested in an elaboration of just how your experience constitutes ‘knowledge’ in any coherent sense.

Kumar

By the way, Happy Navarathri to all!

yaamini

Harsh words Razib — Personally I’d take goat over lamb in desi food any day…

Say it, brother. I’m a goat lover too.

Er, wait. I mean I enjoy Goat meat. Er, eating it, I mean. The meat, that is. Nothing more…

Anyway, I recall family members telling me that in India, poor Muslims ate beef while rich ones ate goat. Seemed bizarre, as beef is usually a high status meat — higher than goat at least. But this comment by technophobicgeek explains it

Beef is really cheap in India, I believe, coz of low demand.

Happy Ramazan and Happy Navaratri.

does godwin’s law apply here? michael h – i feel you are being too severe. the guy opened himself to an alien culture and came away enrichened (at least in his mind). whether that was right or not – i dont know. would i take such leaps of faith – absolutely. i may lose my individuality, but sure beats being lonely. and sitting alone on the computer late into the night raising an ass lobe periodically to avoid leaving sweat stains on the leather chair. oh!…

Michael your whole thesis is misinformed. I do not believe in religion. I have stated that before on many entries. I reflexively shun all organized religious dogma, including the dogma of Islam and that of my “mother who carried me”. I certainly wasn’t “conforming,” and the idea that I could be brainwashed is preposterous. I am much more likely to be the washer of brains.

I am me. I walk my own path and it is one that nobody else treads upon.

Mahayana Buddhism beieves in the concept of bodhisattvas. A person who aspires to eventually become a bodhisattva knows that he has failed if he alone attains enlightenment. It is only when humanity as a collective reaches Nirvana that the journey of a bodhisattva is complete. I seek to know my fellow man and to learn from him. In order to do that I have to belong to the moment body and soul. That doesn’t mean that I become trapped in the moment or lose my individuality or my beliefs. In a sense you are accusing me of selling out my true beliefs to fit in. In reality I used my experience to strengthen my own beliefs.

there’s plenty of stuff in the social psychology and cognitive science literature to address your question, no point in mooting it here. as an “out” and vocal atheist of muslim cultural origin who spent his adolescence in a predominantly mormon and evangelical christian small town i think i can buck the trend decently, but i got to say, you better be real fucking cool and self-assured. like me

I couldnÂ’t bear the thought of someone stumbling upon me and thinking that I was a bad Muslim. The fact that I wasnÂ’t really Muslim didnÂ’t matter. … I needed people around me to know that I was a good Muslim. I wanted to belong to this place and to them in the way they belonged there and to each other.

Why should someone raised outside of a culture feel this overwhelming need to conform? Why should someone feel a greater need to belong to a people he has only been around for three days – a people who do not love him – than a need to preserve the culture of his mother who carried him for nine months or the rest of his family who do love him. Is this personality trait unique to Abhi or something all of us would feel if we were faced with a monoculture?

I don’t think the issue here has anything really to do with Islam but really about monoculture and the stifling pressure to conform. Actually, the image that came to mind when I read the last paragraph was of a Nuremburg rally. Of everyone wearing uniforms and marching in step to the drummer and the individual is completely destroyed. When faced with that situation, we would feel the need to blend in, and worse, we might like it. We might like the illusion that everyone wants what we want and we want what everyone else wants until it slowly dawns on us that the concept of wanting dies in a world without choices.

If I visit a foreign culture (and I will be traveling to one in a couple of months) I would like to appreciate all that there is experience there but I also would want to keep my self apart enough to respectfully observe but not feel the pressure to participate in their traditions. If I want to participate, that one thing, but I don’t want to feel obliged. I want to be able to respect them and for them to respect me as I am.

Why must we feel that we must be like others to be brothers. Can’t I be like me and believe in what I believe and you be like you and believe in what you believe and we can still be brothers?