dwai

I don't subscribe to such an outlook. This is another perspective of how the world can be -- http://www.hitxp.com/articles/history/ancient-universities-india-takshashila-nalanda/

This is the problem with discussing such topics. There is so much politicizing and labeling that occurs, that it is impossible to state a simple geopolitical fact - "India and China getting back to being the world leaders in terms of GDP, trade and soft power", which is where they were until the 1700s when the Europeans managed to colonize them. There was no particularly positive reason for such colonization, except that the europeans were able to very insidiously take advantage of political situations (infighting within India, China, etc) in Asia (and other parts of the world) to their advantage and siphoned away wealth and intellectual properties to fuel their industrial revolution. This is a fact! If someone denies it, they're living in some alternate reality. So, when I say, China and India will regain their position at the head of the world order, it is only a return to the natural order of things that existed. This graphic doesn't factor in other things like soft power or more recent GDP (2003 - 2019). I'm not being jingoistic in my statement of the re-ascendence of India and China to the top of the world order...it is a fact.

Glad you agree

My book is now available on Kindle eBook for no cost if you have a Kindle unlimited account. It is also available to order in paperback format. Also got a promo going through Dec 25th for 99 cents.

Actually there is a very pragmatic approach to this by most of the indigenous scholars. However the AIT/AMT camp labels them as “right wing nationalists” and thus try to discredit them, not really disprove their work. This is an old debate which is political in nature, and will be put to rest in another 15 years or so when the world reestablishes it’s natural order of China and India back at the head of the table.

Did you enjoy your ride earlier? Also does the name Doreen mean anything to you? I saw two aboriginal people (one man and one woman) connected with you...also an old tree, not sure what it was.

I’m an old geezer and have been over such debates and arguments for the past 20 years. Not come across anything that is convincing about AMT. In fact, If you watch the video I shared in the OP, he shreds the DNA studies to bits There’s no need to suggest violence to resolve medical conditions btw. A good nights sleep is all I needed.

Here are some videos I took of my master demonstrating and explaining some concepts of taijiquan application.

Yeah I'm in touch with some researchers in this space. Thought I'd address a few points made in the other thread by nungali (mainly didn't want to deal with the walls of text on that thread + was dealing with a splitting headache yesterday) -- Traditional scholars don't necessarily have to be focused on religion. Traditional scholars are those who take the emic approach -- who know how to read and understand the original sanskrit text and immersed in the culture/tradition. Indic culture is so complex that unless one is 'born and raised' they can never fully comprehend the intricacies (For example, things that are apparent to people like me, westerners will hardly ever understand). They might be focused on the spiritual aspects or even historical or sociological research. To somehow relegate traditional scholars to religious studies is a big fat red herring (and a classic rejoinder by western academics) When I suggested that the ancient world and the Vedic texts consider the extent of the culture/civilization spanning from West Asia to Russia, it was immediately misinterpreted as my claiming that I'm espousing it from a genetic or racial perspective. On the contrary, just like Western culture/civlization today spans racial boundaries, it is more than plausible that Indic culture/civilization spanned and influenced a large part of the ancient world. In fact, later historical evidence seems to point towards that -- From Ancient Greece through the European expeditions that set out to find India, it seems like Indic civilization/culture had a wide spread and influence. One such example is here -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tushara Thought I'd set a few points straight here... Also a great video to watch, which demystifies the Genetic arguments of AIT/AMT -- https://youtu.be/1bsyi4zYHP0

Touché!

Not much. That’s why I didn’t say anything about it I just found OP creation hymn similar to that in the Rig Veda. And shared, along with what I consider better dates for their creation. Little did I know I was stepping on someone’s pet poodle here

It is a documented fact that some Vedic sages were from the Russian region. A famous female sage (Rishika) Lopamudra being one such. I don’t think the ancient world was as isolated as most would have us believe. I mean, India had trade ties with pretty much all the civilized world - Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, China, Egypt, etc. It is really tragic to see history being weaponized — though it’s not a lone phenomenon in the case of India by any means. I know enough about the traditional material of India to know there was never any story of an Aryan invasion or any large exodus. Proper dating of the Vedic literature makes it a contemporary (and more than likely the same) as the so called ‘Indus valley civilization’. In texts such as Ramayana and Mahabharata are references to multiple kingdoms and tribes who are located in West and Central Asia all the way up to Russia as part of the extended civilization itself.

I didn’t say the “scholars” are commies. I said Indian commies jumped on that bandwagon very quickly. There is a famous university in India called the JNU, which is a breeding ground of communists and ultra-left lunatics in India, who continued to perpetrate this myth of AIT/AMT and deny traditional scholars and researchers a voice for a long time. I wish I could spend time having a discourse on this topic. But I’ve done so with hundreds of people over the past 20 yrs or so and don’t have the patience to rehash this again. I merely offered an alternative perspective with timelines. I don’t particularly care who agrees or disagrees with it. It’s a free world, believe what you must. Let’s talk about Sumeria now.

His books are good. Glad you got a copy. There are many factors in play along with genetic data, but I don’t have the time or patience to go into them right now. It’s not a cop out but I just don’t care to expend my energies on this kind of stuff anymore. As far as aryan “race” is concerned, it is very clear that there never was such a race. Arya means noble or cultured. So much havoc has been caused by pompous Europeans who wanted to justify their conquests that we’re still trying to clean up the debris from their taking a massive dump on Indian history (among others).

Yeah there is a lot of politics involved. Western academia has a vested interest in continuing the AIT/AMT nonsense. They + Commies in India claim that the right wing Hindu nationalists are the ones with the agenda.

Out of India not into India https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theweek.in/news/india/2019/09/06/new-study-debunks-aryan-invasion-theory.amp.html BTW i do know that there are competing studies which claim opposite inferences...

The vedic texts themselves have sufficient astronomical data to provide time windows. Unlike ancient western astronomy, indian astronomy never suffered from the problem of not factoring in the precession of the equinoxes. As a result, traditional indian astronomy quite accurate by modern standards. There has been a great and concerted effort by western academics who still milk the "Aryan Invasion/Aryan Migration theory" and just scatterbrained ascription of dates by 19th century europeans like Max Mueller, Mortimer Wheeler etc, to prevent fresh study. I know a few traditionally trained indian scholars personally who've relentlessly pursued the truth over the past 30-40 years, and its bearing fruit now. One such brilliant scholars is Neelesh Oak. I'm pasting a video by him that discusses his methodology etc below in a spoiler window. His dating of Ramayana and Mahabharata are sufficient to result in the Rg Veda composition to be put before 10,000 BCE at the very latest.

This reminds of the Nāsadiya Sukta from the Rig Veda, 129th verse from the 10th Mandala -- Taken the below translation from AL Basham's work The Rig Veda was arbitrarily attributed a composition date of 1500 BCE by European philologists based on their belief in the Biblical Creation date of ~ 4000 BCE. Traditional Indian estimates this between 15000 BCE and 6000 BCE (depending on who you reference).. Couldn't help but see a striking similarity

I would rephrase an old chinese proverb to answer this - "Those who want to moderate, aren't qualified to do so. Those who can moderate, do not want to do it. Those who can both moderate and also want to do it, are surely rare indeed." But I think that absolute power always has a potential to corrupt. Rotating moderators seems like a good option. I think easiest thing to do is encourage members to self-moderate. Before posting something, ask themselves the following -- Is what I'm going to post true? If it is true, is it necessary? Even if it is necessary, can I word it more kindly? We have to deal with differences of opinions for sure, but let us be amicable whenever possible. When not, let us use the "ignore" option.

Just want to put in my 2 cents worth, fwiw. I didn’t find @Everything as bearing malicious intent or negativity in his posts that I’ve read. That said, I have also advised him in the past to learn how to be more precise with his words. It is literally overwhelming to see a wall of words as are in his posts. At least now he uses paragraphs, initially it was just one single para I find others such as Drew (ViYY) far more negative, and I know he baits me personally for some strange reason. That said, I just ignore his posts. Makes life easier for me. I don’t condone censorship or banning. A moderator censure is fine by me. But please let us not go back to the autocratic ways of some of the previous mods. IMHO, Only thing more painful than trolls is experiencing moderator belligerence!

I still think these could be adapted for meaningful and growth-oriented discourses. Not as rules per se. Unfortunately that period when the OP happened was a very tumultuous period. And I do believe the original intent of this post got buried in the politics.

Over the recent few weeks it has become clear that discourse is a topic that is much misunderstood by many members and on various internet fora in general. I'm going to rely on an ancient tradition of discourses in the Indic traditions to articulate the different types there can be. An exchange between two parties can be categorized as follows -- Samvāda - An exchange between a student and a Teacher vāda - An exchange between two equals jalpa - An exchange between two parties who are convinced that each of them is right and the other is wrong vitanda - Where the sole purpose is to defeat the other person, by whatever means possible In any discourse it becomes evident (fairly quickly) when it descends down to the level of jalpa and vitanda. In some cases it can be samvāda, like for instance when an expert writes about something and other interact with him/her for the sake of learning (asking clarifying questions and clearing doubts). In most cases, on egalitarian internet fora such as TDB, it should really be vāda that is the status quo. Two sincere and equally interested parties, giving each other due respect, start a discourse. The nature of the discourse is amicable and the objective of the discourse being a better understanding of each others' perspectives. It could even be a debate, but the proper rules of debating in that case need to apply. The outcome of said debate could be that one parties' views and opinions emerge as the better perspective and then the other would concede their view (or concede temporarily while they go back to work on their view and see where they might have missed out). If a discussion is started by positing erroneous and/or deliberately misrepresentative points about the others' perspective, it is more than likely jalpa. A civil discourse (vāda) has the following characteristics -- No strawman arguments No ad hominem attacks A sincere attempt to understand and articulate the other's perspective/position (Purva Paksha) and then proceeding to articulate one's own position (Uttara Paksha) which would be the rebuttal (khandana) of the Purva Paksha. When sound points are made by either party, they are treated with respect and addressed appropriately. If a sound rebuttal is not possible, concede the point(s). This way, people can grow and learn from each other, rather than descend down to "wrestling with in mud". In another thread recently someone commented, that if they were to follow all these guidelines, there would not be any exchanges on internet fora. While for the majority of the fora that might be true, I think for a forum such as TDB, with a lot of highly knowledgeable and sincere members, it should not be that difficult a task. I hope you all feel free to share your thoughts as you feel necessary.

The way i see it, Xing should be a natural progression from Ming cultivation. Not strictly sequential, but overlapping once one gets to the intermediate level of ming cultivation. As Ming cultivation matures, it leads to greater mental clarity, thereby allowing the practitioner to start grasping Xing. And this is not unique to Daoist traditions either -- it is similar for Yoga/Tantra and other dharmic practices.

The book is now available on Amazon -- Pre-order the Kindle eBook -- https://www.amazon.com/Mahāsiddha-Field-Book-ebook/dp/B081SPR24B/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Mahasiddha+field&qid=1575420788&sr=8-1 or read it for free if you have Kindle unlimited. Order the paperback for immediate delivery -- https://www.amazon.com/dp/1708504338/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Mahasiddha+field&qid=1575420788&sr=8-2 The first chapter and part of the second chapter are available for preview for the Paperback edition right now. Please read the book, and leave a good review for me if you enjoyed it. Best, dwai