mainstream20016 wrote: > I'd far prefer Americans generate their own coherence. The import-a-pandit > approach > allows the TMO to continue its delusion and ignores the fact that virtually > all its credibility > is long gone in the minds of Americans who make up less than 50% of course > participants. > Hire a pandit ?- doesn't history have lessons regarding the propensity for > corruption such > a program is likely to bring ? > Exactly. Learning Sanskrit doesn't have to be difficult. In most cases all you have to do is be able pronounce Devanagri, you don't necessarily have to translate the slokas or sutras. The American Sanskrit Institute has a program to teach that in one weekend workshop. But oh that's right, the TMO has a "not invented here" hangup. But a lot of other traditions offer Sanskrit training.
Learning a lot of the rituals is not to difficult as long as you have a teacher who is cognizant of the differences between the cultures and knows where to explain things more to westerners that would be otherwise "understood" in India.
