--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "llundrub" <llundrub@> wrote: > > > > So I know yagyas are the way of heyam dukam anagatam etc, > > but what are the mechanics exactly? > > . . . > > Me, I suspect that yagyas work now the way they > always have -- they're a revenue generator for the > people and organizations that offer them, and any > benefits occur through the mechanism of the placebo > effect. > > But there is a simple, scientific way to find out > if there is anything else going on with them. Offer > to perform a study tracking the effects of various > yagyas, as long as the pundits perform the yagyas > for free. We'll tell them that's a testing protocol, > so that the test subjects for whom the yagyas are > performed have no more invested in the outcome > than the control group does. But the real reason > is to see if any of them will do it for free. If > they won't, that'll pretty much clear up once and > for all what yagyas are all about, right? :-)
Obviously, I betray my strong feelings about such things above. :-) To me, yagyas fall into the category of religious experience called "the intercession of the priest class," otherwise known as the Beam Me Up Scotty Theory of Getting Things Done. They've been a fixture of most religions in most eras of human spirituality. Whether it be the Roman Church charging for "indulgences" and promising the faithful results or a Vedic or Hindu pundit charging for a yagya and promising the faithful results, the bottom line seems to me to be the same. Those who pay do so because they have been convinced to have faith in a priest class who perform the rituals, who, because of how "special" they are (or the "special" knowledge they have attained), have the ability to "intercede" for them with God or the gods or the Laws Of Nature or whatever and Get Things Done. Doesn't float my boat. I'm more of a fan of spiritual traditions where there is no priest class of any kind in between the seeker and that which he seeks. Almost every time in history such pay-for-pray practices have arisen, they have been viewed in retrospect by religious historians as the product of a spiritual tradition that is *in decline*. They also often generate alternative or "counter" spiritual movements. Catharism was an alternative to the Roman Church; they had no priest class, and the closest thing they had to one worked for a living like everyone else and were forbidden to charge for any services. Buddhism had its doctrinal differences from Hinduism, but was also strongly against the existing Hindu structure, which was based on nickle- and-diming the faithful into the poorhouse. Both were persecuted by priests whose incomes were threatened. The world of religion is already weird enough with all of the odd practices people perform themselves in the name of communicating with God or the infinite or whatever. Paying someone else to communicate *for you* seems to me to be like believing that you have to hire someone to go to the phone company for you so you can get a phone.
