Heck yes!

I feel energized and delighted from reading this post that Andrea M. pointed out to me. I think he makes some really excellent points. I pretty much wanted to say "Yes, exactly" to every single sentence, so you absolutely have to go over and read it.

It's about cultural appropriation and how Indian culture is 1) extremely varied, 2) is strong enough to survive people dabbling in it, and 3) allowing others to learn and experience one's culture enriches and strengthens it, helping to fight against racism by destroying ignorance.

Here are just a few of the wonderful lines...

"There is nothing wrong with taking the best ideas of a group of people and using them to improve your own. It doesn't destroy your culture, it makes it BETTER"

"...the people complaining have forgotten one thing. That culture changes. Indian culture of 100 years ago is not the same as today."

"Yes there are a lot of things that suck like 'Fair and Lovely' and the like about Indian culture but you know what? That has nothing to do with a bunch of white people putting indian things on their foreheads or carrying our bags or dancing in movies. That has to do with a society that doesn't realise that all skin colour is beautiful. It's due to western influences and the idealisation of beauty but you have to realise one important thing. White people are as exotic to Indians as Indians are to White People. You are just as fetishised as our women are to you. "

Go read it now! :) http://a-million-gods.blogspot.com/2012/09/baggy-silk-pants.html

Readers, help me help this woman!

I got a message on Ravelry yesterday from a woman who loves to wear saris, but can't find a choli big enough to fit her.

I am terrible at sewing and I got my cholis mostly online, but my bust is not quite as large as hers.

What we need is this:

A resource where someone can buy (or have made from the fabric that sometimes comes with a sari) a blouse that is 48 inch bust and 40 inch underbust.

Please let me know in the comments if you can think of anywhere I can direct this woman!

Huh?

There's a comment awaiting moderation on my Happy Ganesh Chaturthi post. It says "I'll pray for you."

???

I'm not sure what to make of that.

It's something I've heard Christians say when they've decided that my religious Hindu life is leading me straight to hell.

What do you guys think? Original commenter, would you like to provide clarification or context?

Will stay unpublished until I know whether this is some Christian B.S.

Do we have a right to die?

Something has disturbed me recently. I found out that there is a bill on the ballet in Massachusetts to legalize physician-assisted suicide for those who are terminally ill.

On the surface, such a law often sounds like a good idea. Supporters use words like "dignity" and talk about suffering. If someone knows he is going to die, why prolong the suffering?

My beliefs suggest that there are some very important reasons why suicide is never an option.

Not that we can ever do anything to set us back permanently. Suicide is not going to land us in hell for eternity. But leaving early does deprive us of the chance to work through the sanskara that we were put in this life to deal with. and the act of suicide is going to add some very serious sanskara to future lifetimes.

It may sound cruel to say we have to stick it out no matter the circumstances. And I'm a very firm believer in the "separation of church and state," as they say here. I don't want to legislate my morality. I don't vote based on religious preferences alone (although my religion certainly informs everything in my life).

Some of you may now that I'm connected to doing work in disability rights. Another thing that I have against a bill like this is the double standard. When a healthy and/or able-bodied person says they want to kill themselves, we rush to get them counseling, medication, and help. When someone with a severe disability or illness wants to kill themselves, we say "Yeah, that makes sense. Your life must be shit."

No one has the right to take his own life.

And I think that's what's at the heart of this passionate debate back and forth over the right to die issue.

We want to believe that we have some control over our life and our death. We like to tell ourselves that if things got too bad we could always kill ourselves, that at any time we could take control.

But we are not in control of death. 

The universe takes us when it is our time and we will never see that coming. Even those who are terminally ill cannot predict (or have doctors) predict the moment they will pass. Prognoses are educated estimates. We don't know when our time to go is.

Proof of that, to me, is the seemingly random way that some people do insanely dangerous things and live while others die tucked away at home reading a book. People even frequently survive suicide attempts. When a doctor gives you poison, though, there's no turning back.

This is not the same as a do-no-resuscitate request. This is an active killing of a human being. And whether that life is your own or someone else's, it's still murder in my book. Our lives are not given over to us to control. Not entirely.

Now since I try not to force my moral and religious beliefs on others, I can almost come to this issue the way I do to abortion. I think it's wrong and I wouldn't do it, but I don't begrudge anyone else making the moral decision for herself. I don't judge those who do choose it and I don't prevent them from choosing it. I am not in their skin. I don't know what the situation looks like to them. I am not terminally ill. I don't know what such people are facing.

This law gets more personal for me. It concerns me that, for example, the official witness who confirms that the person really does want to die can be the person who inherits from the death. It concerns me that we put doctors, whose oath is to life, in the position of purposefully killing (and what that might do to their sanskara!). And it concerns me that we value some life more than others.

I no longer live in Massachusetts, so this is not something I will have to vote on as of yet. My friends tell me there are some states where such bills have passed and nothing terrible has come of it. I am not so sure. After all, we can't see sanskara.

These are my thoughts at this moment. I'm uncertain how they may evolve. At this time, though, I am passionately opposed to legalizing suicide.

{And for further reading, I would suggest the "life with dignity" people, Not Dead Yet}

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi!

I don't have any big plans this year. I did not attempt modak again or make a clay Ganesh.

But I'm thinking about Ganesha and the joy and energy that he brings to the world.

(I am wearing a sari, of course! Soft magenta with a border of black and gold).

I think holidays will be more meaningful for me when I have children. I know I really look forward to making Ganesh statues with my children someday and sharing stories and lore with them.

Religion is Alive

This was on a friend's facebook wall the other day.

 I love it.

I think this quote makes a very excellent point. We should approach the world as a scientist does: modifying our understanding to conform with what the world shows us rather than (as too many religions do) try to hide and misrepresent what the world shows us in order to conform with our ideas.

The Truth is the Truth and it is eternal and unchanging.

However, we do not yet fully understand it. When new information comes to light through science, it allows us to deepen our understanding of the universal Truth.

Religion exists to help us approach this Truth and it should always be a tool, not an end to itself. Religion should grow and be capable of adapting to new information. If it can't do that, it becomes stale and is eventually nothing but dogma with no meaning attached, used to beat people into submission.

My religion is alive. And it is always growing to encompass every new piece of understanding of our mystical universe.

Live Discussion of Conversion and Identity

Yesterday I received a message from someone at the Huffington Post on my Facebook page! I was quite thrilled, let me tell you. I really respect their webpage.

They are working on doing a live webcam chat with converts whose lifestyles have changed dramatically because of their choice to convert.

And they asked me to participate.

Unfortunately, I had to tell them that my life hasn't changed that much!

I don't think that I'm quite what they're looking for, though I can speak about the experience of conversion. How we struggle to find a balance between our past and our present, how we start out tilting wildly into zealous passion, but usually even out eventually, how our stories never actually end, the journey continuing as long as we live.

However, my choice to become a Hindu was, for me, an awakening to something that I already was. The changes in my life were superficial. I celebrate different holidays. I sometimes wear different clothes. But for me there was no hijab to put on and there was no break with my family.

I wish I had thought to mention that they should approach Aliza Hausman, a Dominican woman who converted to orthodox Judaism.

They showed me an article they had done about Hispanic Americans converting to Islam. A very cool read/video!

Anyway, it got me thinking about the nature of changing your religion.

Sometimes it's a very dramatic shift, particularly if you go to the conservative ends of a religion and need to take on rules and dress codes. Sometimes it's just a quiet awakening and a slow blossoming into what you were always meant to be.