Comments on Outlook article & other TiS criticisms

[Kupps]

http://rozavasanth.blogspot.com/2005...g-post_13.html

[Shankar]

r_kk,
I am proud to say that I haven't consumed these stuff in any form...I have been to holi during my engineering days, and have never touched bhaang...I have neither smoked nor boozed. I am very emphatic on these points purely on those virtues

Reg the spiritual seekers...I don't call them spiritual seekers...They are like heaven's gate to me .

>>>>>
Saru or Ganani might not have done great achivement or have great fame what IR have through his commercial music.
<<<<<

You don't need any qualification to criticize anyone...When you are a public figure, any non-entity can comment on your work...My beef with their argument was, they were criticizing Raja the person, they had no idea whatsoever about the music he had composed, and instead of commenting on his work, they spoke about Raja the person.

For all you know, these 2 might also be bigtime users of any of those things mentioned above....I am sure about one of these 2, the other one i have no idea about. If that were the case, its the idealogical difference they have with Raja ,eclipsing the objective people in them, making them comment like this about Raja. This again is incorrect.

In an interview to SUN TV, Kamal beautifully put it, "Raja and I have been working together for 26 yrs, and we are good friends inspite of our beliefs. That's bcos we speak only about our common interest, and leave out the rest"...Why can't these non-entities do that ?

[r_kk]

http://rozavasanth.blogspot.com/2005/08/blog-post_13.html

Thanks kupps, very useful link. having lot of information.

My quote to Saru's article is just for giving the best informationa available about Bob Marly (in Tamil). Your links also gives similar opinion.

Hi Sankar,
Bhang is just one form of addiction. If we have to reject a genius based on his/her some of the habits which we can't accept, then we have to reject many geniuses who smokes Cigrates, drinks Alchocol (including wine!) and etc (so many). My personal opinion is that we can't judge them as "trash" based on our own views.

[app_engine]

r_kk, I appreciate your clarification as well as your personal stand on drugs.

If you read my post again, it focussed not on the habits of individuals in itself but mainly on the content of their output as well as their influence on the audience - both by their output and their personality.

That's where the problem lies, contrary to what you suggest like "But I can certainly say that Bob Marley whole hearted wish is much beyond promoting marijuana."

No decent individual in TN remembers Bharathi or Jayakanthan or even KD PRIMARILY as a promoter of drugs. Most of their creative output is also not related to such substances (though KD has some output like `oru kOppaiyilE' etc., it was negligible compared to the high quality work done otherwise).

OTOH, when I talk to any decent individual of African origin (there are a tons of them in Detroit and I do have many friends from this background), they seem to relate Marley with drugs and not with any of those things that are claimed to be `much beyond'...looks like this man who is called `reggae king' and died at the age of 36 did leave an unpalatable legacy...

That is where lies the problem. Those `much beyond' are probably just the wishful promotion of Gnani kind of jolna bag groups in India (and similar sites on the web), merely to promote their radical ideas. These individuals / sites may not really have a grip on the actual influence of such artists upon the public (may be they do not care or may be they even like such bad influences)...especially on the impressionable youths.

(Disclaimer - I'm fortunate that none of my friends frequent the shady neighborhoods of motown...I may get a different opinion about Marley otherwise)

[Sanjeevi]

My take on Charu and Gnani's post against Thiruvasakam

http://ursmusically.blogspot.com/200...kam-album.html

Vikatan.com la oru article bathi munnadiye Saru nivedita IR fans kitta irunthu nalla vangi kattiirukkaru. He told like "Niraiya theenikal kotti vittana" in his next article.

[r_kk]

r_kk,
Those `much beyond' are probably just the wishful promotion of Gnani kind of jolna bag groups in India (and similar sites on the web), merely to promote their radical ideas. These individuals / sites may not really have a grip on the actual influence of such artists upon the public (may be they do not care or may be they even like such bad influences)...especially on the impressionable youths.

There are few ways to analyze Bob Marley. First way is to go through his lyrics and understand what he was promoting. The second way is to ask some Jamaican's (not few selective, with other kind of strong prejudiced beliefs). The another way is to read his personal life in total. Without doing anything, we can't call him as mere marijuana promoter.

Then here most of us conveniently ignoring the same kind of promotion during our holi celebration and some times during Maha Sivarathiri celebration. Please try to understand its usage before "Bhang"ra dance. One side Indian community accepts its usage during their spritual and cultural festivals and other side the same community is calling others who use as part of their ritual as trash. We have to either call both as trash or both as the acceptable one.

As my personal opinion, usage of marijuana in both should be considered as "trash", but degrading a entire belief system based on just one point may not be correct.

[Shankar]

r_kk,
I clearly understand the point you are trying to make...My take on this is, it doesn't matter whether bob marley takes it or my cousin in the north uses it, in my set of vices these find a place, and I won't subscribe to that practice just bcos someone known to me/close to me does it.

I also agree that one should not write-off someone else's work because he's addicted to drugs/alcohol (example barathi, KD, flute mali)...but again, my arguments are against those unworthy people, who have nothing in them to look upon, and you know the examples

[tmrrmt]

Hello everyone - my few cents on this topic of drugs usage:

Dr. David R. Hawkins renowned psychiatrist, physician, researcher and lecturer, author of "Orthomolecular Psychiatry" (co-authored with Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling), and "POWER vs. FORCE", conclusively proves the ability of kinesiological testing to distinguish truth or falsehood in any statement—an astonishing idea in itself, with far
reaching implications for every aspect of human life.
He goes on to demonstrate the application of his method (explained clearly for the layman) in commerce, art, sport, etc. Then he explains its spiritual application, as a path to enlightenment

For instance,as per his calibration scale, feelings like anger, guilt, envy, greed, get a value less than
200, while compassion, selflessness, tolerance etc are
all above 200 - as per his model, all those recognised as prophets and saints have a consciousness level rating of 1000, i.e., the more one conquers ego,greed, anger and other negative feelings, the more saintly one becomes and one's consciousness level keeps going up accordingly on the calibration scale that Dr.Hawkins has modelled

So far so good - while much of his work is highly laudable, he talks nonsense, when he claims that consuming alcohol in the form of wine, increases one's consciousness level to a calibrated state of 400

Equating 'a temporary sense of euphoria' to increased level of consciousness is absolute rubbish - and that too a scientist of Dr.Hawkins' calibre making such statements is not only misleading, but dangerous for science and value systems of societies - this is more so because, consuming alcohol in any form results in the consumer losing his/her sense of discrimination between right and wrong and consciousness levels actually go down - increased levels of consciousness levels actually make you more aware of yourself, whereas intoxicants do the opposite -

at this rate, someone tomorrow, might come up with a cock -and-bull theory that consumption of ganja, brown sugar, cocaine and related drugs will increase one's consciousness levels to more than 1000 perhaps and thus equate or even elevate drug users and alcoholics to a state above that of the great Saints and Prophets who incarnated on this earth, for some sublime reason!

IMHO, for the above reasons, we should be very careful in judging the works and the ideologies/beliefs of popular artists such as Bob Marley - even Santana, the great guitarist was a big-time addict (of some drug or the other)

As per the Indian yogic system, which forms the base/ foundation of much of Indian philosophy and Hindu beliefs,
the ultimate objective in life is to have complete mastery over/control one's senses, which is IMPOSSIBLE to do, in a state of inebriation/addiction - to remain completely detached from everything, while doing everything is what Gita-Upadesh also emphasises on

whereas drugs/booze actually take the consumer LOSE his/her senses - there is a huge difference between CONTROLLING one's senses and LOSING them!

CONTROLLING the SENSES takes one closer to the ultimate reality while LOSING THEM, makes your inner self more CHAOTIC and less QUIESCENT

hence, all this drama about junkies turning into musicians and vice-versa in per se unacceptable and takes one away from the real objective, which is 'TRUTH' that exists at a different plane

[tmrrmt]

And what I have tried to communicate applies as much to the so-called spiritual seekers high on drugs as they apply to folks like Bob Marley

[app_engine]

Good points, Madhan.

r_kk, thanks for your objective posting. I'm with you on trashing ANY use of substance abuse.

OTOH, I do not agree with your suggestion for a 'deep-dive' into a known drug-addict's life/works to come to a conclusion about his value to humankind. Such a person - who failed to have control over his own body / life - is not a worthy enough model to study & spend any more time.

If we already have familiarity / introduction with the works of such a person before such knowledge - or are bombarded involuntarily with the products of such a person, it's a totally different issue...but not the voluntary deep-dive, after learning about such shady involvements / promotions.

'idhu uNmayilEyE kuppai dhAnA' endRu sila kAriyangaLai kiLaRippArkkum aLavukku time is not so cheap IMHO. Instead, we probably need to spend time studying the life / works of someone more reputed -like Gandhiji- to enrich our lives, which will be time well spent...again IMHO.