Dear Hameed,

Thank-you very much for your suggestions and further questions. This is just a quick reply. I hope to attend to these  in greater details later by way of replying to  MrW.Pillay of SAfrica and others.  As usual I append my comments below yours. I also hope  you don't mind me posting this to  Tamil Net as well as what you have raised is also relevant to many people.

At 01:01 PM 27-10-99 +0400, you wrote:
Dear Loga,

How to convey a message one know of; without the slightest hint of that "his exclusive knowledge". (I hope you understand me well!). to authenticate his "exclusive knowledge", at the least he has to be authoritative (to be positive himself). this leads to the complexity of someone else understanding that as the only way to observe that certain phenomena. this further leads to establishing a certain ways and rules - and may be a religion and so forth, as path for getting to know / understand that "exclusive knowledge".

LOGA

First of all I do not subscribe to the notion of "exclusive knowledge"  even in religious matters. The Meynjaanam , the ultimate divine illumination is not a matter of "secret doctrine"; as Meykandar has observed it is already there in the bosom  of every man, it is "anRee uLLathu" but only that we are NOT cognizant of it. Some gifted individuals manage.to  apprehend somewhat and try to persuade others as well to apprehend it and benefit by it.  It is in this context that rules and regulations come to prevail. But beneath all these rules there are some central principles like Love thy Neighbor, Be Honest and Truthful etc and learn to givep  the worldly attachments gradually etc. The only genuine authority is BEING and it is BEING that must be worshiped.  Saivites say of this "civanoodu okkum theivam theedinum illai" and I believe the Muslims say the same thing by insisting No one other than Allah should be worshipped. ( I stand to be corrected here.) It is men who tired to make secret doctines out of the COOMONLY AVAILABLE like the Vedic Brahmins of ancient that peompted Sidharta to rebel against and reform Hinduism itself. Tha Papacy in Rome tried to do that and because of which the Protestant movements came into being. The revolutionary implications of Meykandar was not appreciated by the Orthodoxy among the Saivites  and it was the Siddhas who kept the spirit alive and because of which they saw eye to eye  the sufi Muslims of Tamil country where I understand the teachings of  Jilani are quite popular. (Plese correct me if I am wrong)

This way i can now understand how all the various religion started or evolved. but i wish that further complexity shall not be created while undoing the wrongs. with due respect to your understanding, a new form of temple or mosque as suggested by you, may foster new sects or caste. icons will have a form, an identity with limited meaning which GOD does not fit in his "wholeness". i do not accept over-emphasizing one aspect of God (loving, forgiving, creating, all pervasive) over other aspects, which may be undesirable to human (killing, punishing).

LOGA:

I believe in evolution, the continuous emergence new forms of religious practices and the birth of new architectural forms and so forth along which is ARLREADY  a FACT of modern History.  BEING, as Manikkavaasakar has observed is The Most ancient among the ancient and at the same time the GROUND of the emergence of the new and Novel.( À¢ý¨Éô ÒШÁìÌõ §À÷òÐõ ¦ÀüÈ¢Âý)  We cannot undo  the wrongs without creating and installing new alternatives. This is part of the dynamics of cultural evolution. For example there is common dining among the Muslims, even the strangers are allowed to sit with the family and dine. This is NOT so among the Hindus though because of modernization it is breaking down slowly. Sikhism that developed initially as a variant of Hinduism under the impact of Islam has accommodated itself to this common dining. The architecture of their Guruduwar also records changes of this sort.  The movement towards the ABSOLUTE UNDERSTANDING remains the same but on the way new insights are had and along with it new forms of worship etc.  I think we cannot AVOID the formations of new religious communities but what we can AVOID is the building of IRON WALLS around them. In this regard i like the idea of Cyber Communities that Dr Kannan has mentioned during one of the speeches he made, I think, in London.  The world is evolving into Cyber Culture and hence there will certainly be many such cyber communities with freedom to move from one to another according to the changing pattern of interest. This can easily be transfered to EXISTENCE as well. In Nepal I have seen this between Buddhism and Hinduism. I here such a way of like exists mong the Muslims and Christians in Palestine. This will develop further and the whole world will have a tolerant culture of this sort.
 

Human relation with other human or other living and/or non-living beings could be defined by different terminologies, including "Love". my understanding is that "love" does not mean or limit one from killing an animal. Love is to limit / enhance the change (damage / revival) one could cause to the ecosystem while furthering his ambitions or achieving his requirements and goals. without these changes nothing can "be" or "happen". when each creation, with their specific characteristics, interact with one another, there has to be actions and reaction. these can be seen as positive or negative from our perspectives if we see with limited view (coloreds glass). thus human selectiveness or preferences to certain ways like vegetarianism, formless god, etc, etc should not be given a go-ahead as the "only true path" and establish a "false religion".

LOGA:

Here you are explaining the meaning of  LOVE that has reached your understanding and with which I have no quarrels. But I just want to mention that the notion of LOVE as in Saivism goes deeper and it has its own evolutionary history. I have outlined a bit of this in my history of Dravidian Philosophy particularly with respect to the notion of aruL that has played a central role in the evolution of Tamil thoughts. I am not saying these are only paths etc. What I am saying is that as the a person evolves spiritually there are attending behaviuoral changes and that vegetarianism belongs to a high level of spiritual development where the personality comes to be dominated by ARUL. I am NOT recommending this as ritual etc . I recommend the DEVELOPMENT of human spirituality and see the practice of vegetarianism as belonging to that.
 

To give someone the complete perspective of god, we can explain various ways various people have claimed to have observed it and ask him to find that GOD in his own ways. that could probably is the best we can do. one islamic scholar said that  one to comprehend that "one can not comprehend God" is by itself is prayer to god.

DICTUM is possible (or allowed or made) only by GOD.

 best wishes / hameed

LOGA:

Here I am in complete agreement with you.  I also understand that to realize that GOD is completely mysterious is a high level of Understanding of God and thus saying itself is good prayer. For it shows the death of Ego, the ThaRpootham which is also the motif of the ANNamalai Theebam that I just have explained.