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In this book, we analyze the psycho-social consequences faced by Indian American children after exposure to the school textbook discourse on Hinduism and ancient India. We demonstrate that there is an intimate connection—an almost exact correspondence—between James Mill’s colonial-racist discourse (Mill was the head of the British East India Company) and the current school textbook discourse. This racist discourse, camouflaged under the cover of political correctness, produces the same psychological impacts on Indian American children that racism typically causes: shame, inferiority, embarrassment, identity confusion, assimilation, and a phenomenon akin to racelessness, where children dissociate from the traditions and culture of their ancestors.


This book is the result of four years of rigorous research and academic peer-review, reflecting our ongoing commitment at Hindupedia to challenge the representation of Hindu Dharma within academia.

Alabdha-bhumikatva

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Alabdha-bhumikatva literally means ‘non-attainment of yogic states’.

Yoga is defined as union of the individual soul with the Supreme Soul through samādhi. The path to this union is fraught with several obstacles. Of the nine obstacles technically known as ‘antarāyas’ mentioned by Patañjali in his Yogasutras[1] ‘alabdhabhumikatva’ is the eighth.

‘Alabdha-bhumikatva’ occurs when an aspirant who is correctly practicing the various steps and disciplines of yoga, fails to attain any of the yogabhṅmis or planes of psychic and spiritual experience mentioned in the text books of yoga. This is primarily due to the limiting sanskāras carried over from past lives, that drain all the energy generated by yogic practices like rat-holes in a field drain the water with which it is irrigated. With the help of the guru (spiritual preceptor) and by deep introspection the aspirant can discover his weaknesses and eliminate them with appropriate practices.

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Yogasutras 1.30
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

Contributors to this article

Deval Sancheti, Krishna Maheshwari

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