To unfairly compare religions

Hello
Have not been keeping up with morning writing puja. Whenever I sit down at home, my host family comes in to try to make me drink chai or something. This is the hardest part about being here. Indians have no sense of personal space, so it is impossible for me to do any work of my own, or even have thoughts to myself. I appriciate their loving kindness and concern for me, it's just a cultural difference that it is my job to transcend, not theirs.

Firstly, saw the drupaud mela last night, a beautiful all night concert of the oldest type of Indian music. The concert goes for 72 hours straight, just constant music for 72 hours. Most of it was serengay, which sounds like a violin sort of, the drum (they don't use a tabla, because it's even older than Tabla music--I forget what the drum is called, but they lay it on it's side and the left end is the bass end), and increadible, indescribable vocals, not singing so much as making music with the vocal chords. Never seen anything like it. Most of the crowd were western hippies, much dreadlocks. Festival-type crowd. I liked them, the westerners who make it over here to India are mostly cool people, even though they can get a little freaky. A few thoughts:

What west presents itself here
dreadlocked, humble (?)
beautiful to my western eyes,
what west sits at your feet, India
and what west seets to regulate
the eternal beats uncontrollable?
how will you know us?
and how will we know you, through beauty, or music alone?
poverty and suffering and dust?
Or will we bother to learn?


The serengay breaths
as the pulse throbs
and spins out of control
1234 234 234 34 44444444
chacka thraab chaacka thrab ha
and the serangay breaths
through stringed nostrils
om ooohmmmmm ahoooooom

Because vocal chords strain to be unified, to become whole with the audience, to be reunited with the brahm, strain to be heard, to make noise not words, vocal chords reach out and become themselves, because music is ourselves and wea re a drop int he eternal ocean and these waves are controlled by a blind beareded saddhu beating a drum and pundit serangay watches and guides through tides of in and out, self and other, self an out and self and out and through an out and into brahm untouched.d

Ok. taken care of.
I want to share some thoughts about buddhism and hinduism. Mostly because I have no time outside of my internet cafe time to write, and it's important for me to crystallize my thoughts about it now. Because there will be a lot, lot more buddhism on this trip, and I want to be able to trace how my opinions changed. However, if you're just cheking the blog to see how I'm doing, feel free to skip this. We went to sarnoth a few days ago, birthplace of buddhism, and learned about noble truths and suffering and the middle path, saw beautiful high ornate gilded temples set amongst poverty and dust, village life, more rural than before.
Buddhist philosophy is beautiful, and true, and it leads to a stillness that is a real experience of the eternal. I deeply respect the silence, the practice of meditation, and I will get much out of practicing meditation myself both here and in Dharamshala. My problem arises not from the philosophy itself, but from the fact that it has such a discrete, discernable philosophy that can not only be taught, but enumerated (the four noble truths, the five aversions, etc.) It's a dogma that must be swallowed whole by it's followers, just the same as all the organized religions which I have such a profound problem with. These are the four noble truths: one, two, three, four. Sure, these truths are true, but surely there are more truths than that. And the only reason they are noble, is because you say they are.
The other peice of the puzzle is this: both buddhism and hinduism recognize that we are each a small part of one eternal, unchanging whole, that in this sense we are ourselves god and there is no god outside of ourselves. I like that. But hinduism allows for the Atman, which is the descrete tiny sliver of god that we carry in ourselves, and, as such, it allows for the (albeit temporary) existance of a self. Buddhism does not--it insists that the self is merely an illusion, just like the rest of reality, which is all illusion and delusion. . But this is not our daily lived experience, this is not our life, and you only have to open your eyes to see that. We inhabit descrete bodies with personalities that have to interact with eachother and the world around us. In this way, I feel that hinduism gives its followers more tools to deal with their actual lived lives, and to find meaning in their lives. Buddhism demands that its followers transcend their daily experiences, which is something that takes full devotion and practice. TO actually be a buddhist, you have to be a monk, you have to spend every waking moment trying to see beyond the illusion. But this is a luxury that comes from privilige. People who have to work to survive simply cannot do that. This begins to answer the question that has been bothering me so much about buddhism: they build these increadilbe, ornate temples which the philosophy does not seem to justify at all. How do they justify this increadible expendature of wealth for materials that are pleasing to the eye? The buddhist would say "because it's all illusion, so why not?' But now I realize, that buddhism really is the religion of privilige, and that's why the buddhists will always be increadibly rich. The tibetan buddhist organization thing, whatever the call it, is amazingly wealthy. Because there's no room in their philosophy for the hard daily toil of the people. And that's also why it has been so easy for the american bourgeousie to accept buddhism--because they have the luxury and the privilige to do it. Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing to do with luxury and privilige if you have it, like I said, it's a beautiful philosophy and the daily practice of meditation can save the world.

This is in contrast to hinduism, which is so various and manifold. Although there are central beleifs of Hinduism, they are innumerable, and it is up to the follower of the religion to form their own personal brand of hinduism. This increadibly complex ideological structure is mirrored and symbolized by the richest mythological and narrative tradition in the world, which allows the followers to personally relate to the philisophical ideas, to form personal relationships with their own god, and to really make it their own god. I've been going around the city interviewing hindus, and they each worship their own favorite god, Siva, Hanumaun, Ganesha, Vishnu (and any one of the millions of incarnations of Vishnu, esp. krishna), and they each have their own personal reasons for worshipping that god. This makes them increadibley proud and independant in their worship, and it allows them to make meaning of every day. It is very important to note that the buddha is the ninth incarnation of vishnu in the Hindu pantheon, so they do worship Buddha and follow buddha's teachings, but as only one peice of a much larger puzzle. You'll see images of the buddha in almost any north Indian hindu temple.

Not to say that hinduism is perfet, or even that it is good. some of the social practices around it are inexcusable, especially the caste system and the treatment of women. Also, the environment in which hindus worship is very difficult for me, the temples are often more loud and chaotic than the street. It's the mosh pit approach to religion. I far prefer the silence of a buddhist temple.

sorry to give you so much to read.
love
jed