Hindus Must Get Politically Engaged ; Learn To Fight Back!

Speakers: -

-Pt. Satish K. Sharma (Pt. SKS): Civilization Analyst and British Hindu Leader

-Jane Elliott (JE): American Diversity Educator

-Dee Slade (DS):Executive Director of the African-American Network of Kern County (AANKC)

-Swami Ambikananda (Swami AN): Hindu Monk, Teacher of Vedanta, Philosophy, and Yoga

Pt. SKS: It gives me great pleasure to introduce a person who's been a personal friend of mine. I have followed her work with great interest and received so many inspired moments from her and I would like her to share with you her understanding and some of the snippets she's put together on the subject of race. Because race was probably one of the first of the ‘divide and rule’ policies which was implemented on the scale and it's not a coincidence that those who are want to replicate it, want caste to be a feature of race. And so, I would like to introduce Jane Elliott. 

Jane, if you could have a few words with us that would be wonderful. And then, we will go to Dee Slade. It would be wonderful if Dee could pick up the thread as soon as Jane's finished and then Swami Ji if you could conclude with some more words of wisdom. 

We are blessed to have three persons who I think of as matriarchs in the traditional things.

JE: I'm going to irritate everyone in this room. Number one, race and caste are both damn lies. It is absolutely unacceptable to consider caste anymore and to consider race anymore. The word race to mean a specific group of people came out of France in 1580. People say to me, it's been going on forever. Why are you trying to fight this? It hasn't been going on forever. It has been going on since 1580, people that’s less than 500 years. 

Previous to the Spanish Inquisition, people were all part of familiar man, and then suddenly Tomás de Torquemadacame along trying to turn everybody into Catholics was going to kill anybody who wasn't Christian, and killed over 2000 people and somebody said you killed a lot of Christians.

At that point,he realized that you couldn't tell what a person's religion was by looking at them. So, he had to find a way to decide who deserved to die and he set upon skin color. He called lighter-colored people - White because white is the color of purity and goodness. He called darker people - Black because black is the color of savagery and evil.

We have been living with those two words for almost 500 years. It's time to give that up, people. There are no white people. They do not exist unless you have no melanin in your skin, you are not white. There are no white people and there are no black people. 

It's time to get rid of those two terms. If you are going to use the terms of the late 1400s and 1500s, if you are going to use that vernacular, then you must also use the kinds of clothes they wore at those times, the kinds of communication they used, and the kinds of transportation they used. And, I want to see all you young men stand up and show me your pointy-toed shoes, your knee-length pants, and your powdered wigs. If you’re gonna live the way they lived in the 1400s and 1500s by the Gods of war, let's do it wholeheartedly.

There was no mention of race until the Spanish Inquisition. It's time to give it up, people. You are all members of the same race. There's only one race of people on the face of the Earth, and that's the “Human Race” and you are all members of it.

Every person in this room is my 30th to 50th cousin. Now, you might not like being my cousin. But you are my 30th to 50th cousins because you were born and raised on this earth. Get over it, people. Get over the idea of the rightness of whiteness. 

People say to me, “White rhymes with Right, and I say yeah, right! Also rhymes with right, fright, and slight. Get over it. We are all shades of brown!

And I will tell you how to solve this problem. Get a copy of the Pantone color wheel. Have you ever seen the Pantone Color Wheel? This is a color wheel of skin colors. On this color wheel, all the skin colors are of every human being, and you are all human beings on the face of the earth. You get this up. You can put it on the wall, enlarge it so that your kids, or your students, or whoever, whatever age you have can go up, put their palms on that color wheel, and run their palms around until they come to a color that matches the color on the back of their hand.

Then, go to the thesaurus, the big thesaurus, not the little one. The Big thesaurus, and look up the synonyms for brown. You will find over 100 synonyms for brown people. Pick the one that you think matches your skin color, and then go to the dictionary and look up that word and see what that word means in the dictionary. 

Then, the next time you have to fill in a form where it says race - put human, and where it says skin color - put whatever skin you saw, whatever your color was on the Pantone color wheel.

Now, if you think I'm out of my mind, I am slightly out of my mind because I have been doing this so long and I'm so God awful mad and what's going on.

People get a copy of this magazine – “National Geographic” magazine. I think that you have seen this magazine;it is full of April 2018. People get this magazine and download the map of the world. It shows where human beings came from and how they managed to populate every land mass on the face of the earth. Every land mass on the face of the earth was originally populated by people from Africa. People, you have got to get this into people's heads and you have got to do it now. We are running on really short time, folks. Within 25 years, ‘white people’ are what we call ‘white people’ and they are not white. We come up with a new word for ‘White People’. 

People, if you don't have enough iron in your blood to keep it healthy, you are called “Anemic”. If you don't have enough melanin in your skin to protect you from the dangers of raising the sun, you must be “Melanomic”. If you have more melanin in your skin, you are “Melanatius”, which rhymes with ‘gracious’, ‘spacious’, and ‘efficacious’. It is not a negative term. If you have a lot of melanin in your skin, you are called “Melanotic”. Melanotic is in the dictionary and it means having a lot of melanin in your skin so that your skin is dark brown to almost black. It doesn't say too black, you are not black; you are very dark brown people. It's time to get educated. 

I'm an educator. The word “Educator”comes from the Dutch. “DUC” which means“lead”, the prefix ‘E’which means “out”, the suffix ‘AT’which means “active” and the suffix ‘OR’ which means “one who does”. An educator is one who is engaged in the act of leading people out of ignorance.

And the number one ignorance in the United States of America and in the world, at this point is the ignorance of believing that skin color is a determination of your worth as a human being or of your intelligence. Skin color has nothing to do with your “intelligence”. What it has to do with is the “desire”. Oh, I'm sorry, but Melanin people haveto prove their strength and their brilliance by killing those who disagree with them. We have been doing it for 500 years. It's time to put a stop to it now. In the United States of America and I want you not to call this country ‘America’ any longer, if you can possibly give up calling this country America, I would appreciate it. 

America is everything from the northernmost point of Canada to the southernmost point of South America. All the citizens in all those countries are Americans. The United States of America is the 48 contiguous states of Alaska, Hawaii, and the islands of the Southeastern coast of the United States. That should be called the United States of America. That's what it is. Now, if you don't want to use all those syllables, call it for US because ‘US’ spells ‘us’ and it means those of us who are citizens of the United States of America. 

It's extremely important that we do that because six years ago, some fools elected a so-called President to this country who is determined and is still determined to divide this country. We have got to get back to seeing the United States as the ‘United States of America’, not just America. 

And to invite in and appreciate all those immigrants who have made this country as great as it is. Immigration is the most important thing that has ever happened in the United States of American people. And the indigenous populations accuse me of indigenous erasure. Because I say, look, even what we called Native Americans into this continent from Africa. Get over this nonsense and start educating people on the truth instead of the lie. 

Now, we have another problem in this country, it's going to make it worse for those of you who are not what we call US, U.S. people and Christians. Right now, we have a bunch of people in this country, the evangelical Christians who are trying to take us back to the 1940s. You have to be aware of the danger of that group. They are the most dangerous group I have ever seen and they are determined to turn this country back about 500 years. We have to put a stop to this, folks. We have to do it and we have to do it now. If Christianity is the only thing that will allow you to become a citizen of the United States, the United States is going to become very small and very powerless. We have to put a stop to this. 

There are three things I want to remember about what I'm saying. Some of you are gonna have a really hard time with this. But three things you have to remember - 

No.1 - Without what we call blacks, there would be no what we call whites (Without Blacks, there would be no Whites), that’s a fact. We are all descendants of those people from Africa. And, if you trace your DNA part back far enough, you will find some DNA from a country in Africa. 

No.2 - Without the Jews, there would be no Christians. The first five books of the Old Testament came out of the Torah. So these proud boys who marched down the street saying Jews will not replace us. I think you fools, you were Jewish before you were Christian. Get over it. 

No.3 - Without women, there would be no men. Without women, there would be no men. Without women, there will be no men. Without women, there will be no men. I will keep on saying that until you say it's time for you to stop now, Miss Elliot. 

Thank you very much for listening to me, thank you. I'm done.

Pt. SKS:Thank you very much, Jane.

JE:You're welcome!

Pt. SKS:Before we go to Mom Dee, I just want to introduce everyone to an idea we call “Adhikaar”. Adhikaar means that ‘it's the right to be able to participate in something’. Now, what Adhikaar for us is - listen to people who have earned the right to be able to speak to you and to share wisdom with you. Be careful of listening to people who have not earned that right. They may be loquacious, they may be verbose, and they may be eloquent. But if they have not earned the right to speak to you and share wisdom, then always have a second thought. 

Now, the ladies who are speaking on the panel, I don't think there's anybody in this room who would be courageous enough to challenge the idea that they have earned the right to speak wisdom and to speak it in the manner that they do. So, I’m deeply grateful to Jane and indeed the others who are going to speak in a moment for their contribution. 

Mom Dee, thank you so much. Your opening remarks, please. You have six to seven minutes. I'm sure that you are not going to be constrained by that. So, please do get into the flow and forgive me for interrupting you when it approaches the end of that time. Thank you very much, Mom Dee for joining us. Please share.

DS:Thank you so much and to their convener to you and the guests that are here, and all my prestigious colleagues that are sitting here. Thank you so much. And I'm waiting to hear from other distinguished speakers. I am honored to have the pleasure of sharing. 

As Miss Elliott stated, and as part of the ‘Each one Teach one’ partners and progress program that we teach, we teach about culture. We teach about appreciation of the differences that we have. We teach about customs and religions.And that they are not a threat to the United States of America because guess what, in 1619 and prior to that, early years of 17, Africans were brought to this country to build it.And in the process of building, you have what you call today “Biracial”. Many of us are biracial, right? Native Americansrunto market, Africa is in London. I also have Islanders in my veins. There was a marriage between a man and a woman. There wasn't a marriage but there was producing children. The Africans produced many biracial children. 

So, we encourage people to study the history of the United States, that's how you are going to understand ‘Racism’, ‘Caste’and ‘Segregation’ are all of the same to keep a darker color of people under control to keep them as part of the labor in building this country with no pay. Okay! We are feeding you. We are clothing you. I'm your master. You are on my plantation. So why should I pay you? I own you. But you are lower than a horse. You are lower than my cattle that you hear and feed every day.You are not human. You shouldn't be educated. And if you're caught, we are going to make you an example ‘hanging you’, cutting your feet off you can try to run away to another state. Many Africans tried to go back to Africa but had no idea where they were, or what direction. So many of them tried for killed, were harmed, were burnt, lived in shanties, barely clothes,and worked from sun up to sundown. 

So, you tell me about this, caste was there? Why is it coming up again? We put a band-aid on it – “The Civil Rights Act”. The very first when you hear about the Constitution, you need to study that. 

How does the Bill of Rights free speech?

No1. How did the small numbers of Africans or a few African-born Africans fight to put the 13th Amendment? They wanted to be free but with that came a lot of pain but guess what that small number of slaves and their African-born children said,it was worth it, okay! I might as well die trying some didn't but guess what that 13th Amendment is there. And the 13th Amendment is the beacon for every immigrant and anyone within the United States of America to be free. Number one, amendment is Free Speech. 

The 14th amendment said, oh, we are going to make you a citizen, but guess what slaves really bring out citizens. It was worth trying to purchase a home, trying to write, make an ache because some didn't know how to write. Pay taxes didn't quite understand. I own the land, but the land can be taken from them. Some were never educated, but they dreamed and they prayed for freedom and for the United States of America to acknowledge. 

And let me tell you something else about the culture. They were a part of every war in the United States. During the revolution, the Civil War, and after the Civil War, Congress granted 1866 the Buffalo soldiers who were slaves to rebuild what was torn down during the Civil War. African-American descendants of slaves built California parks and Yosemite, they rebuilt buildings, houses, whatever. They also were in the stagecoach. That's your mail. Do you ever hear about it? Absolutely not!

So there's no understanding of the word ‘Racism’. No one understands it because you don't have the history to put it together.

Miss Elliott did an excellent job with those students. We are together; we love each other because you look like me. But then will we distinguish a difference between us? And what I experience is called ‘Divide and Rule’. No group should let anyone divide you. Come together! It’s okay to disagree, it's okay to have opinions, it’s okay to dream to have visions. But it's not okay to compromise because you have to keep moving forward as a group to understand one another to fight the ignorance of others, and that's what it is. 

Some do not know the history of the United States of America. They are fearful because someone has influenced them. The darker they are, they are criminals, thieves, they realize you,etc, etc. The same thing applies to a lighter shade of person. A European, a fair skin will brutalize you just like a person with dark skin. And that's because it's fear of one another. We don't appreciate each other. We don't look at each other as a man, a man regardless of Native American here in the United States or an Indian that comes from abroad. We are still a man. The same thing with women because the highest esteem, no matter what color and his status quo. He is still creature-dominant here on this earth. But there are those who don't understand that they have no limit. They don't understand the human race and this is what I advocate for.

Understand, who you think is your enemy. Don't look at the color of my skin. Don't look at where I come from. Don't look at how much money I haveor which ZIP code I live in. Look at me, talk to me, and find out who I am. This is what we teach our students. I have many students that call me ‘Mom Dee’. That's a name that they pleasure because, to all of them in our programs, we teach the first thing – ‘Ethical behavior’, ‘Respect’ that what you don't understand. Research it. 

There are numerous books, authors, educators, and institutions that can help you understand where you live, and who lives in your neighborhood? Those who are in the leadership role do not fear them. We introduce our students from K on up to adult, go talk to your leaders within your community; have a relationship with them, if you can. Let them know more about you and find out who they are. Everyone within the United States of America as well as the world has an opportunity and obligation to teach and to be proud of who they are. 

I am proud of who I am. I have been in situations of being denied, guess where I stand? Did I take up arms? No, I did not. Was I threatened with something, one with arms? No, I was not. Because I let them know your ignorance is what's in front of you, young man or young woman. Flip me a bird, it didn't hurt. I just know your shortcomings. You don't know anything about me. The cell phone that you are using and talking less to an African-American-born is the Gamma Electric cell that was invented by a black man – the first nuclear engineer in the United States. Your railroad crossing is a black thing, you love a tablet, you love your computers, your color screens, your light switch, your air conditioning, your refrigeration. Study that and you will see that the Africans and then later African-American-borns built.Many created many inventions built many buildings, and architectural designs.Manywere in the front of the medical community, many creative teaching, and instructionsand many went into the judicial. Small numbers but it's there for everyone to enjoy. You don't see us standing at the doorstand. You can't enjoy something that was created by people that look like me.

So, if you leave with anything today, start researching and be proud of who you are. And yes, the fight, it has been going on like Miss Elliott said, I guess I'll die and it'll still be going on, but take up the fight of knowledge. Take the fight to stand up and say this is wrong. 

Thank you very much for having me!

Pt. SKS: Thank you so much, Mom Dee! Before, I invited Swami Ambikanand Ji to share some thoughts. There were a couple of points that Mom Dee raised there, which I want to make sure we didn't miss. Ashort while ago, a little video clip emerged from our community which highlighted the notion that everybody is talking about Caste to everybody else except talking to us about it. 

And there is something that I call the colonizer mind, which I think would be really good to understand. The colonizer mind is something that is like a mimetic virus. It can be communicated, and it can be spread but it has certain pathology. And I'm going to read some words which sprang to my mind when I read the Clauses that were being put forward in this SB403. 

So the words are as follows:-

Invade, Search out, Capture, Vanquish, and Subdue, all Saracens and Pagans whatsoever and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed. And the Kingdoms, Dukedoms, Principalities, Dominions, Possessions and all Movable and Immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to Perpetual slavery and to apply an appropriate to themselves and his successors, the kingdoms, dukedoms, countries, counties, principalities, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit. One small paragraph and we are all here as a consequence of that one small paragraph.

Some scholars will have recognized it. Is there anybody who recognizes that? It was the first piece of legislation that empowered the legitimate use of force on those principles. 1452 - it's the piece of legislation that encouraged so many people to venture out into the world and take what was not theirs, to dehumanize, vilify and diminish other souls. 

We are here because one young man, fueled by those words, felt he had the authority to go in search of India, the fabled land of India. And he wasn't going there to bring them human rights, unlike your current ambassador which is an interesting observation. He was there to take and to steal because the people there were not fully humans. ‘Persona non-grata’ means you haven't even granted the state of being a person to that being. They were part of the Animal Kingdom. This is the impact of words. This is the papal bull which was known as the doctrine of discovery. And it's the doctrine which says, I have some right to fix you. You can't fix your own house, I can do it. And the moment you have one person from one group standing up courageous enough to say, I know how to fix that group, it should ring an alarm bell. The only way we survive in comfort is if I look after my home and do the best that I can. Let my neighbor look after his home so that he can do the best or she can do the best or they can do the best. I'm in California. Aren't I so? And between the two of us, we can turn to each other and say, can we help each other? But if I throw stones at his house and he throws stones at my house, all of our houses are destroyed. This is such a simple principle. SB 403 flies in the face of that, and yet it works on the basis of this doctrine of discovery. 

This is the doctrine that your countryman Jaber Sutherland referred to when he wrote a poem. It was a poem written by a colleague of his called Chadwell, and he said if you see an island shore which has not been grabbed before, lying in the track of trade as islands should, with the simple native, quite unprepared to make a fight. Oh, you should just drop in and take it for his good. Not for the love of money, be it understood. But you roll yourself to the land with the Bible in your hand and you pray for him and rob him for his good. Then you shoot him for his own good. Oh, this lesson I can shape to campaigning at the Cape where the boar is being hunted for his good. He would welcome British rule if he weren't blaming for thus you see it's only for his good. So the burning houses for his good making helpless women homeless for their good, leaving little children, and orphans for their good. In India, there are bloody sights booting out the Hindu rights where we have slaughtered many millions for their good and with Bulletin, with brand desolated all the land but you know we did it only for their good. Yes, and still more far away down in China, let us say where the Christian robs the Heathen for his good. You may burn and you may shoot you, you may fill your sack with loot but be sure you do it only for his good. If you dare commit a wrong on the week because you are strong, you may do it, if you do it for his good. You may rob him, if you do it for his good.You may kill him, if you do it for his good. You may legislate against the Hindus of California so long as you do it for their good. 

Turning to Discriminatory Civilization Practices and the other God of people who have experienced firsthand, I'm going to share with you that Swami Ambikanandi ji, who is a Brahmin according to our tradition and that she revealed,is acknowledged as a priest and yet has no hereditary hierarchical endogamous privilege to say that she is qualified as a brand. That's one of the planks of this equality’s equality, whatever. Thank you for completing. I've been trying to raise it from my mind. 

They assert that Hindus are casteists, that we have a rigid hierarchy and a structure which imposes upon you at birth, what your status is, and that's what you are destined to be and that's what you will remain and there are penalties if you venture outside of those boundaries. It's utter nonsense. 

There's been a conflation of the ‘Caste’ word with the word that we have called ‘Varna’. And I would like you all to do an experiment once Swami Ambikanand Ji has concluded. I'm going to try and draw the results from you on wwwcastecon.com website, a button has magically appeared as these things do and it says what your Varna is? I would invite each and every one of you when you have an opportunity to take your phone out. Go to the website. All you need to know is your date of birth and your location of birth. Hit the magic button and let's see what it shares with us. I look forward to finding out a bit more about you. It may well be that it's complete nonsense. It may well be that it's religious mumbo jumbo, but we have the freedom to say it doesn't harm anybody else. And so I'm sharing with you the opportunity to explore that. It's important because it establishes a principle that in our tradition if you incarnate the human being, you have a Varna. There is no such thing as a human being without Varna unless that person has engaged in such spiritual austerities that they no longer have bodily identification. They are established in spirit and the unity of spirit. That's the only person who can say I now have no Varna. I'm no longer controlled by ‘Rajas’, ‘Tamas’, and ‘Satva’. So even the persons who are not of Indian origin, I would love for you to have a look and see what your Varna is. And then we can have a conversation about whether the Hindus of India are so exclusivist that they created an untouchable class. They created other classes that didn't even have Varnas. It's not true. Everybody has a Varna. 

On that note, I would like to invite Swami Ambikanand Ji to join us. And Swami Ji, it's as I said, an absolute pleasure and honor. And I know that one of your students is here in the audience as well, so he will probably want to just wave to you if you spot him waving. You have 6-7 minutes. Please do take the floor. Thank you!

Swami AN: Thank you Pandit Ji, Pranam! Good morning to all. Although it's evening here in the UK and to my fellow panelists, Miss Jane Elliott and Mom Dee, thank you. It was beautiful.

Twenty-five years ago, I took Sanyaas and what quickly emerged for me is that donning this robe meant that people who find themselves in one of those challenging situations of life would be approaching me. So for over 25 years, I have listened to both strangers and friends in some of their darkest moments, and what has emerged for me is that we as humans are now in an existential crisis. Since the dawn of industrialization, every attempt has been made to reduce our Humanity. We are told we are empty biomechanisms, purchasing machines are entirely at the mercy of selfish genes that demand our reproduction and market forces that demand that we do nothing but consume. Nothing else, wearing courage to consign everything else to myth and to very vigorously resist. Meaning has been stripped from life. 

The great Victor Frankl concentration camp Survivor taught us that we can bear almost anything if we know why. The search for why is mocked by the Giants that have reduced us. Yet, almost every person I encounter is in a difficult and dark situation. Seeking not just a way out of that situation, they also deeply at a fundamental level, want to understand why. And it's this that has brought me to reappraise Varna, which colonization distorted into the caste system. 

The Portuguese came first, they were the first to encounter it, and they named it Costa. When the British came, they took that up and they created the ‘Caste system’. And it was a system of ‘divide and rule’ – a hierarchy of domination and exploitation that very much mirrored the one they created on these British Isles. 

In the Senate Atma, we do have something known as Panditji has said as Varna. First, I have to tell you that Sanskrit is a dynamic and extremely subtle language. Varna means color or dye or covering. It's not the color of our skin. It is the color of our internal landscape. It's the internal characteristics that mark that in us, which is unchanging and eternal Atma. 

On the battlefield Chhetra, where Mighty Forces were arrayed against each other, the Avatar Bhagavan Shri Krishna took up the chariot Reigns of his friends and disciples and invited him to look at the enemy. And, thus the great teaching of the ‘Bhagavad Gita’ began. When Arjuna, the consummate disciple looked at people that he should be friends with he bought. At that moment, many of the great teachings of the Gita emerged, and ‘Varna’ was one of them. 

Chapter 4, Verse 14, Krishna Ji tells us, “Everybody has a ‘Guna’ and the ‘Karma’ and these are what define our‘Varna’”. Guna is aninner characteristic, a kind of thread, a deep impulse that defines us. And Karma is the action we take and what defines our actions, our Guna. We don't all react in the same way because everybody has a different Guna. But as Pandit ji said, everybody has a Guna and everybody acts on it. 

In the hours, I sit in the morning in this room and do my meditation and study. I am so much a Brahman and calm, studious listening for that transcendent inner voice rather than the meanderings of my own mind. But then I get up and I encounter the day and my true Varna emerges. I am a warrior, a Chhatriya. I do not seek a battle. I will never strike the first blow, but I will not evade the fight either, because that's not my nature, not my Guna. My inner landscape demands that I rise to every challenge with the sword in hand. The sword might be my mind honed for battle by four older brothers who having taught me to be fierce, then told me frequently that I was a pesky little brat, always ready for a fight. 

I thank them. They were my first teachers in handling my combat of nature, my warrior Guna. How and what determines our Guna that every person has? The only one as Pandit Ji said, that is without it is the Avatarwhere the Atma requires no masking. What determines it? Yes, it could be, as Pandit Ji said, the moment of our birth, a past life, who knows, whatever their origins, we all have it. 

What can give our lives meaning when we find ourselves on the battlefield?  One of the most useful things is to deeply understand what we have within to meet the challenges we are faced with.The defining of these Guna and these Varnas was told to me by Swami Agnivesh – the founder of ‘Bandhu Mukti Morcha’, the bonded Labor Liberation Front. The Brahman, he said, is the one who steps back frombattle and invites us to pause and seek deep inner truths and scriptural guidance. He or she does this while the warrior is making battle plans, and the Vaishya is getting the community ready to endure. And the Shudra is seeing where his services are required? 

However, seeking the expression of Varnawithin myself was taught to me by my guru Swami Venkateshananda.We can go to our birth charts and they can tell us.But Swami Ji taught us the way of the ‘Yoginpratyahara’ to let that penetrating intense gaze that we are always looking out at this world with into ourselves and allow your Varna to be revealed to you. It's not of importance to anybody else but ourselves to uncover that inner Guna and then learn how to express it in your life through action.

As a Kshatriya, what is it that I will fight to protect and defend?This is going to give my life meaning. My dream for Humanity is that we find our way out of this ugly distortion of race and caste system. This distortionwas imposed by colonization and restored Varna. Then every challenge will become a learning process. Learning and growing from learning will then become our meaning. 

Every dark passage, no matter how we may painfully stumble along it, becomes filled with meaning because it becomes a means of taking us through our Guna even while we are acting on it to an inner reality that is our eternal nature and everyone's eternal nature. 

Thank you very much!

Pt. SKS:Almost one of you, thank you very much indeed. 

At the beginning of our little conversation, we invoked a prayer to Devi Saraswati. We acknowledge that wisdom and knowledge are divinely feminine qualities. And I don't think anybody would doubt that we have been blessed with the contributions of some amazing teachers. 

So thank them very much. Thank you all very much. 

Now, today is one of those days where we have mastered the technology in this wonderful facility, but outside there is a world that is proving a little bit more challenging to master. 

Some of our guests and speakers, who have been traveling on flights, have been delayed and so whenever they pop up on the screen, it’s right. I have got 10 minutes before my next flight. Can you please speak with us? 

So what I'm going to do is to invite some of our speakers who are ready and able to speak at this moment in time and shift the schedule a little with everyone's permission. Please bear with us. 

Before I come to Salvatore, there is one I keep calling you Salvatore. I'm so sorry, Salvatore. It's the Italian exposure. But we will be inviting you to speak in one moment. 

Swami Ji mentioned caste and a number of people have spoken about caste and recently the legislators have tried to make the concept that Caste is generic. The Caste is worldwide and it's existed everywhere. 

Now for us, this is quite interesting because for the last five to six hundred years, we have been told, hey, Hindus are casteist. Our children in schools are taught the Hindu caste system. In that little scenario, we saw where division was created amongst the children. Our children feel that when the rest of the class is taught that these guys, their ancestors are casteists, they have high castes and low castes. Our children feel alienated, embarrassed, and isolated, and humiliated in those classes. Every time this word is mentioned to them. And so I want to just deal with this notion that caste isn't actually specific to the Hindu religion. Who would you ask about this? 

I posed this question to a new deity of wisdom that's appeared out there on the Internet ChatGPT. 

So could we have ChatGPT, please? 

Now ChatGPT is a large language model, so it's compiled a vast amount of text and then it answers according to its database. So if it says this is the answer, then it's relying on the fact that this has been publicized for a long period of time. Please tell me about the caste system.The caste system is a social structure. 

My goodness, it really likes to talk quickly, doesn't it? Right!

The caste system it's identifying is a hierarchical one, with Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras. Hindu, Hindu, Hindu, Hindu. So, for the best part of half of the Millennium the world has been told that there are these terrible Hindus. They have a caste system and this is it. This bears no resemblance to the way in which we know our society has been organized. And so when we have legislators coming up and saying, we can fix you, we will do it for your good, right?

And then in schools, they're teaching, oh your castist! And then all of a sudden, the legislators say. No, no, no. Let's generalize this program. Let's generalize this concept. It's a deception. It's a fraudulent device intended to try and sneak very focused and targeted anti-Hindu legislation through the Hoops that it has to be passed in order to get onto the books. Once it's on the books, we know what will happen. It will be in the HR manuals. It will be in schools, it will be in hospitals, it will be talked about everywhere and every single Hindu will be immediately isolated, humiliated, and separated. 

Now, if you understand the severity of what I have said, I'm hoping that our legislators here and in other parts of the world where this is being spoken about, if you understand the severity of this, this is an existential threat for us. And each and every one of us, when we are faced with an existential threat, with our backs to the wall with the possible future benefits accruing to our children and their labors in jeopardy. Everybody turns around masters and their resources, and says, no, it awakens the inner Kshatriya. And I'm delighted that we are witnessing the inner Kshatriyabeginning to articulate its desire to survive unhindered, untainted,and unattacked. And that's the challenge that is in front of the legislators. 

I would genuinely put forward the proposition.This is bad law, it will never be permitted. And as long as there is one Hindu who knows the truth of their history and what was done to us in colonial times, it will be challenged again and again and again. 

The legislators in the United Kingdom recognize that we are a capable community. They recognize that we are a community that hasabilities, which have resources. And it's not because we don't like to fight. Right? It's not because we are incapable of it. It's because we genuinely only view it as a last resort. Wouldn't it be wonderful for us to resolve this issue long before it became a last resort? 

And, please do bear in mind where reincarnation is. So, we keep coming back!