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Monks 'Dilemma
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at 23.5 degree inclination to its axis and this is instrumental in creating weather conditions congenial for life to evolve and maintain unlike Mars and Mercury where inclination is 60 and 90 degrees respectively and the weather is harsh and unsuitable for life. Planets do have effect but on the earth as a whole and not on individual living beings. Experiments have been made and it has been observed that children, six in number born at the same time in the same labour room at the same latitude and longitude had different fortunes. Your language is generally vague and ambiguous and can be interpreted the way it suits the astrologer. This country suffered ignominious defeats because of astrologers. The one lakh strong army of brave Marathas suffered most humiliating defeat from a small ten thousand army of Ahmadshah Abdali because astrologers prohibited them from fighting for next three months proclaiming that the stars were not in their favour. The result was that they starved as their supply lines were blocked by Abdali and Marathas even killed and ate their horses to survive. There are many recorded historical instances .In many cases people suffer only because of the subconscious fear psychosis as happened to a client who was told that he had a chance of accident on a particular day and he did meet with the accident because of the anticipated fear created. If the scientific principle of cause and effect, and what is ordained in the scriptures also that it is good and bad actions of a person that fructify in good and bad results, is correct, then planets and stars are inconsequential. Your profession is for your own selfish interest to earn hefty amounts of money and is based on tricky concoctions. You first frighten your clients about the impending dangers of unfavourable conjunction of stars and then suggest rituals to neutralise them and in the process extract maximum possible amounts of money. There is more
cheating than any help. Very much like astrology, Vastu is another such fad frightening people about directions of various rooms etc in a building. If the earth rotates on its axis as established by authentic scientific observations then the direction of every longitude is constantly changing and there will be no fixed direction of any room etc. Astrologers, practitioners of Vastu are also parasites like monks, mahants, priests, pundits and others of the kind. Pundit Sudhanshu bracketed pundits with priests. You did not do so. In my opinion astrologers should also be bracketed with priests and pundits as their technique is almost the same. The practitioners of these three professions entice people by promising gains without effort. This is such an allurement that even highly educated scientists and technocrats succumb to the temptation. The spell and charm by these three professionals have been contrived and manipulated so cleverly that the majority of people have been befooled. Senior scientists, professors at IIT colleges, their students are commonly seen wearing amulets, rings with varying gems and other such charms. Most of even highly modern executives, technocrats and students have red strings or red thread tied around their wrists which look very ridiculous. How will such inanimate objects like a coloured thread help get success? It is really a pity. All these institutions should be banned by law to liberate gullible ignorant masses from the shackles and slumber of superstitions and blind faith. People will then make appropriate efforts to meet the vicissitudes as and when they arise."
Shree invited swami Harshanand to speak about his organisation Aryasamaj.
Harshanand, "Aryasamaj does not subscribe to idol worship and any other superstitious rituals. Swami Dayanand Sarasvati
