Talk:Guru

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Contents

1 Archives 2 Guru in Hinduism section 3 Reference 3.1 Caught "in fraganti" 4 Why this harassment against Andries?

Archives

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	Pending tasks for [[Template:Articlespace:Guru]]: (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Talk:Guru&action=purge)	edit (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Talk:Guru/to_do&action=edit) - watch (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Talk:Guru/to_do&action=watch) - purge (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Talk:Guru&action=purge)
	Talk:Guru/to do

Guru in Hinduism section

I restored some of the text to the Hinduism section, as it is well researched, attributed and have encyclopedic value. Also restored the Biblio section and the external links, for same rason. --Zappaz 04:16, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

If you restored the poems by Kabir, Brahmanand, and Hari Bhakti Vilasa that I consider the least encyclopedic part of the article then we might as well restore the rest. Andries 06:46, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

So all of the material that is sympathetic to Hinduism is unencyclopedic. I think that you're letting your anti-Hindu sentiment shine through a bit too clearly here. --goethean 18:04, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Since when are poems encyclopedic material? I am not anti-Hindu. However I find it unfortunate that some unscrupulous or self-deceived gurus have found more gullible and profitable pastures in Western countries. Andries 19:48, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Since when is resentment a proper motive for encyclopedia writing? --goethean 20:05, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Since when is it useful to talk about the motivations of people writing here instead of talking about the article? Andries 20:06, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

You are the one who makes your own personal motivations and resulting advocacy an issue in this article, viz:

Goethan, I know from personal experience that Feuerstein's way of reasoning as expressed in that article can lead to disasters. Andries

Goethean and others, another thing. Why was it me who inserted a rebuttal of Storr's criticism of gurus in the article? I had expected you to do so because you dislike the criticism so much. I invited you many times to insert rebuttals or more positive viewpoints on Hindu gurus but until now you have refrained from doing so. Andries 21:11, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Probably because this isnt an article about Storr. You may not have noticed, but we don't like playing your childish games in which each party inserts their POV by very selectively finding scholars—no matter how obscure, unknown, or irrelevant— who agree with the editor's views. I leave that type of thing to creationists. --goethean 23:22, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Goethean, do you want me to abandon common sense when reading articles by scholars and editing Wikipedia? Of course, my common sense was shaped by experience, observations, and a lot of reading on the subject. I do not think that any of the scholars and scientists mentioned in the main text of this article are obscure on the subject of gurus, Hinduism, or NRMs. What scholars and scientists (apart from Klaus Klostermaier) do you suggest as a basis for this article? Andries 08:52, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Common sense and good faith are exactly what is called for here—and what is severely lacking (see below). Any source from within the Hindu, Buddhist, or Sikh traditions (or NRM) which include the guru principle or doctrine seems relevant to me. Plus any scholar—often called Indologists or Sinologists—who specializes in any of these traditions. Unsympathetic Western scholars who specialize in or profit from skepically "debunking" gurus or "unmasking" "cults" are definitely less relevant to this article. How relevant are the opinions of an anti-Christian Muslim to an Wikipedia article on Christian ministers? That is why all of your anti-guru verbiage is off-topic in this article.

Within these guidelines, common sense is still needed. An editor writing in bad faith will always be able to find loopholes in the guidelines to advocate for his POV. I know that in response you will be looking for anti-guru sources from within these three traditions. But I can't singlehandedly stop you from abusing this article. Searching the library to find that one anti-guru dissertation by an obscure Dutch religious scholar is not NPOV, no matter how many anti-religious editors take your side. --goethean 17:32, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Goethean, the only scholar who I think was a skeptic when he was cited is Anthony Storr. David C. Lane was at that time (1994) still a follower of Charan Singh. Later he became a skeptic. I repeat that none of the scholars that I cited are obscure on this subject (NRMs, Hinduism or gurus). Jan van der Lans wrote a lot about NRMs and was quite sympathetic to them. Andries 21:33, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I will no longer particpation in this worthless, lie-filled conversation. You think that Reender Kronenberg, most of who's google hits are generated by this article, you think is more relevant to the guru than Kabir, probably the most important indian poet. You are absurd and I will waste no more of my time on your idiotic lies. --goethean 22:00, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I have attempted to restructure the Western section a bit and overall formatting. The criticism section is currently 25% of the article (about 1,000 words), so IMO it it still too big but I understand that the mediator has ruled against deletions. I would hope that people will leave the criticism section alone (can you Andries?), and that we engage in developing the other areas of the article so that thois become an excellent article in this very fascinating subject. And please Andries, don't delete Kabir and Brahmanand. You cannot say that it is not encyclopedic. It is extremely relevant to the article. ≈ jossi ≈ 22:09, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

Added some stuff to the Hindu section. --64.81.88.140 05:05, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Jossi, thanks for leaving the critical information in the article. I do not particularly like your edits but I can live with them. I do not object to a short mentioning of Kabir and Brahmanand such as you have inserted but I think that the several poems that Zappaz had inserted was too much, too long and inappropriate. Andries 08:20, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Glad to see that you guys are managing to make progress without me. :) --Zappaz 16:03, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Reference

Andries, can you provide a reference for this?: As a consequence of the accusations of sexual abuse by Sathya Sai Baba the European Parliament accepted a motion that stating that the European Union refuses to cooperate with organizations affiliated with Sathya Sai Baba ≈ jossi ≈ 04:31, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

In response to written question nr. E-2406/01 in 2001 [1] (http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:GrVMtkllKGkJ:www.europarl.eu.int/bulletins/pdf/09a2001_en.pdf+lousewies+van+der+Laan+sai+baba&hl=en&client=firefox-a) [2] (http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/pri/en/oj/dat/2002/ce093/ce09320020418en01260126.pdf)Andries 07:17, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Removed. That is not notable as a "controversy" and shows the bad faith in which you edit. Should we now be checking every single edit you make? ≈ jossi ≈ 14:56, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

I disagree, questions were also asked in the British parliament, a travel warning was issed by the US department of state, TV documentary by Danish Radio was broadcasted in Australia and Denmark, BBC TWO produced a one-hour TV documentary, there was a front page article in India Today, UNESCO public announced its withdrawal on its website because of the accusations. All this together this is notable. Andries 20:08, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Please back up these claims. --goethean 20:34, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Here is the cover story of India Today to start with. [3] (http://www.saiguru.net/english/media/001204india.htm) The broadcast of Danish Radio produced documentary announced in SBS Australia schedule [4] (http://www.sbs.com.au/whatson/index.php3?progdate=12:02:2004) The motion of the UK MP, the USA state department warning and the UNESCO withdrawal with stated reason are copied on http://www.saipetition.net/ with links to the original documents. To support my statement that SSB is a notable controversy you may also take a look at the number of critical websites on SSB (which is a 21)http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Opposing_Views/Hinduism/ Andries21:11, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

The controversy surrounded SSB is fully developed in the WP article on the subeject .The complaint is that you posted made-up statements. You could make a link to the SSB criticism article and be done with it. ≈ jossi ≈ 05:30, May 14, 2005 (UTC)

Caught "in fraganti"

Andries, now that you have been caught in fraganti maybe now you can admit of your advocacy-driven editorializing.

Your first edit:

As a consequence of the accusations of sexual abuse by Sathya Sai Baba the European Parliament accepted a motion that stating that the European Union refuses to cooperate with organizations affiliated with Sathya Sai Baba

Your second edit:

As a consequence of the accusations of sexual abuse by Sathya Sai Baba the European Commission answered on October 1, 2001 a question (nr. E2406/01) of a MEP stating that the European Union has not cooperated with any organizations affiliated with Sathya Sai Baba

In reality a question by an European MP regarding allegations against Sai Baba, was politely answered in a diplomatic way

Question: Will the Commission raise the issue of the allegations at the EU-India summit scheduled for 23 November 2001 and ask assurances that the Indian Government is investigating the allegations? Answer: The Sathya Sai Trust does not receive and has never received any funding from the Community, nor is it associated with any of its projects in India.

Tss, tss! Baaad! --Zappaz 16:50, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Can you say pious fraud? --goethean 17:43, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I really thought that a motion had been accepted. I have to check my old HDD on which this information is stored. Detailed info is on my old HDD that I could not find today. Andries 13 May

Why this harassment against Andries?

Is the aim of this article to do guru laundering and to suppress any evidence of any misbehavior by any of them? The ridicule of shooting relentlessly at the messenger, in what could be taken as a coordinated tactic, and making him the accusee, can only raise questions about the shooters. --Pgreenfinch 22:32, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Accusers? Shooters? I haven't seeing you contributing to this article, and "suddenly" you have an opinion? Check your reasons for coming to the defense of a blatant abuse of WP policy. ≈ jossi ≈ 05:23, May 14, 2005 (UTC)

Come on, when I contributed to the article, it was the same cabal against me. Are you adding short memory to denial? And I never hided that I was against cults, gurus and other manipulators, and not too keen on dogmatic philosophies and religions more generally. Now, I never seen my contradictors (or Andries contradictors) saying what they were for. If you are for those chaps and shops, why not tell it instead of making pretences of neutrality? Do your really think people are so stupid that they don't understand your game? --Pgreenfinch 07:49, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Please lower your tone, if you could, thanks. Thank you for your disclaimer about your anti-religious bias. My bias is posted on my user page. Let Andries address the concerns raised by Jossi, Goethean and myself. He may find some references to subtantiate was seems to be a poor choice of words driven by his advocacy. From the way you write it seems that English is not your mother tonge, so you need to be extra careful with the way you express yourself, otherwise you come across quite strangely, if I may say so. :) --Zappaz 02:49, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Okay. let me try to summarize the concerns against this article by Goethean, Zappaz, and Jossi.

1. Disproportionally much critical information (Goethean, Zappaz, Jossi)
2. Sources for this article should mainly be Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh plus Indologists, not Western psychiatrists, skeptics etc. (Goethean)
3. Use of obscure scholars as a source i.e. Jan van der Lans & Reender Kranenborg. (Goethean)

Andries 06:56, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. I think that we have moved on from the above in the last 5 days. What is needed now is to develop the sections about gurus in Buddhism and Sikhism, hopefully leaving the criticism section as is, and not adding more stuff to it (unless you want to link to other articles for more info).≈ jossi ≈ 16:26, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

I will be archiving most of the above in a few days. --Zappaz 15:49, 22 May 2005 (UTC)