Why should we mention DaVinci code when Christian missionaries only portray our culture negatively?
Podcast:
What is the need for us to mention Da Vinci code? Questions only mention because she mentioned talk negatively about our tradition. Answer. So firstly, I’m talking here about broader cultural trends in society And the general trend is to use historical research to try to deny the historicity of Hindu stories and these icons and to reduce them to mythology. And Christianity was subjected to it quite a lot because, modern science and the historic science based historical approach emerged in the West and became influential in the West.
So what we see we approached to the Vedic tradition has also been applied to Christianity. And Da Vinci Code was a example of this historical approach being used or you could say in some ways misused the Da Vinci Code, how much it is based in history and how much it is based on fiction is open to question. Many Catholic, scholars have just point out what are severe loopholes in Da Vinci’s account of things. But once the novel was written and once the movie was made, irrespective of its flaws and its logic, it reached a huge amount of people. And it caused a significantly negative negative perception about Christianity’s origin and history, especially the Catholic churches not Christianities in general.
So this historical approach to religion has been used in general negatively, and, of course, Christian scholars have worked to establish the historicity of Krishna of Jesus also. So I was only appreciating that it is good that the Indian movie industry instead of making a movie like the Da Vinci Code, which uses a lot of times, it misuses history to damage and even destroy people’s faith in the little cycles of their tradition, of particular tradition. Is Kartiketu uses it for a for a positive purpose to enhance faith. And further, we often as a religion have a victim mentality wherein we think that all the media is treating us unfairly. The government policy is unfair to us, and education system is biased against us.
But certainly there may be truth, elements of truth in this conception, but also the truth that every single group of people can find in the history instances where they have been victimized and We need to be able to see the good in the world to avoid the victim mentality. That’s how we can cultivate gratitude. So gratitude is what leads to manas and kushti. Satisfaction of the mind. Manas Prasad is what Krishna says is one of the disciplines of the mind.
Instead of being generally dissatisfied with how the mainstream society, mainstream culture is non spiritual or anti spiritual. And there are reasons for that kind of dissatisfaction, especially in this content. But instead of letting that be our dominant attitude and defining emotion which may lead to the victim mentality, I was talking that when there are reasons to be appreciative and grateful, we we appreciate you and grateful. And when the mainstream media is making a movie which uses the historical approach to enhance faith that is not such a common phenomena. It is the common phenomena is the opposite directed not just towards Hinduism but even towards religions like Christianity.
And this is something uncommon and special to to highlight this point and give the example of Da Vinci Code. This has nothing to do with Christian missionaries portraying the very tradition negatively. Yes. That is a big issue and that needs to be dealt with separately. But here the point is that I’m looking at overall cultural trends and recognizing that this is a remarkable cultural trend, which is not adopted frequently.
And the fact that it has been adopted and found with widespread positive response is remarkable and appreciable. We needn’t be becoming paranoid about Christianity. Yes, they are converting, but if you are going to be neutral or objective observers of cultural trends, then Christianity is a huge part of the world’s cultural landscape. It is the biggest religion in the world at present. And there is much we can learn by seeing how mainstream culture trends have treated Christianity.
That could be a precursor of how they may treat us also. Thank you.