“A man was charged with attempted murder on Wednesday following a knife attack that has left his 14-year-old daughter fighting for her life in hospital.

Kamal Khanna, 44, reportedly was arrested while sitting on the steps of his home in suburban Alliston, Ont., south of Barrie, on Tuesday morning when police responded to an emergency call at his home.

Khanna was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. He will remain in custody until his bail hearing next Tuesday.

His daughter, Ashna Khanna, a Grade 8 student, was found unconscious and bleeding from several knife wounds. She was first rushed to a local hospital and then flown to Toronto’s Sunnybrook Medical Centre, where she remained in critical condition Wednesday night. The man’s wife and other daughter were home when police arrived.

Forensic investigators continued searching the tall brick home Wednesday, as neighbours shovelled driveways and glanced over at the line of yellow police tape around the property.

The residents, a South Asian family of four, were quiet and mostly kept to themselves, neighbours said. Trevor Little said the girl and her sister were polite but did not have many friends over to their home. They spent much of their free time playing in the garden, he said. He had only a nodding acquaintance with their father.

Other neighbours speculated the attack stemmed from a cultural rift between father and daughter because “she didn’t wear what he wanted.”

Nottawasaga OPP Const. Melody Tourigny said the small town was in shock following the attack.

“The oddity of this case has really gotten people’s attention,” Tourigny said. “This type of incident would shake up a community of any size, but because it’s such a tight-knit community, it’s really affecting people.”

Ashna’s classmates at Ernest Cumberland Elementary met with crisis counsellors on Wednesday, principal Nancy Jones said. Many students were kept home due to the weather, the rest spent the afternoon making cards and writing letters to the girl.

“It’s clearly a very difficult time for the children,” said Jones.

“There’s a very strong community spirit within the school and the staff.””

“These people are taught that lying to the infidel is not only alright to do, but it is expected.”

Correct. It is a DOCTRINE, in fact: called taqiyya. I have mentioned this before, and once again I will recommend Raymond Ibrahim’s excellent treatment of the subject on his website raymondibrahim.com. This is essential to understanding the true nature of Islam and should not be left out of any discussion of it.

“Saying honor killings does not have anything to do with Islam is a lie.”

Not exactly. Honor killing per se is a broader issue.

You can’t believe anything they say. They say what they think you want to hear. Non-muslims do not deserve the truth.

Saying honor killings does not have anything to do with Islam is a lie.

“Yoga is not a system of thought, but an scientifically mapped path of spiritual experiences toward Union with God”

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” The Bard, Romeo and Juliet.

anon, 123:

“we… quest for the Higher being, or the Light, or God.” …. “…how can anyone reconcile the subjugation, enslavement, rape and murder of young women with any god, be it one God or ten gods.”

These two statements contradict each other. In the first you agree there is a God (however you define Him/It) and talk about striving for Him/It. In the latter you give one of the most popular atheistic/agnostic denials of God. Which is it? As to the second point I would suggest reading C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain. I don’t think you’ll find a better treatment of this issue anywhere.

Atheists/agnostics have bigger problems: they cannot explain the existence of anything, or the development (“evolution”) of life, despite their arrogant and shrill assertions that their view is the only view that ought ever be taught. And they have no basis for any moral system at all: if “survival of the fittest” is the way of the world then what about murder, rape, slavery, cannibalism, etc. should gall us in the least? And this is why liberal relativism arises out of evolutionism as did Nazism and Maoism. Hitler was frankly trying to rid the world of the “lower races” – Darwin’s phrase; Mao cared not how many tens of millions died of starvation from his social experiment: the more resources left for the “fit”! These two “philosophers” (sluurp) were far more consistent in their world view than those before and after them who try to create out of whole cloth a system of “good without God.” So the question is not, Why does a good God allow evil, but rather if there is no God, or if God is not good, where does the notion of True Morality and Love come from at all?

Plato was just one example from among the many, many great thinkers of our past, whose wealth of knowledge we may draw upon in our quest for the Higher being, or the Light or God. While many of them referred to the gods, none of them referred to a singular God or claimed to be a god.

The gods or God does not care, not a whit. To know this is not humbling, but liberating. We have been endowed with free will, if only we would exercise it to cultivate our own souls. Confucius; “the truly holy man is concerned with his own soul and not that of the souls of others”

In any event, how can anyone reconcile the subjugation, enslavement, rape and murder of young women with any god, be it one God or ten gods. “Honor” crimes are so breathtakingly, heartless, so unnatural, there are no words for them, other than “evil” An evil, which stems from an ideology, pervasive in man made or organised religions. Islam in particular, is so stagnated it has not even made its way out of the androcratic epoch. A system which denied and alienated the female component with all its creativity, life giving forces, nurturing qualities etc. In fact, everything that runs contrary to the natural order of the life force and to the detriment of their own societies. To quote Stendhal: “ the genius that is born of women is lost to the world”

[Your arguments do not persuade me. I cherish my copy of Dark Night of the Soul. The Cloud of Unknowing was a life-changer.]

I know I won’t be able to persuade you. In reality, I never try to persuade anyone of anything, but my favorite topic is God. This is called Brahma Abhyasa (Brahma = God; Abhyasa = Practice).

In Panchadasi VII-106, Brahma-Abhyasa is defined as: “The practice of meditation on Brahman, the wise cognizer, means reflection on It, talking about It, mutually producing logical arguments about It – thus to be fully occupied with It alone.”

[I cherish my copy of Dark Night of the Soul. The Cloud of Unknowing was a life-changer.]

The Convent of the “Carmelitas Descalzas” in Avila where Santa Teresa lived and San Juan took confession by her, remains in my mind as one of the holiest places I have ever been in.

“I wrote “psycho-of-the-much-writing”, referring to those that write long. If that offended you, I apologize.”

I wasn’t insulted, I meant it tongue-in-cheek. I should have included a smiley face. No apology necessary.

Your arguments do not persuade me. I cherish my copy of Dark Night of the Soul. The Cloud of Unknowing was a life-changer.

1) Your statement: [Yoga is dogma:]

No, Yoga is the opposite of dogma, you define dogma well as “a system of principles or tenets, as of a church”. Yoga, on the contrary, is: a system of techniques and practices. Principles or tenets must be accepted as “principia”, but in Yoga you only accept what you experience yourself.

2) Your statement: [You rebuke me for being a “psycho writer”]

I never said that. I wrote “psycho-of-the-much-writing”, referring to those that write long. If that offended you, I apologize.

3) Your statement: “Reincarnation is dogma”.

I don’t think so. You would be benefited by reading “Reincarnation: The Missing Link In Christianity” by Elizabeth Clare:
http://www.amazon.com/Reincarnation-Christianity-Elizabeth-Clare-Prophet/dp/0922729271/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257035661&sr=1-2.

But more importantly, the classic and authoritative for being totally scientifically written book by Dr. Ian Stevenson “Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation: Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged (Paperback)”, which is a prove of it.
http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Cases-Suggestive-Reincarnation-Enlarged/dp/0813908728/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257035661&sr=1-10

If anything, just read this last one.

4) Your statement: “It is impossible to live without dogma”

Religious dogma is the antithesis of spirituality. Jesus knew it. Organized religion definitely, totally, prevents spiritual advancement (entering into the Kingdom).

5) Your statement: [So are all other religions and systems of thought – otherwise they wouldn’t be systems of thought. I have never understood people’s tendency to deny this...]

That’s your limitation. Yoga is not a system of thought, but an scientifically mapped path of spiritual experiences toward Union with God (Yoke comes the Sanskrit Yoga). In the Christian world there have been Sages that practiced a Yoga; namely, Santa Teresa de Avila, San Juan de la Cruz, Ignatius Loyola, and Meister Eckhart.

The Prayer of Quiet of Santa Teresa is well recognized in Yoga. In the Dark Night of the Soul and The Ascent of Mount Carmel of San Juan, both, a Yogi, to his joy, finds innumerable similarities to his/her experiences. I mean, in perfect detail. The exercises of Loyola are, likewise, very close to Yoga practice.

Finally, as Meister Eckhart wrote:

“Only the hand that erases can write the true thing”