We Are All Hindus Now - By Lisa Miller | NEWSWEEK - # 2

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We Are All Hindus Now

By Lisa Miller | NEWSWEEK

Published Aug 15, 2009

 

America is not a Christian nation. We are, it is true, a nation

founded by Christians, and according to a 2008 survey, 76 percent of

us continue to identify as Christian (still, that's the lowest

percentage in American history). Of course, we are not a Hindu—or

Muslim, or Jewish, or Wiccan—nation, either. A million-plus Hindus

live in the United States, a fraction of the billion who live on

Earth. But recent poll data show that conceptually, at least, we are

slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians

in the ways we think about God, our selves, each other, and eternity.

 

The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: " Truth is

One, but the sages speak of it by many names. " A Hindu believes there

are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur'an is another, yoga

practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal.

The most traditional, conservative Christians have not been taught to

think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is

true, and others are false. Jesus said, " I am the way, the truth, and

the life. No one comes to the father except through me. "

 

Americans are no longer buying it. According to a 2008 Pew Forum

survey, 65 percent of us believe that " many religions can lead to

eternal life " —including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group

most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the

number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing.

Thirty percent of Americans call themselves " spiritual, not religious, "

according to a 2009 NEWSWEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in

2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has

long framed the American propensity for " the divine-deli-cafeteria

religion " as " very much in the spirit of Hinduism. You're not picking

and choosing from different religions, because they're all the same, "

he says. " It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works. If

going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works,

great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist

retreat works, that's great, too. "

 

Then there's the question of what happens when you die. Christians

traditionally believe that bodies and souls are sacred, that together

they comprise the " self, " and that at the end of time they will be

reunited in the Resurrection. You need both, in other words, and you

need them forever. Hindus believe no such thing. At death, the body

burns on a pyre, while the spirit—where identity resides—escapes. In

reincarnation, central to Hinduism, selves come back to earth again

and again in different bodies. So here is another way in which

Americans are becoming more Hindu: 24 percent of Americans say they

believe in reincarnation, according to a 2008 Harris poll. So

agnostic are we about the ultimate fates of our bodies that we're

burning them—like Hindus—after death. More than a third of Americans

now choose cremation, according to the Cremation Association of North

America, up from 6 percent in 1975. " I do think the more spiritual

role of religion tends to deemphasize some of the more starkly

literal interpretations of the Resurrection, " agrees Diana Eck,

professor of comparative religion at Harvard. So let us all say " om. "

 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/212155

 

 

“The doctrine of bodily resurrection, linked closely to the soul's

nature and destiny, suffers like a fate. The ancients knew little or

nothing about the human organism—its chemical constituents, its

functioning parts, its psychology—and even less about the nature of

death. Modern man has measured corruption, can detail the chemical

changes that take place when bodily life ceases, has a clear idea of

what precisely corruption and decay of the human frame connote, and

defines human death precisely by the cessation of the observable

functions of the body. The three religions define death as the moment

when the soul leaves the body.

 

On the other hand, the scientist cannot accept the “outside”

explanation: that a god will “resurrect” the corrupted body. He knows

that in a living body today the actual molecules which compose it

were not part of it some time ago. In another decade it will be made

up of molecules which at present are elsewhere: in African lions, in

passion-flowers of the Amazon, in Maine lobsters, in earth in

Patagonia, and in the fur of a Polar bear. For the scientist, the

body as such has truly ceased to exist. No “shade” or reduced form of

the body exists in an “underworld” or in Elysian fields. The body has

ceased to exist. He therefore finds the resurrection of the body

unintelligible.”

 

Malachi Martin, The Encounter,

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970, 286.

 

 

" Of course there are some absurd things which grew with

misinterpretation and interference from unholy people, which are

common in these religions. For example, Jews, Christian and Muslims

believe that when they die their bodies will come out of their graves

and they will all be resurrected at the Time of Resurrection, at the

Time of Last Judgment, at the Time of Qiyamah. It is illogical to

think what will remain inside those graves after five hundred years.

Nobody wants to think and understand that it is not the body but the

soul that will come out of these bodies, be born again as human

beings and be saved through Qiyamah and Resurrection. "

 

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

 

 

" There are lots of myths in the Bible and one of them is that at the

Time of Resurrection your bodies will come out of the graves. This is

not only for Christians, but also for the Muslims and Jews. Think of

this - What remains in the grave after many years? Only a few bones.

And if these bones came out how can you give them Realization? Think

of it. It is a big myth. Not possible logically. "

 

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

India - December 25, 1993

 

 

" That’s what it is today. I do not know that what it is to that we

are now in the Blossom Time, as I call it, because many flowers are

born and they are to become the fruits. This is the Resurrection

Time, which is described in all the scriptures, but it’s not like

this, the way they had described us. Something wrong with them that

all the dead bodies who are in the graves will come out of the

graves. I mean, how much is left out of them, God knows. Must be some

bones or maybe some skulls there. So they’ll come out of the graves

and they will get their Resurrection. This is a very wrong idea.

 

Once I happened to mean a fellow, a Muslim from Bosnia and he told

Me, " I want to die for my religion, for God’s sake. " I said, " But

why? Who told you to die? " He said, " Now, if I die in the name of

God, I’ll be resurrected. " I said, " It’s all wrong. That’s not the

way it is going to work out. Resurrection is going to work out this

way that at this time, all these souls will take their birth. All

these souls will take their birth and they will be resurrected. As

human beings they’ll have to come. "

 

That’s why we find all kinds of funny people these days, all kinds of

cruel, criminal, all kinds of idiotic, stupid, I mean very queer,

weird, funny ideas which find such, such a variety of people and such

a tremendous population that we should understand they have to have

their chance of Resurrection. But how many will come? That’s the

point. How many are going to come? "

 

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Philadelphia, USA — October 15, 1993

 

 

" Today is the day we are celebrating Easter. Easter is extremely

symbolic not only of Christ, but also for all of us, in that the most

important day is that of the Resurrection. The Resurrection of Christ

has the Message of Christianity. Through Resurrection Christ has

shown that one can be resurrected with the body that you have. "

 

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Self-Knowledge For Resurrection

Easter Puja, Calcutta, India — March 14, 1995

 

 

" If we follow Him (Jesus) then we cannot be conditioned by anything

because He talked of Spirit only. Spirit cannot be conditioned,

conditioned by anything...

 

I am here to tell you all these things which Christ could not tell,

and to fulfil what He wanted to say. All those things I am saying to

you.”

 

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Christmas Puja, Delhi, India — Dec. 24, 1995

 

 

" Today we are celebrating the resurrection of Christ. With it we also

have to celebrate the resurrection of human beings, of Sahaja Yogis,

who have been resurrected as realised souls. With that we have to

understand that we enter into a new awareness. He had to come down

and again to show to this world that you are the eternal life, that

you lead a life that is spiritual, which never perishes. You have to

rise, into that new realm, which is the Realm of God Almighty, what

you call the Kingdom of God.

 

And He said it very clearly to Nicodemus that ‘You have to be born

again’ when he asked, ‘Am I to enter back into my mother’s womb?’ And

He said it so clearly. Those who don’t want to see can remain blind.

No, that is, whatever is born of the flesh, is the flesh, but

whatever is born of the Spirit is the Spirit.’

 

But whatever is manmade is not the Spirit. This is the clear

statement of Christ, which people wanted to avoid, and start their

own organisations, and ideas, and created a very mythical thing in

His name. And now the time has come for it to be blasted. It has been

going on and on now for thousands of years, captures so many innocent

people and people are into it. "

 

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

V4 No 23 Sept 84 p4

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