Who is a Hindu ?

[a6v]

I have been having discussions with my fellow workers in Australia on the subject of conversion. My argument was that a Hindu is born a Hindu and dies a Hindu, there is no way they can be converted into another religion. Similarly ones not born in a Hindu family may start believing in Hinduism but cannot be called real Hindu. My understanding is based on a statement given by Shankracharya a few years back on those Hindus who wanted to return to Hinduism after being converted to christianity with financial gains.

 

Does any one know if this understanding is correct and if yes then which of our holy books define this ?

 

 

[Gauracandra]

We had this discussion a little while back. I'm not sure we came to any consensus. My view is that it all depends on how you define the word 'Hindu'. The word Hindu to me has always been a catch all phrase to describe the sheer variety of religious expression in India. So is a Shakta follower hindu? Yes. Is a Sri Vaishnava follower hindu? Yes. Do the Shakta follower and Sri Vaishnava believe in the same things? No. I think you could also put Sikhs, Jains, Hatha Yogis etc.... and label them all as Hindus. I'm not positive on the historical basis of the word. I've been told it was developed by the muslims as a way of categorizing those in India who weren't mohammedan. They couldn't very well unite their people against 10,000 different faiths so they called the 10,000 different faiths 'Hindu' so as to have something to unite against. Some people will say you are born hindu, some will say you aren't. We run into problems with semantics, when two people are using the same word but have different definitions of it, and so can't reach any conclusions. Hinduism can be monotheistic, atheistic, polytheistic. But you'll notice that no Indian scripture uses the word 'hindu' anywhere. I don't know if I answered your question, but these are a few of my thoughts.

 

Gauracandra

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

The word Hindu is a modern word, not found in any ancient Sanskrit text. Perhaps the first written occurence of the word Hindu in a sacred text can be traced back around 500 years. Thus it would be interesting to ask what were our forefathers prior to the invention of this word. If someone believes one is "born a Hindu" and "dies a hindu", then what about those born before the concept existed. Maybe they belonged to a different religion?

 

Actually in the ancient times the Vedic beliefs were classified into different categories based on worship, philosophy and sadhana. For example in the category of worship (upasana), there were five classifications based on the scriptures (Agamas) they followed. Those who worshiped Shakti and who followed the shakta agamas were known as Shaktas. Those who worshipped Vishnu and followed the Vaikhanasa Agamas were known as Vaishnavas. Those who followed the Ganapatya Agamas and who worshipped various controllers such as Ganesha were called as Ganapatyas; those who followed the Saurya agamas and who worshipped Surya (the Sun) were called as Sauryas; and those who followed the shaiva agamas and who worshipped Shiva were called as Shaivas.

 

Thus there were Shaivas, Shaktas, Sauryas, Vaishnavas, and Ganapatyas, but no Hindus. Now the question becomes easier, "Is someone born a Shaiva?Is someone born a Vaishnava?" The answer is clearly no. If one disagrees, then it would be impossible for a Shakta to become a Vaishnava, or a Shaiva to become a Saurya. It no longer is just a question of Indians and Foreignors.

 

Besides the classification according to worship (or the deity one worships), there was also a bifurcating classification of philosophy. Thus you had those who followed six different systems of philosophy: Nyaya Vaiseshika, Sankhya, Yoga, Karma-Mimamsa, and Brahma Mimamsa. This would have been another major way to identify one's beliefs in the ancient times.

 

A third method of discrimination was based on one's sadhana or spiritual practice. There were those who followed karma-yoga, jnana-yoga, ashtanga-yoga, and bhakti-yoga.

 

According to Bhagavad Gita anyone who worships Lord Krishna with love and devotion is the topmost yogi. It does not depend on birth or other external designations.

 

[a6v]

I think that just because Hinduism is not a strict religion people have distorted the way ved and other ancient text have defined the term Hindu.

 

I would disagree with Gauracandra as it was never the muslims who coined the term Hindu. It came from the river Sindhu (or Indus) Evidence that Hinduism must have existed even circa 10000 B.C. is available even Rigveda was being composed well before 6500 BC

 

Basically Hinduism does not support forced conversion from any other religion and this is due to the ancient belief that a Hindu is born and cannot be converted into one.

[shvu]

Hi a6v,

 

'I would disagree with Gauracandra as it was never the muslims who coined the term Hindu. It came from the river Sindhu (or Indus)'

 

The name did come from the river. But who coined this name? Obviously it has to be foreigners. And it has to be either the Greeks or the Muslims.

 

'Evidence that Hinduism must have existed even circa 10000 BC is available even Rigveda was being composed well before 6500 BC'

 

The oldest known civilization according to history is the Mesapotamian civilization and that is 7000-8000 bc. As far as I know noting has been discovered yet to show that Hinduism is that old. Neither can the Rig-veda be pushed back to 6500 BC.

 

'Basically Hinduism does not support forced conversion from any other religion and this is due to the ancient belief that a Hindu is born and cannot be converted into one. '

 

As far as I know, none of the old religions had a conversion policy. Because they all maintain that they were originally from God. For them there was no question of any parallel religions and hence the question of conversion does not arise.

 

However with changing trends, coonversion to hinduism is available now. One can visit a Arya Samaj center and they handle that, although I am not aware of the details. With ISKCON, westerners have switched to worshipping Krishna and some have even taken Sanskrit names. They can come under the label of Hindus too, I guess.

 

Cheers

[ggohil]

Jai Sri Krsna:

 

Is a person born in a Brahmin family, necessarily a Brahman, even if he does not practise that particular way of life.

 

I think one is what one prctises, rather then one's birth in a particular religion,cast or family.

[Love]

I think we get side-tracked by the semantics and everything else. The aim is to find "Who is a Hindu?". Languages change over periods of time and words acquire different connotations. So, if we take Hindu to mean what it means today and then take it back to the ancient times when may be some other word was used for this, then a Hindu is one who practises Hinduism. Now, Honduism is not a religion for a religion is something that is bound by a Holy Book of some sort. And Hinduism does not have nay such Holy Book. Indeed, there are innumerable ancient texts to refer to, but yet it is not like the Bible or the Koran. Hinduism is a way of life. It is dharma. And dharma is not something that can be bound to the small confines of a book. Dharma is something ever-flowing, ever-fresh flow of energy within our conscious and unconscious self. It is to culture the nerves and instincts in our body to first make them humane at the somatic level and then, on this solid foundation create the magnificent structure that houses our more stable psychological (manomaya kosh), scientific (vigyaanmaya kosh), intellectual (gyaanmaya kosh), spiritual (aanandmaya kosh) selves. I am not implying that the somatic-self, this transitory body, is in any way inferior to our spiritual self, or psycholigical self, etc but that we need a healthy body to start our jourbey towards final aim in this life. This aim is only to become a better human being to the extent that you merge into the Viraat Purush. So, any person in the world who strives for this aim is then a Hindu. Anyone, who makes it his dharma to become a human being is a Hindu. One does not need to be born a Hindu to be a Hindu. In fact, I am sure there are many Hindus today in this world who had the furtune of being born Hindu, yet they have not realised what it is to be a Hindu and so they are in no way Hindu, even though for sake of statistics they are Hindu, since they are not doing the duty unto themselves by practising their dharma. They have allowed the original dharmic energy in themselves to be submerged in the storm of greed or lust or whatever personal ignorance.

I think it is time that we Hindus understood what it meant to be a Hindu. As a Hindu you followed your dharma and when you followed the path of your dharma, constantly struggling to find its way, you naturally followed the dharma of the society and as you could evolve further you find the dharma of the Single Force of this entire creation.

[animesh]

Hi Love,

Is this your first entry in this forum? Welcome.

 

You have written that there are many holy books in Hinduism. Well, I do not think that it is necessary to have only one holy book. It is perfectly OK to have many. But they should not contradict each other. If they do, then it should be clearly mentioned which one will get precedence. If my knowledge is correct, then vedas and upanishads are considered to be most holy books in Hinduism.

 

You have also written that it is time that we Hindus understood what it meant to be a Hindu. But you have not mentioned what you consider as "being Hindu".

 

btw: Let me take this opportunity to say that I really liked your reply. It is very nicely written. It seems that English is your first language.

[Love]

Hello Animesh,

Thanks for welcoming me aboard. Well, I guess I need to introduce myself then. I am an Indian who comes from Dehradun in UP. My first language is Hindi and not English. And my real name is just as well Love. Enough of introduction.

When I said that Hinduism had many Holy Books, it is not in the regular meaning fo the word. Hinduism has many ancient texts that we can refer to. But they are all philosophic works that teach us about the Truths of the temporal and infinite. None-the-less, they are as much of personal experiences of some person as they can be. For instance, the personal experience of Rishi Vyasa (the greatest person who ever walke don this earth) manifested themselves in the form of Puranas. However, I believe they have been codified so that everyone does not gain this knowledge easily. If you may know, in ancient India there was a great emphasis on testing a student in the gurukul before giving him any knowledge. It was considered important that the person seeking knowledge had samskaras before he could learn what the great texts said. For the same reason, though Vyasa wished to retain his experiences for posterity, he did not wish for it to become easily accessible. So, purana are full of stories about Gods and so on. However, these are just stories that tell us something that happens within us all the time in the form of archetypes. For instance, there is this story from the time when Brahmanji was starting to create. He is sitting on the lotus that has sprung from the navel of Vishnuji. And there is some sort of fluid everywhere around him. It is called Ashnaya - meaning something that does not exist but wishes to exist. Whatever Brahmanji tries to create is eaten up by this Ashnaya and the demons within it. However, Vishnuji is all unaffected by this and sleeping on SheshNaag. Now this can be interpreted just as a story, or from a scientific perspective or through a philosophic eye. In that context I see a teaching that the power of creation within us is surrounded by this World whcih does not let its beautiful visions to be realised. And God (Vishnu) does not bother at all anyway. Why is it most of the geniuses born worldwide had a great struggle before they could make the world see their vision. It is the same archetype which they had to come out of. There are two ways you can come out of this archetype. One is by pure dedication which takes time but comes in the end, or the other way is by knowledge whereby you know that this happens at the time you feel this power of creativity in yourself. Now, Vishnuji is not taking part in this and helping out Brahmanji. The fact is that it is time for creation and so Brahmanji has to do creation. There is no doubt that Brahmanji is also Vishnuji and vice-versa. But, at creativity only the power of creatino needs to be active in us and the power of sustenance or any other power. So, Vishnuji is asleep in this story. Besides, each power within us is absolute in itself. I hope I was able to give some ideas here. Now carrying on from where I strated in this paragraph - Hinduism does not have any Holy Book in the regular context. It is so because none of our ancient texts teach us how to live. they were the personal experiences of some great rishi. Our expereinces could be different, but if I am also strving to attain Truth my conclusions will come out to be the same. My experience to gain the same Truth though may be different. I guess for lack of any word we could borrow from English, Holy Book was used. Ancient text or Hindu philosophy is a better substitue I guess. If you see Bible is the Holy Book. It is a book that teaches ten commandments to life. Now, I am not condemning Bible in any way, but Bible was a book for people who were in a way much lesser developed that the indians of that age. Indians were a highly developed race at that time and hence, have much developed books and philosophies from that time. Besides, none of the ancient texts tell us how to live life in this fashion - thy shall not lie, etc. For this reason any of the Hindu books are not Holy books. Tajke Koran and you will find it saying same sort of things - i.e. do this, don;t do that, etc. India did not have a concept of religion in the ancient time. It was just dharma. Dharma is what makes a planet go round the sun, makes an apple tree bear apples and not oranges, makes the sun rise and set. It is eternal. It is the dharma of the tiger to kill in order to survive. It is the way we truly are. If you see, animals are born as they are in nature and then tehy live in that way. While humans, once born, cover their initial/ original nature with so many other things out of greed, shyness, or whatever reason. Small babies almost have a smile/ laughter that makes them look foolish. But the fact is that it is our intelligence that has grown up in the ways of the world that may find it a bit simpleton kind of a laugh. I could go on, but so may things come up in mind and I end up swaying from the thing being written. So, being a hindu means following your dharma. IN modern man it has come to be to discover it first and then following it as over centuries of confusions we have become like rubbles of concrete and we have to dig under and under to find that scared entity called dharma somewhere deep inside the rubble. Remeber, world is just a environment provided to us so that we may learn to take rebirth from negative energies constantly and reconstitute positive from them.

I may not have written everything you may have epxected but then please let me know what else was it that you expected to see here and I will write it. I will certainly be writing something more on what it means being a hindu sometime today evening or tomorrow. But for now I need to close this writing as I have to get ready. Wish you all a very Happy Holi. Let this be the day when you do not burn away the negative enrgies with yourselves for know it that you cannot destroy anything that was created. You may only transform it. Just as seven colours of the rainbow combine to give the sunlight (white light), you can leaarn the art of self-sacrifice to recombine the negative enrgies within yourself into positive and something more productive. But at the same time remeber negative is not evil. It is Kali ma and we have to learn like Hanuman ji to go into the jaws of Sursa and come back alive (take rebirth). These are terrible mothers, but mothers none-the-less, and so they command respect from us. They come to make us free of various forces in life so that we may reach our eventual destination - The Viraat Purush.

 

[Love]

Who is a Hindu?

 

I don't know if I can answer this very well as it will take much to write by someone as ignoratn as me. However, I will try and make an attempt at it.

 

If we go to ancient times, from whatever we know, India was not a nation based on geographical boundaries as much as the strength of the culture. No wonder, many invaders came but could not root out this culture even though they ravaged the entire land known as India. India never had any religion. All we had was dharma. One followed his dharma to do karma. When one did this, he invoked purushartha in himself. It is at this point that you became your own destiny. Culture developed in India to pass on the philosophical truths to the common man. Culture means nothing more than a disciplining of ones nerves ( I mean all indriya, sensations, etc) to free them of the various archetypes. As you continued to do this, your actions became more and more humane and better prepared for spiritual life, if one so desired. Culture was the way to live a worldly life. This culture was actually samskaras that one's parents inculcated in their children. Anyone, who did not discipline his nerves to becom3e humane was a rakshasa. So, it is not that there wa a separate race of demons in India. They were the same people who chose not to follow sharma but were totally hedonistic people who lived their lives in total negation of what their dharma told them. Why is it that Prahalad, a son to a demon-king could free himself of the samskaras that were passed to him as a demon and become a human. He chose to. It was this culture that none-the-less bound the people of 'rakshasa pravarti' also. Why is it that Ravana never outraged Sita by forcing her to marry him? He always asked her in different ways - fear, greed, etc. The reason was that people in ancient India believed that tow sould can only help one another when they truly unite and foricng someone to marry was not going to help them in furthering their lives. So, it is not that Hindus always had the girls married at an early age. These are the social-evils of more modern times. Draupadi, Sita were not very young in age when they got married, and got married to people of their choice. So, this is naother way we have forgotten what it meant to be a Hindu. I could go on but it is senseless harping on the past. We need to see where we are today and how to come out of these problems that we face as a race and individuals. Some ways to start becoming a Hindu could be:

1). Stop letting mediocrity flower. We may not be able to make mcuh dents as media is the strongest medium today and perhaps has more impact than us and they are guided in providing their columns in return for favours, or as guided by coterie of people - unions, conferences, etc. If this were not true why is it that we can never get to recognise the geniuses among us? We could never appreciate Tagore, Ramanujam, Bose, etc until they were recognised by the international community.

2). Learn a way of making ourselves a channel for any hatred as that is the surest way to lose one's culture. Instead, we need to learn to take re-birth from the negative energies that surround us and we will find that they get transformed magically into positivity in us. I will take an example here: Let's say that you are having a debate on somehting with someone. The debate tunrs into an argument and then almost a fight. Why did it happen this way? If at this juncture, you search within yourself for the negative enrgies in yourself you will find that you perhaps had following : extreme anger, reluctance to look for the truth and bilnd-will to proving your own point as right, irritation, ill-will and maybe many more. However, these negative energies come usually in sets of four, seven or eight and then further as multiples of 4. I don't know why but that is what I have been taught from eperience. So, if at that point you just suggest your somatic-self that it should do a self-sacrifice of itself unto these negative energies as terrible mothers who have come to help it in getting a rebirth from them so that the world may not harm you in any way and also suggets that your somatic-self respects them as equal to the Truth being your mothers, they will be forced to provide you re-birth ( which was called dwija (twice-born) in Sanskrit) and retransform into your original will to seek truth in any debate instead of trying to prove your upper hand.

3). Our entire existence has been confused and we have managed to mix up the various levels of existence within us. One very clear symtom of this is that we talk of becoming spiritual in the worldly life. None of the ancient textx suggest that you may lead a worldly life and yet be spiritual. Spiritual itself meant to be beyond this world. So, the way the system worked in the ancient times was that anyone who was interested in the spiritual path, would renounce this world (in fact they were not permitted culturally to be in the cities, etc) and go to the solitude of forests, etc to achieve their aim spiritually. If anyone was interested in their knowledge, they would go to them in the forests. These sages never came to cities to teach. They only came at rare circumstances when they had to come to do their duty in upholding truth.

We have various level of existence in us - somatic (physical), scientific, psychological, intellectual and spiritual. However, each level has its own knowledge with which it should be guided to find its dharma. Over years of abuse, the somatic light worldwide has been crushed as humans have forced either spiritual, intellectual or scientific lights on their body. Why is it that we have been developing scientifucally, etc but have yet remained a very ancient man physically interms of out reactions, sensations, etc. It is becasue we have never let our somatic light speak for itself. This is another point that we forgot as Hindus, even though once this was the culture that flourished in ancient India. We have to learn to grow separately in each of these levels without forming a collusino between any of these level or imprinting one level on another. Only then we will be able to find the voice of dharma in us which can then lead us in our journey further. Remeber without dharma even truth does not support. Dharma is that pillar which has the three faces of Satya, Shiv and Sundar. Everytime we are forcing one level upon another we are doing adahrma and consigning ourselves to a miserable or meaningless life.

4). Maya was a goddes. We seem to have forgotten that Maya was to be respected as no one could escape Her. Maya is also a form of that great Shakti that everyone finds a fashion to pray to now. Maya comes to us to involve us in this worldly life. It is so because if she does not provide us the environment that she does, we will be nowhere in terms of reconciling our negative energies. Just as you cannot destroy anything in Universe (this is something of a scientific truth - matter turns into energy and vice-versa), philosophically realised this states that you cannot destroy any energy in yourself. Try and suppress any negative enrgy in you - say greed and it will take naother form including that of matter and provide you with a large fat belly. We need to learn to take re-birtjh from these enrgies. Only then they will not be bale to affect us.

 

I could perhaps go on for some more time but I am in office right now and so, I have to get back to work. I will try and compile a document in my gree time and put up my vies on the forum so that we may interact on the issues that I raise. I know that the only way to truth is by interaction whereby we all interact strviing always to find the truth.

[Love]

Hello Animesh,

By the way ...

Only a Holy Book that discusses how to live life in terms of some sort of fixed principles, ignoring the state of flux in which life is lived, may contradict each other. If written by someone smart would also tell in this case as to what takes precedence when they contradict. Hindu texts have been written as philosophies whcih do not exactly tell you what to do as they believed each had its own light and best suited to his development. They believed one could not carry far with borrowed light. Besides, dharma was something intrinsic to each individual and waiting upon being discovered within oneself and was so subtle that it could not be describes in any language. You can only make faint attempts at trying to describe it. None of the Hindu texts contradict each other as they all talk of the Truth and Truth does not contradict itself. It is only Koran, I don;t think even Bible has many ocntradictinos in this manner, perhaps has contradictions in it. I understand from one of my friends who has read Koran that it cleary says that as a Muslim it is your duty to kill the Kaafirs and you will be rewarded with heaven in afterlife where there are many beautiful nymphs and good food. However, if you do no do your duity ti Islam you will be sent eternally to dozakh (hell). Now can you compare Hindu texts and Koran on an equal scale any day?

Cheers

Love

[animesh]

Hi Love,

 

I know very little about Hindu scriptures. But I have read somewhere that there are some shastras which teach casteism. They teach that if a person of lower caste recites Vedas, then he should be severely punished, his tongue should be cut off.

 

A few days back, I started reading Upanishads. I am really getting absorbed into them. The teachings in them are very nice. Also, the phrases have got poetic beauty.

 

I really wonder why it is that some of the books teach universal love and there are some who teach hatred.

 

One reason could be that the books that teach hatred were written by some people who became very selfish. It is just impossible to believe that whatever is written in these books was taught by ancient sages of India. Because, how could those sages who were very righteous, who were content with worshipping God, doing yagna, imparting knowledge and who had no greed for material wealth could ever teach these things.

[Love]

Hello Animesh,

As far as I understand shastras are a very late addition. We as Hindus were existent much before them and Hinduism as a concept was defined for many thousand years ago when the puranas and vedas were passed on from generation to generation verbally - memorised and passed down to the next generation. Somewhere along the line, maharishi Ved Vyasa compiled them and Ganeshji wrote them as Vyasa dictated. The same is for Mahabharata also. So, these Puranas do not teach casteism. It is only the brahmins (not the sages) who confused the Indian civilsation and confounded it to the downfall that we are experiencing today. They were the ones who created shastras and casteism. Even then it would have been a nobel idea if executed as it was supposed to be. The story goes that there were four brotehrs in the house. One of them decided that he wanted to fight for the country and became a kshatriya. Another said that he wanted to gain knowledge and became a brahmin. ANotehr deceded that he wanted to earn money and he became vaishya. WHile the last one thought that all of my brothers are gone. Whi will take czare of the fields and our parents. So, he became shudra. This presents an idea that the society was divided into different castes as per the job anyone performed. Valmiki was a thief who realised the folly behind his karmas and became one of the greatest sages India has known. He could become a brahmin once he had realised the higher purpose in his life. So, one cannot say that the caste system was as it is today. It is the parochial and greed-commanded motives of the brahmins (people who knew the various texts in Sanskrit by heart and could help common man perform various tasks required in worldly life - like marriage, cremation, yagya, etc). They colluded with the kings and in order to become the supreme of all the castes proclaimed shudra as lowly people. Indeed, they were lowly people but no great man in india ever taught that lowly people were to be looked down upon or even segregated from society. It taught that our duty was to help them come out of their confusions in life and evolve. It was really the samskaras of a person that told what caste he was. Karna, in Mahabharata, was portrayed as sood-putra, but who became one of the greatest kshatriyas depicted in mahabharata. There must have been a very good reason that Ved Vyasa showed him to be brought up in a different environment and yet become a kshatriya by actions.

Lastly, I did not say that some of these sages taught hatred. It was Mohammed, from Arab, whose teachins are in Koran and he taught that hatred. Please remember that Muslims invaded India (that is another story of a great betrayal of a race in experimentation - the invasion of Muslims to India) and they had originally belonged here. Koran is their Holy Book and it only so teaches. THere is not a single indian text that preaches hatred for it will be against the dharma. Also, if the shastra said that if a shudra recited shlokas from Vedas his tongue should be cut off, it has come from the belief that Vedas could be very wrong weapon in the hands of the ignorant or someone who had not the samskaras (or cultured himself). That is why, it was a socila duty to ensure that the vedas did not fall into the hands of everyone but were part of the conscious of elite few. People who had proved that they were capable of learning from Vedas and yet not be affected enough to turn to unnatural acts. That is also why any one who came to be a student at a gurukul was tested for being worthy of the techings of teh vedas before he would be given the knowledge.

[animesh]

The biggest reason for so many vice (sati system, casteism etc.) in the name of religion is,in my opinion, blind faith. When you blindly follow somebody or some book, then you do not exercise your thinking ability. In turn, you do many wrong things thinking that they are right. Example can be given of sati system. When this system was very much in vogue in India, then close relatives of a new widow used to force her to jump into funeral pyre. It is not that all of these people were criminal. No. But they used to do such heinous act because they really belived that the widow would become a devi.

Now also I find that there are many who think that one should have blind faith in religious matters. Even if their faith is extremely dangerous for both themselves as well as the society, then also they will not change their belief. According to them, these beliefs are commanded by God and ,therefore, must be true. They think that those beliefs may seem to be bad but because it is written in some book which they consider as holy or because it is told by somebody whom they consider as holy person, then they should blindly follow that.

[shvu]

Hi Animesh,

 

You have made some Good points. There is only one kind of faith, and that is Blind Faith.

 

'when you blindly follow somebody or some book, then you do not exercise your thinking ability.'

 

Exactly. And if one exercises one's thinking ability, then there is no faith anymore. Faith is to 'accept without questioning'. We all have blind faith at some level. We simply accept the scientist's word. We don't actually conduct a proof to verify every statement. We are content with the knowledge that it can be proved or disproved.

 

'According to them, these beliefs are commanded by God and ,therefore, must be true.'

 

This arises due to lack of reasoning. First of all they have absolutely no idea, if there is a God. They never question the basics. When they don't do that, the whole situation gets messed up.

 

'They think that those beliefs may seem to be bad but because it is written in some book which they consider as holy or because it is told by somebody whom they consider as holy person, then they should blindly follow that.'

 

Yeah...it is really unfortunate.

 

Cheers

[ggohil]

Hare Krsna:

 

Dear Shvu:

 

“.......................... First of all they have absolutely no idea, if there is a God....... .”

 

You keep making statements like above.

 

You obviously have developed the ability to know what is in people’s mind and heart.

 

It appearts to me that you cannot bring yourself to believe in God. That is fine.

 

But please refrain from being an authority on what we feel.

[shvu]

 

Hi Ggohil,

 

Here is what I said in response to what Animesh said,

 

-------

Animesh: 'According to them, these beliefs are commanded by God and ,therefore, must be true.'

 

Shvu: This arises due to lack of reasoning. First of all they have absolutely no idea, if there is a God. They never question the basics. When they don't do that, the whole situation gets messed up.

-----

 

Now perhaps you can explain what you meant by your statment?

 

Cheers

 

[ggohil]

Hare Krsna:

 

Dear Shvu:

 

Why do you think that people who have surrendered have not questioned their belief.

 

It may be true, that measuring by your standard people may not have questioned their faith

enough. But surly how much one questions one’s belief is relative.

 

People you believe in God, do know for a fact that there is God. They cannot prove this to your

satisfaction.

 

So on what grounds do claim that people do not know for certain if there is God.

[shvu]

Hi Ggohil,

 

My statement refers to those who believe [out of faith] that there is a God. They also have faith that traditions [good or bad] were laid down by God and should be followed immaterial fo their consequences. They don't know if there is a God. For them God is a belief.

 

If some person knows for sure that there is a God, then he does not come under the 'believing' category. For him God is a fact and not a belief. My statement does not apply to such a person, if there really is anyone like that. I am strictly talking about people who believe in a God, because the books and Gurus have said there is one.

 

Hope I was clear.

 

Cheers

[ggohil]

Hare Krsna:

 

Dear Shvu:

 

Thanks for your reply, I will have to thing about what you said.

 

Girish

[animesh]

Hi ggohil,

One clarification. I do not consider believing in God as anything bad. It is said that there are people who have realized God. Well, I have not realized, but I accept that there might be people who have really realized- it is definitely a possibility. So, belief in God is nothing bad, but I do criticize so many vice in society in the name of religion.

[animesh]

One day I was discussing with one person, roughly of the same age as me, who is a christian. The discussion started with theory of evolution, but then it moved towards christianity. He told me about "father, son and holy spirit". He said only those in whom holy spirit had entered could call themselves as true christians. He belived that holy spirit had entered into him and therefore he was a true christian. When I asked him as to why he was so confident, he made many statements which I could neither prove nor disprove. Example: Using my spiritual eyes, I am right now seeing that I will reach God after death.

 

Not only that he even went on to the extent of claiming that other than christianity, every other religion was a lie. He said to me that if God really loved someone, then that person would convert to christianity. By giving many arguments, I tried to convince him that his way of thinking was very dangerous. But he was fully confident that his belief was correct. I did not feel like continuing that discussion further and stopped the discussion.

 

After that I really started wondering: If a person whom God really loves and in whom holy spirit has entered, starts making such kind of communal statements, then is it worth that God should love anyone?

[animesh]

It is true that everybody has got blind faith at some level. So long as one's faith does not do anything bad to others, they are entitled to cling to their faith. But, the moment it starts affecting other people's lives in a negative way, then others have got the right to question their faith.

 

Unfortunately, many times we find that one person tries to force his belief upon others. The situation becomes specially worse if the person forcing his belief has got some kind of position power.

 

Example can be given of statues being broken in Taliban. According to them, if Islam asks one not to do idol worship, then nobody should do idol worship.

[animesh]

Hi ggohil,

There are many people who claim that they believe in God, but a large no. of them do not really believe. You will find many people who say with full confidence that there is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God, but still they do something wrong. That wrong thing may be wrong in the eyes of law or society or both. If they find that they have taken every care not to leave any proof, then they do that wrong thing. If they really believe in God, why do they do this? After all, how can one take care that he has not left any proof for God to find out their wrong deeds? You will find people who will claim that there is existence of heaven and hell. But why are they not afraid of going to hell when they do something wrong?

Well, there are people who have real faith in God, as you can see by their righteous way of living, but their no. is very little. On the other hand, there are many who will say very firmly that they believe in God, in heaven and hell, in deities, in soul etc. etc. But they do not believe in all these WHOLE-HEARTEDLY.

[ggohil]

Jai Sri Krsna:

 

Dear Animesh:

 

“If they really believe in God, why do they do this?”

 

We know which food is good for us and yet we eat food that is harmful to us, similarly people who believe in God end up performing actions which are contrary to his teachings.