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glamshamGal made some great points about yesterday's post. "Indian society needs leaders who are not afraid to question tradition." One of the adults I looked up to as a kid used to say that tradition can become stale and useless if we forget why we are doing it. We have to continually renew our understanding of our religion.

Also, every person's spirituality is unique. We divide people up into labels, but no two people have exactly the same understanding of their religion.

It leads me to think about why labels are so important to me. I don't know exactly. Going through my early life without one was really difficult for me. People ask what religion you are and I had no simple answer for that. Every time anyone asked me that, I would launch into a long explanation. I used the label "Advaita Vedanta" for a while, but it was frustrating that no one knows what that is, so I still had to give a whole lecture. I longed for one word that I could say that would make people go, "Oh, right. Okay." That's why I started using the label "Hindu." People might have a lot of misunderstandings of what that is, but at least they've heard of it!

And now, if they want more details, I have business cards with the URL to this blog. This is the ultimate explanation.

I found a couple of Utube videos to share today. The first one is a short documentary on white women in the UK who have converted to Islam. I found it interesting to hear them talk about being nervous about putting on the hijab in public and being so publicly visible as Muslims and about telling their parents.



This second video is much shorter, it is Sri Ravi Shankar speaking about conversion. Basically he says that it is foolish to leave the religion of your birth because all religions are equally valid. As I've said before on this blog, I think all religions are valid paths to God, but one in particular will speak to an individual and it is not always the one they are born in. But who am I to disagree with Ravi Shankar? :)