This is a phrase that I hear a lot. It is said that one should stay within the religion of one's birth.
Why is that?
Firstly, because of reincarnation, there are no mistakes with birth. You are exactly where you are supposed to be and facing what you should be facing. Presumably, you would be born into the proper religion and ethnicity for your soul at this time (the same reason given for the caste system).
Secondly, one of the reasons that Hinduism is not a converting religion is that there is the belief in One Mountain, Many Paths. This is another phrase you'll hear a lot! It means that almost everyone believes that there is One Truth (in fact, probably everyone does because really there is a way that the universe is functioning, it isn't functioning multiple different ways at the same time). So, everyone believes that there is One Truth of what is going on in this world, but Hindus believe that there are many different paths one can take to arrive at the same Truth.
Many, many Hindus believe that all the world's religions are valid ways of approaching the same Truth and the same God. (Of course, some do not, and it can be hard when one has a chip on one's shoulder about Christianity and Islam, as some of us definitely do.)
So if you do believe that all the religions are equally valid ways to approach God, what would be the benefit in switching?
Well, I'll tell you!
I personally do believe that all religions and even atheism lead to the same Truth. We all have very different ways of thinking about divinity and the universe and that's why there are so many different options. We, as people, are all different.
Our differences don't really line up along ethnic lines, though. Not all Indians think about the universe and the purpose of life the same way and not all Americans think of it the same way either.
I believe that each of us, as an individual, has a path that speaks to us most clearly and will be the most beneficial way to achieve the purpose of life (whatever that is). Sometimes that is not the path into which we are born.
As my very kind boyfriend has pointed out a few times, if God wanted to experience all varieties of life and created the universe for that purpose, wouldn't He also want to experience the struggle of leaving the religion of birth to find a new path?
I understand that sometimes this can cause great conflict within a family, so that is something to consider if you are converting to another religion. Think about whether the strife or pain it causes is worth it to you. Perhaps try to find the Truth you are seeking within the religion of your parents. But that is not always going to work.
Also, for some of us that is not really a conflict. I've spoken before about my own personal history. It is very hard to pin down what religion I was born to. I know many other people my age in this country who were raised without religion. Not necessarily with atheism, but rather with a neutral base so that the child can decide for him or herself what religion to follow. This, it seems to me, leads to a lot of confusion and difficulty for the child who has no religion, which is why I intend to give my kids a good strong base before they go off and explore their own beliefs, but nonetheless, it means that there are a number of young adults now who have no religion of their birth.
We each make our choices in life, weighing how individual we are going to be versus what considerations our family needs. We rarely make perfect choices. Sometimes there are no perfect answers and sometimes we just make mistakes. But if we were already perfect, there would be no need for a manifest world at all. (Although, at the same time, we are already perfect and everything that happens is perfectly as it should be...there I go being ambivalent again.)
The thing I believe most firmly of all is that we cannot make choices for others. Each of us is responsible to make the choices in life and if we see someone else on a path we think is wrong, we can talk to that person and try to understand, but their choice is ultimately their own. All this is to say that we cannot know if another person's life is going to lead him to leave the religion of his birth and pursue another. He needs to be free to do that in order to try and experience and see if that brings him the peace he needs.
Hinduism being my chosen path, it is easy to get somewhat jealous of born Hindus because any time they want to become religious, the religion I adore is there waiting for them as the legitimate religion of their birth. However, then I remember that I don't believe that our ethnicity lines up with our religious path and there are some born Hindus who might do better in another religion and they are free to choose that as well.
It might be the American in me that focuses so much on choice, but I am not willing to sit this life out while I wait to be born into an ethnically Hindu home.
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Meditation
Meditation is a word of many meanings.
For some it is guided meditations, where people tell you about walking through a deep wood, for some it is thinking and deeply pondering problems, for some it is prayer, for some it is a mantra.
There are a lot of ideas about what meditation does. Some think it is just to relax, some think it is the most important key to becoming enlightened. Some think it can have a measurable effect and others don't. There are a number of people who attribute the dissolution of the Cold War to an increase in meditation.
My experience with meditation in Hinduism is the mantra-based kind.
The idea of a mantra meditation is that you are training your mind. We do not want to be slaves to our thoughts and our racing mind, we want to be the master of it. Thoughts are fine, they have their place, but it is better to have the control of mind to choose when to think and when to simply act. Practice would ideally make someone able to stop the chattering in the head that clouds our lives. The practice is to repeat a mantra silently over and over while sitting up very straight ("as though drawn by a string from above"). When thoughts come in, as they inevitably do, one gently brings one's attention back to the mantra.
The mantra itself can be a word or a phrase or a whole poem.
I'm going to start by telling you about my own experience with meditation and then tell you more about it's history and varieties.
My parents have meditated since before I was born. They meditate for half an hour at dawn and half an hour at dusk, every day, without fail. I have never known them to miss it, no matter where they are. My mother sits on a chair, and my father uses a wooden meditation bench. He times the half hour on his watch.
When I was a young child I was fascinated by this practice and terribly curious. I wanted to know what the mantra was. But my parents wouldn't tell me. They said it was a sacred word, not to be spoken out loud except during the initiation ceremony. Saying it out loud would dissipate its spiritual energies. I was desperate to know what it was.
My mom tells me that I used to make my Barbie dolls meditate.
I started taking classes when I was ten in preparation to being initiated into meditation. At 13, the ceremony was performed. An official initiator flew to America from England. We cleaned the School building and put fresh flowers everywhere. A number of people were being initiated. I brought a basket with fruit, a white cloth, and some other items to present to the initiator. I was brought to a room where he started chanting the mantra and motioned for me to join him. For five minutes or so we chanted the mantra, a single word, over and over. Then I went to a second room to practice with an older practitioner. We silently meditated for ten minutes.
After that I was expected to meditate for half an hour in the morning and half an hour at night, ideally as close to dawn and dusk as possible.
At first I was completely thrilled to have taken this step toward being an adult member of my community. I excitedly told my best friend's family about it at dinner at their house. Her much older cousin told me that the only reason that they said the mantra was "secret" was that they didn't want me to know that everyone in the organization had the same mantra.
I was pretty shocked that she wanted to stamp on my pride and excitement. I guess she was just nervous that this was a cult situation. But I already knew that everyone had the same mantra, it was selected for the School by a Chankaracharya in India. I was unfazed by her negativity.
However, I soon found that the rules were a burden. I hated the pressure and expectation of how often I should be meditating. It was so, so hard to sit still for 30 minutes at a time when there were so many other things I could be doing. I was guilted about it frequently, told that meditation was the most important practice and the only thing that would lead me to my goal of enlightenment. It became something my parents nagged me about. Every day: "Have you meditated yet?" For the most part, I stopped completely, only doing it when on retreats or at the School.
I had a resurgence of meditation after a girl in my freshman college dorm was killed in a car accident. I was terrified of dying and I knew that meditation was what I was supposed to be doing with my life.
Since then I have stopped again. My parents always said that it "works in the dark" and so I should not expect results from meditation, but I have little motivation to do something that isn't bringing me any particular satisfaction or joy. In fact, it mostly calls to mind memories of sitting outside at dawn, freezing cold, and trying not to nod off and fall of my chair in front of a strict tutor.
I still use the mantra to try to help me fall asleep and I meditate for a few minutes as part of my puja in the mornings.
My mind is far from calm, so it might be worth finding a meditation technique that really can control my mind. There are others available.
The meditation I was taught is called Transcendental Meditation. In the form it is done today, it was invented by the Maharishi in the 1950s (though he claims that its origins are 5,000 years old).
In the 1960s and 70s the Maharishi traveled the Western world. The founder of the School was initiated in England at that time. He was so impressed with the technique, that he founded his School on it.
For this type of meditation you must be initiated. It is considered dangerous to choose your own mantra because you don't know the subtle vibrations of those sounds and what effect they might have on your psyche.
On the other hand, a wonderful teacher named Eknath Easwaran has encouraged everyone to create his own meditation practice. The thing I love most about Easwaran is that his voice is so calm and clear and full of joy. Everything I read of his leaves me feeling at peace and like life is really a delightful game. Art has left some links to his material, so I'm reposting one of those links on Easwaran's meditation technique.
He encourages people to choose a passage that is meaningful to them, a prayer or a poem from any tradition. Please read and enjoy his page about meditation: http://easwaran.org/page/101 There is an organization of his followers called the Blue Mountain Center in Northern California. I went to one of their retreats once and had a delightful time. http://www.easwaran.org/page/220
I've always been uncomfortable with the guided meditations, but some people find them very relaxing and helpful. Yoga teachers are often good resources for this style.
Buddhists often meditate for many hours at a time and I don't know how they do it! We were told that the hour a day was the correct measure, but there are many monks who think there should be a lot more meditation.
Some traditions use mala beads to count mantras, similar to a rosary.
Meditation is something that has loomed so large in my life and now I'm not sure that it deserved such an exalted place. I think it is valuable and is part of my "spiritual arsenal" as it were, but not the most important thing. To me, the guilt and pressure associated with it negated whatever positive effect I might have gotten. I may go back to it now that I am removed from that pressure, but I also may not. I'm not sure yet.
Since all I know well is TM and I've had just a little exposure to other forms, I am curious to do some more research about the history of meditation in Hinduism. I'll let you all know what I discover!
I think I will soon write a post about Sanskrit, the language of all the holy books of Hinduism, and what people believe about it.
For some it is guided meditations, where people tell you about walking through a deep wood, for some it is thinking and deeply pondering problems, for some it is prayer, for some it is a mantra.
There are a lot of ideas about what meditation does. Some think it is just to relax, some think it is the most important key to becoming enlightened. Some think it can have a measurable effect and others don't. There are a number of people who attribute the dissolution of the Cold War to an increase in meditation.
My experience with meditation in Hinduism is the mantra-based kind.
The idea of a mantra meditation is that you are training your mind. We do not want to be slaves to our thoughts and our racing mind, we want to be the master of it. Thoughts are fine, they have their place, but it is better to have the control of mind to choose when to think and when to simply act. Practice would ideally make someone able to stop the chattering in the head that clouds our lives. The practice is to repeat a mantra silently over and over while sitting up very straight ("as though drawn by a string from above"). When thoughts come in, as they inevitably do, one gently brings one's attention back to the mantra.
The mantra itself can be a word or a phrase or a whole poem.
I'm going to start by telling you about my own experience with meditation and then tell you more about it's history and varieties.
My parents have meditated since before I was born. They meditate for half an hour at dawn and half an hour at dusk, every day, without fail. I have never known them to miss it, no matter where they are. My mother sits on a chair, and my father uses a wooden meditation bench. He times the half hour on his watch.
When I was a young child I was fascinated by this practice and terribly curious. I wanted to know what the mantra was. But my parents wouldn't tell me. They said it was a sacred word, not to be spoken out loud except during the initiation ceremony. Saying it out loud would dissipate its spiritual energies. I was desperate to know what it was.
My mom tells me that I used to make my Barbie dolls meditate.
I started taking classes when I was ten in preparation to being initiated into meditation. At 13, the ceremony was performed. An official initiator flew to America from England. We cleaned the School building and put fresh flowers everywhere. A number of people were being initiated. I brought a basket with fruit, a white cloth, and some other items to present to the initiator. I was brought to a room where he started chanting the mantra and motioned for me to join him. For five minutes or so we chanted the mantra, a single word, over and over. Then I went to a second room to practice with an older practitioner. We silently meditated for ten minutes.
After that I was expected to meditate for half an hour in the morning and half an hour at night, ideally as close to dawn and dusk as possible.
At first I was completely thrilled to have taken this step toward being an adult member of my community. I excitedly told my best friend's family about it at dinner at their house. Her much older cousin told me that the only reason that they said the mantra was "secret" was that they didn't want me to know that everyone in the organization had the same mantra.
I was pretty shocked that she wanted to stamp on my pride and excitement. I guess she was just nervous that this was a cult situation. But I already knew that everyone had the same mantra, it was selected for the School by a Chankaracharya in India. I was unfazed by her negativity.
However, I soon found that the rules were a burden. I hated the pressure and expectation of how often I should be meditating. It was so, so hard to sit still for 30 minutes at a time when there were so many other things I could be doing. I was guilted about it frequently, told that meditation was the most important practice and the only thing that would lead me to my goal of enlightenment. It became something my parents nagged me about. Every day: "Have you meditated yet?" For the most part, I stopped completely, only doing it when on retreats or at the School.
I had a resurgence of meditation after a girl in my freshman college dorm was killed in a car accident. I was terrified of dying and I knew that meditation was what I was supposed to be doing with my life.
Since then I have stopped again. My parents always said that it "works in the dark" and so I should not expect results from meditation, but I have little motivation to do something that isn't bringing me any particular satisfaction or joy. In fact, it mostly calls to mind memories of sitting outside at dawn, freezing cold, and trying not to nod off and fall of my chair in front of a strict tutor.
I still use the mantra to try to help me fall asleep and I meditate for a few minutes as part of my puja in the mornings.
My mind is far from calm, so it might be worth finding a meditation technique that really can control my mind. There are others available.
The meditation I was taught is called Transcendental Meditation. In the form it is done today, it was invented by the Maharishi in the 1950s (though he claims that its origins are 5,000 years old).
In the 1960s and 70s the Maharishi traveled the Western world. The founder of the School was initiated in England at that time. He was so impressed with the technique, that he founded his School on it.
For this type of meditation you must be initiated. It is considered dangerous to choose your own mantra because you don't know the subtle vibrations of those sounds and what effect they might have on your psyche.
On the other hand, a wonderful teacher named Eknath Easwaran has encouraged everyone to create his own meditation practice. The thing I love most about Easwaran is that his voice is so calm and clear and full of joy. Everything I read of his leaves me feeling at peace and like life is really a delightful game. Art has left some links to his material, so I'm reposting one of those links on Easwaran's meditation technique.
He encourages people to choose a passage that is meaningful to them, a prayer or a poem from any tradition. Please read and enjoy his page about meditation: http://easwaran.org/page/101 There is an organization of his followers called the Blue Mountain Center in Northern California. I went to one of their retreats once and had a delightful time. http://www.easwaran.org/page/220
I've always been uncomfortable with the guided meditations, but some people find them very relaxing and helpful. Yoga teachers are often good resources for this style.
Buddhists often meditate for many hours at a time and I don't know how they do it! We were told that the hour a day was the correct measure, but there are many monks who think there should be a lot more meditation.
Some traditions use mala beads to count mantras, similar to a rosary.
Meditation is something that has loomed so large in my life and now I'm not sure that it deserved such an exalted place. I think it is valuable and is part of my "spiritual arsenal" as it were, but not the most important thing. To me, the guilt and pressure associated with it negated whatever positive effect I might have gotten. I may go back to it now that I am removed from that pressure, but I also may not. I'm not sure yet.
Since all I know well is TM and I've had just a little exposure to other forms, I am curious to do some more research about the history of meditation in Hinduism. I'll let you all know what I discover!
I think I will soon write a post about Sanskrit, the language of all the holy books of Hinduism, and what people believe about it.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Ishta-Devata
Dhurga recently mentioned Isha-Devata in the comments. Simply put, this would be one's personal God.
There are many, many, many Gods in Hinduism. Each has different qualities and different personalities. The idea is that out of all those, there will be one that will speak to you and seem well suited to your spiritual growth. Often that is also based somewhat on family or regional traditions and maybe your birth chart.
For my branch, it is traditional to pick from the "five forms" that Shankara picked as the principle forms, uniting all branches. One of these forms is selected for main worship, but the other four are still worshiped also and all are seen as manifestations of the same Ultimate Reality, Brahman. The five are Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devī, and Sūrya.
A murti (statue, idol) is used for worship. It is believed that the mind needs a physical form to focus on. Sometimes in Smartism, the five forms are represented by five stones. For more dualistic branches, the worship of the murti is more like the Catholic communion. The God has actually come and inhabited the statue.
Sometimes if a great sage is thought to be an avatar of God, he or she might also be worshiped as one's Ishta-Devata. I mentioned before that some believe Jesus to be an avatar of Vishnu and I came across an interesting article articulating some about why and how Jesus is chosen as an Ishta-Devata at times. I know we had one person comment to say that this is impossible, but I am not in the habit of dismissing the beliefs of others and I am unwilling to say that it wouldn't be possible for Jesus to have been an avatar.
I've heard about this phenomenon of Indians adding Jesus to their alters from both perspectives. I knew of a girl in college who loved India and was also an evangelical Christian. She frequently went to India to work on converting people (which completely horrified me, but I didn't know her personally). I was told that a problem she often had was that Indians seemed to have a hard time understanding that they couldn't just add Jesus in. Jesus had to replace ALL Gods and only he could be worshiped. The article above sees this as possibly just a survival technique, to keep Hinduism alive while compromising with Christianity. I'm much closer to the perspective of seeing Christianity trying to destroy Hinduism.
Some believe that it doesn't matter which God you choose, all lead to moksha. However, some branches believe that only particular Gods will. For Vaishnavites, only a form of Vishnu will work (Rama, Krishna...).
To find one's Ishta-Devata some believe that you must go by astrology. Others just find that one in particular speaks to him. It can be something chosen oneself or chosen for you by a guru. This form of God will stay with you all your life.
So, what is my Ishta-Devata?
Shiva, in the form of the nata raja.
It wasn't always clear to me. When I was a kid I was fascinated by Krishna. I loved how different he was at different points in his life. I liked the teenage Krishna best, with the gopis worshiping him.
I was initiated into mantra-based meditation when I was 13. Ideally, one's mantra would be connected to one's Ishta-Devata, it would be a way of calling on that God. The organization I grew up in does not believe in Ishta-Devatas. A mantra was chosen for the entire organization to use and given to us through a Chankaracharya in India. It is a sound connected to Rama.
Despite these moments with other forms, the little bronze nata raja statue that I bought at the new age shop in my town clicked with me in a way that the others hadn't. I spent long periods of time just staring into his tiny face, and entranced by the grace of his arms.
I started dance five years later.
Nata raja still sits in the central place on my alter. A couple years ago my mother gave me a Krishna statue, remembering how much I loved Krishna as a child. That image just never had the same effect on me.
As soon as I look at my nata raja, I feel calmed and centered and I feel as though there is fire in his eyes.
No one gave me that form to worship, I chose it (or it chose me).
There are many, many, many Gods in Hinduism. Each has different qualities and different personalities. The idea is that out of all those, there will be one that will speak to you and seem well suited to your spiritual growth. Often that is also based somewhat on family or regional traditions and maybe your birth chart.
For my branch, it is traditional to pick from the "five forms" that Shankara picked as the principle forms, uniting all branches. One of these forms is selected for main worship, but the other four are still worshiped also and all are seen as manifestations of the same Ultimate Reality, Brahman. The five are Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devī, and Sūrya.
A murti (statue, idol) is used for worship. It is believed that the mind needs a physical form to focus on. Sometimes in Smartism, the five forms are represented by five stones. For more dualistic branches, the worship of the murti is more like the Catholic communion. The God has actually come and inhabited the statue.
Sometimes if a great sage is thought to be an avatar of God, he or she might also be worshiped as one's Ishta-Devata. I mentioned before that some believe Jesus to be an avatar of Vishnu and I came across an interesting article articulating some about why and how Jesus is chosen as an Ishta-Devata at times. I know we had one person comment to say that this is impossible, but I am not in the habit of dismissing the beliefs of others and I am unwilling to say that it wouldn't be possible for Jesus to have been an avatar.
I've heard about this phenomenon of Indians adding Jesus to their alters from both perspectives. I knew of a girl in college who loved India and was also an evangelical Christian. She frequently went to India to work on converting people (which completely horrified me, but I didn't know her personally). I was told that a problem she often had was that Indians seemed to have a hard time understanding that they couldn't just add Jesus in. Jesus had to replace ALL Gods and only he could be worshiped. The article above sees this as possibly just a survival technique, to keep Hinduism alive while compromising with Christianity. I'm much closer to the perspective of seeing Christianity trying to destroy Hinduism.
Some believe that it doesn't matter which God you choose, all lead to moksha. However, some branches believe that only particular Gods will. For Vaishnavites, only a form of Vishnu will work (Rama, Krishna...).
To find one's Ishta-Devata some believe that you must go by astrology. Others just find that one in particular speaks to him. It can be something chosen oneself or chosen for you by a guru. This form of God will stay with you all your life.
So, what is my Ishta-Devata?
Shiva, in the form of the nata raja.
It wasn't always clear to me. When I was a kid I was fascinated by Krishna. I loved how different he was at different points in his life. I liked the teenage Krishna best, with the gopis worshiping him.
I was initiated into mantra-based meditation when I was 13. Ideally, one's mantra would be connected to one's Ishta-Devata, it would be a way of calling on that God. The organization I grew up in does not believe in Ishta-Devatas. A mantra was chosen for the entire organization to use and given to us through a Chankaracharya in India. It is a sound connected to Rama.
Despite these moments with other forms, the little bronze nata raja statue that I bought at the new age shop in my town clicked with me in a way that the others hadn't. I spent long periods of time just staring into his tiny face, and entranced by the grace of his arms.
I started dance five years later.
Nata raja still sits in the central place on my alter. A couple years ago my mother gave me a Krishna statue, remembering how much I loved Krishna as a child. That image just never had the same effect on me.
As soon as I look at my nata raja, I feel calmed and centered and I feel as though there is fire in his eyes.
No one gave me that form to worship, I chose it (or it chose me).
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Veg and Non-Veg
I haven't heard these terms much in America, but it is the way that Indians refer to being vegetarian or not vegetarian. I thought I'd talk a bit about the history of vegetarianism in India and Hinduism today.
Personally I been feeling very drawn to being Veg, my body seems to want it. For the last week or so I have stopped eating meat except for fish. For the time being I am still eating fish and animal products like eggs and milk. So I can't really call myself Veg yet, but I'm closer anyway.
According to Wikipedia, India is 31% vegetarian (this being something called lacto-vegetarian, which includes eating diary products except for eggs). Another 9% eat eggs. That number seemed low to me. I was surprised. Although Wikipedia seems to say that only 4% of Americans identify as vegetarian, so that puts the number in perspective. Then again, the article says some estimates put the number of Indian vegetarians at 20-42%. I wonder if the variation has to do with the definitions being used for vegetarian. In America, I know, there is a lot of variety of which things can be eaten.
I think in America we are often less cautious about animal products that wander into unexpected places. Gelatin in a variety of foods, chicken broth used for vegetable soups, or MacDonald's fries that have been fried in animal lard. It depends on the individual how strict she is going to be. According to the article, Indians are much, much more cautious about what is in food and packages of food and medicine are marked according to whether they have any animal product in them.
Two main reasons given for vegetarianism in India are 1) Ahimsa and 2) the belief that what we eat effects our personalities, minds, souls ("You are what you eat").
Ahimsa is a Sanskirt word meaning non-violence. It is listed by Krishna as one of the qualities of a great man. I've heard several people say that ahmisa is much more stressed in Buddhism than in Hinduism, but Hinduism has started to be affected by it through Buddhism. A history of ahimsa can be found here.
The wikipedia article on vegetarianism in India says: "Also, Hindus believe that one's personality is affected by the kind of food one consumes and eating flesh is considered bad for once's spiritual/mental well-being. It takes many more vegetables or plants to produce an equal amount of meat [10] many more lives are destroyed and more suffering is caused when meat is used as food [11]."
The analysis of the statistics say that the percentages of vegetarianism are much higher for Jains and Brahmans (55%).
Jainism is an off-shoot of Hinduism. Sometimes it is considered a separate religion and sometimes it is considered a branch. The standards of ahimsa are extremely strict. Ideally only fruits and vegetables that have naturally fallen to the ground can be eaten so as not to harm the plants by pulling things off.
Some commenters have mentioned before that different degrees of Veg or non-Veg are expected for different castes. This seems to relate to the idea that what we eat is related to who we are and what we do.
Hinduism is a religion that is beautifully grounded in consequences. A good reason for Veg diet and ahimsa is the law of karma (law of action). It is better for our sanskara to limit the amount of killing or suffering we are causing.
Also, getting a bit off topic, the belief in reincarnation makes the consequences of everything more important. The long-term sustainability of a meat-less diet and the help to the environment is really important because Hindus cannot just shrug and figure that the long-term consequences won't effect them. Because we live over and over again, the damages that happen to the environment now are things we will have to deal with ourselves when we are reborn, not just something our children or grandchildren will have to deal with.
Now, in Vedic times animal sacrifices were part of the larger worships. The way that animals were killed is called jhaṭkā . The article doesn't say, but presumably this is a method of killing an animal which is more humane. One of the concerns with eating meat is that the fear that the animal felt in its last moments of life would be transferred into those who ate it. Meat that is sometimes eaten is often lamb meat. Never beef for any Hindus, as far as I know.
I'm sure that you've heard that the cow is sacred. Well, all animals and all people and all everything is sacred! The cow is special because the cow is so generous and provides us with the gift of milk, ghee, cheese, yoghurt, etc.
The transition from the culture of animal sacrifices to valuing ahimsa seems to give support to the idea that Hinduism was influenced by its off-shoot, Buddhism. Now, none of these articles has said what is common for those of the Kshatriya(warrior) caste to eat and I would suspect they were the ones doing most of the animal sacrifices in ancient times. And certainly there is plenty of hunting going on by this caste in the great epics.
Some Vaishnavas (one of the major branches of Hinduism) also stay away from garlic, onions, and other overly-stimulating foods. Someone mentioned here earlier that ISKON avoids those things and they are a Vaishnava organization. This has to do with the guna of food. I'll have to do a post on the gunas soon!
So, there is my overview of Veg and non-Veg. Please, feel free to comment and correct or clarify what I have found.
Personally I been feeling very drawn to being Veg, my body seems to want it. For the last week or so I have stopped eating meat except for fish. For the time being I am still eating fish and animal products like eggs and milk. So I can't really call myself Veg yet, but I'm closer anyway.
According to Wikipedia, India is 31% vegetarian (this being something called lacto-vegetarian, which includes eating diary products except for eggs). Another 9% eat eggs. That number seemed low to me. I was surprised. Although Wikipedia seems to say that only 4% of Americans identify as vegetarian, so that puts the number in perspective. Then again, the article says some estimates put the number of Indian vegetarians at 20-42%. I wonder if the variation has to do with the definitions being used for vegetarian. In America, I know, there is a lot of variety of which things can be eaten.
I think in America we are often less cautious about animal products that wander into unexpected places. Gelatin in a variety of foods, chicken broth used for vegetable soups, or MacDonald's fries that have been fried in animal lard. It depends on the individual how strict she is going to be. According to the article, Indians are much, much more cautious about what is in food and packages of food and medicine are marked according to whether they have any animal product in them.
Two main reasons given for vegetarianism in India are 1) Ahimsa and 2) the belief that what we eat effects our personalities, minds, souls ("You are what you eat").
Ahimsa is a Sanskirt word meaning non-violence. It is listed by Krishna as one of the qualities of a great man. I've heard several people say that ahmisa is much more stressed in Buddhism than in Hinduism, but Hinduism has started to be affected by it through Buddhism. A history of ahimsa can be found here.
The wikipedia article on vegetarianism in India says: "Also, Hindus believe that one's personality is affected by the kind of food one consumes and eating flesh is considered bad for once's spiritual/mental well-being. It takes many more vegetables or plants to produce an equal amount of meat [10] many more lives are destroyed and more suffering is caused when meat is used as food [11]."
The analysis of the statistics say that the percentages of vegetarianism are much higher for Jains and Brahmans (55%).
Jainism is an off-shoot of Hinduism. Sometimes it is considered a separate religion and sometimes it is considered a branch. The standards of ahimsa are extremely strict. Ideally only fruits and vegetables that have naturally fallen to the ground can be eaten so as not to harm the plants by pulling things off.
Some commenters have mentioned before that different degrees of Veg or non-Veg are expected for different castes. This seems to relate to the idea that what we eat is related to who we are and what we do.
Hinduism is a religion that is beautifully grounded in consequences. A good reason for Veg diet and ahimsa is the law of karma (law of action). It is better for our sanskara to limit the amount of killing or suffering we are causing.
Also, getting a bit off topic, the belief in reincarnation makes the consequences of everything more important. The long-term sustainability of a meat-less diet and the help to the environment is really important because Hindus cannot just shrug and figure that the long-term consequences won't effect them. Because we live over and over again, the damages that happen to the environment now are things we will have to deal with ourselves when we are reborn, not just something our children or grandchildren will have to deal with.
Now, in Vedic times animal sacrifices were part of the larger worships. The way that animals were killed is called jhaṭkā . The article doesn't say, but presumably this is a method of killing an animal which is more humane. One of the concerns with eating meat is that the fear that the animal felt in its last moments of life would be transferred into those who ate it. Meat that is sometimes eaten is often lamb meat. Never beef for any Hindus, as far as I know.
I'm sure that you've heard that the cow is sacred. Well, all animals and all people and all everything is sacred! The cow is special because the cow is so generous and provides us with the gift of milk, ghee, cheese, yoghurt, etc.
The transition from the culture of animal sacrifices to valuing ahimsa seems to give support to the idea that Hinduism was influenced by its off-shoot, Buddhism. Now, none of these articles has said what is common for those of the Kshatriya(warrior) caste to eat and I would suspect they were the ones doing most of the animal sacrifices in ancient times. And certainly there is plenty of hunting going on by this caste in the great epics.
Some Vaishnavas (one of the major branches of Hinduism) also stay away from garlic, onions, and other overly-stimulating foods. Someone mentioned here earlier that ISKON avoids those things and they are a Vaishnava organization. This has to do with the guna of food. I'll have to do a post on the gunas soon!
So, there is my overview of Veg and non-Veg. Please, feel free to comment and correct or clarify what I have found.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Lonliness and also Caste
Basu asked a few posts ago whether I have any Indian friends and I realized that I don't have very many friends of any kind. Not here, anyway. That is the trouble with moving a lot. I kept trying to fit in somewhere and I moved to five different states when I left home to go to college.
I now live very close to my best friend from home, she is the main reason that I moved to Maryland.
But now I know that I need more. I need other girl friends. My partner in my dance class is probably moving over seas soon and she doesn't seem too interested in hanging out outside of the events we go to.
I do hope to make friends at Chinmaya, but I know it is going to take a while. Many people there have known each other for years, I would guess. I see people come in and greet their friends and smile and talk and sit together and it makes me feel extremely alone.
Recently I've been doing too many things alone. I learned to do that from my traveling around. I show up at these things and people are welcoming, but it takes time to develop real friendship. (I started out going to Hindi meet-up group alone, but once my boyfriend and I started dating, he decided to learn Hindi also, so we go together now and he always comes with me to dance events, etc.)
Today in the BJ's parking lot I saw three African women finishing up their shopping together. They were dressed in African dresses and turbans. It made me think how much easier it must be to wear ethnic clothes and maintain one's culture when you have friends (or sisters as the case might be) to do things with.
Again, I felt terribly lonely. I suddenly understood why it would be so nice to have other people of your own culture around you. I wish there were more like me. Now, thanks to this blog, I know I'm not totally alone. But still, sometimes I feel a bit like The Doctor, the only one of my kind and there is a profound loneliness.
I do plan to stay in this area for the long term, so I hope I can make some good strong friendships here. (And starting that process, one of the commentors on this blog invited the boyfriend and me to dinner with her family. Little did we realize, we live in the same town! I'm really looking forward to that).
************************************************************
On a completely different note, new discoveries about the caste issue.
I've mentioned before that I feel like one of the real difficulties of Hinduism coming to accept converts is that converts don't have a caste. Even though socially, many have been trying to do away with the caste system for years, it seems to be still very commonly used in terms of what you know about someone. The sort-of social mobility that is built into the American character is not as common in India, from what I understand.
On my last post on this subject, a couple of commenters said the following:
Sriram said...
Actually caste is much maligned subject that has been misused for personal benefit.
The 4th Chapter, 13th verse of the Bhagvad Gita explains it in simple terms. Krishna says that he created the 4 castes. This was used widely by many to spread a half truth. The full line is where he says that he created the 4 castes but the caste of a person is decided by actions and qualities.
If one goes backwards and reads about who the authors of many of the books in Hinduism were, they were not born into the high caste families or blood lines. There are other controversial books but one has to see them contextually than in a generic all encompassing manner.
June 3, 2010 3:03 PM
Anil said...
Yes, I agree.
"Chaturvarnam Maya Shristam Guna Karma Vibhagasah" means according to nature and action people are divided into four classes. Ignorant people have made it by birth.
Also, I happened to read in the FAQs section of the ISKON website:
"In Bhagavad Gita (18.42-44), Sri Krishna clearly states that the Varna (caste) of a person is decided by his activities, not by birth"
Now, of course, this doesn't mean that the issue of caste suddenly vanishes. Even if it was meant to be a measure of our behavior more than our birth, it is still heavily used to judge and categorize people.
Still, it is good to know that this is a social construct and it can be separated from the religion without damaging the religion.
I can understand the idea that we are born into circumstances based on our sanskara, but as I've said before, I cannot accept that this is an excuse to treat people badly or deny them education (or going the other way, to expect more from people who were born Brahmin). It is not our job to judge someone else, it is our job to have compassion. There is no place to say, this person was born untouchable, therefore they must have done something horrible in a past life, therefore they deserve to be treated badly. We do not know what happened in their past life and we don't know for what purpose that person was born into the life they were. The only thing that matters is the present moment, and in this moment we must show kindness to all because they are all our siblings and our parents.
I now live very close to my best friend from home, she is the main reason that I moved to Maryland.
But now I know that I need more. I need other girl friends. My partner in my dance class is probably moving over seas soon and she doesn't seem too interested in hanging out outside of the events we go to.
I do hope to make friends at Chinmaya, but I know it is going to take a while. Many people there have known each other for years, I would guess. I see people come in and greet their friends and smile and talk and sit together and it makes me feel extremely alone.
Recently I've been doing too many things alone. I learned to do that from my traveling around. I show up at these things and people are welcoming, but it takes time to develop real friendship. (I started out going to Hindi meet-up group alone, but once my boyfriend and I started dating, he decided to learn Hindi also, so we go together now and he always comes with me to dance events, etc.)
Today in the BJ's parking lot I saw three African women finishing up their shopping together. They were dressed in African dresses and turbans. It made me think how much easier it must be to wear ethnic clothes and maintain one's culture when you have friends (or sisters as the case might be) to do things with.
Again, I felt terribly lonely. I suddenly understood why it would be so nice to have other people of your own culture around you. I wish there were more like me. Now, thanks to this blog, I know I'm not totally alone. But still, sometimes I feel a bit like The Doctor, the only one of my kind and there is a profound loneliness.
I do plan to stay in this area for the long term, so I hope I can make some good strong friendships here. (And starting that process, one of the commentors on this blog invited the boyfriend and me to dinner with her family. Little did we realize, we live in the same town! I'm really looking forward to that).
************************************************************
On a completely different note, new discoveries about the caste issue.
I've mentioned before that I feel like one of the real difficulties of Hinduism coming to accept converts is that converts don't have a caste. Even though socially, many have been trying to do away with the caste system for years, it seems to be still very commonly used in terms of what you know about someone. The sort-of social mobility that is built into the American character is not as common in India, from what I understand.
On my last post on this subject, a couple of commenters said the following:
Sriram said...
Actually caste is much maligned subject that has been misused for personal benefit.
The 4th Chapter, 13th verse of the Bhagvad Gita explains it in simple terms. Krishna says that he created the 4 castes. This was used widely by many to spread a half truth. The full line is where he says that he created the 4 castes but the caste of a person is decided by actions and qualities.
If one goes backwards and reads about who the authors of many of the books in Hinduism were, they were not born into the high caste families or blood lines. There are other controversial books but one has to see them contextually than in a generic all encompassing manner.
June 3, 2010 3:03 PM
Anil said...
Yes, I agree.
"Chaturvarnam Maya Shristam Guna Karma Vibhagasah" means according to nature and action people are divided into four classes. Ignorant people have made it by birth.
Also, I happened to read in the FAQs section of the ISKON website:
"In Bhagavad Gita (18.42-44), Sri Krishna clearly states that the Varna (caste) of a person is decided by his activities, not by birth"
Now, of course, this doesn't mean that the issue of caste suddenly vanishes. Even if it was meant to be a measure of our behavior more than our birth, it is still heavily used to judge and categorize people.
Still, it is good to know that this is a social construct and it can be separated from the religion without damaging the religion.
I can understand the idea that we are born into circumstances based on our sanskara, but as I've said before, I cannot accept that this is an excuse to treat people badly or deny them education (or going the other way, to expect more from people who were born Brahmin). It is not our job to judge someone else, it is our job to have compassion. There is no place to say, this person was born untouchable, therefore they must have done something horrible in a past life, therefore they deserve to be treated badly. We do not know what happened in their past life and we don't know for what purpose that person was born into the life they were. The only thing that matters is the present moment, and in this moment we must show kindness to all because they are all our siblings and our parents.
Friday, June 18, 2010
You are all Wonderful
What fantastic responses to my post yesterday! Thank you for your thoughtful replies and you all brought up some really good points. I find so much encouragement from you all. :)
Here were some of my favorite things said so far:
An Anonymous poster pointed out many examples of non-Indian Hindus and said, "*Serious converts are welcome but we dont want new age type dabblers."
Can I just say, Exactly! And this is why this blog is so useful, it is a place for us to come together and show that non-Indians can be serious about Hinduism and not just dabblers. And it is also a place where open-minded Indians come to say that we are welcome. Thank you so much to everyone!
********************
I've mentioned a couple of time being uncertain of non-Indian gurus. I thought I'd talk a little about that today as a follow up to yesterday.
I guess I sometimes come across as sounding like I think Indians are better or are better suited to Hinduism. That is not what I intend at all.
When it comes to spiritual leaders, I am suspicious. Partly from my dad's scientific mind influencing me and partly being jaded from what I've seen. I'm suspicious of both Indian and non-Indian gurus. My lack of trust in white gurus is a fear that there is a lack of continuity. Many Indian gurus have been groomed and installed in a long lineage.
I'm not interested in learning Indian philosophy from someone who gets high and chants the Gita. As CS put it, "I don't go for the ganga-smoking, Krishna is my Om Boy tee shirt wearing, barefoot groover as Hindu." Exactly. Couldn't have said it better myself. I've seen that sort of thing too often. (Although, my boyfriend really wants the bumper sticker that I found that says "Ganesh is my Om Boy"! I think it really suits him, too)
I've also seen and heard about spiritual leaders in India leading people astray, tricking them with faith healings like America's revival tents, preaching against material possessions while living in luxury, etc.
When it comes to looking for a spiritual leader, I am not willing to give up my own judgement and understanding. Even once I found someone that I trust, who feels authentic, whose teachings line up with what feels right to me and my experience, I am never going to just do everything that person says without carefully thinking about it first. Maybe that will slow down my spiritual progress, but it's how I am. This is why the path of devotion isn't right for me.
You don't have to be Indian to be enlightened. Duh.
You don't have to be Hindu to be enlightened (although there are several Hindus who will be thinking that actually you are Hindu, you just think you're something else!) Vedantic thought can be found at the base of just about every spiritual path. As I've said before, it's more buried in some than in others and Christianity is a tough one because it has been interpreted and remade so many, many times.
So we're back to the question of why do I imitate Indian culture?
I don't think I have an answer for that. It's not a self-hatred thing. I certainly think that anyone can find enlightenment on whatever path is right for him or her. I follow what feels right for me. As I've said before, I didn't have a culture for this to displace. There was a void and it is now happily filled.
I find that philosophy works better when blended into all the other parts of my life and I have no desire to reinvent the wheel, as the saying goes. I love Indian philosophy and I love Indian culture. The two go together pretty well.
Here were some of my favorite things said so far:
CS:
There is a lot of truth, though, to the notion that bored rich white people seek spiritual thrills by "following" Eastern religions. They are colorful and spicy and exotic. (But I wonder why no one bats an eyelash when an Indian or other Asian or any other non-white person embraces Christianity or Islam and a "western" lifestyle... Is that appropriation?)
I found serious Hinduism the first time I went to India and traveled with DH (darling hubby) to a well-known pilgrimage temple in the south, and spent a night there and got up at the crack of dawn to wait in hours-long lines to do the puja and then see the main deity (have a darshan). What I saw of real humanity, rich, poor, sick, young, healthy, dying, and the devotion there in the inner sanctum, was something that a rich white person probably can't access in the same way in a cushy resort on a beach in Goa or Kerala, having $1,000 ayurvedic treatments, and the like. I have to admit, as a white (dare I say it) Hindu, even I have to sneer at that.
Art:
Christianity is an Eastern religion. My European ancestors stole it 1500 years ago, but does that make it any less stolen? Jesus was not European...
No one owns Hinduism, anymore than they own any other faith. Every great religion is a gift from the Lord. Who is any man or woman to decide that another is not worthy of that gift?
In the most widely loved Hindu scripture, Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna tells us that none are more or less dear to Him, that He is the Lord of the universe, that He dwells in the hearts of all. He does not say that Indians are more dear to Him than Americans, that He is the Lord of the Indian sub-continent, or that He dwells in the heart of every Indian.
Mouse:
I always find it intriguing though that ONLY Americans (or "white folks")can "steal" other people's cultures... as if we ALL have absolutely no respect for anyone else and couldn't possibly be doing x for a good reason. I'm also (like you) exhausted by the notion that because I'm a "white girl" I must have this horribly romantic notion of how things are in other parts of the world (especially India) because I haven't been there to "see the other side" first hand. *sigh*
An Anonymous poster pointed out many examples of non-Indian Hindus and said, "*Serious converts are welcome but we dont want new age type dabblers."
And CS again:
In the end, brown skinned, white skinned, who CARES? We are all human, all subject to the making the same bad decisions or all capable of rising to our highest impulses. Your brown skin and my white skin doesn't say one damned thing about who's better and who's worse as a human being, and thus who's eligible to be Hindu or not.
Seeing that we are all the same has made me realize that I, as a white German-Jewish-Norwegian-Lutheran woman, am no better and no worse than an Indian Hindu, or a Japanese Buddhist or a Brazilian practioner of Candomble. So if I want to call myself a Hindu, and you don't like it, just go busy yourself with your prayers and I'll do the same.
Can I just say, Exactly! And this is why this blog is so useful, it is a place for us to come together and show that non-Indians can be serious about Hinduism and not just dabblers. And it is also a place where open-minded Indians come to say that we are welcome. Thank you so much to everyone!
********************
I've mentioned a couple of time being uncertain of non-Indian gurus. I thought I'd talk a little about that today as a follow up to yesterday.
I guess I sometimes come across as sounding like I think Indians are better or are better suited to Hinduism. That is not what I intend at all.
When it comes to spiritual leaders, I am suspicious. Partly from my dad's scientific mind influencing me and partly being jaded from what I've seen. I'm suspicious of both Indian and non-Indian gurus. My lack of trust in white gurus is a fear that there is a lack of continuity. Many Indian gurus have been groomed and installed in a long lineage.
I'm not interested in learning Indian philosophy from someone who gets high and chants the Gita. As CS put it, "I don't go for the ganga-smoking, Krishna is my Om Boy tee shirt wearing, barefoot groover as Hindu." Exactly. Couldn't have said it better myself. I've seen that sort of thing too often. (Although, my boyfriend really wants the bumper sticker that I found that says "Ganesh is my Om Boy"! I think it really suits him, too)
I've also seen and heard about spiritual leaders in India leading people astray, tricking them with faith healings like America's revival tents, preaching against material possessions while living in luxury, etc.
When it comes to looking for a spiritual leader, I am not willing to give up my own judgement and understanding. Even once I found someone that I trust, who feels authentic, whose teachings line up with what feels right to me and my experience, I am never going to just do everything that person says without carefully thinking about it first. Maybe that will slow down my spiritual progress, but it's how I am. This is why the path of devotion isn't right for me.
You don't have to be Indian to be enlightened. Duh.
You don't have to be Hindu to be enlightened (although there are several Hindus who will be thinking that actually you are Hindu, you just think you're something else!) Vedantic thought can be found at the base of just about every spiritual path. As I've said before, it's more buried in some than in others and Christianity is a tough one because it has been interpreted and remade so many, many times.
So we're back to the question of why do I imitate Indian culture?
I don't think I have an answer for that. It's not a self-hatred thing. I certainly think that anyone can find enlightenment on whatever path is right for him or her. I follow what feels right for me. As I've said before, I didn't have a culture for this to displace. There was a void and it is now happily filled.
I find that philosophy works better when blended into all the other parts of my life and I have no desire to reinvent the wheel, as the saying goes. I love Indian philosophy and I love Indian culture. The two go together pretty well.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Non-attachment Fail
One of the very hardest concepts in Vedic philosophy is that of non-attachment.
The idea is that this whole world is an illusion, it's like we're in a stage play. So we play our parts, but when it's over, we go back stage to our real lives. People who have realized this and live with it are enlightened, and are therefore blissful all the time, not bothered by the little and big frustrations of life.
They are able to enjoy the physical things in life, having nice things, etc. but they are not attached to them. They are not bothered when anything goes away because they know that everything is God and things changing hands or changing shape is not really a change at all.
A very difficult ideal to live up to, but I had a nice, what should have been easy, opportunity to practice non-attachment this morning and I failed.
Here's the scenario:
It's raining a little bit today. Not heavy rain, just gray and drizzly. I had finished walking the dog, then I locked up the apartment and headed toward my car to go to dance class. There was a boy standing under the apartment awning.
He's someone we've had some trouble with in the past. This winter there was extremely heavy snowfall and this boy went around offering to shovel out cars for money. At first he was asking a ridiculously high amount and we said no. Later he came back and said he would do it for $20 and we agreed. We gave him the money. He never shoveled the car. I pestered him about it for days, hunting him down when he was playing with his friends. I finally just gave up. So, my boyfriend was out the money and had to shovel both our cars out. The history with this boy isn't great.
He asked me if I had an umbrella he could use because he had to go and stand at the bus stop.
I almost never use an umbrella, but I do have one. I have one that I am extremely attached to. My father got it for me at a biomedical conference and it has a huge ad for an ear infection drug on it. He got two of them, one for each of us and so we've had these matching umbrellas for years and years. Of all the gifts my dad has given me over the years, that umbrella and a kid's book written in Dutch are the only ones I'm really attached to.
I love that umbrella and I did not want to lend it to an unreliable person.
However, this one should have been an easy answer. There is a person in front of me with a need and I have something to fulfill that need.
I went to the car to look for it, all the while wondering what I would do if I found it. Could I really hand it over to this child? I didn't find it and I apologized to him and got in the car. Then I saw the umbrella in the front seat, where I had not looked (maybe subconsciously I knew it was there?) I could have run after him to give it to him, but I didn't.
This probably seems like not a big deal at all, but I try to take advantage of every opportunity life gives me. I don't want to miss learning and growing chances because becoming enlightened is my main ambition in life.
I'll have to try better next time, but even now looking back on it, my stomach churns at the thought of giving anyone my beloved umbrella. Sigh.
The idea is that this whole world is an illusion, it's like we're in a stage play. So we play our parts, but when it's over, we go back stage to our real lives. People who have realized this and live with it are enlightened, and are therefore blissful all the time, not bothered by the little and big frustrations of life.
They are able to enjoy the physical things in life, having nice things, etc. but they are not attached to them. They are not bothered when anything goes away because they know that everything is God and things changing hands or changing shape is not really a change at all.
A very difficult ideal to live up to, but I had a nice, what should have been easy, opportunity to practice non-attachment this morning and I failed.
Here's the scenario:
It's raining a little bit today. Not heavy rain, just gray and drizzly. I had finished walking the dog, then I locked up the apartment and headed toward my car to go to dance class. There was a boy standing under the apartment awning.
He's someone we've had some trouble with in the past. This winter there was extremely heavy snowfall and this boy went around offering to shovel out cars for money. At first he was asking a ridiculously high amount and we said no. Later he came back and said he would do it for $20 and we agreed. We gave him the money. He never shoveled the car. I pestered him about it for days, hunting him down when he was playing with his friends. I finally just gave up. So, my boyfriend was out the money and had to shovel both our cars out. The history with this boy isn't great.
He asked me if I had an umbrella he could use because he had to go and stand at the bus stop.
I almost never use an umbrella, but I do have one. I have one that I am extremely attached to. My father got it for me at a biomedical conference and it has a huge ad for an ear infection drug on it. He got two of them, one for each of us and so we've had these matching umbrellas for years and years. Of all the gifts my dad has given me over the years, that umbrella and a kid's book written in Dutch are the only ones I'm really attached to.
I love that umbrella and I did not want to lend it to an unreliable person.
However, this one should have been an easy answer. There is a person in front of me with a need and I have something to fulfill that need.
I went to the car to look for it, all the while wondering what I would do if I found it. Could I really hand it over to this child? I didn't find it and I apologized to him and got in the car. Then I saw the umbrella in the front seat, where I had not looked (maybe subconsciously I knew it was there?) I could have run after him to give it to him, but I didn't.
This probably seems like not a big deal at all, but I try to take advantage of every opportunity life gives me. I don't want to miss learning and growing chances because becoming enlightened is my main ambition in life.
I'll have to try better next time, but even now looking back on it, my stomach churns at the thought of giving anyone my beloved umbrella. Sigh.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Follow up on Reader Questions
More discussion from Basu's questions:
1. so in advita-vedanta there doesn't seem to be a need for the concept of heaven and hell.
No, Advaita doesn't need a concept of heaven and hell to function. Some people say that there is a heaven, but it's a temporary place to wait for one's next embodiment. Although, again, I find that far too individual and I personally don't believe that we exist with distinct boundaries when we are not in a body.
I don't know of anyone who believes there is a hell. Generally people say that hell is what we create within our lives by our negative thoughts.
2. what you say about the allegory behind radha-krishna story is absolutely true. but i was thinking about all the puranic stories. it will be hard to find the symbolism behind all of them. for example the story of the birth of ganesha and how he gets the elephant head.
none of the stories trouble me. because i think most of the puranic stories are imaginations. some might have some historical origin but turned into myths and mythology after so much of time. but this is a historical explanation.
the reason why i asked you is to know how one see it from a religious point of view. and because you follow advaita vedanta.
Yeah, you're right, the story of Ganesha's head is pretty hard to find meaning in! I really don't know about that one. Again, it doesn't bother me. I figure it has a meaning that I am not understanding yet, but I trust that it will eventually be clear to me.
Also, I think ancient stories give a great insight into the way the human mind functions.
As an Advaitist, I don't know if the stories are historically true. I rather doubt it. I tend to have a fairly scientific mind and the stories are too fantastical. But, for me, it doesn't have to have actually happened to make it true. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me!
3. i don't agree with your explanation of the number 33. i think normal human being always prefer round numbers like 10, 100, 1000 etc.
for example in india elders often say "sho shal jio" - may you live 100 years. they don't say may you live 111 years of 77 years.
so i personally think it is likely that the number 33 has some other explanation.
yes, wiki in this case is not reliable because they didn't provide any reference.
I did some more looking into this and here is what I found:
HubPages: This author claims that the 330 million refers to the people waiting in "heaven" to get reborn who have been particularly good (Devas, not Gods). He does not go into why that particular number is used.
Koausa.org: This website does have an explanation for the exact number,
Hindu-blog: This website also goes into some explanations about symbolism in the number "3."
It reminds me of the trinity of Gods, which exists in both Christianity and Hinduism. The three who are also one, Brahman, Shiva, and Vishnu.
by the way, what do you think of lokayata tradition?
do you take it as a part of hinduism or a part of indian philosophy like buddhism and jainism and distinct from hindusim?
I am ashamed to admit that I didn't know what this was, so I went and looked that up too (on Wikipedia!).
lokayata
I'm not sure that I know enough about it yet to really discuss it. On the one hand, it's hard to accept that atheism and lack of belief in an eternal soul could be Hinduism. On the other hand, Hinduism does tend to encompass so much.
I have seen people that I would think of as Hindu who are very spiritual, but don't believe in a God. Seeing the whole universe as a "divine" power or seeing humanity as a "divine" power, those things are very Hindu to my mind.
But one of the fundamental things that makes Hinduism Hinduism is the belief in an eternal soul. We do not die. Krishna makes that very clear in the Gita.
The Buddhist belief in nothingness after death is the thing that most strongly separates Buddhism from Hinduism, I think. That and the idea that you can't enjoy the world while also being aware that it is an illusion in Buddhism.
So, it is certainly a very different flavor of Hinduism from mine, but I would never exclude it. I always lean toward unity, never division.
1. so in advita-vedanta there doesn't seem to be a need for the concept of heaven and hell.
No, Advaita doesn't need a concept of heaven and hell to function. Some people say that there is a heaven, but it's a temporary place to wait for one's next embodiment. Although, again, I find that far too individual and I personally don't believe that we exist with distinct boundaries when we are not in a body.
I don't know of anyone who believes there is a hell. Generally people say that hell is what we create within our lives by our negative thoughts.
2. what you say about the allegory behind radha-krishna story is absolutely true. but i was thinking about all the puranic stories. it will be hard to find the symbolism behind all of them. for example the story of the birth of ganesha and how he gets the elephant head.
none of the stories trouble me. because i think most of the puranic stories are imaginations. some might have some historical origin but turned into myths and mythology after so much of time. but this is a historical explanation.
the reason why i asked you is to know how one see it from a religious point of view. and because you follow advaita vedanta.
Yeah, you're right, the story of Ganesha's head is pretty hard to find meaning in! I really don't know about that one. Again, it doesn't bother me. I figure it has a meaning that I am not understanding yet, but I trust that it will eventually be clear to me.
Also, I think ancient stories give a great insight into the way the human mind functions.
As an Advaitist, I don't know if the stories are historically true. I rather doubt it. I tend to have a fairly scientific mind and the stories are too fantastical. But, for me, it doesn't have to have actually happened to make it true. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me!
3. i don't agree with your explanation of the number 33. i think normal human being always prefer round numbers like 10, 100, 1000 etc.
for example in india elders often say "sho shal jio" - may you live 100 years. they don't say may you live 111 years of 77 years.
so i personally think it is likely that the number 33 has some other explanation.
yes, wiki in this case is not reliable because they didn't provide any reference.
I did some more looking into this and here is what I found:
HubPages: This author claims that the 330 million refers to the people waiting in "heaven" to get reborn who have been particularly good (Devas, not Gods). He does not go into why that particular number is used.
Koausa.org: This website does have an explanation for the exact number,
Hindu religion is often labeled as a religion of 330 million gods. This misunderstanding arises when people fail to grasp the symbolism of the Hindu pantheon. According to the Hindu scriptures, living beings are not apart from God, since He lives in each and every one of them in the form of atman (BG 10.39). Thus each living being is a unique manifestation of God. In ancient times it was believed that there were 330 million living beings. This gave rise to the idea of 330 million deities or gods. Actually, this vast number of gods could not have been possibly worshipped, since 330 million names could not have been designed for them. The number 330 million was simply used to give a symbolic expression to the fundamental Hindu doctrine that God lives in the hearts of all living beings.
Hindu-blog: This website also goes into some explanations about symbolism in the number "3."
In Brhadaranyaka Upanishad while discussing Brahman, Yajnavalkya is asked how many gods are there. He says that there are three hundred and three and three thousand and three gods. When the question is repeated? He says, thirty three. When the question is again repeated he says, six. Finally, after several repetitions he says ONE. (Chapter I, hymn 9, verse 1)
It reminds me of the trinity of Gods, which exists in both Christianity and Hinduism. The three who are also one, Brahman, Shiva, and Vishnu.
by the way, what do you think of lokayata tradition?
do you take it as a part of hinduism or a part of indian philosophy like buddhism and jainism and distinct from hindusim?
I am ashamed to admit that I didn't know what this was, so I went and looked that up too (on Wikipedia!).
lokayata
I'm not sure that I know enough about it yet to really discuss it. On the one hand, it's hard to accept that atheism and lack of belief in an eternal soul could be Hinduism. On the other hand, Hinduism does tend to encompass so much.
I have seen people that I would think of as Hindu who are very spiritual, but don't believe in a God. Seeing the whole universe as a "divine" power or seeing humanity as a "divine" power, those things are very Hindu to my mind.
But one of the fundamental things that makes Hinduism Hinduism is the belief in an eternal soul. We do not die. Krishna makes that very clear in the Gita.
The Buddhist belief in nothingness after death is the thing that most strongly separates Buddhism from Hinduism, I think. That and the idea that you can't enjoy the world while also being aware that it is an illusion in Buddhism.
So, it is certainly a very different flavor of Hinduism from mine, but I would never exclude it. I always lean toward unity, never division.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Reader Questions
Basu had some questions that I am going to attempt to discuss. I won't say answer, because I am not any kind of expert. This is my take on it and I welcome you to put your own beliefs or understandings in the comments.
1. attaining moksha breaks the cycle of rebirth . but after a soul attains moksha through the law of karma , what happens?
I believe that we tend to think about our souls in too limited a way. We are so connected to this idea of ourselves, that we imagine that we go to join God with all our thoughts, feelings, personal history, opinions, grudges, etc.
We leave our body behind when we attain moksha and we also leave our mind behind. Our mind is not who we are any more than the body is. It is the soul only which attains moksha, and the soul is a part of God already.
It is described as being like coming home. We rejoin the rest of ourself, and so it's not like we're a little piece hanging out thinking about being bored while we are in the midst of moksha.
There is no mind to be bored and we are not a separate piece, we become the whole.
Of course, since we can never prove that any messages have come from people who have attained enlightenment, it's hard to be sure about these things. Life or lack thereof after death is a very tricky concept to pin down because no one really knows.
2. you said you follow advaita vedanta . which i suppose says god, a supreme being is beyond all our senses. and the personal gods visnu, durga, lakshmi etc are result of an illusion/maya. in that case how do you relate to myriads of mythological stories? do you think all of them are symbolic stories?
i found it difficult to get the symbolism of all our mythological stories.
I don't know if I would say that personal gods are maya. There's two ways of looking at them. 1) The gods are living creatures like us, but on a different level or 2) the gods are symbolic ways of understanding different aspects of the one God who is too big a concept for us to comprehend. This second one is my own belief.
Also, the one God can go by any name. "He" is ultimate reality and you can call that Atman, or Brahma, or Shiva, or Cosmic Energy, or Shakti. Any of those names can name the Absolute.
I find mythology very interesting. I rarely think that the stories "really" happened, but I don't find that means that they are any less valid or any less real. Being a trained fiction writer, I sometimes find more truth in fiction than in real life.
I don't need for religious stories to make sense or follow a linear progression. Contradictions are not a problem for me. Rather than analyze them, I usually just let them wash over me and see what I get from it.
Take Krishna and Radha and the rest of the gopis. Is it weird that there's a story of a God who is lustfully desired by hundreds of young women? Not really. I think that we are all gopis, longing for unity with God. And all of us can be beloved of God, not just one.
What about Krishna stealing butter and being a difficult child? I think it shows the joy and zest for life in children and encourages us to seek unity with that kind of delight.
Are there particular stories that trouble you?
3. you surly heard the phrase "33 koti devas/deities" in hinduism. wikipedia says that it is possible that 330 million is a mistranslation . and it is actually 33 kinds/types of gods. do you have any reference on this issue for further reading? or if you yourself can explain it to me .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptions_of_God#Conceptions_of_God_in_Hinduism
I read recently that 330 million is more like a way to express infinite. Like in English we might say "There were like a billion flies at the picnic." We have no idea of the number, so we pick a really big one to represent it.
On a DVD I watched about Going to a Temple (from Appu Series) they said that 330 million is not a literal number, but a way to express that every single thing in creation is a god (right down to blades of grass and fruit flies).
Of course, as mentioned about Advaita, in reality there is only one. One God who is everything.
I disagree with some of the things written in that Wikipedia article. To say that God is generally considered female in Hinduism is ridiculous and there are no footnotes to support that claim. There are those who worship Shakti primarily or Kali, but they are not the majority. I think most Hindus (and probably most Christians) would agree that God does not have a gender. Again, we break the Absolute down into parts so that we can understand the whole, so there are both male and female parts that balance each other. Each major male God has a female counterpart.
********************************************************************
I'm happy to discuss anything that anyone wants, but it is a good idea to put the questions in an email to me or a comment on the current post. I don't get any alert of new comments, so it can sometimes take a while before I discover new comments on older posts.
Tomorrow I'm going to post a summary linking to some of my key older posts so that new readers can get a quicker introduction to what's going on around here and not have to read through every post.
1. attaining moksha breaks the cycle of rebirth . but after a soul attains moksha through the law of karma , what happens?
I believe that we tend to think about our souls in too limited a way. We are so connected to this idea of ourselves, that we imagine that we go to join God with all our thoughts, feelings, personal history, opinions, grudges, etc.
We leave our body behind when we attain moksha and we also leave our mind behind. Our mind is not who we are any more than the body is. It is the soul only which attains moksha, and the soul is a part of God already.
It is described as being like coming home. We rejoin the rest of ourself, and so it's not like we're a little piece hanging out thinking about being bored while we are in the midst of moksha.
There is no mind to be bored and we are not a separate piece, we become the whole.
Of course, since we can never prove that any messages have come from people who have attained enlightenment, it's hard to be sure about these things. Life or lack thereof after death is a very tricky concept to pin down because no one really knows.
2. you said you follow advaita vedanta . which i suppose says god, a supreme being is beyond all our senses. and the personal gods visnu, durga, lakshmi etc are result of an illusion/maya. in that case how do you relate to myriads of mythological stories? do you think all of them are symbolic stories?
i found it difficult to get the symbolism of all our mythological stories.
I don't know if I would say that personal gods are maya. There's two ways of looking at them. 1) The gods are living creatures like us, but on a different level or 2) the gods are symbolic ways of understanding different aspects of the one God who is too big a concept for us to comprehend. This second one is my own belief.
Also, the one God can go by any name. "He" is ultimate reality and you can call that Atman, or Brahma, or Shiva, or Cosmic Energy, or Shakti. Any of those names can name the Absolute.
I find mythology very interesting. I rarely think that the stories "really" happened, but I don't find that means that they are any less valid or any less real. Being a trained fiction writer, I sometimes find more truth in fiction than in real life.
I don't need for religious stories to make sense or follow a linear progression. Contradictions are not a problem for me. Rather than analyze them, I usually just let them wash over me and see what I get from it.
Take Krishna and Radha and the rest of the gopis. Is it weird that there's a story of a God who is lustfully desired by hundreds of young women? Not really. I think that we are all gopis, longing for unity with God. And all of us can be beloved of God, not just one.
What about Krishna stealing butter and being a difficult child? I think it shows the joy and zest for life in children and encourages us to seek unity with that kind of delight.
Are there particular stories that trouble you?
3. you surly heard the phrase "33 koti devas/deities" in hinduism. wikipedia says that it is possible that 330 million is a mistranslation . and it is actually 33 kinds/types of gods. do you have any reference on this issue for further reading? or if you yourself can explain it to me .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptions_of_God#Conceptions_of_God_in_Hinduism
I read recently that 330 million is more like a way to express infinite. Like in English we might say "There were like a billion flies at the picnic." We have no idea of the number, so we pick a really big one to represent it.
On a DVD I watched about Going to a Temple (from Appu Series) they said that 330 million is not a literal number, but a way to express that every single thing in creation is a god (right down to blades of grass and fruit flies).
Of course, as mentioned about Advaita, in reality there is only one. One God who is everything.
I disagree with some of the things written in that Wikipedia article. To say that God is generally considered female in Hinduism is ridiculous and there are no footnotes to support that claim. There are those who worship Shakti primarily or Kali, but they are not the majority. I think most Hindus (and probably most Christians) would agree that God does not have a gender. Again, we break the Absolute down into parts so that we can understand the whole, so there are both male and female parts that balance each other. Each major male God has a female counterpart.
********************************************************************
I'm happy to discuss anything that anyone wants, but it is a good idea to put the questions in an email to me or a comment on the current post. I don't get any alert of new comments, so it can sometimes take a while before I discover new comments on older posts.
Tomorrow I'm going to post a summary linking to some of my key older posts so that new readers can get a quicker introduction to what's going on around here and not have to read through every post.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Feeling deflated
This was a packed full weekend. On Saturday morning Chinmaya was having a celebration of the birth of Shankara that I went to. Shankara is a sage from around 788 A.D. who revitalized Hinduism and tried to unite it as one thing (advaita), so he is the founder of the smartha branch of Hinduism that I follow. The celebration was at the large temple in the area instead of the Chinmaya center. It was hard to find the group at first, since they were in the lower level auditorium area and not the main temple floor. I wore one of my saris. I love sari and there aren't enough opportunities to wear them!
Sunday morning I went to the Chinmaya service and then I stayed for several hours so I could go to the youth group's discussion in the late afternoon.
The youth group is for people 18-35, but I was the oldest there by a few years. The vast majority of people were younger than my little brother and were in college or just starting college. They also grew up together, knew the same people, and many went to the same college.
A couple of things didn't work out well for me in this group. One is that I feel like I'm at a very different place in life than they are and that they aren't able to understand my perspective, since I have now realized the foolish stubbornness of being 18!
The other thing is that there was another girl there who was new. She was a friend of one of the other girls. She was a Christian Indian. The book we were discussing was talking about being your own person (a good lesson for me!) and I spoke about the need to separate your own desires and dreams from your parents desires for you.
This girl spoke next. She said, "Well, as brown people, we really respect our parents..." She dismissed everything I said and implied that because I'm not "brown" I am a monster who doesn't respect or care about her parents.
Apparently my insight is useless because I'm not Indian. As though I don't know anything about parental pressure!
I was deeply disheartened by that. She is not, and I'm not sure anyone there is, interested in my unique struggles.
I'm going to look into finding an adult discussion group.
************************************************************************
Also on Saturday a friend came over and we discussed Hinduism. I find that I have a hard time explaining many concepts because I have believed them for so long that I'm rusty on the whys.
In essence he asked why we act in the world at all if it is ultimately just an illusion and not meaningful (as stipulated in my post on Good and Evil) (Correct me if I'm wrong about the question, J!)
This life is an illusion, and yet we have to participate in it and play our roles. Why?
I don't have a great answer for this, but I think that people are always going to do something. People will always act. If you were enlightened and you could see that the world was just a game, would you do nothing at all? I doubt it. I think that you'd have fun and do things that made you happy.
What if the things that make you happy are "bad" things (again, there is not really anything bad or good in reality, but there are things that help other souls move toward enlightenment and things that hurt). I would argue that no one actually finds joy from destructive acts. There's another reason behind an act like killing a puppy. A person might think that will make him happy, but I don't believe that it actually does.
An enlightened person gets happiness from helping others quite naturally because he can see that the others are himself. Not to start the whole Christian v.s. Advaita debate again, but my mother used to tell me that Jesus said to love one's neighbor as one's self because the neighbor really is yourself.
Fate is a very slippery concept in Hinduism. Do your actions have effects or does everything happen the way it has to based only on sanskara? Somehow, there is both fate and free will operating together in a very complex web that we will probably never understand. They say that there are certain issues that we will have to face in order for our soul to move forward, but when the problem comes up, if we are present, we have the choice. We can choose something that will move our soul forward or we can rely on a fog of habit.
In reading the Mahabharata, one of the things that you'll notice is that there's always a fate driven explanation for people's actions. For example, Kunti just happens to say to her sons that they must share what they have brought home, not knowing that it is a wife. To not make her a liar, all the brothers marry that one woman. But then Vyasa comes in and says that this woman prayed devoutly in a previous life five times for a husband, so she was fated to have five husbands. It is never clear whether Kunti caused this to happen or if it had to happen and how those two things go together. There are hundreds of examples of this in the Mahabharata.
I don't really have answers. I think is is dangerous to think that you have the answers to things already. If that were the case, I would already be enlightened. I like that Hinduism leaves a lot of things open for one to ponder and wonder about and it might take lifetimes to figure out the truth. The most important thing is to think about it, to keep wondering.
Sunday morning I went to the Chinmaya service and then I stayed for several hours so I could go to the youth group's discussion in the late afternoon.
The youth group is for people 18-35, but I was the oldest there by a few years. The vast majority of people were younger than my little brother and were in college or just starting college. They also grew up together, knew the same people, and many went to the same college.
A couple of things didn't work out well for me in this group. One is that I feel like I'm at a very different place in life than they are and that they aren't able to understand my perspective, since I have now realized the foolish stubbornness of being 18!
The other thing is that there was another girl there who was new. She was a friend of one of the other girls. She was a Christian Indian. The book we were discussing was talking about being your own person (a good lesson for me!) and I spoke about the need to separate your own desires and dreams from your parents desires for you.
This girl spoke next. She said, "Well, as brown people, we really respect our parents..." She dismissed everything I said and implied that because I'm not "brown" I am a monster who doesn't respect or care about her parents.
Apparently my insight is useless because I'm not Indian. As though I don't know anything about parental pressure!
I was deeply disheartened by that. She is not, and I'm not sure anyone there is, interested in my unique struggles.
I'm going to look into finding an adult discussion group.
************************************************************************
Also on Saturday a friend came over and we discussed Hinduism. I find that I have a hard time explaining many concepts because I have believed them for so long that I'm rusty on the whys.
In essence he asked why we act in the world at all if it is ultimately just an illusion and not meaningful (as stipulated in my post on Good and Evil) (Correct me if I'm wrong about the question, J!)
This life is an illusion, and yet we have to participate in it and play our roles. Why?
I don't have a great answer for this, but I think that people are always going to do something. People will always act. If you were enlightened and you could see that the world was just a game, would you do nothing at all? I doubt it. I think that you'd have fun and do things that made you happy.
What if the things that make you happy are "bad" things (again, there is not really anything bad or good in reality, but there are things that help other souls move toward enlightenment and things that hurt). I would argue that no one actually finds joy from destructive acts. There's another reason behind an act like killing a puppy. A person might think that will make him happy, but I don't believe that it actually does.
An enlightened person gets happiness from helping others quite naturally because he can see that the others are himself. Not to start the whole Christian v.s. Advaita debate again, but my mother used to tell me that Jesus said to love one's neighbor as one's self because the neighbor really is yourself.
Fate is a very slippery concept in Hinduism. Do your actions have effects or does everything happen the way it has to based only on sanskara? Somehow, there is both fate and free will operating together in a very complex web that we will probably never understand. They say that there are certain issues that we will have to face in order for our soul to move forward, but when the problem comes up, if we are present, we have the choice. We can choose something that will move our soul forward or we can rely on a fog of habit.
In reading the Mahabharata, one of the things that you'll notice is that there's always a fate driven explanation for people's actions. For example, Kunti just happens to say to her sons that they must share what they have brought home, not knowing that it is a wife. To not make her a liar, all the brothers marry that one woman. But then Vyasa comes in and says that this woman prayed devoutly in a previous life five times for a husband, so she was fated to have five husbands. It is never clear whether Kunti caused this to happen or if it had to happen and how those two things go together. There are hundreds of examples of this in the Mahabharata.
I don't really have answers. I think is is dangerous to think that you have the answers to things already. If that were the case, I would already be enlightened. I like that Hinduism leaves a lot of things open for one to ponder and wonder about and it might take lifetimes to figure out the truth. The most important thing is to think about it, to keep wondering.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Labels
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? :)
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? :)
Appropriation
Reading the message boards again I hit an interesting comment that gave me new insight on why my life might be a problem. Someone mentioned that some Indians see white Hindus as a seal of approval on Hinduism, as though the West has to give it credibility before it is taken seriously.
That is a terrible shame. I wouldn't want to make it seem like anyone needs my permission to practice his religion! I don't know why so much authority is given to Americans, to whites, to those in the West. Perhaps it is simply respect for the economic success the West has seen. That is not an area I know much about. For a book club I've been reading a book called "The White Tiger" and it has some very disturbing things to say about politics and economics in India right now. On that, I am no authority.
I do not come to Hinduism to take it over or to make it better. I come to bow at the feet of an Indian guru (namely, Adi Shankara and the Shankaracharyas who continue his teachings).
I don't think we need to go back to the bitterness of the debate about the "Aryan invasion." Regardless of that situation, I would say that it was not white people who built this religion. The great philosophizing in the ancient writings are from brown people. Krishna, whose words I value above all others, has a name meaning "dark."
This religion fully belongs to non-whites and I do not come to try to take it away. I want only to blend seamlessly into the masses of people who live their lives based on the Upanishads and the Gita and who call out to Shiva and to Rama for help understanding this world.
Hinduism does not belong to me, but I belong to it.
That is a terrible shame. I wouldn't want to make it seem like anyone needs my permission to practice his religion! I don't know why so much authority is given to Americans, to whites, to those in the West. Perhaps it is simply respect for the economic success the West has seen. That is not an area I know much about. For a book club I've been reading a book called "The White Tiger" and it has some very disturbing things to say about politics and economics in India right now. On that, I am no authority.
I do not come to Hinduism to take it over or to make it better. I come to bow at the feet of an Indian guru (namely, Adi Shankara and the Shankaracharyas who continue his teachings).
I don't think we need to go back to the bitterness of the debate about the "Aryan invasion." Regardless of that situation, I would say that it was not white people who built this religion. The great philosophizing in the ancient writings are from brown people. Krishna, whose words I value above all others, has a name meaning "dark."
This religion fully belongs to non-whites and I do not come to try to take it away. I want only to blend seamlessly into the masses of people who live their lives based on the Upanishads and the Gita and who call out to Shiva and to Rama for help understanding this world.
Hinduism does not belong to me, but I belong to it.
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