Religion of One's Birth

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.

Fear

I had my first therapy appointment today. It was really excellent and I have real hope that this woman will be able to help me get back to myself. There's a lot of different things going on that are making it difficult for me to see clearly. We talked about a few different things today, one of which was my spiritual background.

The therapist said that in all aspects of my life that I talk about I seem ambivilent. That word describes me all over, not in a bad way, just an observation of how I see life. And it's true. I have that Indian fatalism.

I don't tend to strive for much because the world is an illusion, but then I am left feeling blah and without purpose.

Right now I am feeling that I need to more deeply explore my beliefs and be willing for them to flex and change according to what I myself see about life. I am afraid to question things and afraid to criticize what I have been taught to believe.

And yet I really do believe that it is valuable to question what you are told. I wouldn't take anyone as an authority unless it rang true in my heart (Except for the people who have been given to me as authority from the time I was a child. I never question Shankara, but I should. Questioning doesn't mean disagreeing with, after all.) I think faith that is questioned and stands up to the pondering is much stronger. One should ask questions, one should try to understand. Questioning is not being disrespectful to God.

Some part of me feels like it is. In part I don't want to do this questioning in public, in front of others, in case it gives an opening to people who would blame my religion. There are people who would say that my current aimlessness is the fault of me not "having Jesus in my heart." I don't think it is the fault of my religion, but something in me. But then why am I even afraid to explore in private? Who do I think is going to be displeased? Would examining my beliefs make me disloyal to my parents, to the people who taught me all I know about spirituality?

Maybe it isn't God I fear displeasing at all. One of the great things about the Smartha branch is that it encourages that you rely on your own experience. You have an inner guide, the Atman, God, and so you have all the knowledge and everything that you need already. Finding that inner voice is just part of the journey. I'm not sure I can hear much of an inner voice yet. I think I have a lot of an outer voice telling me what my inner voice should be saying.

This is not me questioning my religion. I am dedicated to my religion, but I do think it is valuable to examine the rote answers I have been given and try to understand them for myself. In order to do that I have to leave open the possibility of things I have been taught being proved wrong in my own experience. I am really, startingly afraid to do that. I guess I'm afraid I will lose my mooring.

I believe so strongly and so fiercely in the existence of an immortal soul. That belief is valueless if I never question it and never probe it. I don't honestly think that I will discover it to not be true or to discover a belief within me that it isn't true. So why am I afraid to ask it? What do I not want to see?

We must, we really must, look from the corners of our eyes, to what is lurking behind our conscious awareness. Pull those fears and deep-seated beliefs into the light and see exactly what they really are.

How much more relaxed and sure I will be once I have done that! As the therapist pointed out, I am not happy right now. My religion teaches that I should be happy. I think there is a little, niggling fear in me that it won't hold up to scrutiny. But what good is a religion that doesn't hold up to scrutiny? We're looking for something to give meaning to our lives, to help us understand why we are here and what our life is for. We should be ruthless in looking for the answers to those questions.

I think the truth will turn out to be what I have always suspected it was, but I will be much happier and more confident and not be plagued with night terrors connected to dying if I leave open the possibility that the truth might not be what I think. I will be a scientist about it, and explore those questions with as little bias as I can.

I have always thought that our purpose in life is to find the answer to those questions of who we are and why we are here and that it is dangerous to think we already have the answer.

I'm sorry to those people who thought they gave me the answer already, but I have to explore the questions from the ground up instead of starting with the assumption that the answer to the question of who I am is the Atman. What if it isn't? I really need to know that!

Guru Purnima

Today is a day for honoring one's gurus (teachers...I think everyone knows that one these days. This is interesting, though. According to my mom, the word guru comes from a Sanskrit word meaning "heavy." Presumably heavy with knowledge and wisdom).

I am having a very long and exhausting weekend and I don't have the energy to tell you about it, I'm afraid. So, I'm sending you over to The White Indian Housewife's About.com page about it:

http://goindia.about.com/b/2010/07/25/celebrate-2010-guru-purnima-today.htm

And some more details:
http://hinduism.about.com/od/festivalsholidays/a/gurupurnima.htm

http://festivals.tajonline.com/guru-purnima.php

There is a puja tonight at Chinmaya, but I don't feel ready to participate. I've gone a while now without a guru or much guidance. It's something I want to have, but I'm easing into it. I haven't officially started study with Chinmaya yet and I don't know the Swami-ji and his teachings well yet. Probably next year I will attend the event. This year, reading spiritual texts from the great teachers of the past will have to suffice.

Om

This symbol is sometimes spelled in Roman characters as "Om" or "Ohm" or "Aum."

It begins and ends most Vedic prayers and many other spiritual works. It is chanted by itself or as part of other prayers.

It is not a letter of the alphabet and it is not really a word. It is only itself, a symbol representing what is believed to be the first sound in creation.

The reason is it sometimes spelled "Aum" is that the symbol grew out of the three letters representing the three main sounds present in ॐ:

Ah= अ
Uu= ऊ
M= म

There are many threes in Hinduism. There is a trinity of Gods and these phonemes are said to represent them, or to represent the stages of Birth, Life, and Death. There are also three gunas, which I'll need to remember to talk about soon. Even though Om is said to be these three sounds, when pronouncing these three sounds one after the other, one's mouth would move in such a way as to form all the vowel sounds possible in human speech. It is one symbol representing many sounds, and so it is a metaphor for God who is one being made up of many.

The crescent shape with a dot on top is called a chandra bindu, meaning moon and dot.

This is the sound most often associated with Hinduism and also frequently made fun of. Any character ridiculing meditation in a movie will be chanting this sacred sound. The Om is used to represent Hinduism whenever there are groups of religious symbols put together:

From here

It could be thought of as similar to Christians saying "Amen." It is a sacred sound used to dedicate a prayer to God or the universe.

It is said to be not only the first sound in the universe, but also the vibration behind every living thing. The universe hums with the sound of Om at all times.

It is used in Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism as well.

Keep your eyes open and you will see "Om" all over the place. It is used as decoration and in jewelry and sometimes it's very stylized, but it's always recognizable...

(This one is more of the Tibetan way to write Om)








These images from One, Two, Three, Four

Your Intro to Bollywood

Even though I have been surrounded by Indian philosophy all my life, I am very new to the culture. Six years ago I started Bharatnatyam classes and found myself spending a lot of time around Indians and absolutely loving it.

At that time the only thing I knew about Bollywood was that people make fun of it. I had heard that the movies were long and overly dramatic and Americans I knew who had seen them rolled their eyes about them. But I was curious to see for myself, so I asked the girls in my dance class to recommend a first one to see.

They suggested Dil Se. I don't agree that it makes a good intro! It's very intense and very dark, and of course very long. I felt thrown in the deep end with that one. I would like to rewatch it now, since it's been several years and I've gotten a much better feel for Bollywood movies.

Now the term "Bollywood" refers to Hindi films being produced in Mumbai. There are also films in Marathi, in Tamil, and in many other Indian languages and those have their own following and are called other things. There are also movies known as "cross over." Those are movies that are either more Western in style or are filmed in the West. Mira Nair's movies are usually called cross-over (she did Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake).

I had seen Monsoon Wedding when it was in theaters, but that is far from a Bollywood style.

If people ask me now how they should get started with Bollywood movies, I recommend Swades.

I saw that one very early on too, long before I knew that the main actor in both Swades and Dil Se is one of the most popular heartthrobs, named Shahrukh Khan or SRK. I had no idea at all.

Of course, when I first saw Swades, I pronounced it "Sway-deez," which is pretty much the way that combination of letters would be pronounced in English. It wasn't until I watched it again recently and saw the title in devanagari letters in the opening that I realized it was "swah-desh" And from that I was able to understand what the title meant! This is a perfect example of why it is a mistake to write Indian languages in Roman script. :)

Swades is a good introduction because the story is easy to follow, it starts out in America so it's a good grounding for Americans trying to get into it, and the music is well integrated into the story.

After that, there are a lot of directions you could go. There are tragic epics like Dil Se or Raincoat (these aren't really my style, and I never ended up finishing watching Raincoat!), there are loads of romantic comedies like Kuch Naa Kaho, there are classics from the the 1950s like Pyaasa (which I have not seen) and Madhumati (apparently responsible for starting to spread the idea of reincarnation to the West), there are gangster movies and there are buddy comedies like 3 Idiots that came out earlier this year and I haven't been able to see yet.

The 1970s was, apparently, when the term "Bollywood" was coined, as India overtook America as the largest film producer in the world. There has been a lot of borrowing back and forth between Hindi cinema and American movies. Though probably more of a cross-over movie, Bride and Prejudice was a brilliant adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice to modern India. And going the other way, the director of Moulin Rouge said he was directly inspired by Bollywood.

Music has also had a great sharing between India and America. Both filmi music (the music in Hindi movies) and Bhangra have influenced American hip-hop and vice versa.

There have been some Indian style movies written and produced in other places with various degrees of success. Slumdog Millionaire was written, directed and produced in Britain, but was based on a book by an Indian author. Marigold was a 2007 attempt done in Hollywood. I watched it recently and found it fell flat, though I can't really put my finger on why. One fantastic attempt was a Direct TV miniseries called Bollywood Hero. It stars Chris Kattan playing himself. He's frustrated that no one takes him seriously in Hollywood and he stumbles onto an opportunity to be a leading man in India, so he takes off for adventures in creating a Bollywood movie. It's very funny and it's available from Netflix.

Netflix is a great source of Hindi movies. Much more so than Blockbuster and I switched from Blockbuster to Netflix for that reason. I found that once I got the feel for it, I loved the music and dance and the long stories.

One Family

The White Indian Housewife has an interesting post up about feeling inferior.

Here is a little clip:

The way I see it, there is no superior or inferior culture. We are all people…. all the same creations of God (and if you believe in reincarnation, we can be born into any culture and have probably existed in other cultures). But I do wonder where these views come from?

What exactly do Indians have to feel inferior about and why? They are resilient, hardworking, intelligent, and adaptable people.

Are us whites to blame? I don’t think so.

This is not a topic I feel much of an expert on, but I was interested to read her experiences and I would like to read the book she mentioned.

One thing that it did make me think of is my feeling lately that I'm not doing enough to help the world.

I also believe, as she says, that we are all creations of the same God, that we are all family. (As a matter of fact, a friend sent me this link recently and it is a short story that beautifully illustrates a possible why and how we are all One. It's passable writing and an amazing story. It's very short, you should go read it!)

I hear stories about people living in such poverty and having so little, worrying over having enough to eat, and I feel sad and I feel guilty. I want to do something to help, but it's so hard to know what or how.

I look for opportunities to volunteer, but too often volunteering seems like something I am supposed to do just to feel good about myself. "Come for this tour and do some volunteering on the side." The volunteering to play games with kids or teach some English doesn't seem like it gets at the core of what I want to help with.

So I'm trying something new while I continue to look for opportunities. I found out about Kiva.org from a friend's Facebook page. It's an organization that connects people through small loans. I can loan $25 to a third-world business of my choosing and a bunch of other people will also contribute to that business. When the business owner pays back the loan, you can put the money toward another loan. (And there is a group for Hindus, http://www.kiva.org/team/kiva_hindus ) So, that's one step I can take while I brainstorm other ways to help the world.

What other ways do you think we have to contribute to the lives of our brothers and sisters around the world?

Hindi in unexpected places

I didn't know that a post praising peace would be controversial. I'm sorry, I didn't intend to get people riled up. Obviously, these are my personal opinions and they may or may not be valid or grounded in reality, but you come here for my beliefs and here they are!

Anyway, something light for today.

When I was at work yesterday I happened to glance at some engineering magazine that someone had brought in. It was laying face down so that I saw the ad on the back and I was so excited that I tore the back cover off and took it home with me:





That is Hindi! It says "Do you speak Matlab?" The best part is that I knew what it said immediately, instinctively, without even closely examining it. I just knew it. Just like that. What an incredible feeling. It is a very simple sentence, of course, but I take whatever little victories I can in language learning.

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For sometime in the future I've asked my father to write a post for this blog. It will probably be a while because I did not give him a deadline, he's a very busy person. But I wanted to offer his perspective because, unlike me, he sees no difficulty at all in blending Advaita with Christianity. He also feels no conflict between being a spiritual man and being a scientist. I think he has a really great perspective that I would love to share with you all.