"We Are All Hindus Now" # 3

"The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: "Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names." A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur'an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional, conservative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me."

Lisa Miller

We Are All Hindus Now
By Lisa Miller | NEWSWEEK
Published Aug 15, 2009

America is not a Christian nation. We are, it is true, a nation founded by Christians, and according to a 2008 survey, 76 percent of us continue to identify as Christian (still, that's the lowest percentage in American history). Of course, we are not a Hindu—or Muslim, or Jewish, or Wiccan—nation, either. A million-plus Hindus live in the United States, a fraction of the billion who live on Earth. But recent poll data show that conceptually, at least, we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, our selves, each other, and eternity.

The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: "Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names." A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur'an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional, conservative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me."

Americans are no longer buying it. According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life"—including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing. Thirty percent of Americans call themselves "spiritual, not religious," according to a 2009 NEWSWEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has long framed the American propensity for "the divine-deli-cafeteria religion" as "very much in the spirit of Hinduism. You're not picking and choosing from different religions, because they're all the same," he says. "It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that's great, too."

Then there's the question of what happens when you die. Christians traditionally believe that bodies and souls are sacred, that together they comprise the "self," and that at the end of time they will be reunited in the Resurrection. You need both, in other words, and you need them forever. Hindus believe no such thing. At death, the body burns on a pyre, while the spirit—where identity resides—escapes. In reincarnation, central to Hinduism, selves come back to earth again and again in different bodies. So here is another way in which Americans are becoming more Hindu: 24 percent of Americans say they believe in reincarnation, according to a 2008 Harris poll. So agnostic are we about the ultimate fates of our bodies that we're burning them—like Hindus—after death. More than a third of Americans now choose cremation, according to the Cremation Association of North America, up from 6 percent in 1975. "I do think the more spiritual role of religion tends to deemphasize some of the more starkly literal interpretations of the Resurrection," agrees Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion at Harvard. So let us all say "om."

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

Posted By: Anand_Anand @ 08/17/2009 11:29:11 PM

The title of the article will probably turn off most non-Hindus. I am a Hindu and if an article started with "We are all Christians", my ability to reason and rationalize would take a hit right there, no matter the merit of the ensuing content. Especially on a topic as sensitive as personal faith.

My belief is any religion that boxes you into a frame of mind that allows no freedom of thought cannot lead you to enlightenment or salvation. The greatest asset of Hinduism is despite all the rituals and traditions, it allows me incredible freedom to think. It does not make me any less a Hindu because I decide not to worship plants or the sun. I am allowed to disagree and encouraged to think for myself. Regardless of what religion you belong to, if you have the same freedom to "thiink" rather than always being told to follow, you're on the right path.

Look at this planet, it is an incredibly complex ecosystem constructed out of nothing more than atoms that bind differently. And this planet of ours probably does not even figure in the grand scheme of things when you think about the universe and the mind-boggling complexity that makes up void, matter and everything in between. Think about the incredible beauty and complexity just within our solar system and about the limitless array of elements that come together in ways our brains cannot even begin to comprehend.

Do you really think this incredibly magnificent complexity of the universe and everything within it can be boiled down to the human concept of heaven and hell present in each religion? Hinduism allows me to ask that question and seek the answer without labelling me a traitor. I hope your religion does too and if it does, we belong to the same religion whatever you name it and whatever God you worship.

Posted By: dsivrv @ 08/18/2009 4:47:09 PM

I agree completely. Hinduism has given me an inquiring mind. I don't worry if other people have different beliefs, because I am not boxed in myself. I have no need to convert other people, and I can celebrate Christmas and Eid and go back to my temple and pray. It is a wonderful way to live.

Posted By: pi31415 @ 08/18/2009 3:26:07 PM

I remember reading a news article in the mid 90s in India (apologies but the exact details escape me - perhaps someone can help). To summarise, the government of the southern state of Kerala had just dismissed the trustees of a famous temple for financial impropriety and taken over its administration for an interim period. Now Kerala was being ruled by a Communist government at the time. So the trustees lodged a case in the High Court to appeal against their dismissal, on the grounds that a government that doesn't believe in God couldn't justifiably take over the administration of a Hindu temple. The High Court promptly threw the case out, stating that nowhere in Hinduism is it stated that you have to believe in God to be considered a Hindu.

What's interesting is not just the judgement, but what then happened, or rather, what did not happen... life went on! Nowhere were there any protests against this decision as the people understood the inherent validity of this argument. It made me feel very proud of my religion, my country and the innate wisdom of the common Indian.

How Should We View Death and Dying?
( The American hindu monk says)

Our soul never dies; only the physical body dies. We neither fear death nor look forward to it, but revere it as a most exalted experience. Life, death and the afterlife are all part of our path to perfect oneness with God. Aum.

Bhashya
For Hindus, death is nobly referred to as mahaprasthana, "the great journey." When the lessons of this life have been learned and karmas reach a point of intensity, the soul leaves the physical body, which then returns its elements to the earth. The awareness, will, memory and intelligence which we think of as ourselves continue to exist in the soul body. Death is a most natural experience, not to be feared. It is a quick transition from the physical world to the astral plane, like walking through a door, leaving one room and entering another. Knowing this, we approach death as a sadhana, as a spiritual opportunity, bringing a level of detachment which is difficult to achieve in the tumult of life and an urgency to strive more than ever in our search for the Divine Self. To be near a realized soul at the time he or she gives up the body yields blessings surpassing those of a thousand and eight visits to holy persons at other times. The Vedas explain, "As a caterpillar coming to the end of a blade of grass draws itself together in taking the next step, so does the soul in the process of transition strike down this body and dispel its ignorance." Aum Namah Sivaya.

http://www.himalayanacademy.com/study/mc/todays_lesson.shtml

How Do Hindus Understand Karma?

Karma literally means "deed or act" and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction which governs all life. Karma is a natural law of the mind, just as gravity is a law of matter. Aum.

Bhashya
Karma is not fate, for man acts with free will, creating his own destiny. The Vedas tell us, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future. It is the interplay between our experience and how we respond to it that makes karma devastating or helpfully invigorating. The conquest of karma lies in intelligent action and dispassionate reaction. Not all karmas rebound immediately. Some accumulate and return unexpectedly in this or other births. The several kinds of karma are: personal, family, community, national, global and universal. Ancient rishis perceived personal karma's three-fold edict. The first is sanchita, the sum total of past karmas yet to be resolved. The second is prarabdha, that portion of sanchita to be experienced in this life. Kriyamana, the third type, is karma we are currently creating. The Vedas propound, "Here they say that a person consists of desires. And as is his desire, so is his will. As is his will, so is his deed. Whatever deed he does, that he will reap." Aum Namah Sivaya.

NOTE: If this page was accessed during a web search you may wish to browse the sites listed below where this topic or related issues are discussed in detail to promote global peace, religious harmony, and spiritual development of humanity:

www.adishakti.org/
www.al-qiyamah.org/
www.adi-shakti.org/  — Divine Feminine (Hinduism)
www.holyspirit-shekinah.org/  — Divine Feminine (Christianity)
www.ruach-elohim.org/  — Divine Feminine (Judaism)
www.ruh-allah.org/  — Divine Feminine (Islam)
www.tao-mother.org/  — Divine Feminine (Taoism)
www.prajnaaparamita.org/  — Divine Feminine (Buddhism)
www.aykaa-mayee.org/  — Divine Feminine (Sikhism)
www.great-spirit-mother.org/  — Divine Feminine (Native Traditions)

"Now, the principle of Mother is in every, every scripture - has to be there." Shri Mataji, Radio Interview 1983 Oct 01, Santa Cruz, USA