There are so many faiths out there, every individual can come up with his own personal way of looking at things. Potentially, at its maximum there can be as many as 6.7 billion faiths, as much as the population of the world. let us isolate ourselves with Hinduism for ease of argument, and call everyone over here a Hindu Who is a Hindu? You will hear almost everyone having a definition of their own. A vedAntin will say "he who believes there is only bramhan, is a hindu" a Saivite person will say "he who worships shiva is a hindu", An Iskconite will say "he who worships krishna is a hindu" Some scholar/historian will say "those who lie south and east of the indus river is a hindu" Like this you will hear many conflicting and contradicting definitions, and then you yourself will come up with one of your own, and the whole thing will swAmiji says the following about Hinduism .... even though rAma and krishna are worshipped as the Lord, they are not the originators of the Hindu religion. In fact, they were born into the Hindu tradition, and their own lives exemplified the values unfolded by the vedAs. Just as we cannot trace the origin of physics to a single person, the Hindu religion cannot be traced to a single person. The Hindu dharma is therefore called sanAtana dharma. It is the dharma of the Lord, and therefore is without a beginning or an end. . so HINDUISM IS BASED ON THE BEGININGLESS AND ENDLESS LAWS DESCRIBED IN THE VEDAS What to follow? There are so many different teachings within Hinduism itself, how does one know which of these is true? The answer to this can only be given by YOU, because only you can set the right inclination for yourself to follow the right teachings. Moreover, they must appeal to you, so here are a few guidelines that might help you make the choice My only advice is that you follow what MAKES SENSE and APPEALS to you the most. Here are some tips that might help 1) Never follow anything that is contradicting the vedAs. The vedAs are shabd pramANam, they are very beginingless knowledge we discussed in the last post. Any text, any scripture, any book, any interpretation, any commentary which contradicts the vedAs is not the right one for you. 2) Always always always use tattva viveka. Never accept something that seems wrong to you. Yes if you don't understand it initially, accept it till some Guru can come and clear your doubt, but if something seems outrageous and wrong, make sure you clear your doubt right away before the problem gets worse. Know how to distinguish between right and wrong. To be able to tell the difference between dharma and adharma, I seriously recommend using the rAmAyana and mAhAbhArata as a moral guide. The teachings of the Krishna in the Gita, and the life of Lord rAma can help you figure out the moral values that you must inculcate, and it may help guide you when you have to take a decision when you're in a dharma sankat 3) shraddha in GURU AND SHASTRA (vedAs/shruti/Upanishads) . In summary, what you learn mustn't contradict the vedAs, and know the difference between dharma and adharma, right and wrong... if confusion arises, accept it and clear doubt soon, if it seems totally wrong, clear it with your guru immediately!!
How to choose a Guru? 1)Most people make a grand mistake over here Guru = Gu + Ru.... Gu = darkness(ignorance/agyaan), Ru = removal My Guruji (Ram V Maniji), was told by his Guruji (swAmi dayAnanda saraswati of arsha vidyA gurukulam) in very elegant and beautiful and simple words. " A Guru is one who makes you see" 2) If the Guru removes your doubts, and clears your confusion one by one, then he truly is a Guru. If he ends up leaving you more and more confused each time you speak to him, then he is NOT the right one for you. A guru removes ignorance, if he can't do that he is NOT a Guru 3) These days the word Guru is thrown around as loosely as pennies. You have the entire product line from spiritual gurus, marketing gurus, and in recent decades, even sex gurus! These are NOT Gurus. 4) Please memorize this point as it will surely help you at least once in your life, if ever you need to choose a Guru. If a Guru tells you "I have experienced my AtmA, and I can teach you how to experience yours as well" RUN AWAY AND NEVER LOOK BACK the AtmA is not an object of experience. Every experience falls upon YOU, the AtmA. AtmA experiencing itself, is like your ears listening to themselves, or your nose smelling itself, or your tongue tasting itself. The AtmA is the SUBJECT, and if any guru says he has experienced it, he has made it an object, and then another subject is needed to experience the object which is now his AtmA. this will lead to an ENDLESS RERESSION. Very important! 5) If a Guru tells you he can give you enlightenment, run run run! A guru will help you remove your ignorance, not give you enlightenment. Enlightenment is simply knowing the nature of the self. Knowing "who am I", doubtlessly, without a mistake. 6) Dance yoga, artistic yoga, power yoga, music yoga, boom boom chak yoga etc, these are not going to give you mukti. Do not rely on these gurus to remove self knowledge. Yoga is amazing, it's excellent for the mind and the body. It keeps one fit, it inreases one's lifespan, it quietens a person's mind, it helps him get rid of tension, restlessness, helps cure breathing problems, illness, etc, but DO NOT expect to go into a trance, and wake up as a self realized person. This simply does not happen, the self is ever realized, all one needs to do is understand it. 7) If someone tells you to go into dhyAna and "find" your soul, guess what!?!? You need to lose something before you can find it! The AtmA is never lost, you are the AtmA, you can ONLY LOSE SOMETHING YOU HAVE, NEVER LOSE SOMETHING YOU ARE 8) swAmiji says, "we are experience hunters"... STOP searching for experience, the only thing that needs to be done to become liberated, is to remove self ignorance with the help of a Guru. Once you can answer the question "Who am I?" perfectly, that is IT, you are already a jeevan mukta. 9) DO NOT MIX AND MATCH. Many people might have a habit of taking good things from religion A, good things from religion B, from C, D...X, Y, Z... and throwing them all together and making a soup out of it. This does NOT work. If you are a vedantin, STICK to vedant, if you are a christian, Sstick to christianity, if you are a jain, stick to jainism.... learning good things from one another is excellent, but it is only to purify ones mind and remove prejudice from one another, it is NOT a means of liberation.
I have to say I agree with this, but I also disagree with this (typical philosophers answer lol). To make rapid success I agree one should focus. It is imperative; however, one should not limit their growth because something is outside of their religious background. Now, will you make great spiritual progress if you are worshiping as a Hindu, but living your life as a Christian (or Capitalist or any other 'way of life') I do not think so; however, there are plenty of lessons that have been taught in various schools which I feel can benefit our understanding of Hinduism. For instance the concept of living life detached from lust of results etc is especially important; however, this is also expressed in Taoism, Hermeticism etc and other religions just as well as some Hindu sources express this. Sometimes I find it easier to grasp the concept as presented in one of these other sources, and then bring that understanding back to my practice of Hinduism so as to better understand how it applies to my own religious/spiritual beliefs. I guess I'm not really saying anything different than you because in the end I am interpreting these texts so as to help me grow as a Hindu, but I felt there was enough of a different opinion to add my two cents. We can learn for other purposes than just understanding one another differences such as to better understand our own spirituality; but in general I agree with you. One must focus to make substantial progress. I can learn programming, philosophy, mathematics, physics, and English -- all of which complement one another -- but I will never excel at any of them spreading myself so thin; however, to learn physics without mathematics is impossible. There is some validity -- I personally believe -- in cross-cultural/religious learning. I hope I have made some sense. Very good posts by the way. Thank you for sharing them with us
There is always scope of refutation and doubts in hinduism. Acceptance of all the aspects is life is part of hinduism Opinions will always differ but to co-exist with difference in opinion is essence of Hinduism
Sorry, off topic, but a question for Amit: When you say 'swamiji' and give quotes, is that Dayananda Saraswati you're referring to? If so, i had the honor to hear him speak a long time ago. Quite entertaining he was.
A Hindu is an adherent of Sanatan Dharma which is known today as Hinduism or Hindu Dharma, that represents a set of religious, spiritual, philosophical, scientific and cultural systems that originated in bharatvarsh. Briefly a Hindu is basically any person who is born into the indigenous religion of Bharatvarsh.
