Loving Each and every creation of the God is absolute and real. 'Isavasyam Idam sarvam' Isam (the God) is present (inhabits) here everywhere - Nothing exists separate from the God, because God is present Everywhere. Respect every living being and non-living things as God. That's what Hinduism teaches you. Hinduism Is referred to as Sanathana Dharma, the eternal faith. It is based on The practice of Dharma, the code of life. The most important aspect of Hinduism is being truthful to oneself. Hinduism has no monopoly on Ideas.- It is open to all. Hindus believe in one God (not a personal one) expressed in different Forms. For them, God is timeless and formless entity. Ancestors of today's Hindus believe in eternal truths and cosmic laws and these Truths are opened to anyone who seeks them. But there is a section of Hindus who are either superstitious or turned fanatic to make this an Organized religion like others. The British coin the word 'Hindu' and Considered it as a religion I Said: 'Religions have become an MLM (multi-level- marketing) industry That has been trying to expand the market share by conversion. The Biggest business in today's world is Spirituality. Hinduism is no Exception' I Am a Hindu primarily because it professes Non-violence - 'Ahimsa Paramo Dharma' - Non violence is the highest duty. I am a Hindu because it Doesn't conditions my mind with any faith system. A man/ woman who change 's his/her birth religion to another religion Is a fake and does not value his/her morals, culture and values in life. Hinduism was the first religion originated. Be proud of your religion and be proud of who you are. All of the human race therefore has one common mother culture, mother language, and mother religion. This mother religion is what is known as Sanatana Dharma and the mother language of the world is Sanskrit. All the languages of the world have descended from Sanskrit. Take a look at the connection between Hebrew and Sanskrit --> http://www.viewzone.com/matlock.html The cultural influence of india can be seen all over the world from Mexico to Egypt from Bali to Australia and from South America to North America. - During Navaratri, Mexicans celebrate a 9 day festival called "Rama Sita" - Ancient Egypt has a document that was signed with "Varuna" and "Mitra" as the witness - The Parsi religion is derived from the fire worship mentioned in the Atharva Veda - The Red Indians have been known to perform a Homa (yagna or Havan) - Nature worship of the elements can be seen in Hawai - Thailand and indonesia celebrate Ramayana as their national treasure - The Aborigines of Australia have been known to smear their foreheads with Ashes similarly to south indians - The aboriginal language has a close similarity with Tamil - The Angkor Wat in Cambodia is the largest Hindu temple in the World and contains sculptures of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva - Buddhism which is an offshoot of Hindusim influences all of Asia - The Sun worship of the Inca is a concept borrowed from the Rig Veda After all, before several thousand years all the continents were one single land mass. Later on they separated into 5 or 6 pieces. The influence of the mother culture (Sanathana Dharma) can be found all over the world. If some serious research is done, you will connections of Islam, Christianity and Judaism with Sanathana Dharma. The stories of the birth of Jesus and Moses is very similar to what we find in the srimad bhagavatam. The Greek mythological stories have the influence of our Hindu Puranas written all over them. All the religions and languages of the world have indeed descended from Sanathana Dharma. The whole world indeed is one family. !! Vasudeva Kutumbkabam!! What is my religion and Why? I always get lost and speechless when someone asks me my religion. As religion means strict rules and worshiping God in a particular way. But for simplicity, you can call me Hindu or Sanatan Dharm or Vedic. Why - Why I am Hindu - Well, this ia very difficult question to answer.. Let's say it doesn't condition my mind to believe in a faith in particular way. It gives me freedom to accept the diversity - be it in language, food or culture. It teaches me to respect other people faith, even if sometimes I do not understand them. I am able to appreciate the contradictory world. I would say 3 shlokas that really inspires me: 1. Ekam Sat Vipra Bahuda Vadanti (Rig Veda 1.164.46) Meaning: There is ONE TRUTH - different sages call it differently. 2. Aham Brahmasmi Meaning: I am Brahman Does not mean I am God but means I have a potential to realize God and be ONE with IT. 3. Tat Twam Asi Meaning: That you are => you are also brahman - that means you also have a potential to realize God and be ONE with it Fundamentals Of Hinduism Understand Linux to understand Hinduism . In many ways Hinduism is like linux… it has no single founder or owner or authority; there is no single version of it which can be defined as so. Many features available in Ubantu may not be available in Redhat and viceversa. If you go by external features alone, then both of them are totally different. But the underlying basic approach is same in all versions of linux. Same with Hinduism. There are 3 Fundamental ideas basic to Hinduism: a. Universality: This is the first principle in Hinduism. Whether in science or in religion, any theory is considered good only if it is applicable universally. The presence of anomalies makes any theory incomplete. Thus Hinduism does not give any exclusive privileges to anyone. If it is possible for one to see God, it should be possible for all others to see God. If one can be a son of God, any other person also should have the potential to be son of God.If Meera saw Krishna, I too should have the potential to see Krishna. ('potential'- meaning- may not be at the present time, but surely has a chance, provided he is determined). b. Cause & Effect: Every action is a result of another action. Every result has a cause. So this principle is everything that happens has a cause and a consequence. Thus no good work goes waste and no bad act goes unpunished. c. Anubhuti: This is also the main idea in the Hinduism. It means 'experience'. The idea is that to know the reality, we ourselves should experience it, and not on some others experience. Religion to us is in practice not theories. I cannot understand the God, until I myself experience it. A person who has seen a horse is trying to tell how a horse will be. But if I have never seen horse myself, my understanding of horse will not be complete, and I may even start to think of horse as donkey, coz I have only seen a donkey. God and Creation Hinduism has NO concept of Ruling God - who controls everything. For Hindus, God is OMNIPRESENT ETERNAL CONSCIOUSNESS. . . In the beginning HE WAS ONE - ONE WITHOUT SECOND - HE WAS WITHIN AND WITHOUT - ALL-PERVADING. Then he thought - let me divide - and he divided itself - FROM THE FULL, FULL CAME OUT - BUT FULL REMAINED FULL. . There is no concept of CREATION from nothing. As you can not create anything out of nothing. IT is only TRANSFORMATION. We are just part of the omnipresent consciousness - evolved due to the TRANSFORMATION in the consciousness from energy to matter. Therefore there is nothing like GOD and God's creation. . Just like the cell divides and transforms into different organs of a human body. The SEED differentiates itself into different objects. . The nature of Consciousness in the object determines what that object is capable of doing. THIS IS CALLED ETERNAL LAWS - Sanatam Dharm (Eternal Laws that uphold). Therefore - every matter, anti-matter, energy and everything follow CERTAIN laws due to the CONSCIOUSNESS present in them. The Law of gravity is due to the Consciousness in the object. . The SEED has no SPECIFIC location - as it pervades everything. Can you tell which is the location of the FIRST cell in your body? . This is the reason - Hindus consider everything DIVINE. Everything is the manifestation of the CONSCIOUSNESS. We do not worship SPECIFIC GOD - but we praise the Manifestations. . We do not believe in FEARING of a God. But we believe: . Ahm Brahmasi = I am Consciousness. Tat Tvam asi = You are that (Consciousness). . So therefore - there is no difference in Aatma. In short: REALITY = All-pervading, OMNIPRESENT, INFINITE CONSCIOUSNESS We all are connected and ONE. . The differences we see is due to the Transformation of this consciousness - that gives each object - shape and attributes and it's "laws".
Paper on Hinduism Read at the World’s Parliament of Religions, Chicago 19th September 1893This is an abridged version of the original talk for easier comprehension _________________________________________________ Three religions now stand in the world, which have come down to us from time prehistoric- Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. They have all received tremendous shocks and all of them prove by their survival their internal strength. . But while Judaism failed to absorb Christianity and was driven out of its place of birth by its all conquering daughter, and a handful of Parsees is all that remains to tell the tale of their grand religion (Zoroastrianism), sect after sect arose in India and seemed to shake the religion of the Vedas to its very foundations, but like the waters of the sea shore in a tremendous earthquake it receded only for a while, only to return in an all-absorbing flood, a thousand times more vigorous, and when the tumult of the rush was over, these sects were all sucked in, absorbed, and assimilated into the immense body of the mother faith. . Where then, the question arises, where is the common centre to which all these widely diverging radii converge? Where is the common basis upon which all these seemingly hopeless contradictions rest? And this is the question I shall attempt to answer. The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end. The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis, and we honour them as perfected beings - They included both men and women. . The Vedas teach us that creation is without beginning and end. Science is said to have proved that the sum total of cosmic energy is always the same. Then, if there was a time when nothing existed, where was all this manifested energy? Some say it was in a potential form in God. In that case God is sometimes potential and sometimes kinetic, which would make Him mutable. Everything mutable is a compound, and everything compound must undergo that change which is called destruction. So God would die, which is absurd. Therefore there never was a time when there was no creation. I am a spirit living in a body. I am not the body. The body will die, but I shall not die. . Here I stand and if I shut my eyes, and try to conceive my existence, "I", "I", "I", what is the idea before me? The idea of a body. Am I, then, nothing but a combination of material substance? The Vedas declare, "No". I am a spirit living in a body. I am not the body. . The body will die, but I shall not die. Here am I in this body; it will fall, but I shall go on living. I had also a past. The soul was not created, for creation means a combination, which means a certain future dissolution. If then the soul was created, it must die. . Some are born happy, enjoy perfect health, with beautiful body, mental vigour and all wants supplied. Others are born miserable, some are without hands or feet, others again are idiots and only drag on a wretched existence. Why, if they are all created, why does a just and merciful God create one happy and another unhappy, why is He so partial? Nor would it mend matters in the least to hold that those who are miserable in this life will be happy in a future one. Why should a man be miserable even here in the reign of a just and merciful God? . In the second place, the idea of a creator God does not explain the anomaly, but simply expresses the cruel fiat of an all-powerful being. There must have been causes, then, before his birth, to make a man miserable or happy and those were his past actions. Are not all the tendencies of the mind and the body accounted for by inherited aptitude? Here are two parallel lines of existence- one of the mind, the other of matter. If matter and its transformations answer for all that we have, there is no necessity for supposing the existence of a soul. But it cannot be proved that thought has been evolved out of matter, and if a philosophical monism is inevitable, spiritual monism is certainly logical and no less desirable than a materialistic monism; but neither of these is necessary here. . We cannot deny that bodies acquire certain tendencies from heredity, but those tendencies only mean the physical configuration, through which a peculiar mind alone can act in a peculiar way. . There are other tendencies peculiar to a soul caused by its past actions. And a soul with a certain tendency would by the laws of affinity take birth in a body, which is the fittest instrument for the display of that tendency. This is in accord with science, for science wants to explain everything by habit, and habit is got through repetitions. So repetitions are necessary to explain the natural habits of a new-born soul. And since they were not obtained in this present life, they must have come down from past lives. how is it that I do not remember anything of my past life? This can be easily explained. I am now speaking English. It is not my mother tongue, in fact no words of my mother tongue are now present in my consciousness; but let me try to bring them up, and they rush in. That shows that consciousness is only the surface of the mental ocean, and within its depths are stored up all the experiences. Try and struggle, they would come up and you would be conscious even of your past life. . So then the Hindu believes that he is a spirit. Him the sword cannot pierce, him the fire cannot burn, him the water cannot melt (or make wet)- him the air cannot dry. The Hindu believes that every soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is located in the body and that death means the change of this centre from body to body. Nor is the soul bound by the conditions of matter. In its very essence it is free, unbounded, holy, pure, and perfect. But somehow or other it finds itself tied down to matter, and thinks of itself as matter. Well then, the human soul is eternal and immortal, perfect and infinite, and death means only a change of centre from one body to another. The present is determined by our past actions and the future by the present. The soul will go on evolving up or reverting back from birth to birth and death to death. . But there is another question; Is there no hope? Is there no escape? The words of hope and consolation came down and inspired a Vedic sage, and he stood up before the world and in trumpet voice proclaimed the glad tidings: "Hear, ye children of immortal bliss! Even ye that reside in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One who is beyond all darkness, all delusion. Knowing Him alone you shall be saved from death over again." . He is everywhere, the pure and formless One, the Almighty and the all-merciful. "Thou art our father, Thou art our mother, Thou art our beloved friend, Thou art the source of all strength; give us strength. Thou art He that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me bear the little burden of this life." Thus sang the Rishis of the Vedas. . And how to worship Him? Through love. "He is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life." This is the doctrine of love declared in the Vedas, and let us see how it is fully developed and taught by Krishna, who the Hindus believe to have been God incarnate on earth. He taught that a man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water but is never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in the world- his heart to God and his hands to work. Peace the Essence of Hinduism . Ekam Sat Vipra Bahuda Vadanti (Rig Veda 1.46.164) = There is ONE TRUTH - different people call it differently. This is the best statement of Tolerance and Acceptance of different faiths. . . Vasudeva Kutumbakam = the whole world is one single family This promoted UNIVERSAL brotherhood - irrespective of religion, country or race . . The cardinal virtues of Hinduism are: purity (Saucam), self-control (Samyama), detachment (Asanga or Vairagya), truth (Satyam) and non-violence (Ahimsa). . . Hinduism is unconditional - You are not bound for BAD afterlife for not "believing" in a diety. You are PURELY judged by your Karma. . . Hinduism celebrates Diversity instead of Uniformity for acheivemnt of Unity. Hinduism is neither fatalism nor pessimism, neither asceticism nor quietism, neither agnosticism nor pantheism, neither illusionism nor mere polytheism, as some of its hasty critics in foreign countries have represented it to be. It is a synthesis of all types of religious experience from the lowest to the highest. It is a whole and complete view of life. . . Lastly, prayer in Hinduism: Aum Sarve bhavantu sukhinah = may every one be happy Sarve santu niramayah = may every one be free from all diseases Sarve bhadrani pashyantu = may every one see goodness and auspiciousness in every thing Ma kaschit duhkha bhaag bhaveet = may none be unhappy or distressed Om shantih, shantih, shantih = Om peace, peace, peace! . . We pray for every being - regardless of his faith or belief. . There is NO word in Hinduism that teach us to act differently with people of different faiths. The quality of Hinduism is Assimilation and Inclusiveness.
