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| Defects and merits of Christianity , Hinduism, Islam
Hinduism has two defects. The first is that all the rituals are not conducted in the mother tongue. The rituals involve hymns in Sanskrit. In the ancient days, Sanskrit was the mother tongue of the sages. They understood the meaning of the rituals and were very much interested in God. Every ritual explains about God only directly are indirectly. Today the rituals are like the dead bodies without life. Their real aim and purpose is lost. Not even a trace of devotion is developed through any ritual. At least the priest should translate the hymns and should create interest in the ritual. If you observe the other religions, this defect does not exist because all their rituals are performed in their mother tongue.
This is the reason for the sincere devotion in Christianity and Islam. Added to this, like Ghee for fire, the concept of only one present human birth in the other religions has developed tremendous interest in God due to fear. In Hinduism the belief of several future human births brought lenience towards spiritual field. If you allow the candidate to pass the examinations in several attempts, no serious view can be developed. If you say that one has to pass the examination in single attempt, the education system will be perfect. Observing the other religions must rectify these two defects.
Christianity and Islam have their own defects. They should also rectify their defects by observing Hinduism. Selfishness, pathetic scenes and fear develop their belief in God. If you want to develop interest in God by saying that Jesus suffered for your sins and by showing the pathetic scene of crucifixion, it is not real and pure love. When you get interest in Jesus since He suffered for your sins, your love to Him is only based on selfishness. Your love to Jesus should be based on His divine personality and knowledge without any trace of selfishness. Similarly, these two religions try to create fear in the minds of human beings by mentioning the permanent hell. Fear should not be the basis for the love to God. The love should be spontaneous and without any selfishness in a free atmosphere. The reason for this deficiency in the foreign religions is due to absence of metaphysics in the scriptures.
Those scriptures mainly deal with the development of proper human behavior to balance the society. Such scriptures are mainly dealing with ethics only and not with the philosophy of God like the nature of God, path to please God etc. The analytical development in the spiritual knowledge is not much in these scriptures. They have confined God to the path of Pravrutti only and God is simply an administrator bound by His own rules. He is just a judge to deliver the judgment and a jailer who jails the sinners. He is just a mechanical examiner without any freedom or love to devotees. He cannot go beyond the rules of justice. Of course, all this is good for the initial development of the human beings.
Mere happy life in a society is not sufficient because such life is not eternal. The life after death should be also analyzed. Mere judicial procedure is not the ultimate of God. The love towards God, the sacrifice for the sake of God, the concept of contemporary human incarnation for the sake of most beloved devotees etc., are points of higher importance than mere limitation to the petty family only. The view is at the best generalized to the service to the society. Society is only a large family of your colleague souls only. God is beyond society. You must transit from the service to family to the service to the society and finally to the service to God. These three are the subsequent steps in ascending order. The foreign religions are mainly confining to the first two steps only and not to the third step. In the name of the third step they are only staying in the second step (social service) only.
The basis for this deficiency is lack of the concept of contemporary human incarnation. They criticize the idol worship of Hinduism. But they are doing the same in another form in their churches and Mosques. The exploitation of the devotees by priests is common to their religions also because the concept of the contemporary human incarnation is completely eradicated from the root in these religions because the selfish priests do not allow this. The same thing happened in the case of Holy Jesus. Hence, Holy Mohammad did not allow this concept for the fear of such horrible jealousy towards the contemporary human incarnation.
In Hinduism also the selfish priests oppose the contemporary human incarnation. However in Hinduism, this concept is at least partially alive since Gita says that God will come again and again (Yada Yada hi…) and that God will come in human form (Manusheem tanumashritam…).
At the lotus feet of Shri Datta Swami
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| dattaswami - 2007-05-11 10:59 AM
Defects and merits of Christianity , Hinduism, Islam
Hinduism has two defects. The first is that all the rituals are not conducted in the mother tongue. The rituals involve hymns in Sanskrit. In the ancient days, Sanskrit was the mother tongue of the sages. They understood the meaning of the rituals and were very much interested in God. Every ritual explains about God only directly are indirectly. Today the rituals are like the dead bodies without life. Their real aim and purpose is lost. Not even a trace of devotion is developed through any ritual. At least the priest should translate the hymns and should create interest in the ritual. If you observe the other religions, this defect does not exist because all their rituals are performed in their mother tongue.
Where did you get this Silly idea? That the Indians in the past knew the meaning of what was chanted in Sanskrit in the rituals. NO. Most of them did not know the meaning of it. Even the priests who chanted them, 80 percent of them, did not know it. In fact, there is a gradation of priests in the rituals as: a) one who only chant, do not know the meaning b) one who knows how to offer sacrifices, I mean the technology, but do not know chanting and meaning, c) the one who know meaning, etc. etc.
The reason why a yajamaana (for example King) is appointing a priest to do the ritual (advaryuu) is because they do not know how to perform the ritual.
Also, not knowing the meaning does not eliminate effect of that ritual. For example, a Vietnamese boy who is immediately adopted by an American person, becomes an American citizen, and then attends an American School. Now, that boy does not know any details of American History and may even not know English. But, hears the American Anthem each day at school. Within few days he develops American Spirit!!!
But, yes, knowing the meaning wil be extremely useful. But, not to perform ritual unless meaning is known, is like not watching news unless I know how the circuitary of TV works.
OM namaH shivaaya. |
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| http://www.paktribune.com/pforums/posts.php?t=3904&start=1
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| kulkarnn - 2007-05-11 11:11 AM
[...]
But, yes, knowing the meaning wil be extremely useful. But, not to perform ritual unless meaning is known, is like not watching news unless I know how the circuitary of TV works.
OM namaH shivaaya.
Well said! Rituals performed with reverance just seem to help put us in the right frame of mind (or is it frame of no mind?  ). One of the most intense spiritual experiences I had was chanting in a service at a small Zendo on a piered foundation. I felt a great sense of oneness as the building and all of us within reverberated together and I lost myself in it completely for a short while; no thought about anything other than reading the next syallable to chant and no sensation other than the oneness I was immersed in. Guess what? I don't understand Pali. Not a word. I was raised in a Christian environment as something of a skeptic and while I have great reverance for the Bible as the stories of my tradition, I don't accept everything as unwavering absolute truth. I am really a Universalist at heart. My wife is an Episcopalian of strong faith and we were married in her church. When we kneeled and took communion together as part of the service, it was more meaningful to me than it ever was before or has been since. Even a ritual you understand but don't completely accept as literal truth can be good for your spirit. I have had long talks with the priest (who I think is also a Universalist at heart) and he encourages me to continue to take communion despite my reservations because the reverance is still very real. He told me that adopting my own personalmeaning for the ritual is far better than pretending to buy into the "official" one, which he knows full well a significant portion of the congregation does. |
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| What are the defects and merits in yourself? Does it really help, on your journey to the Self, to project outwards so much?
Peace,
Soul |
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| OptiMystic - 2007-05-11 11:59 AM
kulkarnn - 2007-05-11 11:11 AM
[...]
But, yes, knowing the meaning wil be extremely useful. But, not to perform ritual unless meaning is known, is like not watching news unless I know how the circuitary of TV works.
OM namaH shivaaya.
Well said! Rituals performed with revera.............as something of a skeptic and while I have great reverance for the Bible as the stories .........g for the ritual is far better than pretending to buy into the "official" one, which he knows full well a significant portion of the congregation does.
Devotees having full egoism and jealousy will never worship even a stone on this earth. Thus they will worship only the formless energy or awareness or at least the energetic forms like Shiva, Vishnu etc. which are available in the upper world only. They reject this earth completely. People in Brundavanam thought of worshipping Indra, who is an energetic form. Krishna wanted to introduce something on the earth and He introduced the mountain, which is a collection of stones. At least let the people accept a formless stone because they cannot tolerate the human form introduced into the stone for worship.
Salagrama for Vishnu and Lingam for Shiva are such formless stones, which are suitable to devotees having very high level of jealousy to the human form. Somehow it is the beginning stage because at least the material with which the human form is carved is introduced. When the jealousy is slowly reduced, they can accept the human form introduced into the stone. At this level the jealousy is pacified because the human form introduced in the stone does not exist on the earth. Thus the statues of Shiva, Vishnu etc. are accepted at this level. Somehow the concept of human form is introduced.
When the jealousy and egoism are further reduced, the human forms of past incarnations like Rama, Krishna etc. are introduced. At this level also, the jealousy is pacified because the human forms are not alive at present before the eyes. Somehow this is a better step because devotees believe that God comes in human form. These three levels constitute the worship of statues through rituals. If you analyze the rituals, they are the steps of service to the human form. The training is given to worship and serve the human form of God. Sankara said that the rituals purify the mind (Chitta Suddhi).
The purification of mind means only removal of jealousy and egoism completely from the mind. When the purification of mind is completed, the devotee is ready to accept the present human form of God. When the devotee deserves to meet the present human incarnation, certainly He will have the fortune of meeting the Lord in human form. Unless the devotee comes to this maturity, there is no use of meeting the human incarnation. The human incarnation also behaves like a human being and will be meeting so many ordinary human beings daily in routine. There is no significance for such meetings.
However, when the devotee achieves the complete maturity by enrooting the egoism and jealousy, such devotee experiences God in a human incarnation in the very first meeting itself. Hanuman experienced this in the very first meeting with Rama. If the mind of the devotee is completely matured, the inner God in the human incarnation reflects immediately in the pure mind of the devotee.
If the mind is tarnished by the black egoism and jealousy, the inner God is not reflected. In such case even if the miracles are performed, there is no use. Even if the Lord pours down the divine knowledge, there will be no use.
Therefore the people who are not purified through rituals cannot have the recognition of the Lord in human form. The rituals are called as Karma (Training) to remove the egoism and jealousy towards human form. Social service is also a way to achieve this in which one serves the human beings so that the natural repulsion towards human form is removed. For the God in the human incarnation every human being is equal. The recognition depends only on the purity of mind. The sun reflects in clear water but does not reflect on the charcoal. When the God is not reflected, the human incarnation appears as an ordinary human being only. The Lord also will not try to impress all the human beings about His divinity.
If the situation is plain like this, there is no problem, but some deserving devotees recognize the Lord due to their pure minds. Generally the liberated souls who have accompanied the Lord in His mission recognize Him spontaneously and straightly enter into the service without any doubt or proof for the divinity. The second type of devotees who are not liberated souls but achieved the purity of mind through rituals or social service recognize the Lord but are unable to enter into service because of the lack of liberation from the worldly bonds. The third type of people observes the Lord but treats Him as the human being only because their minds are impure with jealousy and egoism.
The whole problem starts when the third type of people hear the first two types speaking that the human incarnation is God. Now the reaction starts in the minds of this third type of people. They cannot accept Him as God due to the impurity of their minds and therefore start mocking at these two types of devotees. If the jealousy and egoism of these people is at the climax level, they start mocking the human incarnation also along with those devotees.
If such people are strong atheists, they start even abusing the human incarnation. The atheists have no faith even in the existence of God. They reject the miracles as magic. If the experienced miracles are magic, why not the experienced scientific experiments also are magic? Why the experienced world is also not a magic?
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| souljourney108 - 2007-05-12 8:31 PM
What are the defects and merits in yourself? Does it really help, on your journey to the Self, to project outwards so much?
Peace,
Soul
Hanuman studied all the Vedas and Shastras. He studied nine grammars from Sun. Nobody in creation can be equal to Hanuman in this scholastic ability of scriptures. Even though, Hanuman became the future Brahma, He never stated that He is God (Aham Brahmasmi). I am astonished to see these petty Advaita scholars who do not have one millionth knowledge of Hanuman speak Aham Brahmasmi! Hanuman always says ‘Dasoham’, which means that He is the humble servant of the Lord and never states ‘Soham’, which means that He is God. It is said that by remembering Hanuman the ghosts run away. The real ghost is this misconceived Advaita which will run away on remembering Hanuman.
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Defects and merits of Christia
