Namaste,
The Rig vedic verse often quoted to our tolerance and acceptable to all religions is a misnomer, "Truth is one, wise call it by many names'. during vedic times, there was no 'other' religion. Hence how could it be applied to other religions. Swami Vivekananda and other monks used this verse so that all Indian can unite. dvaita and advaita are hopelessly opposite. Still without us being united to fight for freedom, one cannot drive Britishers. Hence all those tolerance theories. They were necessary at that time.
Ramakrishna Paramhansa established that all paths lead to same goal, but is he acceptable to all? Ramakrishna never celebrated ID or Christmas, but only religious festivals that were celebrated by Temple authorities like Durga astami, etc. But today, Ramakrisha mission will celebrate Christmas, ID, etc, etc.
Even though we believe in tolerance and that all paths leads to one, it is a one way traffic, else there is no need for any conversion procedure for any religion.
Dalits and out-caste were ill-treated and so they may have willingly converted to other faiths, but conversion of higher caste is rare as compared to mass conversion of Dalits. But this is good. Now Hindus are starting to give respect to Dalit and outcaste, though initially we may remember them only when they leave our faith
- yes this is truth. Better late than never
Kanchi Shankaracharya has made great efforts in uniting shudras with others and building temples for them. In Puri rath yatra, all castes are given opportunities to pull the rath (chariot-car)
But westerners earlier British and now America have systemically destroyed our culture in the name of development. Hence in their study, everything must be before 1500 BC or say 2000 BC, else they will loose their edge. They have not given us credits for our discoveries in field of maths and science, but things are now changing in 21st century. aache din aa gaye hai (good days have come)
Technically, the final destination of jiva w.r.t to God is important and also the creation theory.
According to Christianity, as said by Rajiv Malhotra, all humans are born sinners. A sinner cannot free other sinners. Only that who is free of sin can get rid of others sin. so God incarnated or his part (son) incarnated through mother marry Jesus had to be born out of virgin Mary. Hence God was father of Jesus and Jesus was not born out of normal intercourse. Hence he was free from sin. So virgin birth was a pre-requisite for Jesus. It is not the case with us. Soul is originally pure. We have forgotten our true nature and our journey is to know our true nature (or be eternally in company of Sriman Narayana or Siva).
They do not believe in reincarnation but the judgement day. All Abraham-ic (from Saint Abraham) religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam (and sometimes Bahai is categorized as Abrahamic) believe in all prophets upto Adam and Eve. Even Islam believes in Jesus, Noah, etc and that God directly spoke to Moses.
There is christian good news. I dont remember these good news, but it is a way to free oneself from sins by accepting 5 things like accepting Jesus as your saviour, etc. Their final destination is heaven.
There i.e. Christian Good news do not apply to us as we are not born sinners. We have to uproot all desires, de-merits, by meditating on God (tapa)
Islam's final destination is 72 virgins waiting for you in jannat (heaven). Even Muhammad's father according to Muhammad is in hell (jahannum), as he died before 3 months of Muhammad's birth (Sahih Muslim). So you got to accept Allah as the only God (La lilla illila) and Muhammad as the only prophet. (This is not found in Qurran, but scholars say, it's components are found). There may be a lot of things that are fundamentally different and their moral and ethical codes like Sari'a Law is not acceptable to Hinduism. Islam does not recognize country boundaries, but only distinguishes between Muslims and Non-Muslims.
Recently, there was a case in India (in 2014) where a daughter-in-law was raped by father-in-law. She approached Sharia Court. The judgement was the, now she i.e. daughter-in-law is father-in-law's wife and her earlier husband is now her son. She objected and approached Indian court. Finally she got justice. Father-in-Law was jailed for raping her.
Hindu is a geographic denomination and not a name of religion. Ours is a religion without any name as once it was the only religion. We hav ea separate texts for dharma (civil codes, law), household duties (grihya sutras), vedas for upliftment of humanity and vedanta for GYAna. We have our own history in Mahabharat and Ramayana and Purana-s are there for all. People following, charvakism, sankhya, yoga, nath sampradaya, vedanta, purva mimamsa, nyaya, etc are all categorized under 'Hinduism' only. vedic dharma is sanAtana dharma, which is the philosophical part of our shastras.
I would not write all my views or I may end up in bashing Islam, but I do not agree in todays version of Islam.
But media morons and other sickular politicians will accept
Bharat - Bharatiya
Aryavarta - Aryavartians
Hindu-sthan - Hindusthanis
India - Indian
but will not accept
Hind - Hindus
Hind, Indu river, Indus valley, Hind Mahasagar, etc ???
Indu --> Hindu
Indu, Indus - Indians
It is people living in Indian subcontinent are all hindus (I am not an RSS worker)
In short our final destination is different than theirs.
Advaita says, Moksha is possible here and now and it is a state of consciousness.
Vaishnava-s live eternally in Vaikuntha (different from heaven of Indra)
Shaiva-s believe that Siva not only as forms, but is also formless, but their formless is not attributeless (as that of advaitic concept of brahman)
We Hindu-s in general believe that God is capable of manifesting as any form, can directly or through a medium can contact humans, while Allah cannot incarnate in flesh and bones, nor can communicate directly. Muhammad received revelations via Gabriel, which initially he thought to be a demon, a Satan or he thought he was possessed by Satan. Allah created universe out of need, while Christians and Hindu-s believe that God created world our of his wish and not because he was lonely, etc.
Hari OM
