namaskaram
dear fireside ji
please no offence in thinking I have singled out you post , this is equaly applicable to many who have maade the assumption that ''....we are free to ....''
That doesn't mean that I believe that those people/institutions are without flaw or fault. I think stipulations like no eating beef have their place -as a personal reminder of gratitude/ a grounding oneself in one's faith, and also, from a practical perspective, preventing environmental damage and large scale cruelty. But I agree with Poeticus to some extent. People are free to labels themselves however they want, regardless of what people think because at the end of the day who's going to stop them? What people find acceptable or unacceptable changes with ever passing decade, so in reality, time decides who is and isn't a Hindu.
:camp:
I agree yes people have the freedom to choose their level of comittment and in this case I think it is cultural , ......but it is also as a result of karma , in that we are born into a position which reflects ones actions in a previous birth , if you examine this phenomena closely , ones birth into a particular position , into a wealthy or poor family , into a particularly devout family , into a vegetarian family , .....it is all as a result of our previous actions .
now for instance if this little jiva is going to come back , it is going to be extremely selective , ....no , no ...I wont take birth there ....not in a family who smoke and drink , ..not in a non veg family , ..., ...the jiva will go to what it knows , ...and to what has been important to it before , ...my feeling is that what ever we cultivate in this liftime goes with us into the next , ...so as a result you have hindus all over the globe practicing very differently keeping some of the principles but not all ....and unfortunately because this is Kali yuga the percentagr of pure souls is much smaller .....
say for instance we take the typical vendiagram ....
if we could for the analogy place this vendiagram within an all encompasing circle that we will call Hinduism ....
each section is them a follower of either one if the four commpn regulative principles and the fifth devotion ...
so all are hindu but within the wider circle we have the four common regulative principles
1 . strict vegetarians (no meat no eggs...)
2 . intoxicant free (no alcahol , drugs , stimulants ...)
3 . pure faith ..(no gambling , ...)
4 . procreation only within marrage with concern for offspring ..
and
5 . new converts (and indiginous peoples) attracted worship and mythology but who are not practicing the above ...
then you have the central intersection of them all ....the pure devotee ...
each Hindu fits within one category or another ....
but sadly in this Kali yuga the pure devotee section is smaller that prehaps we would like
...there you go ....I will work this illustration out a little better later .....possibly we need many more than five inclinations ...but hoping you get my point ....
). It's what people do.
