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What Makes a Hindu a Hindu?
- Thread starter Vinayaka
- Start date
ratikala
Istha gosthi
dear zenzero ji ,
jai jai , that one deserves frubals :bow:
paralells ?
bhagavad gita ...ch 4 ..v 22
He who is satisfied with gain which comes of its own accord , who is free from duality and envy , who is steady in sucess and failure , who is never entangled , allthough performing actions .
so the question now is how many of these things are our dharma , our duty , and the question is why we do them ?
to fullfill our dharmic obligations ?
or to obtain some result ?
ratikala
Istha gosthi
dear prabhu ji
not seeing .... is not looking ,
ha ha then you are perfectly satisfied ,.... gain has allready come , ..... jai jai
ratikala
Istha gosthi
another paralell for you ,
better than absolute sovereignty on earth . better than going to heaven. better than lordship over all the worlds is the reward of reaching the stream .
even in celestial pleasures he finds no delight . the diciple who is fully awakened delights only in the destruction of all desires .
Dhammapada ...178, 187
what ever delight of satisfaction there is on earth , what ever is the great delight in heaven ,they are not worth a sixteenth part of the joy which springs from the destruction of desires .
Mahabharata ... santi parva 6503
Breathe
Hostis humani generis
This isn't looking good for me, guys. :cover:
Unfortunately, everyone thinks it's unhealthy.
Brahmachara diet? No, but I wouldn't mind it.
No, not daily.
No.
No.
No.
I try to.
No.
No; most are atheists. I have a friend who's unsure of his religion, but is a theist.
Nope...
Nope.
No, but I've only prepared things with meat in for myself the tiniest number of times in the last few years. Yes, I realize I should be one.
Unfortunately, everyone thinks it's unhealthy.
Sometimes.
If I'm asked.
If need be.
I wouldn't mind.
Not yet.
Not fully. I sometimes have my doubts.
Yes.
Yes.
Not fully. I wear imitation leather quite frequently though.
I suppose.
I have no idea.
No, but I would have liked one.
Yes.
I hope so.
I don't have any, but I want some.
N/A
Nope.
Yep.
Brahmchara āśrama? Married with children, so no.
Brahmachara diet? No, but I wouldn't mind it.
Not unless I've been to temple and been given one. The looks I got...
I try to.
Yes.
I don't; my house doesn't have a shower yet. Council won't put one in due to the bathroom extension's foundations failing.
Yep.
Yes for the latter.
I'm fine with it. My back sometimes less so.
I would like to.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
Sometimes. When I met another white person who was Hindu on jury service, I didn't do it.
Vrindavana Das
Active Member
This isn't looking good for me, guys. :cover:
No, not daily.
No.
No.
No.
I try to.
No.
No; most are atheists. I have a friend who's unsure of his religion, but is a theist.
Nope...
Nope.
No, but I've only prepared things with meat in for myself the tiniest number of times in the last few years. Yes, I realize I should be one.
Unfortunately, everyone thinks it's unhealthy.
Sometimes.
If I'm asked.
If need be.
I wouldn't mind.
Not yet.
Not fully. I sometimes have my doubts.
Yes.
Yes.
Not fully. I wear imitation leather quite frequently though.
I suppose.
I have no idea.
No, but I would have liked one.
Yes.
I hope so.
I don't have any, but I want some.
N/A
Nope.
Yep.
Brahmchara āśrama? Married with children, so no.
Brahmachara diet? No, but I wouldn't mind it.
Not unless I've been to temple and been given one. The looks I got...
I try to.
Yes.
I don't; my house doesn't have a shower yet. Council won't put one in due to the bathroom extension's foundations failing.
Yep.
Yes for the latter.
I'm fine with it. My back sometimes less so.
I would like to.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
Sometimes. When I met another white person who was Hindu on jury service, I didn't do it.
Everything is a reaction of our own good or bad actions...
Breathe
Hostis humani generis
Hmm?
Sounds like I have a lot of bad actions...Everything is a reaction of our own good or bad actions...
This 'Hindu' thing is confusing. The 'Hollywood' Hindus haven't helped. When its all over the press that Julia Roberts has 'converted' to Hinduism, and then 2 paragraphs later she tells of how she celebrates this fact by going out for a steak, there is a collective eye-roll by all the readers.
When the likes of Deepak Chopra, Yogananda and many others who are using Hindu practices, but totally deny the relationship to Hinduism, or SD, and people make up all kinds of new names, no wonder the average westerner and many Hindus themselves have no idea of what the term might mean.
"Hindu' institutions like ISKCON, Sai Trust, Vedanta Societies, Ramakrishna Math, SRF, etc, have all at one time or another denied their Hinduness for a variety of reasons.
Some people do bandy it about haphazardly in relation to the drug culture, birth place, language even.
We have staunch traditionalists claiming basically nobody is a 'true' Hindu except for anyone on that narrow little group they happen top belong to.
On the opposite end, we have people saying everybody is a Hindu.
So from my own POV, whatever definition works for you is the correct definition for you, But if someone else's definition varies from that in either of the aforementioned directions, so what? Let it be. That's the spirit of tolerance ... it goes both ways. Liberals tolerate the traditionalists, and traditionalists tolerate liberals.
So many definitions - so many variances - so many paths within it.
When the likes of Deepak Chopra, Yogananda and many others who are using Hindu practices, but totally deny the relationship to Hinduism, or SD, and people make up all kinds of new names, no wonder the average westerner and many Hindus themselves have no idea of what the term might mean.
"Hindu' institutions like ISKCON, Sai Trust, Vedanta Societies, Ramakrishna Math, SRF, etc, have all at one time or another denied their Hinduness for a variety of reasons.
Some people do bandy it about haphazardly in relation to the drug culture, birth place, language even.
We have staunch traditionalists claiming basically nobody is a 'true' Hindu except for anyone on that narrow little group they happen top belong to.
On the opposite end, we have people saying everybody is a Hindu.
So from my own POV, whatever definition works for you is the correct definition for you, But if someone else's definition varies from that in either of the aforementioned directions, so what? Let it be. That's the spirit of tolerance ... it goes both ways. Liberals tolerate the traditionalists, and traditionalists tolerate liberals.
So many definitions - so many variances - so many paths within it.
I think they think they know what it means... ethnicity. Hindu=Indian; Indian=Hindu. Strictly speaking, Hindu refers to the Indus River (Skt. Sindhu -> Pers. Hindu -> Grk Indoi -> Latin & English Indus -> back to Hindu) and the people who lived there. So linguistically and etymologically, Hindu really is an ethnonym.
That aside, you don't get that ethnicity thing with Buddhism because Buddhism has spread all over Asia. No one thinks of Buddhism as being solely Japanese, or Chinese, or Vietnamese. Buddhism seems to have come to the US along with New Age, Neo-Pagan, Wicca, teenage girls proclaiming they are lesbians or bisexual, and other fashionables. People have no idea that there are Hindus in Malaysia, Indonesia and South America, and that it no longer has anything to do with Indian ethnicity. But people still equate Hinduism with Indian.
I honestly, truly expected my family to pipe up with something like (well, there's still time):
Them to me: "Hindu? Oh now you're Indian?"
Me to them: "And you're Judean/Semitic, that you follow a Jewish teacher?"
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Who is this 'they' you speak of? One difference between you and me is that I include myself in that 'they' and you seem to exclude yourself from it. But I could be wrong.
So altering it accordingly .. it becomes .. "I may think I know what it means, but do I?
We all have our own senses about it, none much more 'correct' than another.
The "they" is "the average westerner and many Hindus themselves" you referred to. I myself have no confusion or doubt about what being Hindu or being a follower of Sanatana Dharma means. Therefore I do exclude myself from the "they", as an average westerner and Hindu, making the distinction by religion, and not by ethnicity.
Why, what is "wow"? Maybe I haven't explained properly. 'Tis possible.
Maybe I haven't explained properly. 'Tis possible.
Ah, I see. I was hoping I didn't give a "wow, this guy is really effed-up" impression to you. Keep in mind I have a unique perspective... or so I like to think. I've been on both sides of the fence, so to speak. Actually I've hopped over a couple of fences before discovering which backyard I belong in.
And even still, I pluck a few flowers from other gardens to see if they'll grow in mine, i.e. reading the Dhammapada, the Tao Te Ching, the Dalai Lama, Vivekananda, Sivananda, Yogananda, Ramakrishna, Jesus, etc. Just to learn, if nothing more. Not syncretism, but digging to see if the flowers' roots send out runners and are interconnected deep in the garden bed. Maybe my family is not entirely wrong when they call me "weird". But my roots are firmly planted in Sanatana Dharma.
I say unique perspective because of being Italian-American, US-born, raised Roman Catholic, had Hindu leanings since my teens, dropped Christianity in all its forms, became deist (which at the time I didn't know I was actually Advaitin and still am) and finally embraced what I felt is right... Hinduism/Sanatana Dharma. I'm only minimally ritualistic, as my responses to the survey show. I was raised with rituals that I think bring a person no closer to God than sitting in prayer and meditation in a park or at the beach listening to the sounds and solitude and mostly listening to hear what God has to say. In the 70s we called it "communing with God".
People say God doesn't answer them or hear them. Well, maybe because He can't get a word in edge-wise with people yapping and whining and begging Him for things. I rarely ask; as Jesus said, God knows what we need before we ask. Need, not want. And I trust He will give me what I need. He always has.
I'm not looking to shake anyone's faith, except maybe Christian evangelicals, bible literalists and fundamentalists :biglaugh: or bring anyone to my way of thinking.
And even still, I pluck a few flowers from other gardens to see if they'll grow in mine, i.e. reading the Dhammapada, the Tao Te Ching, the Dalai Lama, Vivekananda, Sivananda, Yogananda, Ramakrishna, Jesus, etc. Just to learn, if nothing more. Not syncretism, but digging to see if the flowers' roots send out runners and are interconnected deep in the garden bed. Maybe my family is not entirely wrong when they call me "weird". But my roots are firmly planted in Sanatana Dharma.
I say unique perspective because of being Italian-American, US-born, raised Roman Catholic, had Hindu leanings since my teens, dropped Christianity in all its forms, became deist (which at the time I didn't know I was actually Advaitin and still am) and finally embraced what I felt is right... Hinduism/Sanatana Dharma. I'm only minimally ritualistic, as my responses to the survey show. I was raised with rituals that I think bring a person no closer to God than sitting in prayer and meditation in a park or at the beach listening to the sounds and solitude and mostly listening to hear what God has to say. In the 70s we called it "communing with God".
People say God doesn't answer them or hear them. Well, maybe because He can't get a word in edge-wise with people yapping and whining and begging Him for things. I rarely ask; as Jesus said, God knows what we need before we ask. Need, not want. And I trust He will give me what I need. He always has.
I'm not looking to shake anyone's faith, except maybe Christian evangelicals, bible literalists and fundamentalists :biglaugh: or bring anyone to my way of thinking.
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