Originally Posted by
jparkton
Firstly let me apologize to anyone who may be offended by these words and the length of my intro but I wanted to give as much information as I can.
I am Joseph I was born and raised an American. When I was 3 my father left us, when I was 11 my mother was murdered we were bounced around a bit and after our grandmother died we were orphaned and given to the state. I ran away at 15 which lead me to encounter many different groups. Ananda Marga, ISKCON, RamaKrsna Math, Barshana Dham(Now the JKP? Radha Madhav Dham) Shaiva Siddhanta Church and a couple of others such as Buddhist paths and Sikh. I lived in the asrams of many of those groups except JKP and SSC I never made it down to Texas but I intended to. So from a very young age I was exposed to a lot of groups, whether or not they are viewed as authentic, bogus etc I learned many things from each one.
I lived in a couple of different bad situations in ISKCON and left burnt out after years on the road as a sankirtan devotee, traveling sankirtan, as well as living in the New Vrindavan community. But it caused me to fall in love with the sanatan dharma system. I have since met devotees from the Narayan Maharaj pure bhakti mission and the ritvik prabhupad temples and a few other movements within ISKCON such as IRM (ISKCON Reform Movement) and mainly due to the amount of infighting and Guru bashing, philosophy speculations and numerous scandals I choose to leave rather than try and find a Guru within that system mainly due to the amount of mental turmoil it causes me.
I also have encountered SSC Himalayan Academy and bought the Master Course trilogy as well as a few other books by their sampradaya. I love the depth of information and the spirit of those books. Honestly I would love to follow this SSC maybe due to the Saivite nature more than the dogmatic points but I am a poor man and cannot spend thousands of dollars on myself + thousands on my wife to go on innersearch and go to Hawaii for ceremonies. Really trips ANYWHERE even inside the US take months of planning and saving since I make very little money and my wife is a student in College so we do not have the means to be devotees in a fiscal capacity which is what most sampradayas need the most and understandably so.
Ramakrsna Math was a great experience, so much devotion and dedication but I suppose the same can be said of all monks and persons who dedicate themselves to an order. So after all of these experiences I am left in a state needing upanaya and diksha and there are so many orders and maths and each one is at enmity with the others and so much hypocrisy in places and scandals and etc etc... My wife and I just want to be hindu but there is no way to find Guru here in Idaho. Being born into this sanatan dharma must have been a blessing maybe the wife and I just need to pray to be born brahmins in the next life, being born in sanatan dharma at least there is some direction. Some path you are following in some way from birth and a community. So what are we to do? We want to be hindu but there are so many scammers and self appointed Gurus and such out there. We do bhajans in our home, have a simple shrine of Shiva, Ganesh, Parvati and a Shiva Lingam. We also have Radha Krsna but these are not dieties, they are not installed, not worshipped properly etc.
We would like to worship them correctly and do more, maybe a home temple for anyone interested in our area but it is so bogus with no Guru if you understand what I am saying? How does one become brahmin if not following some sampradaya? Or is this impossible? Feel free to point out my ignorance and push me and my wife in the proper directions. Do we just memorize as much information we can find on the web since we cannot travel to India and just 'be' braminical and fake it (which I can only assume is offensive to dieties and devotees both so a truly bad idea) what to do? Point me to te right forums and threads and I will appreciate it. Or send me a PM on the board.
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