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Thread: Protecting Sanatan Dharma

  1. #1
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    Protecting Sanatan Dharma

    Many sharp analytical Hindu minds try to analyze their religion in order to establish the validity of its principles and its origin. There is no shortage of people who come up with the conclusion that its ancient teachings are all man-made with no divine source/inspiration, and need to be tweaked to accommodate today’s social needs/attitudes. For that class of people here are some things to consider:

    1. Events in the material realm can be measured in a controlled environment and can be validated by conducting experiments in a lab, but spirituality/religion does not lend itself to that kind of validation. God’s laws are eternal and His presence can be experienced only by a sincere devotee; not by an intellectually sharp analytical mind focused on measuring and culling and cataloging. If a person is in the analysis and measuring mode, and has not surrendered to the Lord, he has no chance of experiencing the Divine.

    2. Various Acharyas/philosophers/thinkers may have some differences in the interpretation of the holy scriptures. People may have doubts about the role of certain personalities in the religious spectrum. There may be frustration with the clergy, for not pushing for a synthesis between the religion and nationalism/politics of the land; but under no circumstances must one doubt the divine source of these scriptures. That wrong notion would enable its detractors to twist it in whichever direction they choose to, and portray it in a negative light. With weakened Hinduism, conversions would accelerate even more.

    3. With millions of differences dividing various ethnic/linguistic/tribal groups in India, Hinduism is the glue that binds and holds them together. Shaking its foundations would be catastrophic and may result in the disintegration of the nation that we so endearingly call ‘Bharat Mata’. Why would diverse people want to stay as one entity if the commonality between them is made non-existent?

    Next time, our analytical Hindu minds get to be too big and start thinking that they are capable of improving on the divine scriptures; we must consider the above points!
    Last edited by Believer; 01 March 2011 at 12:13 PM.

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    Re: Protecting Sanatan Dharma

    Very interesting, Believer. I think I agree with what you've said. Your point about the vast diversity of India is most elucidating. Perhaps it is Hinduism that makes India one nation instead of many. I've never really thought much about the importance of believing that Hindu Scripture is of divine origin, perhaps because I've never bothered to question this notion very much. Are there a lot of people in India who doubt this? I know many fellow Indians here in the United States who do, but I've always thought that this is due to Western, atheistic influence. Do many people in India have debates about whether Hindu Scripture truly comes from God?

  3. #3

    Re: Protecting Sanatan Dharma

    Scriptures in Hinduism refer to ascention of human consciousness to divine. They were revealed when Seers or Rishis, in exalted states of consciousness reached out and touched the divine within themselves.

    It was not dictated by a God creature sitting in a heaven to a set of angels or his chosen prophets to be carried as books with the purpose of dictating common people's lives.

    While still being of divine orgin/inspiration, the former understanding gives an entirely different appreaciation for religion and its scriptures, as also their limitations, when compared to the Abrhamic view above.

    Without having read or studied a single scripture ourselves, the 2nd (Abrahamic) view of scripture and religion ofcourse gives us much ammunition to cover our ignorance, helping us tp blame & bash other sects, intellectuals for all our problems.

    We are perhaves not sure of our own religious duties, haven't ever performed tri sandhya consistently, but we can strike hard at anyone on the head who appears to criticize our insecurities with a hard bound gita press copy of catur-veda samhita. Reading it and trying to understand it - how dare you?
    What is Here, is Elsewhere. What is not Here, is Nowhere.

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    Re: Protecting Sanatan Dharma

    Quote Originally Posted by sanjaya View Post
    Are there a lot of people in India who doubt this? I know many fellow Indians here in the United States who do, but I've always thought that this is due to Western, atheistic influence. Do many people in India have debates about whether Hindu Scripture truly comes from God?
    As should be expected, education sharpens ones analytical abilities. With the ever increasing number of educated people in the homeland, more and more people are taking the 'finding it for myself' stand. Sure one could find scientific proofs/theories about cloud formation, about the reason for the twinkling of the stars, about crazy Americans walking on the surface of the moon, about rockets and nuclear payloads, and much more. Unfortunately, the same approach is applied to religion/spirituality, which are primarily 'faith based'. And therein lies the reason for secularization - show me, else I don't believe it.

    Did the Gods of heaven ever descend to the earth, or at least did they inspire some learned sages to come up with the scriptures? Man, the God's creation, inspired by God to write something, is about as close as it gets to the scriptures being the word of God. In the end, we end up splitting hair on the definition of the phrase 'word of God'. This distracts us from our real job - to seek spirituality; and also divides us on the basis of mere semantics. No, Lord Krishna did not stand there dictating the BG to someone, he merely spoke it, someone with extra-ordinary powers (gifted to him by God) heard/saw it all, from a great distance and narrated it to Dhritarashtra, and later on a sage wrote everything down for posterity. If nothing is believable, I wonder, why do we come to this forum? What binds us together? What exactly is it that we believe in? Do we aim to analyze every single holy book and sanitize it? Is anyone here capable of doing that? And if someone really can do that job, why would I trust him to be wiser than our ancient sages and believe in the 'new and improved' sanitized scriptures?
    -
    Last edited by Believer; 04 March 2011 at 11:25 PM.

  5. #5

    Re: Protecting Sanatan Dharma

    You seem to be using the word "analytical" as liberally as psuedo seculars in India use the word "fascist" and "fundamentalist" to mock opponents when they have no substantial point to discuss, but anyway want to win a verbal battle or have a last say.

    If sarcasm and mocking makes your cat-tail thicker, I am happy to have assisted you in it.
    What is Here, is Elsewhere. What is not Here, is Nowhere.

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    Re: Protecting Sanatan Dharma

    Protecting Sanatan Dharma
    Just want ask Question? about title of this post.

    Who is bigger, The protector or thing which is being protected ?

    Another Q: Who is protecting ?
    Another Q: Why some take this responsibility themselves ?

    _/\_Jasdir.
    "Everything is he, he is for Everyone, So to whom we can say.... is worse, As there is nothing other than Him." -Guru Nanak.

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    Re: Protecting Sanatan Dharma

    Quote Originally Posted by sm78 View Post
    You seem to be using the word "analytical" as liberally as psuedo seculars in India use the word "fascist" and "fundamentalist" to mock opponents when they have no substantial point to discuss, but anyway want to win a verbal battle or have a last say.

    If sarcasm and mocking makes your cat-tail thicker, I am happy to have assisted you in it.
    SM78,

    My sincere apologies for touching a raw nerve.

    We, the householders, mostly care about being given a moral code, and some prayers to thank/glorify/petition the Lord by the religious people. Rest of it falls in the domain of serious practitioners and the pandits/gurus/Acharyas. I have not heard any significant deviations in our main scriptures. If different versions do exist for some of the lower tier books, it will never be resolved. The reason is that there is no central authority to resolve such issues. Each Acharyas will continue to teach whatever his Guru taught him. If you have any suggestions regarding implementing changes to have everything uniformly coded, please tell us how we can help.

    On a different note, there is talk about Hinduizing politics. How do we get the Acharayas from different Mutts and Ashrams to conform to our desires?

    Then there is talk about not supporting a particular party, which at least on paper, has Hindutava as its core belief. The reasons given have been, 1. They also propagate caste based politics, 2. They support free market economy, 3. They use Hindutava for political gains only. Now in all seriousness, does anyone have a solution? Is anyone capable of floating a new Hindu party of clean cut saintly people and have a formula to line up enough people behind them to wrest control of the federal Govt.? Would dalits, muslims, Xitians and assorted masses mired in regional issues ever let that happen?

    We bring lots of problems to the forum, but no solutions. There is lot of discussion, we rant and rave, and then the issue dies. Would it not be more productive to have some practical solutions? When pragmatism loses to idealism, there is no progress. We have to see realistically how much we can get of what we want. If my child desires to have moon next to him, and all I can do is provide moon's reflection in a bowl of water sitting next to him, then that is what I will do. The end game depends on, what is do-able, not what I wish for under ideal conditions.

    Current generation of young people is the third one since independence. Believe me, each one of the three generations have complained vociferously about corruption, and yet kept Congress in power for some 60 of the 64 odd years. We get what we deserve, nothing more and nothing less. Another thread about corruption while knocking down alternate political parties on one pretext or the other is not going to get India out of the morass.

    I am sorry if we are tuned to different frequencies and are talking past each other, instead of to each other. That is not my intent, nor is to cause you any mental anguish. Just looking for solutions, instead of a list of perennial problems. Anger and frustration should be channeled into something positive.

    Peace!
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    Last edited by Believer; 05 March 2011 at 11:27 PM.

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    Re: Protecting Sanatan Dharma

    You have a valid concern about the use of such discussions, but I don't think it's useless. It promotes awareness amongst ourselves, a better millieu starts with yourself. I talked to my sister about Rahul Gandhi and that he promotes anti-Hindu propaganda. She replied, "what nonsense his name is Gandhi, how can he be anti-Hindu?" That just shows how lack of education on politic matters can cause problems, especially in a democratic society. I myself am not concerned a lot with politics in my daily life, but I learn a lot from the discussions here. Especially sm78, saidevo and Harjas Kaur have raised a lot of awareness about the problems in India on this forum.

  9. #9

    Re: Protecting Sanatan Dharma

    How many years after krsn ,sanatan dharma existed , say some thousand yrs after parikshit .

    humanity is to be protected , dharma never declines . glanih...means hate and abhiutthanam means provoking .

  10. #10
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    Re: Protecting Sanatan Dharma

    What reason is there to "protect" Sanatana Dharma? That would be like trying to protect the law of gravity in the sense that they are both inherent parts of the universe and don't need any defending. Whether you accept gravity or not its still there and you can do nothing to change it. Sanatana Dharma, IMO needs no protection. The hindu people on the other hand do need protection from attacks from radicals in society.

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