10 July 2016

My Experiments with Religion



I was born to Hindu parents & raised a Hindu. But it’s only now that I am irresistibly drawn to my birth religion. I was actually baptised in a Protestant Church before college. Converted to Roman Catholicism during college. Learnt about Jehovah's witnesses after college. 

Looking back, i can hazard three reasons why I was a religious vagabond. One, I went to a school run by Protestant Christian missionaries. The Sunday Bible classes, retreats & daily prayers influenced me & before i knew it, I had taken the holy dip, "cleansed" all my sins & become a “born again Christian” with a Christian name “Sandra”. Two, a practical foresight. I was in a serious, aimed-at-marriage relationship with a Malayalee Roman Catholic Christian in college. The conversion to Roman Catholicism was going to be a necessity someday as we were planning a Church wedding

Three, like many Hindus, I did not have a regimented Hindu upbringing. Yes, we celebrated all the ‘Hindu’ festivals. Yes, as kids, I sang devotional songs in the pooja room, everyday, just before dinner. Yes, I had prayer books too. Yes, I visited temples & bowed down before the Gods. But I never went to weekly Yoga classes nor daily Sanskrit classes. I didn't “study” the Ayurveda or the Bhagavad Gita. There were no structured, scheduled classes for any of these intrinsic components of the Sanatana Dharma, popularly called Hinduism. The things I did in the name of religion were all hand-me-down oral traditions & practices, that I followed mostly during festivals. I just never “studied” any of it.  I didn't “delve” into the significance of each of the things I saw or did. I was not “taught” why temples had bells or how the recitation of OM was stirring or how temples were painstakingly built as energy centers or how the concept of ‘the Universe within us’ & ‘mind over matter’ is central to Hinduism. Unfortunately, I never peeled the layers. 

Festivals were more times of merry making & school holidays than anything else for a child growing up in a remote village with access to no other entertainment in life. Dress up, eat nice desserts, visit relatives’ homes – this summed up our view of festivals. We never looked at it as a “religious” “Hindu” celebration. As adults, we negated the festivities as mindless rituals. Once in the city, we further removed ourselves from all native traditions claiming they had no relevance in a no-time-to-stop-for-anything metropolitan life. We became mechanical followers of a belief system that had its origin thousands of years ago & actually branched out into three more religious sects -  Jainism, Sikhism & Budhism - but was lost out on us because we cared not to accept it, we cared not to own it.

We Hindus go to Christian schools & recite prayer after prayer, forcibly or otherwise. We learn their scriptures & their Gods. Since weekly Friday or Sunday attendance in temples is not mandatory, we choose not to go on any day. And then, remain ignorant of the good values of our own faith because we don’t really have first hand knowledge of our religious texts. Worse still, in the garb of pseudo intellectualism, some of us condemn our religion, with our half-baked theories & ill-informed minds. 

Hindus need to be “taught” the tenets of Sanathan Dharma. We need to be “taught” the Vedas & the Upanishads, which are a storehouse of knowledge & spiritual truths. We need to be  “taught” Sanskrit in schools, like Arabic is. We follow the priests & their chants in Sanskrit, the vedic language, without understanding it & lose out on the richness of the language & the beauty of our religion. Yoga & pranayama techniques are potent tools to widen our consciousness beyond the ordinary sense of time & space. But none of these Sanatana Dharma marvels are compulsory in schools, unlike the Bible in Christian & the Quran in Muslim institutions.
 
We Indians take pride in our roots only once the West has embraced it. Yoga is a classic example. As David Frawley said in his book  “How I became a Hindu”, “There is no more only one true religion for everyone than there is only one true race, language or way of life. As a pluralistic system, Hinduism does not require that we hold to a single belief or savior.” Hinduism is not only a religion, but a culture, a spiritual path.

19 comments:

  1. Very nicely written. Every religion has a significance in and around places where it was born. One major boon (or curse) with our religion is, that it is very pluralistic and has inherent flexibility to choose path for enlightenment based on individual's preference.

    And hence, it lacks the strict organisational structure. But when I think about it, I guess that is what makes it beautiful and very unique.

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    1. True.... Santana dharma is probably the only pluralistic religion in the world and the beauty has to be explored by the individual himself
      It's sad that out flexibility is taken as our weakness sometimes

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  2. The Hindu dharma is a way of life and is a very liberal one at that. You are right that we become aware of our strengths when others embrace it and do better than us especially Yoga!

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  3. I'm surprised your Hindu parents were ok with sending you to a Christian school. Maybe they didn't mind you learning about it or maybe it was just considered a good school? How did they feel when you were baptised?

    Hey, your Christian name is my name! ;-)

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    1. Hey Sandra
      It's common in India to send children to Christian schools because they are Considered to be better. I am not sure they knew about the baptism. My mother did know I was reading the Bible but didnt stop me. She let me be.

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  4. Emotions absorbed in the earliest days of your life remain indelible. That includes music, food, stories, people and places. You are in the folds of a very safe creed today. Have fun!

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  5. In India, we have always encouraged and explored religions. Even before Christianity. What's important for us is perhaps people follow some religion so that there could be an order in the society. Lately, I think education has taken over that work of religion.

    Destination Infinity

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  6. I too went to a Christian school but religion hasn’t been a matter and the school also didn’t force anything on us… and we had been what we are. Though coming from a Hindu family, I never project myself with religion. Actually I hate seeing religion in people, and also have no serious thoughts about religion because I really want to keep away from it. Later I became an atheist from my own sense and knowledge... but ever protested others beliefs but I hate superstitions.

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    1. I can understand... not projecting oneself with religion

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  7. Beautifully enunciated!

    Re your request on my post, have complied. Thank you for bringing it to my notice.

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  8. I am going to say completely opposite , I feel all religions should be banned and just the religion of humanity believed in.

    The biggest issues that come out today are because of religion.. no religion teaches hatred YET you take any religion each one has been a reason of innocent people dieing.. we can use the excuses we want but end of the day innocents have died.. so religion is at fault ..


    Bikram's

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    1. It truly is at fault because definitely god has no religion. Religion was made by man and abused by man.

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    2. Bikram, I am unable to post comments on your blog. Says its for team members only and that my email subscription to the site has been cancelled

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    3. Oh no .. I have no idea .. How do i change it .. :(

      its open blog it should let you in.. I am so sorry..

      did you try the wordress one..

      Bikram's

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  9. Very interesting..
    Link shared to some friends

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