Posts for 'Hinduism' Category

Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s reference to saffron terror has been topic of a raging debate in Congress. I have argued elsewhere that it’s a pointless debate. Read the article Here I am suggesting a label for terrorism inspired by Hindu fanatics. Hinduism and Hindutva are two words, which are being used interchangeably but the meanings of these words have different connotations. Mixing up these words are part of the Sangh Parivar’s political strategy to appropriate Hinduism. It’s easy therefore, to understand why Parivar associates use both these words to refer to matters relating to the Hindu religion and its followers. What is intriguing is the political illiteracy of Congressmen who are unable to distinguish between them and confront Hindutva.

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The Hindu concept of God goes beyond considering Him as the supreme, all mighty and omniscient figure. According to Hindu teachings, though God governs the whole universe, every human being can develop a personal relation with Him. One can worship God out of love and not only out of fear. Devotion or bhakti is a form of love that the followers of Hinduism have for God. It is often referred to as a key principle of Hinduism, even by the philosophically inclined people.According to Hindu scriptures, God is beyond any attributes of form, color and shapes. He does not have any specific form or name and is referred to as Nirguna brahman (attribute-less god). However, God can take any form. He can be strong and powerful, the provider of boons, the destroyer or the savior. These forms provide a basis for the Hindu worshipper to easily pursue the otherwise inconceivable supreme deity. In general, Hindu followers believe that God is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent.

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Big Bang tries to explain the origin of the universe. At present there seems to be a general consensus that universe began with a big bang. What does Hinduism say about this? Before we discuss that let us discuss the main theory about Big Bang.

Big Bang idea came into play after it was found that the universe is expanding constantly. It has been found that the heavenly bodies are running away from us. The speed is proportional to their distance from us. Those that are farthest are traveling at the maximum speed. There was no explanation for this other than saying that all heavenly bodies emerged from a point and after explosion started traveling outward.

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Sex And Hinduism: "Her lap is a sacrificial altar; her hairs, the sacrificial grass; her skin, the soma-press. The two labia*(lips) of the vulva are the fire in the middle." [Brhad-Âranyaka Upanisad, 6.4.3]
"This man (ama) am I; that woman (sâ), thou!
That woman, thou; this man am I!
I am the Sâman; thou, the Rig!
I am the heaven; thou, the earth!
Come, let us two together clasp!
Together let us semen mix,
A male, a son for to procure!" [Brhad-Âranyaka Upanisad, 6.4.20]1
Whenever the issue of Love, Nudity, Sex and Hinduism comes into picture, we usually get any one of the following reactions.

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 Relevance of Bhagavad-Gita in contemporary world was discussed when Radhanath Swami, an International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) guru; and Rajan Zed, noted Hindu statesman; met at Reno (USA) on August three. Other topics discussed were spirituality, harmonious co-existence, salvation, bhakti-yoga, vegetarianism, Hinduism in Europe, charity, world peace and unity, Vedanta, service, rituals and their meaning, etc.

Zed stressed that Hinduism, oldest revelation available to humans, offered a rich philosophical thought very relevant to the current issues facing the world, and world had come to appreciate its interpretation of the nature of reality.

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Her parents were Baptist and Catholic and she was born in Georgia, part of the US Bible Belt. But Hollywood superstar Julia Roberts says she is now a practising Hindu. Speaking to the September issue of Elle magazine, Roberts said she goes to the temple to "chant, pray and celebrate."

The 42-year-old actress, who won a million hearts with Pretty Woman and an Oscar with Erin Brockowich, took to Hinduism during the shooting of her upcoming film, `Eat, Pray and Love' last year.

In the movie, she plays a divorced woman who travels to Italy for food, India for spirituality and Bali, where she finds love. In the interview, Robert also spoke of reincarnation. "I've been so spoiled with my friends and family in this life. Next time I want to be just something quiet and supporting," she said.

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RSS ideologue M G alias Baburao Vaidya on Sunday expressed concern about the usage of newly coined term "Hindu Terror" appealing Hindu leaders to remove the blot. "The word Hindu Terror has earned its place in the media and no one knows who invented it. Though somebody gives credit to NCP president Sharad Pawar and others says it was Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh who has coined the concept," Vaidya wrote in his weekly column in a local Marathi daily in Nagpur.

He said the government has accused Abhinav Bharat and Sanatan Sanstha, Goa based right wing Hindu organisation, of being involved in violence and some arrests have been made in this regard but none of the accused have been convicted by the courts till date.

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Kabirdas (A.D. 1398-1518) was perhaps the greatest saint of northern India during the 15th century. A rebel against all that was nonspiritual in religion, Kabir — rightly called the Luther of India — helped to reform both Hinduism and Islam.

Like a true messiah, he spoke of God with authority. He taught the common people in their own mother tongue, Hindi.Kabir spoke of the 'living God' in every man and woman which has been the perennial message of India to the world.

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The Hindu concept of God goes beyond considering Him as the supreme, all mighty and omniscient figure. According to Hindu teachings, though God governs the whole universe, every human being can develop a personal relation with Him. One can worship God out of love and not only out of fear. Devotion or bhakti is a form of love that the followers of Hinduism have for God. It is often referred to as a key principle of Hinduism, even by the philosophically inclined people.

According to Hindu scriptures, God is beyond any attributes of form, color and shapes. He does not have any specific form or name and is referred to as Nirguna brahman (attribute-less god). However, God can take any form. He can be strong and powerful, the provider of boons, the destroyer or the savior. These forms provide a basis for the Hindu worshipper to easily pursue the otherwise inconceivable supreme deity. In general, Hindu followers believe that God is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent.

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The contemporary Indian novel might be said to have two strains. The first is the Indian novel in English, and its best-known representatives are household names: Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Chandra, Kiran Desai and Aravind Adiga. The second is the Indian novel in languages other than English, and who the great names are in this space depends very much on the language and geographical location of the reader. The English-speaking reader, relying solely on translations and looking down again from a pan-Indian perspective, might say that currently these are the Bengali novelists Sankar and Mahasweta Devi, the Tamil writer Salma, the Hindi writer Alka Saraogi, the Oriya writer Chandrasekhar Rath, and the Rajasthani folklorist Vijay Dan Detha.

One remarkable aspect of the Indian novel is that both these strains trace their origins in the work of one man, Bankimchandra Chatterji (1838-1894). The first Indian to take a BA under the new English-medium educational system set up by the British, Chatterji thereby came under the influence of the novel, then a prose form unknown in India. Chatterji’s first novel, Rajmohan’s Wife (1865), written while he was a young deputy magistrate in the newly established Indian civil service, was composed in English.

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