To My Fellow Countrymen

It hurts me to see this unrest, it hurts me to feel the pain and fear of insecurity that every man carries in his/her heart today. It hurts me to see people take rebellious steps when they feel their faith is being threatened. It hurts me to see us having such a myopic view of our spiritual future as compare to the intolerance brewing around this beautiful countryside. How did we end up here and why are we doing this to each other? This is the land of Dharma, of Ahimsa. 

To the VHP and RSS  

I am completely disappointed with you and given your discipline, your behavior is very unbecoming of you. I think you got it wrong, completely wrong. Whether it is about "Ghar vapsi" which I as a Hindu think is a really sick thing to do, or whether it is giving advice on having 4 kids or whether its about rebuilding the Ram temple... I think you seriously got it all wrong and you are not helping us or Prime Minister Mr.Narendra Modi who is crying himself hoarse to get you to focus on development.

The Hindu faith doesn't work by head count, it works by the potent power of bhakti of ONE potential head. If you tried to read the Bhagavat Gita and understand its meaning, you will know clearly that you are so not in sync with your Dharma. Making it a national book achieves nothing!! 

If you want to show Hindu mettle, then please do it with the heart(compassion) and do it with non violence, both of which you sadly lack. It doesn't matter how many people get converted to Christianity or how many Muslims are born in this country but if you have ONE able person who is spiritually uplifted and driven by spiritual protocol(and not a self styled Guru) to the likes of Ramakrishna or Ramana Maharishi, then a million other faiths will not match up. 

The power of Hinduism is in its Bhakti, its in the essence of divine scriptures both of which you have neither understood nor realized. So who are you really, to set the moral code of Hindu standards and teach the rest of us? If you knew even a morsel of what our great scriptures held you wouldnt even react this way. You would forgive rather than show the might of political power. 

Hit the problem at the root, not in the number of conversions. But for that you need to be educated in the spiritual spectrum to even understand where you are missing the point. Your insecurity comes from the deep fear that you dont understand your faith, and with the passing of time you are only losing it further. Your people are losing faith too and what you are stuck with are a dozen dos and don'ts but there is no reason why they are given that way. And people are bound to ask questions and when they dont get the answer, they are bound to move on... or convert. 

Blind faith rules all the faiths of today, be it the others or our very own Hinduism. Everyone is getting worried with your high handedness, including me because what you showcase is NOT WHAT HINDUISM REALLY IS, I beg to differ. Why dont we try something new. People are in desperate need to know the truth, but they are no where near capable to deal with it when it really shows up on the face. And that includes you too. So why are you barking up the wrong tree and fighting a non existent battle? 

How much have we progressed in History? We are supposed to evolve and not dive back into an archaic world of fears. Where is the maturity to be compassionate and tolerant. Isnt that what Lord Krishna taught in the Bhagavat Gita? If you really want to dive back into the archaic past and seek value out of it, then do it this way. Understand the core behind our rituals and our holy scriptures, realize it and live it, and dont worry about whether the next man got it right or whether he changed faith out of frustration. 

Bottom line - There are more sacred texts beyond the Bhagavat Gita, I hope you know that. I would be seriously disappointed if you didnt.You have no business to think that you are the keeper of the faith. And second, rule by Love and not by Fear so please grow up.  

ceto-darpana-marjanam bhava-mahadavagni-nirvapanam

sreyah kairava-candrikavitaranam vidyavadhujivanam

anandambudhi-vardhanam pratipadam purnamrtasvadanam

sarvatma-snapanam param vijayate sri-krsna-sankirtanam

Glory to the Sri Krsna sankirtana, which cleanses the heart of all the dust accumulated for years and extinguishes the fire of conditional life, of repeated birth and death. This sankirtana movement is the prime benediction for humanity at large because it spreads the rays of the benediction moon. It is the life of all transcendental knowledge. It increases the ocean of transcendental bliss, and it enables us to fully taste the nectar for which we are always anxious.

 - Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu

PK - Faith and our identity on this planet.

And the repercussions of Faith as our identity on this planet

A French artist paid with his life, an Indian director got paid 200 crores. 

The various faces of religion are indeed interesting to see in terms of the way it has shaped us up through history. Our outlook has changed and we have moved away from the core concepts of schools of thought to just numbers in terms of followers to self proclaimed Gurus.

Satire is a humorous way of bringing reality to the fore, but most people really don't want to know it. That's the sad side of being human, specially in these times. An artist drew out Prophet Muhammad and he paid for it dearly with his life, why, because someone else couldn't tolerate the apparent blasphemy. Meanwhile back home, a director cracked a joke on the primordial truth, a concept way beyond our realm of understanding and we all laughed. Believe me I felt very sorry about the director's ignorance towards his faith and ours because we laughed rather than feel ashamed about it. 

We are a very emotional race and we identify our existence with our faith but if the same faith is not completely understood where are we headed? Chaos rules when anything spoken against our Gods is not taken to kindly though we realize that we are not in a position to explain why we believe our Gods exist. But here is the thing, if the director tried to go against any other faith apart from Hinduism, he would probably have met a similar fate in the future at some point. People don't forget when you hurt them you know. But with Hinduism, it shows two things about us, our tolerance and our ignorance. Whether its good or bad is debatable, but we live in an age where being Hindu in Hindustan is fast becoming a curse. 

A group figured out that it was wrong, and they chose to vandalize theaters, its definitely better than taking the gun and killing someone. The unfortunate thing is the group doesn't quite know what was wrong with the movie but for the fact that it did hurt sentiment. One argument is that its just a movie, see it and forget it. But another argument is that it made 200 crores which means many people may completely agree with it. If that is true, we are so doomed. 

Everything was right about PK, everything was beautifully stitched together but it clearly depicted the director's ignorance about why things are done they way they are specially in ritual. Oh MY God and PK both claim that milk should not be poured over the Shiva linga but fed to the poor. While am not against the thought of feeding the poor, I will explain why milk is necessary to pour over deities, not only Lord Shiva's emblem. 

Have you seen fairness cream commercials that shout out the presence of milk as an ingredient. Milk is important for it has the magical essence that can deliver a living thing to immortality. Anything/anyone bathed in milk regularly has a greater chance of survival in addition to remaining youthful. Similarly, at temples which are the super power centers of our deities made of specific stone and installed with prana pratishta, need to be consistently bathed in milk to keep the energies active and running, thus delivering these temples as living temples. And we visit temples to reach these sacred shrines and be graced by the power that surrounds them. That is the essential purpose of our temple visits. Alternatively we can also enshrine them at home and build our own little power centers at home. The concept works like fire, whether you light one lamp or several lamps, the first flame is as bright as the last frame lit. Similarly whether we have power centers at temples or in our homes, we are accumulating drops of supreme power around us to enhance our living environment. And milk is the essential ingredient to keep the power center active and therefore the giver of milk, the cow is a sacred animal. We DONT kill it or eat it. Ideally the milk should drain out to the river or the sea and should not go down the gutter. But it is not meant for consumption after use for it is empowered and the physical body will not withstand its energies. 

But who is going to explain this to us? At the same time it doesn't mean its a wasted ritual!

Unfortunately, we don't realize these truths and as we sink deeper into ignorance, we tend to laugh and pay 200 crores rather than cry and feel pathetic about ourselves. 

But there was on fantastic portrayal in the movie that made me really appreciate the director. The depiction of seeking God desperately and the sadness of failure because of our own inadequacy probably touches our hearts the closest for we all at some point have come face to face with this frustration. That emotion was true, honest and completely humble. 

We need to persist in our faith, we need to seek the truth and we need to give room in our minds to accept ritual for this discipline has an impact and it will show the way surely if we are true seekers without doubt and ready to surrender to the Lord.