I was reading an American magazine this week where they regaled their readers of the scary aspects of this strange religion.
"Although Julia's parents have nothing against Hinduism," the article states, "they're upset Julia is raising their grandchildren in a religion that is so different from theirs and whose followers practice animal sacrifices and fire rituals."
I laughed when I read the paper's interpretation of Hinduism. I work with lots of Indians at Nokia and most of them are vegetarians who don't drink. (They think you can't be close to God if you are polluting your body with meat and alcohol.) The idea of them spending their free time sacrificing animals is hilarious.
I mentioned it to one of the Indians in my office, and he had a good question -- what do they think eating meat -- as most Americans do -- means? It's the slaughtering of animals.
17 comments:
Hey, I could be a Hindu---except for that no-alcohol bit! I'm with A.E. Housman, who opined, "Malt does more than Milton can/To justify God's ways to man!" (sub in "wine" and "woman" though!)
paf, what do Hindu's know, they believe that the only animals you should worship/sacrifice live within walking distance of Brahma's house, i.e. in the Ganges delta - parochial would be a kind word for it.
As for not drinking, I'm with whoever said never trust someone who doesn't drink, they obviously have something to hide..
I am an alchohol-inducing, meat-eating yet perfectly acceptable Hindu who grew up in India admist other 800 million other mostly chicken-chomping Hindus.
Here's a great video explaining what Hinduism is all about from Goodness Gracious Me. All your questions will be answered...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL89XGJW6q0
If you've read Yogananda's autobiography globalbabble, then you know there are some Hindus who practice far more extreme activities than chicken-chomping. Drinking out of skulls, living in graveyards, wrestling tigers, making friends with cobras, sitting in magic circles in the forest while being stalked by lion riding demons, perfectly unperturbed by a rain of blood- the life of a Hindu seems to me to be much like the life of a repo-man, intense!
Dear "Yet Another Anonymous",
Oh I am sorry, didn't I mention my pet tiger Pasha? Nothing like a good tiger wrestle in the morning to get us Indians into the right mood for the day.
If you were being facetious - I am with you. You can borrow Pasha anytime you want.
If you were being serious - all I can say is that there are loads of crackpot christians in America (read: Mormon fundamentalists who still practice monogamy and systematic child abuse) too. Even in England, there are little old ladies turning up at my doorstep quite seriously trying to convince me that Armageddon is right around the corner, and Jesus will rise from the dead. Now, I'd call those mad-hatter activities too.
At least, tiger-wrestling and drinking out of skulls is colouful and imaginative. End of the world, polygamy, child brides, and Armageddon just sounds depressing. I'd prefer to drink blood out of skulls anyday.
Dear "Globalbabble",
It is delightful to have a talkative Hindu on Elizabeth's blog. Thank you for the long response, the first paragraph had me feeling quite merry. I fear I touched a nerve though, and want to set you at complete ease.
The actual point of my post, however hidden, was that among all religions there are many sects, some of them with practices that seem very quirky to outsiders. I am in complete agreement with you on the quirkiness of some Christian sects.
I don't know much about Hinduism, my exposure to it comes through Maharishi, Yogananda, Patanjali, and scraps of reading through the Vedas and the Gita. The tales are, as you say, colorful and imaginative. I'm not so sure those people Yogananda wrote about were Hindus in the normal sense, these were all people who sought God in individual ways. At any rate I love those tales of the yogis of India and the points the tales illustrate. So far as I can see what Patanjali is saying in the Yoga Sutra is those religious ideas that one may consider (gods and goddesses) are there to provide one with an object of reflection, that these particular objects, if reflected upon in the proper state of one-pointedness, will give the perceiver complete understanding of the attributes of the object considered. That is, if the main attribute of Saraswati is knowledge, then reflecting upon Saraswati will in time yield the secrets of knowledge.
Most Christians view religion in a different way, god as external, even though Christ, to me, seemed to be saying something similar to what Patanjali was saying in Yoga Sutra.
This is my roundabout way of saying I bear Hindus no ill will, so please be at rest.
And...keep your tiger well fed.
Oh yes, one last thought. The Hindu Armageddon has already been fought, on the plains of Kurukshetra.
Globalbabble, I love you already. What a refreshing voice to have on the blog.
I loved my visit to Mumbai recently but I accidentally drank water from a tap so I paid the price a week later...:)
Loved the vid too, thanks.
Hi there Yet Another Anonymous,
Geez, I did sound prickly in that comment, didn't I? I agree with you on the whole religious debate though.
I must admit that your scraps of reading on Hinduism are more than I ever read. Not because I don't care, but because - honestly, we Hindus don't spend much time reading.
Most of my knowledge comes from discussions with my grandmother, and oral stories about elephant gods and gods with skulls around their necks. But somewhere along the way, you get the point of the Gita: Karma, duty and no beef!
I do think that the good thing about learing through discussions is that you land up questioning a lot rather than simply believing.
On the other hand, you land up feeling like a retard when others quote back vedas to you.
Elizabeth: Oh poor you, tap water! - what were you thinking? When I went to Denmark to live from Mumbai, I couldn't believe that you could drink water straight from the tap without first boiling, filtering, sterilising and medicating it. I drank gallons - just because of the thrill of drinking tap water. So exotic!
Ms Babble,
One of the odd things about Elizabeth's "Freethinker" blog is that while Elizabeth wants to be a freethinker (one not bound by religious ideology) several of her faithful followers are believers, and Elizabeth's attitude is more than somewhat in tune with parts of Hindu philosophy. Elizabeth wishes to be liberated, unbound, set free from attachment to the ideology of her youth. Ironically, if Elizabeth were to achieve her goal she would achieve the highest goal of the Hindu seeker of God. Heheh....
You didn't sound so prickly as a bit hurt and that interests me. I sort of suspected that perhaps you are the same sort of Hindu as I am Baptist, and many I know of other Christian denominations. We were born into a religion but don't practice it much, understand it very well, know much about it, but still are subjected to childhood imprints that usually relate to taboos of one kind or another.
Perhaps all such as us, if you are one of us, are in fact examples of "the new man (or woman)" the communists hoped would arise to save the world- more universal in outlook.
I've just come from your Chatnoir blog and hope Elizabeth will visit it- I enjoyed it very much.
Your blog about Bollywood and movie reviews tickled me. I've resisted watching Bollywood movies because I thought they would be exactly like one I just watched (Pyaar Impossible). I liked the movie though, especially the innocent way romantic love is portrayed and I wonder if Pyaar Impossible is typical of Hindu views on romance.
Also, your writing on the poverty in India, the overwhelming ache of that is there. Indeed, why do westerners view India as being more spiritual? The travelers there seem to suffer from Jerusalem Syndrome with a more eastern flavor.
Congratulations of your peculiar lazy form of feminism, your success in liberating yourself from traditional expectations.
I get criticized for the title of my blog but I don't mean that I *AM* a freethinker (yet) but that I *want* to be one, so you all out there help me with your comments. thanks
Dear Yet Another Anonymous,
As I see it, Hindu views on romance and Bollywood must diverge significantly on one point: most Bollywood films present a chaste view on man-woman love, on the other hand, we couldn't have bred a billion Hindus without indulging in a lot of non-chaste sex.
So I am never quite sure how to reconcile the opposites.
On Hindu religion... hmmm... I never thought so deeply about it because there were no taboos in Hinduism, really (other than the bizarre "no beef" rule). There are no ten commandments, no fixed days dedicated to god, and no rules as such. There is no heaven or hell.
There is the unfailing conviction that your actions or Karma will catch up with you, with or without prayers, beads, fasts etc. But you are mostly left to yourself to decide what is good Karma for you.
So you build your own taboos.
For example, we even have stories that look at the relativity of lying - if it is for a bigger cause, is it ok. Some of our supposed Gods indulged in it. They paid a price, but in the larger scheme of things it was better for one to the pay the price than the whole humanity - or at least that is the tantalising dilemma you are left to answer for yourself.
When it works, it works beautifully. And when it doesn't, you get your average corrupt guilt-free Indian bureaucrat exploiting everyone left right and centre.
Ms Babble,
I have previously observed what you have observed, the paradox of the one billion chaste Hindus. Maybe Bollywood is like Hollywood, how we wish things were instead of how they are.
The Gita addresses two other points of your post. Because of something Krishna says to Arjuna, that the "I" part of us does not act, that action in the world is really the interplay of the gunas, the three primary forces of nature, some people have taken this to mean they can do as they please and they are not responsible, it is just the gunas. That's where the corrupt beuraucrats come from, some Indian sages have commented on this. Elizabeth has too, from the Christian persepective, when she's spoken about Christians who try to find loopholes in their beliefs so they can fool God and gain the benefit of what they want to do rather than what would probably be best.
Krishna's intent was to reassure Arjuna that the "I" part, the part that is the same in the baby, the man, and the old man never ceases to be, it passes from one body to the next just as it passes from one phase of the body to the next. Krishna was saying that if Arjuna could realize that the "I" part of him was separate from the world of action, then he would be able to perform the dreaded duty before him, the killing of his kinsmen. "Those who are wise lament neither for the living nor the dead".
Arjuna's point at this juncture was that by the killing of his kinsmen the family traditions of those killed would be destroyed, the women would become defiled and bear unwanted children, an unwanted population would continue to arise from this and all sorts of harm would befall society, poverty and vice, should the bond of love in family be destroyed.
So we do see in the world today a large unwanted population, living in poverty and misery, affecting not only themselves but all around them. In India you can see it in the rise of the deva dasis and the previously mentioned poverty and vice- not pointing a finger here, the problem is world wide. Im just pointing out the timelessness of the Gita.
I have wanted to explain to Elizabeth this concept of the separate "I" because she has lamented that the God of her childhood, presented as all-good, can allow great tragedy to befall people, even those who worship this good God. If one does realize the separatness of the "I" part, then the sensation is that the "I" is watching a movie playing out before it in the world. The same things happen, but the "I" is not dismayed nor overjoyed by the changing tides of fortune- the material world of action is subject to laws that must be for material creation to exist at all, yet at the same time there exists the unchanging part.
Ms Babble,
I have previously observed what you have observed, the paradox of the one billion chaste Hindus. Maybe Bollywood is like Hollywood, how we wish things were instead of how they are.
The Gita addresses two other points of your post. Because of something Krishna says to Arjuna, that the "I" part of us does not act, that action in the world is really the interplay of the gunas, the three primary forces of nature, some people have taken this to mean they can do as they please and they are not responsible, it is just the gunas. That's where the corrupt beuraucrats come from, some Indian sages have commented on this. Elizabeth has too, from the Christian persepective, when she's spoken about Christians who try to find loopholes in their beliefs so they can fool God and gain the benefit of what they want to do rather than what would probably be best.
Krishna's intent was to reassure Arjuna that the "I" part, the part that is the same in the baby, the man, and the old man never ceases to be, it passes from one body to the next just as it passes from one phase of the body to the next. Krishna was saying that if Arjuna could realize that the "I" part of him was separate from the world of action, then he would be able to perform the dreaded duty before him, the killing of his kinsmen. "Those who are wise lament neither for the living nor the dead".
Arjuna's point at this juncture was that by the killing of his kinsmen the family traditions of those killed would be destroyed, the women would become defiled and bear unwanted children, an unwanted population would continue to arise from this and all sorts of harm would befall society, poverty and vice, should the bond of love in family be destroyed.
So we do see in the world today a large unwanted population, living in poverty and misery, affecting not only themselves but all around them. In India you can see it in the rise of the deva dasis and the previously mentioned poverty and vice- not pointing a finger here, the problem is world wide. Im just pointing out the timelessness of the Gita.
I have wanted to explain to Elizabeth this concept of the separate "I" because she has lamented that the God of her childhood, presented as all-good, can allow great tragedy to befall people, even those who worship this good God. If one does realize the separatness of the "I" part, then the sensation is that the "I" is watching a movie playing out before it in the world. The same things happen, but the "I" is not dismayed nor overjoyed by the changing tides of fortune- the material world of action is subject to laws that must be for material creation to exist at all, yet at the same time there exists the unchanging part.
Dear Ms Babble,
I wrote a long response that got lost in space, maybe I can do it better the second time.
I've previously made the same observation you've made about the one billion chaste Hindus. That is a lot of chastity, isn't it?
Some Indian authors I've read spoke about the danger of misinterpreting a certain passage of the Gita in such a way the people like the corrupt bureaucrats you speak of feel they do no wrong. In this passage Krishna tells Arjuna that it is not the self that acts, it is the three gunas of nature, the three primary forces, and that for this reason Arjuna will incur no sin (if he realizes the eternal nature of his self) in killing his kinsmen who wish to corrupt society with greed and lust. This wasn't supposed to mean you can just lie, cheat, and steal with impunity. The difference is that Arjuna's duty as a warrior was to protect the weak and the just in society.
It is interesting that in this conversation with Krishna Arjuna also spoke about the great harm that would come to society if family tradition were destroyed through his killing of the heads of his kins' families. Once the family tradition was destroyed, he said, the women would become polluted and unwanted progeny would arise, from these even more unwanted progeny, and poverty, vice, and general social degradation would be the end result.
Elizabeth, I don't criticize you at all for the title of your blog. Wanting to be a freethinker is a high aspiration, it is just difficult to achieve for all of us. The Gita is all about this very topic, the freeing of oneself from belief systems. This is what Krishna was schooling Arjuna in on the battlefield and Krishna even discusses one of your concerns, how it is that an all good god can allow evil to befall his followers. Its a pretty good story too.
Yet Another Anonymous, so sorry! Your comments weren't lost -- I had to publish them. I had to turn on Spam control on the blog for posts over 5 days old & I've only just logged in again to publish your comments. Sorry about the confusion. Love your insights.
Well Liz, my flatmate was worried about me going to Bodybalance classes, because it's got some "yoga tracks" and she is convinced it's a dangerous sect.
She read so in a cheap magazine on the train, so it must be true. Doh!
And, no, she's not an uneducated chav: she's completing her PhD in psychology, one expect her to know better, still...
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