Swine Flu and Hindu culture

Since the outbreak of swine flu, Pune is worst affected with almost a death every day so far.

The best way to prevent Swine Flu spreading is asking patient having symptoms of flu like fever cough and running nose to take a lot of water, to wash hands whenever it is in use and take rest at home for 4 days so he does not transmit it. Masks are of limited value in this disease. This virus can spread through droplets on your skin, through contact etc, and I have seen that the masks in Pune are worn as fashion statement, while walking on road today morning I saw people wearing masks coming out for a morning walk with their dogs!, many wearing masks around their necks, and so on. Instead, avoiding crowded places or cinema halls or malls where air conditioners are on, is advisable, because you get re-circulated air, where the virus density multiplies.

If you remember, 2 years ago SARS was blown out of proportion, what happened? Humans develop immunity to the virus, the same is going to happen, we develop immunity in due course of time, the virus is in the air, you cannot stop it, our body is already developing the immunity so nothing to panic. We need to take care of children and elderly who have less immunity and do not let them go to crowded place that is all. I am amazed to hear that people are selling masks of RS 20 each that are available to less than Rupee 1 in the market and N95 variety which normally costs around Rs 90 is sold at Rs 250 to 300. Look, who is benefitted?You might what it does have to do with Hindu culture. Hindu culture believes and follows one principle called ‘Prevention is better than cure.’

Purity and its opposite, pollution, are vitally important in Hindu culture. Purity is of three forms -- purity in mind or speech or thought, body and deed. Purity is the pristine and natural state of the soul. Impurity, or pollution, is the obscuring of this state by adulterating experience and beclouding conceptions.

1. Greeting: Now-a-days many Hindus are accustomed to the Western habit of handshaking. Others, however, prefer to press their palms together, and give a simple bow. In the East, you always greet in a non-contact way, so that in Hinduism, the method is "Namaste," then bow, and already you brought the good will of the person. What "Namaste" means is, "I worship the divine within you." This way we maintain a hygienic distance from one another.

2. Hugging and Embracing: Hugging and embracing is found in Hindu culture; but it is restricted to close relatives, Guru/disciples and associates that too in a private place. In Mahabharata and Ramayana, we find this very often. Hugging and Embracing improves pranic energy and this practice is not allowed with strangers.

3. THE LEFT HAND: In Hindu culture the left hand is considered impure because it is used (with water) in the place of toilet paper for personal hygiene after answering the call of nature. Handing another person anything with the left hand is considered a subtle insult.

4. SHOES: Shoes are considered impure. The cultured Hindu never wears shoes or sandals inside a temple or shrine, nor in his home or the homes of other Hindus. Carrying shoes in the hands from one part of the premises to another is also avoided. An ultimate insult is to be struck with a shoe.

When talking to elders or revered persons, we were told to cover the mouth with you palm so that they can feel our bad breath. Washing your feet, hands and mouth is compulsory when return home, after nature calls, before, and after having food. We were told to drink water from glass or a tumbler without a contact to the lips. Women during their menstrual period often asked to stay separately and prohibited to participate in the household work. Sex with a woman who is in menstrual period is prohibited.

When we look at these rules/instructions in a more scientific way then we would understand how much importance was given to hygiene in Hindu culture. Now in the modern times it became a fashion to follow western culture. We ape them and now imported viruses like swine flu contaminate us. The medical fraternity advocates preventive measures, which are part of Hindu culture that are almost forgotten in the urban India.

Jai Ho!!!

Vaanprastha Ashram

Ashram refers to a stage or phase in the life of a Hindu. There are four accepted ashrams. These are: Brahmacharya, for studying; Grihastha as a married man and householder; Vaanaprastha, for performing penance in a forest; and Sanyasa, for renouncing worldly attachments.

According to the Manusmriti, the span of a human life is 100 years. Every Hindu man was to spend a part of his life in each of the four ashrams to fulfill his obligations: to the sages by studying, to his ancestors by raising male progeny, to the gods by performing penance and sacrifices, and for the salvation of his soul (see Moksha) by renouncing the world. This was assuming, of course that he lived his full life span.

Vaanaprastha stage indicates the beginning of old age. Living away from society in the forest, he should live simply, perform sacrifices, and prepare to renounce all worldly associations. A man may take his wife to live with him in the Vaanaprastha ashram, in which he stays until he is 70 years of age. He then returns from the forest and a purification ceremony initiates him into the Sanyasa ashram.

In this last phase, a man renounces wealth and worldly pleasures, and is called a sanyasi. He is completely detached from the rest of the world giving up even those family ties allowed in Vaanaprastha.

This division of a man's life into different phases followed a practical rationale. In the earlier part of his life, a man is more open to ideas and instruction, since his thoughts have not yet taken a definite shape. His energies and capabilities are unused and can be best channeled into learning, as in the Brahmacharya ashram. The next 25 years are spent in the Grihastha ashram, where a man uses the knowledge he gained as a student to live a complete life and enjoys worldly pleasures without a sense of guilt. After 50 years, the physical senses become weaker but inner strength increases. Satiated with the world, a man turns to the spiritual aspects of life in the Vaanaprastha ashram. He goes on pilgrimages and slowly detaches himself from worldly affairs. After a point, he realizes that all attachments, even to his wife, are no longer necessary, and he has the ability to completely isolate himself mentally from the world. This marks the Sanyasa ashram, which is the last stage in a man's life

Muslims: Don't make these mistakes

I was watching APEC coverage on tv on yet another lazy Saturday morning in Melbourne. As it was boring I switched the channel to another news channel, "Bin Laden’s new message to America -- embrace Islam" was flashed by the channel. Sooner all the news channels around the globe and all the newspapers covered the same news.

Since the attack on WTO in New York on 9/11, Al Qaeda and Bin Laden got more coverage around the globe. They said it is “Jihad” in the name of Allah for Islam. And sooner almost every non-Muslim country started treating Muslims as terrorists or terrorist sympathisers. And everyone started thinking Islam is bad or barbaric religion.

Is Islam that bad? No religion is wrong. All religions preach the same. It is people who interpret it differently made them look different. It is those wrong views of some people made some religions look bad. Every religion says “Let there be no compulsion in religion” meaning a religion cannot be imposed on anyone.

The revelation of divinity in Islam is specifically described as compassion: Allah is Rahman-ir-Rahim - the very acme of kindness and compassion. Although Allah has 99 names, depicting all his varied attributes, He is known in the Holy Koran mostly as Rahman and Rahim. Quaran emphasise forgiveness and compassion and not on killing innocent people. It preaches tolerance not intolerance as some obscurantist mullahs or Bin-laden preaches. They are preaching and practicing Islam as an intolerant religion. This is a total negation of all that Islam stands for.

Who are the present-day fundamentalists to try to impose their view of Islam even on a Muslim population? Obviously, they have no business behaving the way they are doing and need to be condemned by all, particularly Muslims, because they are giving such a bad name to Islam, apart from oppressing humanity in the name of a religion that came to the world as a blessing of Allah

Hinduism and the belief in rebirth

According to Hinduism a soul reincarnates again and again on earth till it becomes perfect and reunites with it Source. During this process the soul enters into many bodies, assumes many forms and passes through many births and deaths. This concept is summarily described in the following verse of the Bhagavad gita:

"Just as a man discards worn out clothes and puts on new clothes, the soul discards worn out bodies and wears new ones." (2.22)

According to Hinduism a being has to live many lives and under go many experiences before it attains perfection and becomes one with the Divine. The Hindu theory of creation suggests that creation begins when the individual souls becomes separated from the undifferentiated One. It continues as the evolution of life and consciousness in matter progresses. During this process some of souls journey back to God through the transformation of matter or prakriti in which they were hidden. The remaining souls continue their existence and rejoin Him in the end, not through transformation but through a process of great destruction. Thus the great cycle of creation, stretching over millions of years, comes to its logical end.

Once the creative process is switched on, the individual soul hides behind the false personality called jiva, the subtle body and an outer personality called the mind and the body or the ego. The is made up of the subtle body, the subtle mind and a little bit of discretionary intelligence called buddhi. The ego is made up of the gross physical body, the surface consciousness consisting of innumerable desires and impulses. Since the Jiva and the ego have no idea of Truth or reality, they suffers from ignorance and illusion. They succumbs to illusion and suffer from the delusion of the outer mind. They behave selfishly as if they are different from the rest of creation and end up with suffering, indulging in acts of self perpetuation.

At the end of each life, the physical body and the gross mind return to the elements of the earth. But the Jiva and the soul survive death. Depending upon the nature of their past deeds, and the number of subtle bodies it has developed, the Jiva either ascends to the heaven or descends into the hell. Hiding the indwelling spirit in its core, the Jiva stays in these worlds till it exhausts the fruits of its good or bad actions. Having learned some new lessons, it then returns to the earth again to take another birth.

Thus the Jiva undergoes innumerable births and deaths. It becomes bound to the mortal life and the laws of nature. Death provides temporary relief, but exposes the individual Jiva to the risk of falling into greater depths of suffering. Even the Buddha who founded Buddhism did not discard this theory, though he was silent on the existence of God and did not confirm the existence of soul. The Buddha preached that not soul but the ever changing individual character, which moves from one birth to another birth, till all changing and becoming comes to an end, through the transformation of character on the lines of the Eightfold path.

Hinduism speaks of the existence of heavens above and hells below. The former are sun filled, inhabited by gods and innumerable divine souls. The latter are dark worlds (asurya lokas) and populated by all the dark and demonic forces. The individual souls go into these worlds according to their deeds. But they do not stay there permanently till the end of destruction. They go there basically as a consequence of their actions, either to enjoy or to suffer. In either case they learn the lesson and come back to earth to start a new earthly life all over again.
Thus according to Hinduism, life in heaven may be longer, but still it is a mortal life only. There, a Jiva may enjoy extreme pleasures, but it would not last for ever. Once its karma is exhausted, the Jiva is thrown back from the heights of heavenly glory into the turmoil of unstable earthly life .

The Hindu concept of reincarnation is alien to western people. It is mostly misunderstood and misinterpreted, partly because of ignorance and partly because of some inherent mental blockage natural to the single minded pursuit of religious faith along rutted paths. It generated a lot of controversy because it directly challenges the western notion of one life, one heaven and the final day of judgement. Today this fundamental concept of Hinduism is finding many new adherents and believers all over the world. The reasons are many. Firstly, a great mass of evidence is gathering in favour of reincarnation through the personal experiences of many who chanced to remember their past lives and were able to record their experiences in stunning details for the posterity. Secondly the modern theories of hypnotic regression are gaining acceptance in many parts of the world. There are now many institutions, which help interested individuals to remember their past lives as a part of their spiritual awakening. Thirdly many enlightened psychic masters like Edgar Cayce confirmed beyond doubt that reincarnation is not just a theory or imagination, but a definite reality.

The Hindu concept of reincarnation is based upon the logical notion that life on earth did not emerge suddenly, but evolved gradually, involving great epoch of time and a vast multitude of beings. During this process the static and inert consciousness of matter yielded place to the dynamic movement of life and consciousness. The animal tendencies gave way to human reason and humane thoughts. Extending the same logic we may further say that in future, from this part animal, part human and part divine being, there would emerge a spiritual man of divine consciousness, the Superman of Sri Aurobindo, with supra mental consciousness. If you look at the personality of an ordinary human being, you will realize that there is a lot in him, that is grosser and denser which cannot be purified and transformed in the shorter time of one life span. What is a hundred years or less than a hundred of life on a scale of millions of years of continuous evolution of life on earth ? Does not it sound illogical to say that we would remain static from the evolutionary point of view, while change is the nature of life and every thing else all around us is changing and evolving constantly?

Hinduism does not accept the premise that under normal circumstances an individual soul can free itself completely from the entanglement with Samsara and unite with its Creator in just one life time. The Jiva has to progressively evolve through the cycle of innumerable births and deaths before the soul can liberate itself. From inert matter to inert consciousness and then to dynamic consciousness, from ignorance to semi awareness and then to self awareness, from attachment to detachment and then to complete freedom, from illusion to awareness and then to reality, from darkness to dawn and then into light, from mortality to immortality: this is the forward movement of life in the whole creation. And all this cannot happen just in a few hundred years.

It is very obvious that God did not create the worlds and the beings in His likeness, but in exact opposite to it. If He would have created everything in His true likeness then there would have been no differentiation and no possibility of any movement. Creation would have remained static, without an aim and purpose, offering no scope for movement and change. It is true that God is hidden in every aspect of His creation. But that which is visible and sensible is not His true self. It is His negative and false self, which tries to compete with Him and fight for its own individuality, and finally, having lost the battle, would move towards Him in total obedience.
Thus the whole drama of creation seems to start with the creation of His individual selves that hide themselves in His negative selves so that a movement away from Him and then again back to Him can be initiated and sustained. The Hindu scriptures describe this process variously with such expressions as:

"the true self hides behind the false self, God enters into Prakriti, self becomes enveloped with ignorance".

The awakening comes after wards. When the soul stirs and makes its vibrations felt by the ignorant consciousness, the seeds of spiritualization of the being are sown. The movement that began away from God now becomes reversed. It then starts moving away from illusion and ignorance towards God and Truth.

The inexorable law of karma operates through out this grand drama. Karma is the correction mechanism, the chisel with which the negative self, the inert stone, is chiselled away till the hidden deity comes out of it and enters the temple of God. In the ordinary circumstances, awakening of a sleeping self cannot take place through miracles but through trial and error. Good actions lead to good future, and bad actions to the opposite. An awareness of this very law is the first great awakening and the first sure leap towards the Light.

All this cannot take place in one simple life, but over a period of time involving many lives. It cannot happen on the strength of a life time's learning but in the light of a great mass of accumulated wisdom. It cannot happen if the purpose of whole life is to move towards light and truth. This is where the idea of reincarnation of soul perfectly fits in. If we accept the whole creation as a grand process stretching over a vast period of time, we cannot over look the importance and the role of man in it. Man cannot make a brief appearance on earth, live just one life and then disappear forever into the cozy corners of some safe heaven, or the vast dungeons of some burning hell, leaving creation, God and Nature to themselves.

At the individual level, the movement of creation and evolution need not universally progressive. Since the whole movement is regulated on the principle of trial and error, of learning and improvement through such learning, some times, a retrogressive movement may also take place. Due to some unfortunate error of judgment, instead moving towards the light, a being may move away from it.

Thus depending upon the merits of the previous deeds, a being may evolve into higher life forms or regress temporarily into a lower life form. However, due to some peculiar circumstances, if an individual takes birth as a lower life form, he can still reverse the process. He can change his present actions and establish a basis for his forward movement again. The Jiva thus drifts, sailing in the boat of his own karma, in a sea of worldly illusion (samsara sagaram), towards the shores of liberation, through trial and error, self effort and assisted by invisible laws and mysterious forces, with the soul remaining as its silent, witnessing companion. That the theory of reincarnation is not a mere theory, but an actual fact is being now established beyond reasonable doubt. Many instances have now come to light where individuals were able to recollect their past lives through a process of regression or by other means. The theory still baffles many, while many others refuse to acknowledge it because of intense prejudice.

An Essay on the Hindu way of Life

" The Hindu man drinks religiously, sleeps religiously, walks religiously, marries religiously, robs religiously." - Swami Vivekananda

Hinduism is not considered as a religion but a way of life, because religion is deeply interwoven into the life of a Hindu, the way nerves are interwoven in our bodies. It is very difficult to separate living and religion in the life of a devout Hindu. Both are inseparable. Both compliment each other. Both exist because of each other and both would lose their meaning and significance without the other. Religion is the center of living and living is the center of religion.

In this article we try to understand the philosophy hidden behind this beautiful and noble concept of human life. We will try to understand why a Hindu considers his religion as a way of life instead of calling it a way of worshipping God or following a particular set of beliefs.

Religion is there in every aspect of a Hindu's life. Religion is his inseparable companion, guide and philosopher. It is there, always, however modern or advanced he may be, whether he believes in God or not, at the back of his mind, like a tuft of hair on the head of a priest, deeply rooted in his subconscious, firmly entrenched in his being, from which he cannot escape even if he chooses to follow another religion. It is there when he is born, as if he comes into this world carrying with him the burden of his religion, with all his deeply rooted religious beliefs and practices, as if they are his traditional family tools from which he can never be separated, because his present life is but a continuation and result of his past one. And it stays with him till the end, influencing every action of his and helping him to adjust to the harsh realities of life in a rather philosophical and stoical way and accept suffering as a part of his self-purification and inner correction.

According to Hinduism, religion is not separate from living. It is living itself. God does not exist in temples and sacred places only. Going to the temples is a good practice, but that is not the only way to worship God. God does not exist in temples alone, in some particular altar or sacred place. He exists every where and can be approached in many ways, not just by performing some special yagnas and rituals, but also through the very process of living ones life and discharging ones responsibility towards oneself, ones family, ones society and ones own religion. Even helping other religions is not an abominable act.

The very life that we live on earth is divine. Every aspect of it is infused with Divine presence. Hidden behind the illusion of life is God's golden and immortal presence. If we are clever enough and careful enough in our thoughts and deeds, we can see His foot prints every where, in our lives and actions. We can realize Him right amidst our active living process. If we are careful, if we are intelligent, if we have the right discrimination, we can make the very process of living a kind of daily worship, a means to establish contact with the Divine, a way to purify ourselves and ennoble ourselves, and create, in this very life, amidst this very society, a strong foundation, a lasting basis, for our spiritual growth that would eventually lead us towards self-realization.
The Hindu way of life encourages us to accept living as a means of self-realization. Every activity that we perform while living and every aspect of life that we know and deal with becomes means to realize God. In this approach there is very little difference between living and worshipping. Life is but divine and sacred. The Divine does not exist elsewhere in some heavenly regions, separate and distinct from ours. He is right here, amidst us, at the centers of our very lives and activities. Every act that we perform in this life will either contribute towards our evolution or inhibit it.

Life is verily an opportunity to receive into our selves, the Divine force, the illuminating and enlightening awareness of God, the overwhelming and all encompassing soul consciousness. Life is an opportunity to discover our hidden selves. It is a great way to go beyond our limited vision and limited capacities. It is the best possible instrument with in our reach to realize Truth of ourselves and of God in the truest and grandest possible manner. Performing ones duties with a sense of detachment and as an offering to God, or worshipping God in a temple or during a ritual, are conceptually one and the same. Self-realization can be achieved not only by renouncing the world and performing tapas, but living amidst society, with a sense of detachment, untouched by the corruptions of life, like a lotus leaf in a pond. If we live with a divine sense of responsibility, every act that we perform in the course of our lives can lead us into the mysteries of divine life and into highest transcendental state of light and delight.

Every Hindu artist, who has been brought in the true traditions of Hinduism, knows this secret. For him his art is simply an inseparable from of divine worship. For him it is the best and the easiest way to be in touch with the heart of God. His devotion to God flows out of him in the form of an artistic expression. His art flourishes to the extent he is devoted to God. It is the same conviction, the same philosophy, the same approach, which prompts a karmayogi to perform his duties with a degree of detachment that is rare to come across elsewhere in the world.

The present life is but a continuation of the previous. It is another opportunity that we create for ourselves to continue our experiments with truth, to correct our past mistakes, cleanse our souls and make ourselves more qualified for the infusion of light and ascent into higher planes of existence. The present is so because of the deeds of the past. We are the creators of our own lives and destinies. We create them out of our right and wrong actions which have both positive and negative consequences. So if one has to change the conditions and secure a better future one has to live more responsibly and more carefully. And this has to be done right now, here and in this very life. This is the philosophy, the line of thinking, behind the concept of Hinduism as a way of life. The concepts of the omnipresence of God and his inviolable law of life (dharma) operating universally keeps the typical Hindu careful in his actions and responsible towards his own life. For the typical Hindu religion is thus a way of life, a means of self-purification and inner evolution.