Monday, September 30, 2013

Hinduism 101 for Atheists: Part 1

Om Sahana Vavatu Sahanau Bhunaktu. Sahaveeryam Karavavahai. Tejas Vinavati Tamastuma Vidhwishavahai . Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi. May He protect both of us. May He nourish both of us. May we both. acquire the capacity (to study and understand).  May our study be brilliant. May we not argue with each other. Om peace, peace, peace. 





God in Hinduism is not a grumpy old man with a white beard living on the clouds who controls your life and the universe as he pleases. Confusing the word God as used in the Old Testament with the Vedic concept of Brahman in Hinduism by early European translators is one of the biggest reasons for misunderstanding Hinduism, its Gods and Goddesses and its living incarnations. In the rest of the article, for the sake of simplicity, I am talking about mainstream Hinduism as it exists today rather than the hundreds if not thousands of schools of thought that really make up the collective of Hindu network of religions.

Confusing the word God as used in the Old Testament with the Vedic concept of Brahman in Hinduism by early European translators is one of the biggest reasons for misunderstanding Hinduism.
Though Hinduism worships God in a number of forms - and ultimately in every life form and in every part of creation - Brahman fundamentally is nameless and formless. It is pure consciousness and bliss. Experiencing this consciousness - and hence your permanence - is the goal of life as per Hinduism. The basic statement Hinduism makes is that consciousness pre-dates matter. However, consciousness can associate itself with matter - appearing to but ultimately not really being bound to it. This is why Hinduism is not at odds with evolution - like some atheists continuously assume and challenge. The body itself might evolve in whatever way, but the consciousness that chooses to work through the body is the one that gives it it's life, intelligence, intuition, creativity and so on to the extent that the biology of the body permits its expression.

 We'll come to the proof or the basis of all this later on.. But at-least if you are questioning or making fun of a religion, please make fun of the right religion. Most of the atheists'  problems with religion are related to Christian and Islamic concepts and theories.. and or about caste-ism and denigration of women which are problem that span all religions in India and in fact in different forms - subtle (if you identify with that culture) or not so subtle (if you are looking at it as an outsider) - in all cultures around the world. I could spend the next many years posting Stalin/Lenin jokes because communists are also atheists. But it wouldn't be quite helpful.. or even funny after a point.

Gods and Goddesses in Hinduism - One God? No God? Same God? Many Gods?

Coming back to Hinduism, the various forms of Gods Hindus worship are symbolic representations of energies and qualities that help you move towards a better experience of life and eventually move towards the experience of Brahman. Some of these Gods might have been real individuals who expressed those qualities at the time they lived and have hence come to be known for it.. For instance, talking very hypothetically, Gandhi might at some point be worshiped as a God representing the principle of non-violence. None of these individual attributes are absolute in all circumstances though - and that is why there are so many stories that show people the limitations as well as the value of each of these Gods. For instance, there is a story of Brahma (the God of creation.. not Brahman the pure consciousness) and Vishnu trying to reach Shiva's head and feet respectively and failing. The story is symbolic of explaining how you cannot reach the state of pure consciousness merely through material wealth (Vishnu) or the intellect (Brahma). It does not mean the Gods are fighting in a petty way as people assume. Lakshmi represents the concept of wealth as an overflowing abundant flow while Kubera represents wealth as static accumulation of material. Shiva amongst other things represents the concept of causeless auspiciousness - the understanding that life is complete and perfect. And so on.
Worshiping is not the same as prayer. Worshiping is enabling your own self to express the energy represented by the form. You are the God who answers your prayers.
Hindus worship these forms because worshiping (wrongly translated as prayer) is a very powerful method of imbibing the energy (or the concept) represented by that God. It is a very easy yet very effective way to program your subconscious because the subconscious reacts to the human form much more easily that when imbibing an abstract concept. This is why, for instance, the currency bills carry the face of a person. People are found to be many times more likely to detect counterfeiting with faces than with any other generic picture. 


The various aspects of the Gods such as  their many hands, the weapons they carry, Ganesha's elephant face etc symbolize different powers and abilities once can acquire. They have been designed in such as way that meditation on the form of the God - even without intellectually understanding each symbolism - helps you imbibe the concept behind it very deeply.  For instance, while one can explain the principle of feminine energy and power over a 6 week course to someone, just looking at the form of Goddess Durga gives them that experience. 

Puranas: wrongly translated as Mythology


The stories of the Gods and Goddesses are not allegorical or imaginary like the western mythologies. They are poetical representations of history. The Hindu seers recognized that the Universe operated on patterns that repeat at every scale. For instance the concept of creation, destruction and sustenance are applicable to the constructs of the mind, our bodies, and to the external universe at large. It also applies to social structures and families and so on. So typically the historic stories of Hindu puranas (wrongly translated as mythology) also represent some of the constructs or patterns of the philosophy.

Sometimes they are modified to more clearly represent a concept. For instance if you go through these talks you will see the symbolism behind the Mahabharata war (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmAL1nSjMVk) or Ramayana as seen from the point of view of the journey towards enlightenment. But that itself does not mean that the stories are completely from someone's imagination to represent the concepts. The more likely scenario is that they are historic. But maybe a little embellished or made more poetic in parts. The trick is to recognize which is which. But unfortunately that requires a little bit of patience and some familiarity with the fundamental philosophy.  Many things that people assume to be exaggerations are actually factual. 

 The Spiritual vs The Material 


But beyond form worship through forms, Hinduism has this core part which is spirituality. Spirituality is fundamentally based on the thesis that human beings can directly experience this Brahman or pure consciousness inside them - and if I can just get a little ahead of myself - AS them. (There are different schools that talk about how close you can get.. but for the sake of this introduction those are advanced topics that we can defer). Moving towards experiencing the conscious part of you - as opposed to the programmed mechanical structures  of YOU - the body and the brain - is the goal of Hinduism. 

The side effects of becoming more conscious are, among other things, creativity and intuition since you can find breakthroughs beyond simple logical extensions to existing thought. And this does not refer to being creative just to find new scientific discoveries. It can be a part of finding ways to resolve day to day conflicts or problems in your family, or society or your company. So basically the spiritual path, Hinduism believes, is not at odds with any other so called material way of life. The stress is on the space from which one operates - whether it is bound by the past emotional traumas and incomplete cognition.. or whether it comes from a space of consciousness and free will. There are some traditions that use austerity (which is not poverty) as a way to stay conscious - but living in poverty is never the ideal life that Hinduism promotes.

Hinduism does not distinguish the spiritual from the material. However it does have a concept of dharma.  

Dharma is not morality


Anything that moves you towards experiencing more and more consciousness is dharmic (wrongly translated as Good). This can be different for different people based on where they are in evolution. For instance, for a person A, learning to be truthful can make him more conscious because lying has become a pattern in him. For another B saying the truth might have become a compulsive behavior and hence breaking that pattern is dharmic. This is one of the reasons why dharma in Hinduism is not so easy to define and causes conflicts both internally and outside. The idea of dharma is very closely related to each individual's path towards becoming more conscious and may differ from someone else's ideas.  For the mathematically inclined you can approximately think of morality as a absolute position and dharma as a first or second order derivative. So whether you are moving in the right direction towards your innate nature is more important than where you are.

 The western civilizations whose rules of right and wrong are based on social good define it in absolute terms. Hinduism also recognizes actions that need to be done for social stability. And it also recognizes deep patterns - collective delusions - that are common across people in a particular society. For instance say the idea of money.. or fear of the sky falling on the head and so on. And these may provide the basis for dharmic rules that apply to a large part of a specific society. But these rules change over time (or yuga to yuga) based on the mental constitution of society at that point. More on that later when we talk of incarnations.

But ultimately the concept of dharma is personal in Hinduism.  Hinduism really does not preach morality and Dharma is not morality. 

Shraddha vs Faith


The Hindu word Shraddha does not mean faith. Hinduism does not require one to have faith blindly. But.. it does require one to have Shraddha. Shraddha is the stability to try something authentically. To give an analogy, when someone says that there is a bus that goes to Mysore that stops every hour a few streets away. Shraddha is making the best effort to get out of bed, go there, wait for the maximum of an hour and take the bus. But when you do all this, if you do not find a bus, then it is not required of you to imagine a bus standing there. 

Now the question most people have is that they do not trust enough to even try what is said. Maybe in the past they have been cheated .. or they have not tried authentically and hence not seen the results. And this has happened many times. But moving ahead even in this situation by not giving up on yourself and others is Shraddha. Note that this is not specific to spirituality alone. The concept of Shraddha applies to any endeavor that your take up. For, the opposite of success is not failure. The opposite of success is giving up. Shraddha is the principle of not-giving-up..


 Coming up next..


Part 2
  • The Role of a Guru - or enlightened master - Precise solutions vs All Encompassing Answers
  • Who is an Incarnation or an Avatar. What are Yugas
  • Miracles

Part 3
  • Hinduism and Society 
  • Sati, Child Marriage, Caste System, Status of Women etc
  • Festivals and Celebrations
  • Role of Rituals, Homas
Part 4
  • Evolution of Hinduism - Why no wars have been fought to spread Hinduism
  • Death and Reincarnation and Karma
  • Swarga amd Naraga (Heaven and Hell) are Psychological not Geographical
  • The Origins - How did it all begin? aka Theology - And why it possibly matters least.

From the teachings of Avatar Paramahamsa Nithyananda.


Friday, September 27, 2013

Thinking of Amitabh Bachchan - The Real Anti Faith Bill

Or Why the Anti-Superstition Bill is Extremely Dangerous to Hinduism?


The Maharashtra Government issued the ‘Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Ordinance’ in a hurry on August 21, 2013 succumbing to pressure from certain groups in the wake of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar being shot dead by unidentified assailants as an knee jerk reaction.  This is hardly the way to bring legislation which has been contested over the past 7 years!  Surely something is not straight forward about it.. 


The main purpose of the bill is to take control of what you can believe in or not believe in. On what is considered science and what is superstition.  The bill is just the first step.  It is now your job to prove what you believe in.

Pretty soon they can close down temples and take away the gold they have because the atheist authors of the bill believe that God is a superstition.   

I can't explain the ridiculousness of the bill except by showing an analogy. Using the Anti-Faith Bill as basis, I have made a new bill to address the more immediately social problem of Amitab Bachchan fans on the rampage in India..

I present to you the Thinking of Amitabh Bachan Bill. It has 9 clauses which are punishable offences as per the law. (And for all those who are not too familiar with sarcasm, note how the crimes are punishable irrespective of whether the person committing is "Thinking of Amitabh Bachchan" or not)
  1. Thinking of Amitab Bachchan and chopping someone with a knife into extremely small pieces.
  2. With the objective of pleasing Amitab Bachchan kidnapping kids and selling them as slaves
  3. Make financial profits by collecting money for an Amitabh fan club taking money from people and then buying jilabis instead (Note that creating an Amitab Bachchan fan club itself is perfectly alright as long as he is dead). The stress is on buying Jilebis
  4. In the pretext of appreciating Amitab Bachchan do something gruesome or inhuman such as sacrificing people or torching competing movie theaters 
  5. Trying to act like Amitabh Bhachchan or encouraging someone to act like Amitabh Bachchan and potentially making a fool of yourself.
  6. Create fear in people by claiming that you or someone else is Amitab Bachchan  and make them pee in their pants .
  7. Accuse a woman (see we are pro women!) of being anti Amitabh Bachchan and restrict her routine
  8. Claim that a differently-abled (see we are pro people with disabilities!) person is actually Amitabh Bachchan in disguise and make him act in movies
  9. Pretending to be Amitabh Bhachchan and as a result of this managing to get a man/woman/differently-gendered person laid
And borrowing from the supporters of the Anti-Faith bill, here is why the government should pass the "Thinking of Amitabh Bachchan" bill:

Why are people protesting against these innocent laws?? Don't they realize that killing people and torching them or cheating  is bad? What kind of society do we live in?   I can't understand how people seem to think that these laws are against Amitabh Bachchan?  We only condemn the actions done on his name. Not the actor himself. We got a letter from his publicist asking about whey he was being discriminated against like this and the other actors are not being talked about. Don't you know that there are many people who could potentially be called Amitabh Bachchan and not just him? Why does he feel singled out?

And don't worry we'll create new bills with a cross product of all the other actors and actresses on one side and the entire IPC code on the other (except for all the Catholic and Islamic actors - because you see no one can do any crime once they think of either of them). Should keep us and the media busy for a long long time! Talk of job security. YES! 



Here are some outrageously uninformed comments from Narendra Dhabholkar, the author of the anti-faith bill, related to Hinduism:
  1. Observing fast is a mental bondage due to which people of this country have lost their will to bring change in self.
  2. How can God, who cannot have bath on His own, shower you with good fortune?
  3. Performance of Satyanarayan puja’ is superstition !
  4. Education based on science is required to break 5000 years old Indian traditions

There is nothing in the bill that cannot be handled by existing IPC laws on murder or cheating.
Clearly  the hidden - or not so hidden - agenda of the Bill is to destroy Hinduism. Because the authors of the  bill feel that faith in anything but what western science currently knows of is superstition. All they have done is take existing crimes and add any Hindu faith before it to taint the belief.


What are the consequences of this bill. Not just as the ordinance was issued ... but as it was envisaged.. and as they want it to be.
  1. You cannot charge money for conducting a Homa - because you are exploiting someone for a superstitious belief
  2. You will not be allowed to provide a horoscope matching service or print out horoscopes
  3. All temples can be shut down because God is a superstition. All the Gold in the temples can be taken away. I believe this is one of the main motives behind the bill ! 
  4. It is OK to kill animals by truckloads and eat them.. even hunt them... make leather garments and fur coats out of them.  But if you say a prayer before cutting an animal up you could go to prison. Unless you are a Muslim of course, then you can kill goat by the millions.
  5. If I do an Hindu astrology show on TV you can be arrested. But the millions of people who are exposed to Sun Signs and Moon Signs and Love Signs are OK because those have a Christian origin. 
  6. Many of what they call superstition - spiritual healing, water divining, talking to spirits etc - are real powers mentioned in our scriptures and are much more common than we are led to believe. But now all those people will become criminals and their population will disappear- much like the American Native Indians did. 


The bill is an attempt by atheists to destroy Hinduism. The bill is a sugar coated virus trying to appear to be a social reform bill. All Hindu's should oppose the bill and all variations of it.
Hinduism is born of the faith in the statements of the ancients masters and scriptures that a higher consciousness exists and that human beings can continuously be in touch with that consciousness and that miracles happen all the time outside the purview of what can be proved scientifically. Having this faith and spreading it is protected by article 25 of the constitution of India.  The people who believe in atheism and that everything in the world is pre-ordained or random and that life has no meaning are trying hard through this bill to pull down the foundations of Hinduism. The bill is a  virus which is sugar coated to look like a social reform attempt. And anyone who feels they are a Hindu should oppose this bill and all variations of it.


Below is the stupid crap that got issued instead as an Anti Superstition ordinance in Maharashtra. And to top it all the Karnataka government wants to pass it here too - and the draft version of that is even more directly aimed at Hinduism.

  1. Under the pretext of removing a bhoot (ghost) from a person’s body, tying that person with a rope or a chain or a stick, assaulting them or asking them to drink water soaked in footwear, hang the person to the roof, pluck their hair, ask them to touch heated objects or force them to conduct sexual act in the open or force the intake of urine or stool.
  2. Make financial profits by displaying so called miracles. Cheat and terrorise people with the aid of such miracles. (This means that miracle per se is not an offence. Also, talking about the miracles from the past, telling stories of Dnyaneshwar and how he made a buffalo recite Vedas is perfectly alright). The stress is on making money.
  3. With the objective of attaining supernatural powers, do something or ask others to do something that might cause injuries or risk to life.
  4. At the pretext of searching for hidden treasure or water source do something that is inhuman, gruesome and ask or encourage or suggest for human life as prashad. (Some argued that existing laws were strong enough to deal with such murders. But murdering is different from encouraging. And the encouragement is not for killing of a particular person which amounts to culpable homicide but any human life which otherwise cannot be a punishable offence under the law).
  5. Create a feeling of fear by giving an impression of having supernatural power or pretending that someone else has such powers or threaten that evil will befall if he/she doesn’t obey the person having such powers.
  6. Creating suspicion about a person claiming that he/she performs black magic through which he/she carries evil practices and makes life difficult for that person or declare that a person is a Satan or form of Satan.
  7. Beating up a person or have a procession of a naked woman saying she is a witch or restrict her routine.
  8. Threatening to invite a ghost and creating fear in the mind and misguiding people by claiming to cure a disease with the help of mantras by preventing medical aid.
  9. Preventing medical aid and instead claiming to cure a person bitten by snake, dog or scorpion by chanting mantras or by tying threads or similar things.
  10. Claiming to change the sex of the foetus in the womb by inserting fingers.
  11. Giving an impression that one has supernatural powers or that the devotee was his/ her wife/ husband or paramour in past birth thereby indulging in sexual activity with such person. Having sex with a woman yearning for a child claiming to make her pregnant with supernatural powers.
  12. Claiming that a differently abled person has supernatural power and using him or her for business purpose.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Atheism, Religion and Hinduism

Why is Hinduism not just another religion?


Atheism makes the terrain of life in to a dry dessert. The all encompassing franchise based religions make life into vast tracts of agricultural land that all look the same. Hinduism is a tropical forest - it is the collection of a vast number of precise solution traditions such as Siddha, Tantra and so on.  That is why it defies being understood. That is why it is often approximated and called to be "a lifestyle".

How to be out of misery? is the question. All compassing answers are useful for debate. But not useful for moving forward. To move forward you to know precisely what to do next.  Buddha's answer that all misery happens because of desire is all encompassing. So is the Vedantic statement that everything around you is an illusion. But it does not take you to the next step of what to do. Because there is no practical way to get rid of all desire. Many people spend their lives only dealing with all encompassing answers and feel cheated because their life is not transformed.

Mediocre minds cannot allow anything they don't understand to exist. The bulldozing and destruction of the collective of precise solution traditions just because they don't fall into a framework is the greatest damage done to humanity

-- Paramahamsa Nithyananda



Swami' Nityananda Talks On Finding the Right Solution
Sept 24, 2013

Another analogy that came to mind was..

A stranger comes to town and tells everyone that he has found a huge cave with treasure hidden in the forest far far away and can tell them how to go there.

The atheists tell him that he is lying and that they don't do anything without proof and they will not believe anyone because they have been cheated before. Some of them are lazy and out of laziness question why one should go after treasure in the first place.

The religious people instantly believe him.. but instead of going for the treasure they start planning on how to spend the money.. And at the end feel cheated because they are now deep in debt and there is no money. Every now and then, they beg from the stranger and get a little money from him.

The spiritual person believes in what the person says... but only so much as to start journeying towards the treasure. Yes it is belief.. but eventually getting the treasure is the proof. On the path, the rough directions given by the stranger may help you get started.. but they may be out of sync with it what is present now.

Hinduism is really the signs on the road and the people on the way who can direct you to the right path as you journey. It cannot be codified.. because it is not a fixed thing. It is what each person finds and the guides and sign posts that help them move through the current area they are in.. and more towards to the goal. That is why we say we have 33 crore Gods in Hinduism. Because each one's path in Hinduism is a unique Sampradhaya and each God represents that unique and wonderful journey.


Monday, September 23, 2013

Sad State of Hindutva Today

I happened to meet a so called Hindutva leader and thinker over last weekend.. And it got me thinking. I now understand why Hinduism is weak. We do not have leaders who can stand up. We have leaders who are scared. Even if you are an intellectual and don't what to fight physically, you need to show courage in your speech and eyes. Instead I saw defeat and self loathing. Both covered up in and attempt at intellectualism. A defensive and apologetic approach to life.

No wonder Hinduism is in such a terrible shape. With leaders like this, the followers can't be too much better. As Vivekananda said. We need MEN. And that is what we are lacking..



Monday, September 9, 2013

Exposing The Truth about India's Poverty.. & its Solution!


It is a lie that India is a poor country...  

The poverty of India is not in lack of resources. Not even in the fact that we are still ruled by a corrupt foreign government that is swindling the people of the country. Nor that our education system and media - which is more than 80% foreign owned - are working either actively or unconsciously against India's great culture and engaging in slandering our tradition and our Gurus in an attempt to cover up this conspiracy. Or that we are over populated - population in fact is really our only asset if only we look at ourselves the right way.. But more on that later. And  certainly and surely, the problem is not that Indian women or temples keep gold with them because they distrust the economy as the current government would have us believe.


There is no absoluteness in wealth. When you want what the other has, you become poor and they become rich. 


When the Buddha went to beg, it was said, that he would look like an emperor and the kings waiting to give him alms looked like beggars.
Every one who calls himself or herself a Hindu should read this book Crimes Against India and the Need to Protect it's Ancient Vedic Tradition by Stephen Knapp. I talked about it in my previous post.  It is an amazing compilation of the attacks that India has faced over the last 1000 years - from the Muslims, through the Europeans, the British and all the way to current day where coca-cola and the church go hand in hand just as the East-India-Company and the missionaries did in the 1600s. While all the cruelty and torture done to Indians and the plunder of  thousands of tons of gold and invaluable treasures from our country is just horrible...

The most terrible thing the foreign rulers did to India was to steal the confidence Indians had on themselves!

The moment we became poor was when we started believing that we were poor and backward! The slums and the dirty roads are just the side effects of this. And how did they manage to do this???  Well.. Just by this one thing!

By making people believe that Hinduism and India are two different things! And by making Indians believe that the stories of Hinduism are mythology and imaginations and not the history of India.

You may wonder how this single thing can cause all the problems we have today including all the abuse of women in India, the dirt on the roads, the corrupt excuse for a government that we have,  the fact that the rupee is pegged at 68 times poorer against the dollar and so on! If you bear with me for bit more and read further I will share my understanding of why I feel this is so...  and what the solution to this problem is!

When you disconnect an individual from his or her history, they lose a large part of their sense of identity and hence their confidence in themselves. The become rootless and sometimes ruthless!

Aliens attacking the White House.
From the Movie Independence-Day
Those familiar with psychology will know how this loss of confidence many times true for children coming from split homes. The same works for countries too! Countries behave the same way as people. For instance the US was created by people who were kicked out of their countries. So they got obsessed with the concept of Freedom. And feel that everyone around them - including aliens from other planets- are trying to invade them and have to be defended against! Likewise England being a tiny country and Napoleon being a tiny man made them both try to compensate for that by becoming colonialists and conquering the rest of the world. They re-write history - including things like inventing an Aryan invasion theory to denigrate India - making it look like that this is the natural way human beings behave. But in reality it is just the way people with low self esteem behave. Trying to appear bigger than they are. Trying to grab power and fame and so on..

So coming back to India, India as a country has a consciousness. And that consciousness lost its self confidence when it's history was stolen from it. And we tried to make some self worth from the short history during the past 50 years. But this only makes us feel inferior to the baby cultures that are just a few hundred years old. We try to get some "Indian Pride" by watching 11 bumbling idiots try to hit a red ball with a stick.. and fail miserably...

Not so long ago, India was the greatest nation in the world in terms of technical innovation, art, philosophy and standard of living of its people. It is the richness and abundance of India that attracted a constant stream of invaders. It is the earliest of all civilizations and still is the only ancient civilization that has continued through the past thousands of  years. India is the source of decimal mathematics, the source of all Indo-European languages, of all the world philosophies, the science of buildings cities and what not. But today, we condescendingly call ourselves a "developing" country. We rank quite low on many metrics that we are measured against by other countries. We are told that we have a lot of progress to make.. .

But the basic question now is "Why did we disconnect from our history"??  This was partly because of the false idea of secularism promoted by our near sighted rulers - where instead of celebrating the achievements of every part of India, they dumb-ed ourselves down the to lowest common denominator.

But a more deeper problem exists...

The deeper cause for the disconnection is that much of what is talked about in our history such as miracles and amazing powers and technology are no longer our experience!!!  

We hear of such big abilities - flying machines, ability of people to read minds, to see things happening far away, transport objects and people across large spaces etc etc - but  we  don't see these in our daily lives - not even exhibited in a small scale. And when some parts of the history are made to be doubted, pretty much all of it becomes suspect. And people start ignoring everything that was said there. Thus begins the battle between those who believe and the so called rationalists.


This loss of technology happened because of the ideas we ourselves had about such technology being harmful to spiritual progress. Instead raising the depth of our awareness and intelligence along with the powers, we gave into fear and dropped propagating many of these abilities. While the renunciation of the ancients came from them seeing a deeper truth, when people today denounce these powers they do so out of their inabilities. Renunciation can happen only from a position of power. Those who are weak and in self doubt cannot renounce.


Another cause for the loss of technology is that the British cleverly destroyed the Gurukul system of teaching where people with extraordinary abilities were continuously produced. At least enough of them to show you that such extraordinary beings like Krishna, Rama and Hanuman might have been possible. And are not just a figment of someone's imagination.

The good news is ... All this is going to change! 

Showing an object being materialized
in a CAT scan
Scan of person showing
materialized object
Thanks to one person. Who is reviving back many of the astounding powers or siddhis that are talked about in our puranas.. and also having them validated scientifically. To date he has demonstrated through his disciples - and I along with hundreds of others have been witness to each of it - many secret powers that were hither to only shown to select few people -  materialization  and teleportation of objects, levitation, living without food, reading the cosmic records to find out about the past and future etc. The following image was taken from the tests done under CAT scan showing materialization happening.  For the first time in history, these abilities are being made reproducible and tested scientifically and validated!


The person driving this change is Paramahamsa Nithyananda. He is the best hope India has. This is why he is being attacked by the western backed media and the western educated atheists. 

Quote from Subramanya Swami,
Sane Indian & Member of Parliament
This is why millions of dollars were spent on making a fake video to malign him and millions more to spread it. If you follow this link you will see how all the evidence in the courts including testimonials from FBI approved video experts and the medical records of the false victim who has very easily communicable serious STDs show that the case against him is fabricated. Another person who charged Swamiji with homosexuality is in prison in the US for 5 years for child molestation charges - and he had accused Swamiji just to turn attention away from his case. The ex-COO of Sun-TV Hansraj Saxena has publicly confessed to Sun-TV having doctored the scandal video. This is why the CID is not moving on the case though its been 3 years since charges were filed! All this attack on him is because it is HE who can take revive India and take it back to its glorious traditions.

And you don't have to take my word for it. If you are sincere you can see many of this happening directly if you come to the ashram in Bidadi where he conducts this course called Inner Awakening that will reveal many wonderful things to you. You will understand beyond even these technological marvels, what the Vedic civilization stood for. Only then will we be able to appreciate the things that we have. How we are making progress towards the things that matter even if we might not have the tallest buildings or the largest rockets. Only then will we stop being poor.


This is the only way India is going to regain her glory. When you reject parts of your history - especially the glorious part - you automatically accept the modern scientists are being superior and from then on we need their validation for everything. We stop trusting our own experiences. We always need a white man to say it. And day by day we end up looking to the west for approval. We follow their culture because we think that is good.

There is no absoluteness in wealth. When you make the other want what you have, you become rich and they become poor.

Even when some people try in vain to glorify our past, it rings hollow because parts of our minds are still filled with self doubt. In the end we do not make progress because we are confused. We take no pride in what we make because we don't have pride in ourselves. Given that manufacturing is in bad shape and because what we want is dictated by what the other people say is cool, we rely on other counties for many things. This balance of payments (article by Gurumurthy) makes us look poor.

We are so concerned about catching up with other countries in consumption, warfare and what not that we - both as people and as a government - have not handled the critical issues of education, food and shelter for all our people which should have been our first priority! And by that I don't only mean doing charity work - for charity only keeps people eternally poor. I mean raising the consciousness of people so that these things issues don't arise at all. We should be producing so much that the problem on hand is figuring out what to do with all the excess.

This is why our economy is in a terrible shape. The government - made up of the same people with no self respect - have given up on solving the problem or even understanding it. They keep printing money because they know nothing else. They also focus on stealing as much as they can for themselves and stashing it outside the country. Inflation is a secret tax on people holding the Rupee. The tax doesn't affect the netas  because all their money is in dollars or Euros. People don't trust themselves or the government and hence want to hold onto gold.  That is a symptom. Not the problem. This is why the rupee is at 68, 70 or 100 or whatever.

Poverty is nothing but lack of self worth.  And anyone who doesn't respect where they came from disrespects a large part of themselves.

With self respect, we will create things of extraordinary value out of joy and completion. We will take pride in what we produce and we will pay attention to the needs of others and focus our energies on the things that matter. We will not tolerate people living in poverty or suffering due to lack of food or knowledge.

The solution fundamentally is the inner awakening of all Indians to the truth of our history and the truth of our inner selves - which is what our civilization was all about.  Understanding that the powers of the inner world are much greater than the powers the come from outside - even in material terms. First understanding.. and then experiencing that we have these powers...  and THEN going beyond it. When each person understands this, they will understand that we are not poor as we have been made to believe. Our greatness comes not by comparison but by who we are. In the things that matter, we are a very rich country. That we are children of immortality and the favorites of the cosmos. Brahmanyam Bahuputrataam.  And that we have a lot to offer to the our neighbors and to the world!
...

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your time and interest. If you found this interesting, do share it with all the people in your life so that we can collectively break out of our illusion of backwardness, poverty and powerlessness.




N!


Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Crimes Against India and the Need to Protect it's Ancient Vedic Tradition


Hinduism is under siege. But unfortunately most Hindus are not aware the massive extent of the attack that Hinduism is going through and many even implicitly support it due to wrongly understanding the ideas of tolerance and passivity and because of petty internal squabbles

Everyone who is a Hindu should read this book! 

It talks about the abuse that foreign invaders - Mughals, Portuguese, British -  have inflicted on India and Vedic tradition over the past 1000 years. How more Hindus have been killed by artificial famines created by the British, the decimation of Kashmiri Pandits, the Portuguese inquisition etc than the Nazi holocaust. And yet no one is talking about these.

More importantly, it shows how the abuse continues till date through the educational and administrative systems that they have left behind which continue to work for the foreign political-religions and companies against the interests of India. 


How the media continue to work against Hinduism and how the laws have been manipulated to enable easy conversion of people and to target all symbols of Hinduism.  It also has a number of ideas that the author presents on how we can protect Vedic tradition and why it is critical for the world that we do.. 




Download full PDF: http://tiny.cc/crimesagainstindia.pdf
Buy: http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000115147/Crimes-Against-India-and-the-Need-to-Protect-its-Ancient-Vedic-Tradition.aspx
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Read Online: Open in new page or Read here below (372 pages)
  






From http://www.stephen-knapp.com/crimes_against_india.htm

Book Review by David Frawley (Vamadeva Shastri)


            Hinduism remains the most attacked and under siege of all the major world religions. This is in spite of the fact that Hinduism is the most tolerant, pluralistic and synthetic of the world’s major religions. Hindu gurus have more than any other religious teachers in the world tried to find an underlying unity of religion to create peace in humanity. Yet though Hindu gurus have called for respect for all religions, leaders of other religions have not responded in kind by offering any respect for Hinduism. Instead they have continued to promote their missionary agendas and plan the conversion of India to their beliefs.
            Why is Hinduism still so much a target of missionaries and the media? It is really very simple. Hinduism is the largest of the non-conversion, non-proselytizing religions and so offers the greatest possibilities for conversion. It is the vulnerability of Hinduism that makes it a target, not the fact that Hindus are trying to convert or conquer the world for some hostile belief.
After Christianity and Islam, Hinduism is the world’s largest religion and the largest of the non-Biblical traditions. India, where most Hindus reside, has the most open laws allowing in foreign religious groups. While missionaries are virtually banned in China and in Islamic countries, in India they are often tolerated, respected and given a wide scope of activity. Since Christianity is in decline, particularly in Europe, it has a need to find new converts for which India is one of main potential locations, particularly as a comparatively high percentage of Hindu converts are willing to become priests and nuns. Pope John Paul II in a trip to India some ten years ago spoke directly of looking for a ‘rich harvest of souls in the third millennium in Asia’, specifically India.
            Yet most Hindus and groups sympathetic to them are not aware of this ‘siege on Hinduism’ that continues unrelenting as part of the multi-national missionary business. In this context, the book of Stephen Knapp, Crimes Against India: and the Need to Protect its Ancient Vedic Tradition, is very timely, well written and well documented. The siege on Hinduism has been going on since the first Islamic armies and Christian missionaries entered India as he clearly delineates and has continued in various forms, violent, subversive or even charitably based.
            While people know the history of the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis, the greater and longer genocide of Hindus by Islamic invaders is hardly noticed. Even the genocide in the Bangladesh War of 1971, in which most of the several million killed were Hindus, is not acknowledged as a religious genocide. While people know the history of the Inquisition and the burning of witches in Europe and the genocide of Native Americans by Christian invaders, they don’t realize that India has a similar history in parts of the country like Goa. Knapp fills in these gaps and makes these connections.
            More importantly, people don’t realize that questionable conversion tactics are still being used in India today, where in the South, the rate offered for conversion is around twenty thousand rupies, going up and down with the economy! They also don’t realize that it is now American Evangelicals of the Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson line – the religious right that brought George Bush to power – that is spearheading conversion activity and church building in South India, pouring billions into the country.
            Yet Knapp’s book is not just written to make us aware of this assault on Hinduism and its many dangers. He also provides a way forward, showing how Hindu Dharma can be revived, better taught, better communicated and more widely shared with the global audience, which is becoming progressively more receptive to Hindu teachings of Yoga, Vedanta and respect for nature. He documents the Hindu renaissance and the modern Hindu movement, which though small is growing rapidly as a Hindu response to this denigration of its venerable traditions. He shows that Hindus are not responding in terms of becoming another intolerant, exclusivist missionary cult. They are organizing themselves in terms of teaching, service and spiritual practices.
The book is well worth reading and will show any open minded person the Hindu side of a millennial debate on religion that has so far largely excluded the Hindu point of view. That Knapp is a western born Hindu adds to his credibility and conviction. He is not simply defending a tradition handed down by his family or his culture, but one that he has embraced from deep spiritual conviction and profound inner experience.
One hopes that readers in India will listen to his voice and that those outside of the country will recognize the Hindu plight along with the other forms of oppression going on in the world. Religious minorities at a global level are still under the assault of religious majorities, which have long been armed with petrodollars, high technology and control of the media. Yet as the book demonstrates, the tide is beginning to turn.








 
 
 


Contents

 PART ONE
THE WAR AGAINST INDIA’S ANCIENT TRADITIONS

Chapter One:
The Purpose of This Book and Defending Dharma

Chapter Two:
The War Against Hinduism

Chapter Three:
Vedic Culture: The Last Bastion of Deep Spiritual Truth
            The Prison of Religion * The Freedom in Vedic Culture

PART TWO
INDIA’S HISTORY AND ITS BATTLES TO PROTECT ITS CULTURE

Chapter Four
Early Invasions and the Weaknesses of India
            The First Attacks of Islam * The Main Failure and Weakness of India * Do Not Miss the Message of the Past

Chapter Five
The Real Intentions of Islamic Invaders

Chapter Six
Historical Episodes in India’s History that Should Not be Forgotten
            The Attacks of Mahmoud Ghazni * Mahmoud Ghazni’s Attack on Mathura * The Destruction of Somnath * Muhammad Ghuri * The Slave (Mamluk) Sultans * The Khaljis * Warning Signs of Tyranny * The Sacking of Chidambaram and Sri Rangam * The Tughlaqs * The Plunder of Jagannatha Puri * Invasion of Kathmandu * Muzaffar Shah’s Attack on Somnath * Amir Timur * The Sayyids * The Lodis * Sikandar Lodi’s Treatment of Mathura * Dwaraka Destroyed by Muhammad Begrha * The Mughals * The Destruction of the Govindaji Temple in Vrindavana * The Destruction of the Keshava Temple in Mathura * The Muslims Burn Lord Jagannatha at Puri * The Bahamanis * Shivaji and the Marathas * How to Win

Chapter Seven
The Portuguese and the Goan Inquisition

Chapter Eight
The Real Intention of the British in India
            The Missionaries * Keeping Indians in Poverty * Demeaning the Vedic literature * The Real Good that Came From British India * Interest in Ancient Indian Traditions in Europe * How European Interest in Hinduism Came Back to India Through Gandhi * Historical Incidents of the British in India * The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 * The “Divide and Rule” Policy of the British * On the Road to Independence * The Plague * The Slaughter at Jallianwala Bagh * The Final Struggles for a Free India—in Summary * Jinnah and the Muslim Attitude for Partition 

Chapter Nine
The Salt Tax: The Cause of Much Suffering and Many Deaths
            The Need for Salt * Death and Dying Under the British

PART THREE
THE STRUGGLES THAT GO ON TODAY

Chapter Ten
Insidious Ideas
            Belittling the Vedic Literature * The Aryan Invasion Theory * Was There Ever an Aryan Invasion? * TheTerms “Aryan” and “Dravidian” * The Proto-Indo-European Language * The Caste System

Chapter Eleven
Casteism: Is It the Scourge of Hinduism, or the Perversion of a Legitimate Vedic System?
            What Casteism is Today * What is the Original Vedic System Called Varnashrama * The Earliest Reference to the Varnas * How the Present Casteism Developed * The Dangers of Casteism as we Find it Today * What we can do to Eliminate the Caste System

Chapter Twelve
Condescending Attitudes of India’s Elite

Chapter Thirteen
Cultural Preservation in India’s Northeast
            Why Bother with the Northeast? * Traveling in Arunachal Pradesh * The People of Arunachal * The Dangers in the Northeast * Working to Restore Cultural Balance * My Lectures * Preventing Loss of Culture in Nagaland * Christian Conversion Tactics in Other Parts of India * Denigration of the Vedic Tradition

Chapter Fourteen
The Threat Against Hindu Temples and Vedic Culture by India’s Government
            Protecting Vedic Temples

Chapter Fifteen
Some of the Present Threats and Challenges
Hindus Need to Be and Do More * Lack of Unity * The Waning of Vedic/Hindu Society * Unequal World Press * Terrorism and the Loss of Hindus Around India * Ridiculous Foreign Policy * India’s Politicians * Bureaucratic Corruption * The Legal System * The Threat of Pakistan * Kashmir * Muslim Tactics in Other Areas * China in Tibet 

Chapter Sixteen
Social Problems
            Cleanliness of India * Saving the Girl Child * Dowry * Child Labor * Bonded Labor * The Homeless * Malnutrition * Literacy * Overpopulation

PART FOUR
WHAT WE CAN DO NOW

Chapter Seventeen
Hindus Must Stand Strong for Dharma
What is Vedic Culture

Chapter Eighteen
Sanatana-Dharma: Its Real Meaning

Chapter Nineteen
About the Name “Hindu”

Chapter Twenty
Save Your Culture
            Solutions

Chapter Twenty-one
Vedic Culture: As Relevant Today as Ever

Chapter Twenty-two
Giving Vedic Culture to the Next Generation
            Monitoring and Reviewing Children’s School Books

Chapter Twenty-three
Creating a Spiritual Revolution in India for Protecting the Vedic Heritage
            Focusing on the Villages * Ways of Reaching Out to the Villages Doing Padayatras by Swamis and Acharyas * Organizing and Teaching Villagers * Building Little Temples in Each Village * Establishing an Open-Door Policy of Sharing Culture and Traditions * Villages and Conversion * Providing Spiritual Education and Practice * Book Distribution * Retraining for Temple Priests in the Villages * Providing Assistance for Medical Concerns * Providing Free Food Distribution for Children * Rallies to Protest Government’s Biased Actions * Follow-Up Actions and Organizing Villages 

Chapter Twenty-four
Vedic Temples: Making Them More Effective
            It’s all in the Presentation * Using the Universal Language * Temple Classes * Educating the Youth * Mentoring Programs * Training Temple Members in Service * Temple Ashramas * Temples Must be Well Kept * Festivals & Programs for the Local Community * Welcoming Non-Hindus into the Vedic Fold * Book Distribution * Cultural Presentations * Outreach Programs * Temple Tours and Cultural Exhibits for Local Students * Temple Exhibits * Temple Gift Shops * Spiritual Libraries * Temple Restaurants * Support Groups * Pilgrimages to the Holy Places of India * Promotion * Temples Must Share Methods that Work * Temple Must Help Unify People

Chapter Twenty-five
A Call to be Vedic Ambassadors
            Being a Vedic Ambassador

Conclusion

Glossary / References / Index