You worship a snake, you are a Hindu.
You worship a stone, you are a hindu.
You say “Shiva is God” You are a Hindu..
You say, “Sex is God”, You still are a Hindu. (tantra)
You say, “Cow is God”, You are a Hindu.
You say, “Kushboo is God”, you are a hindu. (Temples built for her, remember?)
You say, “There is no fucking God”, you still are a hindu.
You say, “Jesus is God”, you still can be counted as a Hindu.
You say, “Prophet is God”, Jeez, Hinduism still can be stretched to include you as a Hindu.
“WTF?!” You ask?
Well, That’s what Hinduism is all about according to the Rig Veda, the presiding scripture of the Hindu religion.
“Ekam Sath Vipra bahuda vadanathi” is its signature statement across its verses.
For the clueless in sanskrit, it means:
“The cosmic reality(God) is one. The WISE perceive it in many ways.”
…is the exact translation. Note that it doesn’t say there are MANY wise perceptions., It says EVERY perception is A WISE perception. So call Kushboo a God, you are still wise according to the original vedic seers, not the ones ruling now.
What’s more the Supreme Court of India seems to think so too. In its 1995 Judgement answering to a Petition from Ramakrishna Mission, it says explicitly, “Under the Indian Constitution, when we think of the Hindu religion, we find it difficult, if not impossible, to define Hindu religion, or even adequately describe it. Unlike the other religions in the world, the HIndu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one God;it does not subscribe to any one dogma,; it does not believe in any one philosophical concept; it does not follow any one set of religious rites or performances, in fact it does not appear to satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion or creed. It may be broadly described as a way of life and nothing more.”
That’s why we fascinated the rest of the world when they encountered the Indian/Hindu ‘culture.’ The firangis simply couldn’t understand us. We drove them crazy. Why didn’t the stone worshipping Hindus throw stones at the snake worshipping Hindus? Why the heck are the snake people not unleashing snakes on the tree people? Why are the ‘sex’ worshipping aghoris not offending the sacred ‘Vishnu’ worshipers? Why are the shiva worshippers laughing instead of beating the Kushboo-temple-building-idiots? Oh yea, we fascinated the world.
To understand just how beautiful is this tolerance of India, You have to a have a sample of the world at the same time. The catholic branch of christianity believed “Good deeds got you into heaven.” The protestant branch believed, “nope, just God’s love is enough to get you into heaven.” On August 24/1572, in JUST a single day alone in France, upto 10000 Protestants were butchered ‘Good-deed-believing” catholics. In its entire history on the planet, Hinduism has not killed a fraction of that number of what christianity killed in just that 24 hours. How is that for a start? Let’s not even begin with the murders over the shia/Sunni divide in Islam.
And that’s how it was until a decade ago.
We may be a poor country. But that’s because the Britishers bled us dry.
We may be a corrupt country. But that’s because our Politicians earn for their families.
We may be a underdeveloped country. But 300 years of scientific progress was denied to us.
We may be an illiterate country. But we were always an intelligent country.
We were ALWAYS the LIGHT to the world in matters of the spirit. WE ARE THE FREE WORLD that the rest of the world is just beginning to aspire towards. Er., At least, we WERE the free world until recently.
Until idiots happened.
Until ‘Beef’ happened to Idiots.
And to add fuel to fire, These beef headed idiots happened in IIT, the ‘Temple’ for Science in India.
And we lose the one advantage, the only one we had, over the rest of the world: Our ability to guide the world in matters of the spirit and the heart.
Shame on you IITians, that even you, supposedly the worshippers of science, the creme de la creme of Indian Intelligence, have let yourself stoop so low, let yourself be brainwashed by the fanatics, that you forget the fundamental edict of science: to uphold human dignity over and above all. That you haven’t even understood a sliver of the religion over which you are beating each other up like uncouth barbarians.
If this is what the future of science in India can come to, Shame on you, IIT.
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I am an atheist. I puke at all religions equally, Hinduism a little less puke probably because of its inclusivity. I shit you not, but I don’t need a book to spell out that killing is wrong or a prophet to tell me that I can’t have sex with a vegetable or a culture to tell me to be kind. I share a personal relationship with reality and my moral compass is strong even without the incentives of heaven and hell. So If you find the post offensive to your religious values, you could do either of the two things:
A. Ignore and Scroll down like a normal person and let me believe what I want just like how I have done for your stupid “share-in-5-seconds-to-get-good-news” posts.
B. Be an asshole and tell me how much I have offended your religious values. In which case I have 4 things to tell you:
1. I will keep my thoughts to myself in future.
2. I am sorry if you’re offended.
3. 1&2 were lies.
4. For all I care, You can shit yourself to eternity.