TRANSFORMING HINDUISM INTO A UNIVERSAL RELIGION FIRST CHAPTER CHANGE IS THE ORDER OF UNIVERSE

FINAL VERSION OF FIRST CHAPTER – 12.12.2019

TRANSFORMING

HINDUISM

INTO A UNIVERSAL RELIGION

CHANGE IS THE ORDER OF UNIVERSE

 

Dear Reader,

I invite you to the threshold of a huge, positive change that is awaiting to take place in all of our lives. To take a leap into it, or not – is the choice before us. 

If we consciously accept and initiate this magnificent change and steer our lives into it, our lives will undergo a phenomenal change into unlimited bliss and truth. 

If not, life will still change but in unpredictable and undesirable ways. The very nature of our life is that it tends to move downwards unless we consciously propel it forwards and upwards. That is the invariable law of life.

100 years from now, Hinduism could either become the world religion or it could disappear totally.

Either the current weaknesses in it could disappear totally and it could emerge as a united, harmonious, universally acceptable religion or it could disappear totally and get replaced by a few mutually antagonistic, warring religions.

100 years from now, we could still be embracing blind, illogical beliefs in the name of religion or we could be embracing the path of the absolute, universally manifest truth as our religion.

100 years from now, we could be blissful or revengeful.

What is our choice?

If we take a conscious leap and make a choice, what will it be? Are we willing to re-write and re-build the world religious and social  order in a positive, absolutely honest and scientific way, or, are we going to live in blind, mutually antagonistic, revengeful ways as at present. 

We have the opportunity and choice  to discard blind, illogical faiths and embrace absolute truth. We have the choice to unite human society in a most comprehensive way, paving the way for harmony in humanity, like never before.

If we choose to ignore and turn away from this great, harmonizing, unifying change, religion(s) across the world will prove to be the single largest cause of  human suffering and conflict all over the earth, for all time to come. Choice is ours.

Actually, there is no real choice. We must only choose the unifying change that uplift the humanity. The other option is not a choice at all for us.

Incessant change is of course the order of this Universe. It is difficult to explain why this is so, but, everything in this universe changes every moment and, our lives too are changing every moment. We know this. It doesn’t require further proof. None of us can ever dispute or deny it. Change is forever.

Do you consciously realize this fact and wholeheartedly and unreservedly accept it? That, you are changing all the time. That, everything around you is changing all the time! You know it. Come on. You are powerless to stop this change in you and around you.

Change is the very order of everything in this universe. Everything from sub atomic particles to the huge Galaxies is always changing spontaneously. This change asks nobody’s permission. The living and the non-living both change all the time.

The living sprouts from the non-living at some time and again goes back into the non-living, some time later.

From birth to death, we change continuously. We also change before birth and after death too. It is involuntary and spontaneous. 

Another important factor is – nothing which comes to life lives forever. Whatever is born must die. We live, react, respond, eat, grow, procreate, degenerate and then we must die some time.

We do approximately the same things that all other living beings do. But, we, the human beings, are endowed with a choice. We can live consciously or we can live unconsciously. We can be truth seekers or blind believers. We can live in absolute bliss or in unpredictable suffering.

The degree of consciousness in us is much superior and higher than that in the other living beings on earth and this is the main differentiating factor. The quality of our lives differs to the extent of the consciousness we infuse into living.

If we live consciously, we can ask all sorts of questions and seek answers. We can ask –why something is something and why something is not some other thing. We can ask – why something exists at all. We can ask -why some other thing does not exist at all? 

We can ask - why we can’t see, hear, taste, smell or touch certain things?  Why certain things are beyond our five senses? There are many such perplexing questions in the universe which we can always ask and seek answers. 

Some questions get answered. Some don’t. Many questions don’t get asked. Sometimes, we don’t know what to ask and how! But, we do have the choice to ask questions and seek answers. No other living being has that choice.

2 such questions are – 

(1) where from did we come? And why? - and

(2) where will we go and why? 

These two questions, in essence, started all religions. But unfortunately, after they came into existence, most religions prohibit all truthful, scientific further questioning and enquiry into these questions, in spite of the glaring contradictions in the religions. 

Most religions order you to have blind faith and belief in the incomplete and unsatisfactory answers that they provide. They strongly and forcefully discourage further logical questioning and seeking further facts and answers. No experimentation, no seeking and no questioning is permitted in most religions.

The first explorer in every religion may have asked many questions and may have found some answers. That is why the new religions came into existence. 

But, his followers are not permitted to ask further questions and explore further  and therefore are forced to become blind followers. 

Religions remain changeless from the beginning, as no further, searching and no questions are allowed from the followers, although, all religions have glaring inadequacies.

I am not going to talk much about other world religions – other than the one and only Hinduism, which always permitted such further questioning, exploring and seeking. Hinduism was and is essentially a seeker’s religion and not a blind believer’s religion. 

The only problem now is – for some historical reasons, we too have not been asking questions for a long time. We have therefore become a blind believers’ religion.

I am born into Hinduism, I have read a lot in it; I have constantly questioned a lot in it. I find, Hinduism permits all types of questioning. There have been great reformers and major reforms in Hinduism till a few hundred years back. This is its beauty and its greatness. But, the reforms are still incomplete. This is the problem.

For a long time since its birth, Hinduism had always flowered and reformed itself with constant, continuous, deep questioning and answering. Hinduism had always permitted and relied on such questioning and seeking and  used extensive, flawless logic to develop its postulates.

But, it  failed in conveying all this knowledge and wisdom to all its followers, especially to the poorest, unlettered, innocent, ignorant strata, which are the majority and which was left to understand Hinduism from Itihasas, Puranas etc which were retold to them in story form. 

The known Hinduism and the unknown Hinduism have become two different streams. Hinduism in theory and Hinduism in practice have become two different things. Hinduism of the seeker has become different from the Hinduism of the blind believer.

This difference was inevitable and acceptable in a primitive agrarian , village based society. But, the world has been changing a lot from the olden days. Consequently, many old systems are no more relevant now and many old institutions need urgent reform.

Let us look at some of the major historical events. First, there were the invading religions. Then, there were forced and willing conversions into those religions. The New religions which had come into India had some attractions for the poorer and ignorant sections of the Hindu society. Comparisons became inevitable in a competitive society.

After Independence, all sections of society are advancing in secular, western type  education and all have begun to want deeper insights into religious education. Other world religions are now jostling with Hinduism in India. 

They are actively advocating religious conversions based on the advantages that they have to offer and cite the weaknesses and draw backs of Hinduism. 

The greatness of Hinduism is extensively described and embedded in its sanskrit scriptures and is prevalent to some extent, in the extraordinary theories and practices of Yoga and many other spiritual practices. But, this great beauty of Hinduism is not percolating to all sections of Hinduism. Its weaknesses are however open and wide spread.

Religion must unite all. But Hinduism has promoted certain social structures which are disuniting. Hinduism must therefore introspect, and make way for drastic reform of all of its weaknesses. It must ensure that its strengths reach all sections of society.

Ancient Hindu Saints were the first humans to realize and proclaim that, since creation exists, it presupposes the existence of a creator also.  Without a creator, this great, wonderful, perfect and logically bound creation would not have come into existence and existed so long, in the way we see it.

Likewise, if change exists in the creation, there must also exist a change maker. 

If annihilation exists, there must be an annihilator also. 

The Hindu saints clearly saw order and discipline in the whole creation, change , annihilation and further creation. Behind all this was a creator. These are the oldest postulates in Hinduism. 

The science of Logic, or Tharka sastra, was extensively used to debate, prove and disprove all sorts of possible postulates on the creation and the creator. Nothing was accepted without the deepest possible questioning.

Now the sad fact is – all this logical questioning and scientific exploration has disappeared from Hinduism with the invasions of the west Asian armies and the western cultures. Lakhs of books and manuscripts were destroyed at the Nalanda, Taxila and other University campuses by the invading west Asian armies. Similar tragedy happened at most other Hindu places of learning.

The world always belongs to the conquerors and winners. History is usually written from their perspective. Hindu kings, Hindu Society and Hindu wisdom stood largely on the side of the defeated ones, largely because of their disunity.

Physically, Hindu Kings and armies were defeated. Culturally, many were converted into the other religions. India came to be ruled by the west Asian rulers first and the European rulers later, for a very long time. These are historical facts.

Consequently, today, we are a multi religious society in which comparisons are inevitable. There are blind, unquestioning faiths of the west Asian and western cultures. And, there is Hinduism in which questioning ,seeking and reforming always existed but has now died down. The former are aggressive in absorbing others into them. The latter is largely a passive onlooker.Hinduism has no institutions to unite and absorb others into its fold.

There were extraordinary sciences in India 2000 years ago. There were great Universities teaching them at Taxila, Nalanda etc. But, today, most of that has been lost and very few remnants have survived the western and west Asian invasions.

When the British finally left India, India was left with rudiments of a secular education, some scholastic system, some college and University system on modern lines. It was all tailored to suit the ruling British needs. Indian religious ethos were largely excluded from the educational system.

Seventy years after Independence also, we are still reading only the western sciences and almost nothing of our ancient sciences and culture and almost nothing of our religion. The Best aspects of Hindu religion are never taught and nowhere taught. 

So, disquieting questions arise in thinking minds. Is it OK if Hindu religion and culture die down gradually and is replaced by other religions? Or, is it necessary to rejuvenate and re invent the Indian religion, culture, Indian sciences and  Indian logic and weed out unscientific and illogical constructs which have taken deep roots in them?

What are we going to benefit by this exercise? The culture and religion of this land must again become one of seekers and explorers of truth. This is necessary not only for us but for all humanity. We must accept the best of our religion and the best of all other religions and unite all of them to form a world religion acceptable to all those who want to seek truth and live by it, rather than live by blind faith.

We must create a universally acceptable culture and religion, call it by whatever name, which is attractive to all and acceptable to all. This is a great world need today, to establish truth and non violence in the world and prevent blind beliefs, superstitions, religious strife, quarrels and wars and unethical conversions happening all around the world.

We must thereby ensure that human happiness moves up by several leaps and bounds, all over the world. Is this not what we all want? Is it not necessary that human society lives by absolute truth rather than by blind belief. We need freedom of thought; we need absolute and flawless logic and truth to prevail over blind beliefs.  We definitely do not need blind faiths which are constantly at war with each other.

The question is, How to bring about that freedom of thought and culture which is acceptable to all. The most exploratory religion in the world was always Hinduism but it too has serious unscientific aspects like caste and caste-ism in it.

So, my dear Readers, Do you accept that Hindu religion and culture definitely needs reformation and rejuvenation ? Do you accept that Hindu religion and culture needs to unite all, become harmonious and hoist themselves as universally acceptable? Do we not need to make it a world reality that we are all Brothers and sisters and need to live in that spirit, as Swami Vivekananda proclaimed at the world congress of religions at Chicago? 

We must agree that , as a first reform, all HINDUS, irrespective of  caste, creed, sex, state, language and other divisive factors must wholeheartedly accept each other as Brothers and sisters giving up all forms of superiority and inferiority complexes and practices like untouchability?

Hinduism was highly dynamic in the most ancient past and had actually gone several steps beyond this.

"I must see myself in all of you and I must see all of you in myself". This is the often declared definition of the highest evolved human being in Hindu culture. Shall we strive for this goal?

* * * Here ends chapter.1 * * *