My Introduction

[Thothic]

Hey everyone here,

Just a little bit about me. I have found myself to be a Christian who has gone back to God time and time again, but I always felt pushed like Church was nothing special, and most denominations are too corrupted in their own ways. Another belief that I clung strongly too and still believe it is true to be a Christian is to believe that the Bible is inherently infallible. But this too is coming to a close in my life when things such as Jacob seeing God (even though no man can see God and live), people doing backhanded things and being rewarded, and other things just throw me for a loop.

I was learning about Hinduism in my religions class at college, and it seemed very interesting. I still do not know if I will ever accept Hinduism because of its legends that seem to be entirely fictitious (forgive me for sounding so rude), and how Buddha (an atheist) is a reincarnation of Vishnu. But, I still wanted to check out what you guys believe and why you believe it.

Just saying hey, and wanted to learn more,
Thothic

[ShivaFan]

There are many doors for you on this path, you will know which one but first step is to think in your mind or heart "I do not know". Then wait.

While I am not an educated devotee of Lord Chaitaniya, for some reason I think this may be a good place for you to read about at this time.

But you will find the door for you, no matter what. Remember, on this journey, there is no end per say, your life and soul will become part of the endless "story". Shiva is my Lord, He is The Great Lord. You will find your place in this vast garden of Dharma. You may meet great saints or mystics. Such achievements can be made even if you cannot read or write.

There are so many advanced members here, I learn every day. I hope you visit often, some of the great souls who can give you valuable information are the moderators.

[sudhumravarna]

Namaste !!

Puranas (Legends) are mostly portrayal of bhakti, shakti and all imaginable actions (an attempt to represent infinite) of Paramatma through various ways. they consist of mantras and shlokas and stories and what not. no hindu claims them to be binding for all unless the given context (eg. you will not be allowed to enter Puri temple). off course some of it is fictitious. But Hinduism is not about worshipping of Book(s) like abrahamic religions who claim they worship only one god but take bible and quran to throat. We have scriptural authority to vedas, that is hinduism those who dont give scriptural authority to vedas but still define "dharma" and have same central principles are also dharmic such as Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. they vary in kalpa i.e. ritual. Since you are christian, you would first need to understand many fundamental differences such as "concept of god". it is important to know that it is kind of useless to ask a hindu "what do you believe" ? we have a rock solid belief in an idea that everyone "experiences" all the beliefs and ideas of the world differently. A logical and meaningful question would be to ask " what do you experience " for a devotion and every one has a different answer. It is your responsibility and burden to define your beliefs and find authenticity from Scriptures (they are endless) or Guru or other prescribed ways. I would suggest you please read "Being Different : An Indian Challenge to Western Universal-ism" by Rajiv Malhotra. this book is considered as a game changer in the academic and theological community. As a christian it would let you first understand the core differences as a first step. then you can analyse your thoughts and reflections over the beginning of hinduism or say any of the eastern religions.
hope it helps.:)

[devotee]

Namaste Thothic,

It would have been a pleasure to greet you if you would have used minimum expected courteous manners. You are entering into a Hindu Dharma forum and started with
because of its legends that seem to be entirely fictitious (forgive me for sounding so rude), and how Buddha (an atheist) is a reincarnation of Vishnu. ! Is that a correct way to meet people who you are meeting for the first time ? I don't think so.

Anyway, Hindu Dharma allows you to question anything and everything (but with due respect). You say :

a) Legends (in Puranas ?) seem "entirely" fictitious, right ? The fact is that you don't even know whether you are "not fictitious". What is your status ? Where from you came and where you have to go ? What is the purpose of your birth ? I am sure, you have no answer to all these questions. Hindu Dharma can help you find answers to all these questions. First know yourself ... at least your status .. whether you can be considered eternal as you might think. Who are you and what are you ?

After knowing your own status, you would be in a right position to claim if anything else is fictitious or whatever. If you find that you are nothing more than a dream-character ... then what ? Can a dream character claim what the reality is or what it should be ?

b) Which rule says that an atheist can't be an incarnation of Vishnu ? How do you claim that Buddha can't be Vishnu ??

Notwithstanding what I said in reaction to your first post, welcome to the forums ! :)

OM

[Shuddhasattva]

Namaste

Welcome to the forums. I would like to second ShivaFan's recommendation that you look into Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

Also...

If I may offer the opinion that we ought be gentle, considering the original poster's background and level of understanding. He has likely never read the puranas, but instead abstracts of them describing particular incidents in the divya lila, which summarized and out-of-context no doubt seem comparable to other "mythologies;" Greek, and so forth. How can he distinguish in veracity between them at this stage? We cannot expect him to until he receives further instruction and does some reading on his own. I feel he is much more likely to be receptive to that instruction if we do not castigate him for poorly chosen words.

He did take care also to qualify his statements with "seem to be" and "forgive me for sounding so rude."

[IcyCosmic]

What it do Thothic! Welcome to HDF :D
I respect your view point man - I resonate with you 100%, I was non-religious, then read god delusion, then studied every single religion in depth before becoming a devout hindu.

Keep it 100 homie - I understand your sort of 'doubts' most of which come from ignorance (lack of knowledge) alot of my friends who wanted to learn hinduism a year or two ago because of its amazing philosophy and connections to metaphysics felt the same but once they started to grasp things little by little everything just fell into place.

So visit the forums, read, just soak things in, at your pace and you will gradually start understanding the nature of Hinduism and the reasons for what happens, even the levels of understanding although many stories are infact real others are metaphorial, symbolical, and produce allegory in nature.

Hope you have fun, I'm still in the learning process everyone on this forum is wonderful and very helpful all your queries will be answered with the most sharp and precise knowledge distributed among the many active members.

I'm not aware of how you resonate with hinduism, whether it be from the devotion aspect, the science aspect, or any other of the many illustrious and beautiful facets which come togethor in unison..but i'll catch you around on the forum and welcome again :)

[Shanti29]

You should probably stick to your religion class and ask your instructor about any queries you might have. If you wish to delve deeper these the whole wide world to the internet right at your finger tips. Google is your friend. Read some articles or books so that you might come off less ignorant and offensive.

[wundermonk]

I agree that it may not have been the best introductory post - perhaps a poor choice of words. Also, the OP'er will not be able to clarify his choice of words immediately until he gets beyond the 10 post limit. So, we can try to give him the benefit of doubt?

That being said, I would suggest that the OP'er stick to Christianity given that he finds Vishnu incarnating as Buddha unbelieveable OR all of our Puranas entirely fictitious. I never knew how one could differentiate between fictitious and real miracles. Any one have any idea?

[charitra]

Welcome to dharma forum. The best way to go about at this stage is to explore advaita philosophy and the core doctrinal construct of Hinduism. Keep away for now from allegory and mythology. Iam optimistic you will be enthused and stay connected with the approach. Iam not offended with a nonhindu teenager speaking his mind. We heard worse from born hindus already, we have a dharma to fulfill and that is to enlighten the young seeker.Namaste.

[kallol]

Welcome aboard Thothic. Thanks for showing interest in Hinduism.

God or Vishnu being superset of all perceivable and non perceivable includes atheist also. It includes all insects and creatures, you despise and love. It includes all living and non living matter. It includes the energy, mind and consciousness also. So nothing is outside Vishnu. Vishnu or Shiva or any named God is the infinitenss which has everthing.

This theory is not for spirutually young minds, but is well appreciated by spiritually mature minds. More you get mature in this respect, your appreciation would be better.

The fictions are towards the different facets of life. Some parts are true and some are education towards certain aspects of life and creation.

Again they can be good stories for children and good learnings for semi matured minds.

So getting into the subject will change lots of your confusion.

For others :

Atithi has to be treated as atithi. As an outsider, he might have put up the questions in inappropriate way but nevertheless, we should not miss out the inquisitive mind behind behind this, searching for the answers.

Again welcome Thothic

[Jainarayan]

I never knew how one could differentiate between fictitious and real miracles. Any one have any idea?

That's easy... look for the strings and wires!

Seriously, there are too many things in this universe that are beyond our comprehension. Theoretical physicists talk about parallel universes; multiverses; intersecting universes. Hinduism mentions astral planes. Hmm... very similar, methinks.

Did Sri Krishna really lift Govardhan Hill? I don't know because I wasn't there (though maybe I was ;)), but I have no reason to disbelieve and dismiss it just because no one has done anything like that today.

I have no reason to disbelieve and dismiss this just because no one has done it today:

http://oxmedia.oxford.emory.edu/studentwiki/images/c/ca/Narasimha.jpg

[Jainarayan]

Namaste Thotic.


...things such as Jacob seeing God (even though no man can see God and live), people doing backhanded things and being rewarded, and other things just throw me for a loop.

We see God all the time, everywhere in everyone and everything. People did backhanded things to God all the time and were redeemed. Sri Krishna endured 101 insults from His cousin at a special royal gathering before Sri Krishna lost His cool and killed His cousin (even warning the cousin at the 99th and 100th insults). Cousin redeemed because Krishna was always in his thoughts.

If you look at the picture above, after Lord Vishnu in His form as Narasimha (lit. 'man lion') disembowled the king Hiranyakashipu (great story, one of my favorites :)) for being Lord Vishnu's sworn mortal enemy, and having such hatred for the Lord, the Lord forgave and redeemed Hiranyakashipu because Hiranyakashipu always had Lord Vishnu in mind, even in hatred. All the Lord asks is to be remembered.

Fiction? Maybe, maybe not. A lesson? Absolutely!

and how Buddha (an atheist) is a reincarnation of Vishnu. But, I still wanted to check out what you guys believe and why you believe it.

Just saying hey, and wanted to learn more,
Thothic

Actually it's a misconception that Buddha was an atheist and that he taught atheism. He taught nontheism, claiming that god(desses) or God were unnecessary. Buddhism views god(desses) as higher spiritual beings, more highly evolved and enlightened than we are. However, they do not intervene or assist us. Yet many Buddhists pray to Guanshiyin aka Guan yin, the Compassionate Mother, as well as to other god(desses).

Buddha also did not speak on the creation of the universe, claiming that dwelling on that sort of thing was pointless and not conducive to attaining enlightenment. Therein lay part of the misconception of atheism in Buddhism.

Moreover, Buddhism is almost as diverse in sects and denominations as Hinduism is.

[wundermonk]

Namaste !!

Puranas (Legends) are mostly portrayal of bhakti, shakti and all imaginable actions (an attempt to represent infinite) of Paramatma through various ways. they consist of mantras and shlokas and stories and what not. no hindu claims them to be binding for all unless the given context (eg. you will not be allowed to enter Puri temple). off course some of it is fictitious. But Hinduism is not about worshipping of Book(s) like abrahamic religions who claim they worship only one god but take bible and quran to throat. We have scriptural authority to vedas, that is hinduism those who dont give scriptural authority to vedas but still define "dharma" and have same central principles are also dharmic such as Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. they vary in kalpa i.e. ritual. Since you are christian, you would first need to understand many fundamental differences such as "concept of god". it is important to know that it is kind of useless to ask a hindu "what do you believe" ? we have a rock solid belief in an idea that everyone "experiences" all the beliefs and ideas of the world differently. A logical and meaningful question would be to ask " what do you experience " for a devotion and every one has a different answer. It is your responsibility and burden to define your beliefs and find authenticity from Scriptures (they are endless) or Guru or other prescribed ways. I would suggest you please read "Being Different : An Indian Challenge to Western Universal-ism" by Rajiv Malhotra. this book is considered as a game changer in the academic and theological community. As a christian it would let you first understand the core differences as a first step. then you can analyse your thoughts and reflections over the beginning of hinduism or say any of the eastern religions.
hope it helps.:)

+1 !

For someone like you to have joined HDF in Jan 2012 but only 4 posts??!!

You should post more often!

[Thothic]

I apologized for being rude in my post, and I was wrong. As someone mentioned beforehand, Buddha did not theism, which led Christians and other religions to adopt Buddhism as a philosophy instead of a religion.

As someone else mentioned, I do see correlations with stories of Greeks and other mythologies with Hindu myths, but realized after my post that most Hindu writings are lessons to help express the importance of certain Hindu rituals and traditions rather than an infallible message.

I thank you for bearing with me on this, and hope you can once again accept another apology from me. I see though, with Hinduism as compared with my many years as a Christian, how the gods seem to be "aspects" of Brahman just as the Trinity in Christianity were different aspects/forms of God (in my humble opinion).

Finally, I have yet to read the stories of Hinduism, but have read writings from priests of Hindu about Hinduism (to get a better idea of the religion). I know this isn't enough, but it must count for something.

Sincerely,
Thothic

As a side note, what drew me to Hinduism was the sacredness of ALL life; the idea of reincarnation; and how the religion seems to be more down-to-earth rather than a sense of urgency in the Abrahamic ones. I believe that people have their own reasons to believe, and does one really deserve to go to Hell simply because he believes in another religion?

[IcyCosmic]

does one really deserve to go to Hell simply because he believes in another religion?

The thought that god would buy your love and loyalty on the basis of threats of torture is a pretty vile concept to me, so no.

[devotee]

Namaste Thothic,

My post was to make you see the issues which if not cared for, could create a negative atmosphere before you could have even start a meaningful discussion. Believe me, you need to stay quite long here to have a meaningful understanding of Hindu Dharma as it is quite vast as compared to any other religions in the world.

There are a lot of things in store for you here. You may come to a point where you may have to redefine your understanding of the terms, "reality", "real", "non-real", "existence" "non-existence" etc. (If you try to grasp the Advaita theory of Hindu Dharma). By developing an understanding of these terms clearly as these are, you may be able to understand the logic behind even those things which may seem illogical now.

I hope I was not too harsh in my first addressing post to you. I am sorry, if it appeared so.

OM

[wundermonk]

does one really deserve to go to Hell simply because he believes in another religion?

If you apply common sense, no.

If you believe in scripture, yes.

When scripture and common sense clash, I find most people give priority to common sense over scripture. I do not know why. :dunno:

[Maya3]

does one really deserve to go to Hell simply because he believes in another religion?

Of course not.

Maya