Re: Why are Hindus Tolerant?
Namaste RamaRaksha
All you write about Abrahamic religions is true, it is a strange religion where Bible states that God says: 'I am a wrathful and jealous God.' But
All Slave/Servant words totally absent in Hinduism
Krishna and Shiva Bhakti literature is full of slave/servant words - even more … the bhakta is not only the servant of the Lord but the servant of the servant of the servant.
We Hindus are not slaves/servants - our place is not down on the ground on our knees.
Hindus prostrate and bow down in front of the sanctum – obeisance is different from slave/servant attitude. It is to honor the higher power guiding us.
Take their Terminology - Commandments, submit, beg, mercy, judge, wrath, punish, forgive, Fear
Hindu religion has a very tight network of rites with a lot of regulations, instructions, do's and dont's. Reading some posts on this forum there seems to be great fear to violate against rites, fear to break religious rules.
Pranam
Re: Why are Hindus Tolerant?
I was learning about mathematics in Hindu philosophy and so intrigued about how well tied both the concept of shunya is in the sense of one's existence and the very 'zero' as a concept. It definitely blew my mind. I was working with some limits concepts and it reminded me about how the very concept of nothingness or shunya is more powerful than we can even imagine. Looking for more sources on this topic. Also from the link you can see how non-philosophical or dry the explanations can get in western traditions. Thank you for this page.
Re: Why are Hindus Tolerant?
Om
Namaste
Hindus are tolerant for the main reason that Hinduism is not a religion but the ultimate science of Life and Creation. It is a collation of researches which were carried out by Munis and Rishis (in today's term there are scientists) which were validated again and again over the ages as Hinduism thrives on self realization or self discovery.
In this process they identified the path of mental maturity or refinedness as "I and God" to "God in all" to "All in God".
The other religions are mostly I and God. So they always have their God. And they propound that their God is superior. Their path is the right path. In this they consider all other ideologies as false. They consider all others apart from human as un Godly. So they have no respect for them. Thus the intolerance
Hindus mostly have moved to next level of God in all. So they know that God is in all including animals, plants and even inert materials. Thus they respect and pray all. This has induced the tolerance and love for all.
Mostly tolerance comes from acceptance of others, love of others and ofcourse the patience to understand out of box thoughts. In Hinduism it is "all paths lead to Him" or "Truth is one but is saind in different ways by different saints". These are embedded in hindus and thus they see world a s a family and guests as god.
This is again not true with most other religions.
Further more if one analyses, the intolerances are mostly related to life styles and not the core values or messages. One will find lots of similarities in core messages but lots of disparities in way of life. that is where the challenges lie.
Now these disparities are for obvious reasons that these ideologies have been born and groomed in different regions. The lifestyle of Middle East or the lifestyle of Europe cannot be same as in Indian sub-continent and vice versa. It is the force fitting that creates more challenges. The Indianness or Bharatiyatva or Hindutva is the way of life in Indian sub continent. And that has roots in the Indian civilization.
It's more like people climbing a mountain from different sides claiming that their path is the best path. The person at the top knows that all paths will ultimately lead to Him.