New Member Karsthans: Namaste to everyone
Namaste to all members of the HDF!
To introduce myself: I`m a 41 year old German, married, living in a rural part of Bavaria, working as a physician in a small hospital. My wife is Ukrainian.
I came across the HDF by chance, looking for "Hindu Dharma" at google.
I grew up as a member of the Roman Kath. Church but didn`t really understand, what it was all about. From childhood on I became aware that there huge contradictions between a religion claiming to be divine relevation and science. This however is not a big problem for this branch of Christianity, as they`ll tell You not to take everything written in the bible literally. Then of course, there is a history of persecution and intolerance..well, these were bad deeds by individuals, the religion itself is ok. This was somehow unconvincing to me.
I began to look for the pagan tradition of Europe, only to find out that most of it was destroyed and mutilated by centuries of christian domination. Now to try to revitalize the celtic or germanic religious tradition has something superficial and the groups trying it are sometimes bizarre.
In a religious Forum in Germany I had big diskussions with Christians and came to the conclusion, that one either has to take the bible literally or the whole concept of this religion is without foundation. As I`m very critical and not a born believer I decided to say definitely good-bye to Christianity.
I don`t remember, how exactly I came over the Baghavad Gita, but this turned out to be a decisive moment for me: There the Lord gave words to my innermost thoughts, there was a worldview of beauty and dignity. So I started reading the Upanishads, started reading Books about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. So here I am, from far away, after long struggles to get rid of centuries of foreign domination of the mind to seek refugee among my elder brothers, proud heirs to a long and uninterupted tradition, members of the oldest and at the same time most modern religion.
So I`m really looking forward to future discussions hoping to get advice and inspiration and hoping to contribute perhaps something useful from my side.
Best Wishes to all of You.
Karsthans
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