Re: Intercaste, Interracial, and Interfaith Marriage
Namaste,
This topic has given me many interesting insights. I have always known that marriage was an important part of Hindu life, naturally, it being a sacrament in most other religions. It makes perfect sense that most Hindu parents would want their children to marry somebody within their own faith, and I would say that largely, it should be that way. I'm not sure why I feel like that, but it makes things a lot less complicated. This only really applies to religious-minded people. I wouldn't regard agnostic or less religiously minded people like this, but as someone has already very sagely pointed out, people change - they don't have the same beliefs for the whole of their life. A person's spiritual journey can begin at any time, and it could be that a person who has married an individual from a different faith finds himself with a spouse who is suddenly very religiously fervent. What happens then?
I cannot speak out much about the pros and cons of intercaste marriage, for reasons of ignorance, but I definitely can talk about interracial marriages, being the child of one of them. While faith is something that could pose a potential problem for people from two different religious backgrounds wanting to marry, I cannot see how race is even remotely important. I'm biased in saying this, sure, but this seems like a very primitive way of thinking. I assume this was brought up as a topic to add to the discussion of intercaste and interfaith marriage, but in itself, I hope the majority of the Hindu community don't believe in such outmoded tribal thinking. My own parents married 23 years ago, when probably ~99% of the population over here was Caucasian. Even though the ethnic minorities were increasing in number as my sisters were growing up, we experienced a lot of staring, sometimes the nice kind, other times not so nice. Now, hardly anybody notices we're half-white and nobody would stop to question the morality of a white man dating a black woman or vice versa (unless, of course, they're racist). It's one of the few things that I feel the western world finally got right.
Therefore, a Christian may very well believe that Hindus are following a false religion by using images of Hindu Gods in worship.
I would agree mostly with this, Scott, but not all of this statement. My father is a very pious man, coming from a traditional Catholic home that used to be covered in images of the Virgin Mary, the Sacred Heart (which even die-hard Protestant idol haters use to decorate their homes), etc. It's a funny thing to say that Christians don't believe in using idols for worship, because it is not at all true - in which case, they're either very seriously in denial about what constitutes an idol or else just complete hypocrites. Even the cross that symbolises Christianity is an idol when people kneel before it in Mass. But to get back on topic, my dad is slightly less orthodox than most Christians - a lot of what he talks about sounds eerily like Hindu theology about returning back to God (Brahman) after we die. It was surprising to learn over the years that such a religious man like my father could ever have felt inclined to marry anyone other than a devout Catholic, but he and my mother are still together and very happy. She, herself, comes from a traditional Taoist Chinese background but claims she has no religion, and yet she is certainly not atheist. Whenever we'd make trips back to her parents in Hong Kong, it was tradition for us to us say prayers in front of the family shrine in respect for our ancestors (grandparents, great-grandparents). Actual worship plays an important part in this, and there is a sort of puja ceremony, involving offering incense, food and many kowtows to the honoured dead. And to think my dad did (and still would do) all this in respect for my mother's family and her beliefs. I remember with some amusement how, back then, I was quite a good little Catholic myself. At hearing we had to bow low before my grandfather's shrine, I looked to my dad and wondered if it was all right, if I was angering God somehow by doing what the Bible forbade. Not that I was ever really a God-fearing child, but it was more confusion at how we were taught one thing in church and another thing by my dad. Looking back now, I have much to thank him for.
I'm a strange product altogether, coming from a Christian-Taoist-agnostic home and yet somehow finding myself after all these years on a Hindu discussion forum telling everyone how I've managed to turn out all right, despite the odds that seemed stacked against me. In which case, I will venture to say that interfaith marriages could very well work. After all, children grow up. Their beliefs change, and if they have their own mind, they shouldn't be any the worse for it. In a way, it seems to fitting to have to struggle to find your path and discover your own beliefs - to be born so simply into it, seems like relying a little too much on your parents and not enough on karma.
Om namah Shivaya
"Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny."
ॐ गं गणपतये नमः
Om Gam Ganapataye namah
लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु ।
Lokaah SamastaaH Sukhino Bhavantu
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