What every Hindu should know...

http://www.hindubooks.org/wehwk/


it is an online book

 

This book is filled with Vishwa Hindu Parishad propaganda. The VHP is a group of right wing Hindu hardliners, claiming to represent all Hindus worldwide, while engaging violence and riots over Ayodhya and in Gujarat, including mass murder of muslims in the name of Ram. These are not Hindus, these are barely humans, they are the most despicable dregs of humanity, that slaughter the innocent thus.

 

my friends in india has told me about them and they all say: "They are not worthy to call them self a good hindu in the name of Vishnu or any of our beloved gods"

 

They are barely qualified to call themselves humans. I am ashamed to share a species with such people

 

I believe the
bhagvad gita sanctions violence ?

When Arjuna refuses to wage war against his own brothers,relatives
Krishna supposedly asks him to not stop for it is his dharma
to kill evil

What do you guys think of all this ?

I however think the VHP guys are nothing more than
monkeys with swords

 

Yes, Arjuna was a ksatrya or warrior and war was his business by nature or dharma, here meaning duty. In the context of the battle of Kurukshetra, he was fullfilling his duty and not incurring karma, or sin. Krishna then used Arjuna's personal quandary as the platform for further explanation of the transcendental and unconditioned qualities of the soul.

I've never heard of this VHP cult until now, but from the information provided in this thread, they are acting in complete violation of the principles of Sanatan-dharma, or Hinduism. Reason: The most basic principle of Sanatan-dharma is that the pure eternal soul has nothing to do with the material body, gross or subtle, and is entirely transcendental to material concerns such as race, gender, class, caste, culture, nationality, health or sickness, beauty or ugliness, wealth or poverty, religious belief or sectarian designation. These cultists are committing extremely violent actions on the basis of many of the aforementioned material designations.

Actually, the word Hindu is a convenient conversational term...as are Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and so on. Sanatan-dharma is the correct term for spiritual life...it is all-inclusive and means "Eternal Religion".

 

The bhagavad geeta does not sanction wanton violence. First of all the situation has to be understood correctly. In the mahabharata, repeatedly Duryodhana and his brothers attempted to murder the pandavas and seize the kingdom. Even after sending them on exile to the forest, when they returned, the 5 villages promised to them to live were also not given to them. Plus the kauravas siezed their wife Draupadi and publicly attempted to humiliate her. The roster of adharma on the part of kauravas was HUGE.

Again, all attempts were made to avoid the war. Krishna, God himself, tried to reason with them and yet failed. That was the situation in which war became necessary.

Secondly the mahabharata war was fought according to the rules of dharma yuddha. Civilians were not involved. It was warriors fighting against warriors. Even within that structure, a warrior only fought against a warrior of equal rank. You would never see a maharathi killing all the lesser footsoldiers. Before the fighting commenced, warriors were given the choice to fight or not. They were given the option to change sides, if they felt that the other faction was in the right.

Such a war is fought in a righteous way and has nothing whatsoever to do with the way in which VHP and RSS go around massacring innocent children and women and civilians.

 

It so sad that they massecre innocent civilians...its so sad that money that could be use for good is used for that same end in Iraq...so ashamed of my country sometimes... ::shakes head sadly::

Thank you for clearing things up, Bhaskar...when I first read the Bhagavad-Gita I didn't understand why Krishna was encouraging Arjuna to fight...and I have sadly only read a part of the Mahabharata...

 

A very 'civil' war.
But probably not as civil as all that. I think in any battle if a soldier is being attacked, be he a maharathi or not, he's going to make every attempt to kill the assailant, without immediate regard to social rank. That's the nature of warfare. One who ignored that wouldn't last long.

 

Bhaskar that seems the problem with putting knowledge before experience.

Experience of God seems to produce love.

Whereas Knowledge of God seems to produce hate.

 

But you know how people are

They interpret things to suit their needs
and that is what some fanatic hindus have done

Just some weeks ago I was arguing with a hindu who cited the above example to
justify the invasion of iraq

 

Its not just Hindus...its people...religion seems to be a great excuse for people to justify their wrong actions. Half the garbage in our country is justified by Bush's retarded interpretation of Christianity. Hmm...actually a lot of things in this country (and throughout history) have been because of some really weird interpretations of Christianity...

 

Actually phil, knowledge of God also produces only loe and good feelings, it is misunderstanding of scripture that produces bad results.

 

To know anything in my eyes will produce hatred and fascism.

I dont actually think you can know God. To believe and know God as anything plays into duality. And thats why such saints like the Buddha and Sri Ramana never gave an explanation of God. An explanation of scripture yes. They only ever gave instruction into seeing through the illusion of duality. (if i am wrong here then please feel free to correct me)

It seems to me Bhaskar that the true teachings of any scripture is a call to experience God/Self/Absolute beyond the duality of knowledge of good and evil. All knowledge of God in terms of his love and compassion etc are pretty hollow. Words seem a very poor way to decribe the experience of the devine. Ands thats probably why you see never ending factions in religions and wars etc.

Sri Ramana true dharma was given in silence. How can any scripture compare and explain that beautiful silence. I wouldnt even bother attempting it. Thats why I respect Sri Ramana and the Buddha so much, because they didnt.

 

What you call experience is referred to also as knowledge, an experiential knowledge. The classic example is of explaining sweetness to a person who has never tasted sugar. Only ultimately shoving a piece of sugar in his mouth will do the task, after which, having experienced sweetness, he ahs knowledge of it. Does not mean it can be described with words, but it is still knowledge nonetheless.

 

It is in that sense that the term vidya (knowledge or learning) is used in all HIndu scriptures.

 

ah ok, guess our definition of knowledge is different.

i would just say he has experienced the taste of suger.

the only knowledge is how to go about experiencing this suger. This is what i see as the point of scripture, not to describe the suger itself. Which most of them try to do, and why we see the trouble religion causes.

 

If they didnt, why would most people wish to taste it?

 

From the example of happiness and total contentment of the person saying taste the suger. Sri Ramana didnt speak a word for many years, but this didnt stop people from wanting to have a little of what he has.


Why try to explain the unexplainable, your bound to end in trouble.

All knowledge and word is based on the labelling of the dual world,
how can these tools explain and know the absolute.

 

From what you are saying, all the great teachers and saints' works are wasted! Even Sri Ramana wrote many great texts like upadesha saaram, Ulladu narpadu, anubandham, Naan yaar, vichara sangraham, arunachala pancharatnam, and Sat Darshanam.

Just sitting silently is wonderful, but that is not something that reaches a majority of the people and draws them in. Sri Ramana had a great following, but it required a few spiritually advanced people to first recognize his greatness and glorify him and build his ashram and stuff. Then his fame spread and people came to him.

Seekers have questions and doubts. Some can be answered by silence, but many cannot. Words are essential. If they can be entirely dispensed with, every great Guru over the ages is nothing but a fool wasting his time.