04-28-2007, 03:03 AM
Please permit my thoughts to wander - you are welcome to disagree or point out inconsistencies - I am merely using this post as a "pensieve".
Imagine a world in which your identity or your character is not defined by any particular god. Imagine a world in which there are civilized humans, living their lives, but do not have god as a reason to fight among themselves, or declare one human inferior to another by virtue of his following, or not following the dictates of some silly conjured up "God". Gods are allowed to exist, but they are allies and friends whom you can speak to, but not dictatorial ogres ready to punish, and they don't want absolute power. (They *are* power personified and don't need humans (yahoomans?) to keep boosting their egos)
3000+ years ago, your ancestors, who lived in the land now called India did not call themselves "Hindu". They were just people following a particular (and to a large extent advanced) code of life that gave meaning to existence, life, death, joy and sorrow.
If you can imagine such a society, then you can get a picture of Hindu society before the Gods of peace and love came into being.
When people from outside India saw these people - they went back to their lands and called them some name and that name has now come down to us as "Hindu". I believe that the description Hindu refers to people I have described in paragraphs two and three above.
Yesterday I had an eerie exposure to this when I "interviewed" a few people. With this "narrative" business playing in my mind, I decided to ask a few people what they meant when they said they were Hindus. I deliberately decided not to ask people who were obviously highly educated but spoke to people who have probably not gone beyond school (or less). I spoke to a parking lot attendant, a couple of ward boys a driver and a couple of others.
I first asked them if they were "Hindus". When they answered "yes" I asked them "What do you mean when you say that you are a Hindu?". Most were stumped, and I had to explain the question and asked "You say you are a Hindu. So what is it that Hindus do to call themselves Hindu?"
The descriptions were similar. They basically described themselves and their lives as in "We're just people". Only one person (out of the seven I polled) spontaneously added that "Hindus tend to worship Krishna, Shiva, Ganesh". But he also characterized Hindus as farmers who tended the soil.
None of them spontaneously came up with "We are not Muslim or Christian"
I then had to do further probing.
I asked each one "OK - so this is a Hindu. Are there any people who are not Hindus?"
This then brought the response that there are also people called Muslims and Christians. I then asked them "So what do these people do?". Again, most people were stumped initially, but some prodding and leading questions got the reply that they have their gods to whom they pray.
I then asked them if there was anything wrong if those non-Hindus prayed to their gods. Every single person I polled said "No, nothing wrong". "They have their beliefs" was the consensus.
I then asked them to say what they would think if the non Hindu told them not to worship the gods that Hindus worship. With the question worded in this manner they said it was wrong. But I can see that these people are so innocent, accepting, uneducated and not well off, and it would be easy for me, as an educated and "respected" person to rhetorically convince them that their beliefs were wrong.
These people are the prototype Hindus who were untouched by jealous gods of love and peace. They have never been asked to consider or think the egregious "you farted" thought process that "My god is bigger than yours" - a thought process that was introduced by love god and peace god. When faced with the thought they say what comes naturally, but I believe these are innocents - just like Hindus originally were and can be hoodwinked under the correct circumstances.
Imagine a world in which your identity or your character is not defined by any particular god. Imagine a world in which there are civilized humans, living their lives, but do not have god as a reason to fight among themselves, or declare one human inferior to another by virtue of his following, or not following the dictates of some silly conjured up "God". Gods are allowed to exist, but they are allies and friends whom you can speak to, but not dictatorial ogres ready to punish, and they don't want absolute power. (They *are* power personified and don't need humans (yahoomans?) to keep boosting their egos)
3000+ years ago, your ancestors, who lived in the land now called India did not call themselves "Hindu". They were just people following a particular (and to a large extent advanced) code of life that gave meaning to existence, life, death, joy and sorrow.
If you can imagine such a society, then you can get a picture of Hindu society before the Gods of peace and love came into being.
When people from outside India saw these people - they went back to their lands and called them some name and that name has now come down to us as "Hindu". I believe that the description Hindu refers to people I have described in paragraphs two and three above.
Yesterday I had an eerie exposure to this when I "interviewed" a few people. With this "narrative" business playing in my mind, I decided to ask a few people what they meant when they said they were Hindus. I deliberately decided not to ask people who were obviously highly educated but spoke to people who have probably not gone beyond school (or less). I spoke to a parking lot attendant, a couple of ward boys a driver and a couple of others.
I first asked them if they were "Hindus". When they answered "yes" I asked them "What do you mean when you say that you are a Hindu?". Most were stumped, and I had to explain the question and asked "You say you are a Hindu. So what is it that Hindus do to call themselves Hindu?"
The descriptions were similar. They basically described themselves and their lives as in "We're just people". Only one person (out of the seven I polled) spontaneously added that "Hindus tend to worship Krishna, Shiva, Ganesh". But he also characterized Hindus as farmers who tended the soil.
None of them spontaneously came up with "We are not Muslim or Christian"
I then had to do further probing.
I asked each one "OK - so this is a Hindu. Are there any people who are not Hindus?"
This then brought the response that there are also people called Muslims and Christians. I then asked them "So what do these people do?". Again, most people were stumped initially, but some prodding and leading questions got the reply that they have their gods to whom they pray.
I then asked them if there was anything wrong if those non-Hindus prayed to their gods. Every single person I polled said "No, nothing wrong". "They have their beliefs" was the consensus.
I then asked them to say what they would think if the non Hindu told them not to worship the gods that Hindus worship. With the question worded in this manner they said it was wrong. But I can see that these people are so innocent, accepting, uneducated and not well off, and it would be easy for me, as an educated and "respected" person to rhetorically convince them that their beliefs were wrong.
These people are the prototype Hindus who were untouched by jealous gods of love and peace. They have never been asked to consider or think the egregious "you farted" thought process that "My god is bigger than yours" - a thought process that was introduced by love god and peace god. When faced with the thought they say what comes naturally, but I believe these are innocents - just like Hindus originally were and can be hoodwinked under the correct circumstances.