Hindu Samskriti - How to Become a Hindu -1
Posted in Labels: Hindu Samskriti - How to Become a Hindu -1
How to Become a Hindu
The remarkable personal stories of
men and women who entered the
Hindu religion, shrugging off the
myth that “You must be born
a Hindu to be a Hindu”
Conversion remains a vital issue and a potent
topic in the press today. On one hand, Hindus continue
to lament the impact of Christian
missionaries in India.
On the other hand, Hindus are criticizing
Hindus about the
lack of rights given to tribals who are
converted back to Hinduism.
But, as an undercurrent during the last two
decades, a little-known
trend has been gaining momentum. People are
becoming staunch,
proud Hindus, not by birth, not by coercion,
but through a careful
process of ethical conversion.
Here are true histories of individuals and
families who formally
entered Hinduism over the years. These
inspiring real-life stories
have been excerpted from How to Become a Hindu: Stories of Ethical
Self-Conversion, by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Their
tales illustrate the six steps of ethical
conversion as detailed in the
book. They are: 1) joining a Hindu community; 2) creating a pointcounterpoint
of the beliefs of Hinduism and one’s previous
religion;
3) severing from former mentors; 4) legally adopting a Hindu name;
5) having a namakarana samskara, the traditional Hindu name-giving
ceremony and 6) publicly announcing the severance and name
change. Each story is written from a
delightfully different angle and
describes one or more of the six steps. The
second testimony tells
the tale of how a born Hindu strayed from,
then rediscovered his
religion. In addition, the book was sent to 86 Hindu religious leaders
and scholars around the world. The book
inspired spontaneous
commentaries revealing their views about
conversion to Hinduism.
Their messages are included at the end.
I’m So
Proud to Be a Hindu
Asha Alahan, 50, lives in the East San
Francisco Bay Area, California.
She formally entered Saivism in 1985 at Kauai Hindu
Temple.
Asha, whose husband and children are also
Hindus, is a wife, mother
and housewife and a home-school teacher to
all her children.
My mother was a devout Catholic, and my
father
had converted to Catholicism right before
they
were married. I was a happy child, believing
in
God, loving God and doing as I was told. But
when
I reached my teens, I started to question the
beliefs
and became disillusioned with the Church. So
I
left and became nothing!
At eighteen I moved away from my parents’
home to live with my older sister in Santa Barbara, California.
I
loved God and knew that something was really
missing, but did not
quite know where to begin searching. My
subconscious was so programmed
that it was the Catholic Church or nothing.
As children
we were not even allowed to enter other
places of worship; it was
considered a sin. So I just did nothing! It
wasn’t until I was twentyone
that I knew my life was on a down-hill spiral
and I had to do
something. I returned to my parents’ home and
tried going to the
local Catholic Church again. But I still felt
that their religion did not
hold the answers for me.
It was not long after that I was married to
my wonderful husband,
and he introduced me to Hindu teachings. It
was all so new and exciting.
The words were so true. It was a whole new
way of perceiving
the world and beyond—almost a little scary,
as my subconscious
mind kept trying to remind me of all the
previous programming
from early childhood and the Catholic school
I had attended.
We continued our studies and proceeded to
follow the steps towards
severance. I had been confirmed in the
Catholic Church so I
needed to go back to the original parish
where this had taken place
and talk to the priest, have him understand
my position and ask if
he would please write a letter of severance
for me. By the time I had
finished speaking with him, he was unsure of
what to say to me. He
denied me the letter and suggested that I
speak with the Archbishop
of that diocese. I felt since I was going to
a higher authority than the
local priest that this should be easier. I
was wrong. The Archbishop
was not at all happy (even on the verge of
anger) and totally refused
to let me explain myself. So I left,
wondering where I might go next.
In the area where we lived there were some
old California
missions
that were still functional (as places of
worship) so I decided
to speak with a priest at the nearby mission.
I knew the moment
I walked into this priest’s office that I had
been guided by divine
beings—he was the one to speak with. He had
symbols of the major
world religions hanging on his walls. We
spoke for a while, and then
he wrote me a letter stating that he
understood that I wished to
sever all previous ties with the Catholic
Church and would soon be
entering the Hindu religion and then wished
me well.
I came to Kauai’s
Kadavul Hindu
Temple to have my namakarana
samskara. It was magical. At the time I don’t
think I realized
the deep profoundness of that experience,
finally finding the place
where my soul knew it belonged. I am so proud
to be a Hindu. Jai!
How I
Became a Hindu
Sita Ram Goel, of Delhi, was a well-known
renaissance writer on
Hindu issues. He was associated with the
Voice of India,
a publishing
house which guides understanding through
enlightening tracts,
books and articles. His testimony below was
excerpted from his book,
How I Became a Hindu. His friend, Ram Swarup (1920-1998) was
a distinguished social observer, author and
spokesman of renascent
Hinduism which, he believed, can also help
other nations in rediscovering
their spiritual roots. The Word as Revelation, Names of
God is Swarup’s best-known book.
I was born a Hindu. But I had ceased to be
one by
the time I came out of college at the age of
twentytwo.
I had become a Marxist and a militant
atheist.
I had come to believe that Hindu scriptures
should
be burnt in a bonfire if India was to be
saved. It
was fifteen years later that I could see this
culmination
as the explosion of an inflated ego. During
those years of self-poisoning, I was
sincerely convinced
that I was engaged in a philosophical
exploration of cosmic
proportions. How my ego got inflated to a
point where I could see
nothing beyond my own morbid mental
constructions is no exceptional
story. It happens to many of us mortals. What
is relevant in my
story is the seeking and the suffering and
the struggle to break out
of that spider’s web of my own weaving.
In my family, our women did keep some fasts,
performed some
rituals and visited the temple and the
Sivalinga, but the menfolk
were mostly convinced about the futility of
image worship and did
not normally participate in any rituals. The
brahmin priest was not
seen in our homes, except on occasions like
marriage and death. I
remember vividly how lofty a view I took of
my own nirguna doctrines
and how I looked down upon my classmates from
Sanatanist
families whose ways I thought effeminate. I
particularly disliked
their going to the annual mela (festival) of a Devi in a neighboring
town. God for me was a male person. Devi
worship was a defilement
of the true faith.
But as my moral and intellectual life was preparing
to settle down
in a universe of firm faith provided by
Mahatma Gandhi, my emotional
life was heading towards an upheaval. I
started doubting if
there was a moral order in the universe at
large and in the human
society in which I lived. The sages, saints
and thinkers whom I had
honored so far were sure that the world was
made and governed by
a God who was Satyam (Truth), Sivam (Good),
Sundaram (Beauty).
But all around me I saw much that was untrue,
unwholesome and
ugly. God and His creation could not be
reconciled.
This problem of evil arose and gripped my
mind, partly because of
my personal situation in life. In spite of my
pose of humility, learned
from Mahatma Gandhi, I was harboring
a sense of great self-esteem.
I was a good student who had won distinctions
and scholarships at
every stage. I had read a lot of books, which
made me feel learned
and wise. I was trying to lead a life of
moral endeavor, which I
thought made me better than most of my fellow
men. Standing at
the confluence of these several streams of
self-esteem, I came to
believe that I was somebody in particular and
that the society in
which I lived owed me some special and
privileged treatment.
Now I was in a desperate hurry to get a good
knowledge of the
doctrine of socialism. A desire to read Karl
Marx now became irresistible.
First, I read the Communist Manifesto. It was simply
breathtaking in the breadth and depth of its
sweep over vast vistas
of human history. It was also a great call to
action, to change the
world and end exploitation and social
injustice for all time to come.
At the same time I concluded that God as a
creator of this world
could be conceived only in three ways—either
as a rogue who sanctioned
and shared in the roguery prevalent in his
world, or as an imbecile
who could no more control what he had
created, or as a sannyasin,
who no more cared for what was happening to
his creatures. If
God was a rogue, we had to rise in revolt
against his rule. If he was an
imbecile, we could forget him and take charge
of the world ourselves.
And if he was a sannyasin, he could mind his
business while we minded
our own. The scriptures, however, held out a
different version of
God and his role, one that was supported
neither by experience nor
by logic. The scriptures should, therefore,
be burned in a bonfire,
preferably during winter when they could
provide some warmth.
Four years after leaving college, I was ready
to join the Communist
Party of India. I conveyed my decision to my
friend Ram Swarup,
whom I had met after leaving college and who
was to exercise a
decisive influence on my intellectual
evolution. He wrote back immediately:
“You are too intelligent not to become a
communist. But
you are also too intelligent to remain one
for long.”
This was a prophecy which came true. It was
only a year and a few
months later that I renounced Marxism as an
inadequate philosophy,
realized that the Communist Party of India
was a fifth column for
the advancement of Russian Imperialism in
India, and denounced
the Soviet Union under Stalin as a vast slave
empire.
The promise made by Sri Aurobindo, on the
other hand, regarding
the ultimate destiny of the human race was
far more stupendous
than that held out by Marx. Howsoever vague
and inchoate my vision
might have been at that time, I did feel that
Sri Aurobindo was talking
about fundamentally different dimensions of
the universe and
human life. The gulf between my mundane
interests and the grand
aspirations dictated by Sri Aurobindo’s
vision was very wide, and I
could hardly muster the care or the courage
to cross over. But in the
inner recesses of my mind, I did become
curious about the nature
of the universe, man’s place in it and a
meaningful goal of human life.
I was present in the Second Party Conference
of the Communist
Party of India which was held in the Maidan
at Calcutta in
February, 1948. My friend Ram Swarup suddenly appeared on the
scene and expressed his intention to stay
with me for quite some
time. I was very happy because he was my
nearest and dearest
in the whole world. I did not know that he
had by now come to
regard communism as a great evil threatening
to engulf the future
of mankind. After I failed to put my three
best communist friends
against Ram Swarup, I had to face him myself
and all alone. The
discussions spread over several months. Most
of the time I repeated
party slogans, sometimes very vehemently. Ram
Swarup dismissed
them with a smile.
Finally, I was back to square one. My faith
in Gandhism had lost
the battle to Marxism. Now I was no longer a
Marxist. I asked myself
again and again: Where do I go from here?
It was at this time that I fell seriously ill
and lost a lot of weight.
A Catholic missionary whom I had known
earlier came to visit me.
He was a good and kindly man and had a strong
character. The
Father, as I called him, found me in a
difficult condition, physically
as well as financially. He felt sure that it
was in such times that Jesus
Christ came to people. He asked me if I was
prepared to receive
Jesus. I did not understand immediately that
he was inviting me to
get converted to Catholicism. My impression
was that he wanted to
help me with some spiritual exercises
prescribed by Christianity.
Moreover, I had always admired Jesus. I had,
therefore, no objection
to receiving him. Only I was doubtful if someone
was really in a
position to arrange my meeting with Jesus. I
became aware of the
Father’s true intentions as I traveled with
him to a distant monastery.
He asked every other missionary he met on the
way to pray for his
success.
At this monastery, which was a vast place
with very picturesque
surroundings, I was advised by the Father to
go into a retreat. It
meant my solitary confinement to a room. I
was not supposed to
look at or talk to anyone on my way to the
bathrooms or while taking
my morning and evening strolls on the
extensive lawns outside. And
I was to meditate on themes which the Father
prescribed for me
in the course of four or five lectures he
delivered to me during the
course of the day, starting at about 6:30 in those winter mornings. I
was not used to this way of life. I had never
lived in such solitude by
my own choice. My only solace was that I was
allowed to smoke and
provided with plenty of books on the
Christian creed and theology.
I tried to read some of the books, but I
failed to finish any one of
them. They were full of Biblical themes and
theological terminology
with which I was not familiar. Most of the
time they made me recall
Ram Swarup’s observation about mere
cerebration. Or they were
simplistic harangues to love Christ and join
the Catholic Church.
They had a close similarity to communist
pamphlets which I had read in plenty.
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
(My
humble salutations to Sadguru Sri Sivaya
Subramuniyaswami
ji, Hinduism Today dot com for the collection)
Post a Comment