Hi all,
I happened to come across this forum about a year back. After hesitating for quite a while after I read Sangom's initial post I decided I will post my perspective. Lot of posters are not going to like what I post and it is very likely there are going to be flames. Let me state at the outset I don't intend to carry on a discussion.
A little bit of my background. I was born into a Smartha family and am married to Roman catholic. I am retired and my children are settled in life after getting very good qualifications and I have grand children with whom I spend most of my time. I believe in God and pray. This prayer could be at a temple, church, mosque or a synagogue. I like the concept of advaita. I also would like to state I have not found the ultimate and wouldn’t know it if I stumbled across it. If I did I wouldn’t be making this post.
To me believing in God or not, following a particular religion or not is an individual's choice. They don't have to justify their stand to anyone. So I find in many threads ,innuendo's directed at people who either follow and don't follow to be childish. In general I find most of the threads that have any longevity morphs into a brahminism vs anti-brahminism argument. The two sides go at it endlessly.
I am considered a brahmin because of my birth. This provides me with some history, background, and culture. There are good things about this lineage and there are bad things. I accept both equally.
In the time I have spent reading posts in this forum two things strike me most.
- Both sides want to prove the other side wrong and want to assert their side has access to the ultimate truth. The side supporting the brahminism/Brahmins quote scriptures or utterings from elders whom they respect as the ultimate truth and generally exhibit a tendency to indicate that being born a brahmin is something special. This concept the other side calls humbug and rationally tries to prove that it is not so. However when this group posts their arguments there is an underlying current of ridicule, intellectual arrogance in their posts. To me this is hypocritical because most of their posts are knocking down the feeling of superiority from the other side.
- The rational side are very eloquent and are very good at providing sources for their arguments compared to the religious (again for want of a better name) side who base their arguments on interpretations of the scriptures.
I believe there is going to be no winner. It is that when people want others to follow what they believe, they are looking for confirmation of their own beliefs and need reassurance. This applies to both sides of the argument. If you have found God then there would be no need to convince anyone else and if you don’t believe in God it doesn’t matter what others believe. You will simply shrug it off as superstition.
Posters like Nara, Sangom, Saidevo etc provide good reading material. I have found lot of interesting stuff from their postings that I would not have found otherwise. I wish Sangom, Nara would also quote the good stuff from the scriptures ( I am quite sure there are some). This would make the environment more open and reduce the heat.
All these make interesting reading. I don’t post generally because I have nothing to contribute.
K. Kumar