ENEMIES OF HINDU DHARMA!

"ENEMIES! Those invaders from the west were the real enemies" or "the atheists who talk trash about our beliefs and traditions & culture! they are the true enemies" one might say. To such acquisitions I say NO, you are absolutely wrong. We are an unintentional enemy of Hindu Dharma, we fail to recognize & update our methods according to the flow of time and when it back fires we simply find a suspect to blame it on to them & tag them as a foe. Truth to be told, I am no expert on religion or spirituality nor an advocate of social science, I am a simple minded thinker trying to fathom science and philosophy.

See I have had some time to think this through so here is it, majority of us "Hindu's" have a very lowest understanding of our Vaidika rituals. So for us typically a festival is nothing but a bunch of chores like cleaning & cooking, in a corner the deity is placed, adored with flowers & lights and with some flashy selfies we sum up the day. Oh I almost forgot about prayers! yes very important, it’s almost like a business deal with God. You give me this & I offer this, so let’s shake our hands & make it happen. I apologies for my sarcasm here but usually this is how it is, there are few who don’t even bother doing anything & have the audacity to mark themselves as religious or pious. I see my neighbors & relatives who firmly believe that going to temple is a biggest achievement of the day & that the almighty God is so impressed by this deed that he is flat out in love with them! Again I am truly sorry for my rudeness but I am tired of seeing such gross incompetence of our Hindu society for not understanding what a greatness it is to be a part of Sanatana Dharma! It greatly saddens my heart to see that we are not making any effort to actually rectify our mistakes and grow as a community. We have made a plethora of mistakes in the past for which we are still paying dues & it’s not enough. We have treated our fellow human beings less than a cattle, no matter how hard we try it cannot be ignored. But that does not mean that Veda, Smriti, Purana.. are bigoted and superficial.

I’ll stop beating around the bushes and come to the point, the problem is we ignore to understand Veda Mantra completely. Those who learn and practice vigorously every day still miss the whole point of the shloka that they know by heart. It is not like I suddenly woke up one day & became aware of whole Veda, there were thousands of people before me who understood this and took little to no action to convey the do’s & don't s, but unfortunately I cannot do the same so here we are. Now you can question me, unlike current times the people of past were much more conserve and actually spent more time in learning the mantras & were very highly religious and yet that was the time of inequality, untouchability and other such ill practices. To that I have a very good answer, in ANUSHASANA PARVA of Mahabharata Bheeshma pitamaha has a heart to heart conversation with Yudhistira on his death bed. A couple hundred mantras here are known as Vishnu Sahasranama ( 1000 names of Vishnu ) I’ll be using the 17th shloka of uttarapitika, it goes like this,

sarvāgamānāmācāraḥ prathamaṁ parikalypate | ācāraprabhavō dharmō dharmasya prabhuracyutaḥ || 17 ||

Simple translation of this is - the wider assumption is that the tradition comes first & foremost but in reality Dharma precedes tradition & Acyutah (Vishnu) precedes even Dharma!

This shloka simply shatters all the prejudice of a closed minded fool who force others into superstition just because it was followed before. This has to be first understood in order for it to make sense, people do not bother to dive deep in understanding. The gurukul system in earlier days dealt this problem in an appropriate manner, here both teacher & student choose each other to learn. Please bear in mind that Bharat was not only famous for its culture or spices or its contribution to the world of meta-physics, it was also famous for science, math, art & wealth. So learning consisted of bringing balance to these both aspects of life & according to the student's capability education was provided. As soon as this was restricted to few upper class families based on their status the fruit of knowledge started to rot. And western education completely overthrew the aspect of Guru-Sishya relation which passed on the intimate knowledge of Veda. Bhagavan Krishna simplifies the term Yajna with an example of sowing a seed into the ground & nourishing it until it bears fruit, he further encourages Arjuna (in turn us) to view our life as Jeevan-Yajna, where our each action is directly or indirectly is to be towards fruitfulness. But we only see Yajna as some sort of ritualistic burning of fire to offer sacrifice to Gods, but the symbolic meaning of it is lost in time. Interesting fact about Yajna is that only the fallen sticks of Ashwattha (Fig) tree is used & no other trees are physically harmed. Meaning that a true Jeevan-Yajna is to burn bright without harming others in anyway.

Invasion & destruction of our Dharma & culture is nothing new, even from Satyayuga many demons or kings have tried to eradicate, humiliate us to our deaths, but are of no success. But all this destruction made our resolution even stronger to fight back the outside forces, unfortunately a ship with a hole is no good for sea. No where I am saying that in order to be a Hindu you need to learn Veda mantra completely. What I am trying to convey is, try to comprehend at least the smaller bits of shlokas that you are already aware of. Try to understand symbolism of Vaidika traditions & share them with others. We proudly call ourselves followers of Sanatana Sampradaya, but do not realize what Sanatana actually mean. It is everlasting & ever-growing and it can only grow if we all strive towards it. What I mean by this is, instead of playing a bhajan or shloka on your phone during pooja try to learn simple mantras with their meaning & say them instead. Don't go to temples or shrines because you are forced to or you want to make sure that you have made a deposition there so that all your desires come true. Instead try to sit there to idle your mind from thoughts & focus on controlling your senses, which is the true show of strength.

I am fully aware that calling out ignorant people as an enemy is bit too much, but the fact remains true that this ignorance is the root cause for decline of our values. One of the biggest part of culture is Yoga, it is to be practiced for Yajna, Dhyana & other such rituals as an integral part of it. Power of Yoga sadhana is a force not be reckoned with, but sadly it is taught internationally as form of body bending exercise similar to gymnastics. Presumption kills conscience, our whole religion is centralized with teachings of not falling prey to any presumption. The fact that we are doing exactly what we were warned not to shows how much we have failed in grasping the subtlety of Vedic knowledge.

Let us raise with sword of knowledge to defeat the enemy called Ignorance! सत्यम् वद, धर्मं चर Speak truth and act righteously(walk the path of dharma)”