A Brief Description of Popular Hinduism

Krishna and Arjun on the chariot, Mahabharata, 18th-19th century, India via Wikipedia

By: Prithviraj Rathod

The essence of popular Hinduism is encapsulated in one of the verses of Gita, one of the most sacred scriptures of Hinduism. The scripture is about Krishna, the divine personality, telling humanity through his disciple Arjun on what needs to be done to win the final salvation for the human soul. In the verse 12.0.9 of the scripture, Krishna tells Arjun the following words:

“If you are unable to focus your mind steadily on Me, then long to attain Me by practice of any other spiritual discipline, such as a ritual, or deity worship that suits you.”(gita-society.com)

The above words succinctly summarize what popular Hinduism is all about. Worship rituals are the most popular way of life in Hinduism. Hinduism does not prohibit other ways for attaining self-realization and salvation. If the person is intellectual enough, he or she can follow other modes of enlightenment such as meditating and fixing the mind on the absolute; or follow such other forms as Karma Yoga, Gnana Yoga, for attaining God. However, most common people find such methodologies of attaining God to be beyond them. So they follow the simpler ritualistic methodology for attaining the Supreme Being.

Ritualistic worship sits at the heart of the popular Hinduism. Instead of sitting motionless in front of God’s idol for about an hour and try to fix the mind on God, a devotee engages himself into various worship rituals. Place a glass of water in front of the idol, sanctify it with hymns or chantings of the names of God for a few minutes, and then sip some of that holy water. Place a few flowers in front of God’s idols or make an elaborate decoration of the idols with garlanded flowers. Sanctify the idols with kunkum powder and smear some of that powder on one’s forehead. Pour some oil into a couple of lamps, light them, and keep them in front of the idols. On important occasions, replace the usage of oil with compounds like Ghee, which are costlier than oil. Light a couple of incense sticks and place them in front of the idols. The smoke that comes out from these incense sticks fills up the room with pleasant smell. Place a couple of fruits in front of idols, sanctify the fruits with hymns, and then eat some of that fruit as a blessing from God. These are some of the common tasks done by an average Hindu almost everyday. The devout perform these tasks twice a day; they need to perform these tasks only after taking bath.

It is not that rituals are not present in other religions, but in Hinduism, these rituals take on much more elaborate proportions. Especially, when done in temples, these rituals are done for hours together. Ritualism sits at the heart of common Hinduism, which is why Hinduism is sometimes termed as a way of life. Many common Hindus are not much aware of Vedas, Puranas, Tantras, and such other Hindu scriptures. What they do have is a knowledge of large number of rituals performed at every junction of one’s life, which is what day-to-day Hinduism is all about.

About The Author

Prithviraj is a researcher into the origins of and comparative studies of religions and cultures. Visit his site to know more about Hinduism Introduction and beliefs, Hinduism Timeline and Chronology, and other concepts of Hindu Religion – http://19000years.blogspot.com

The author invites you to visit: http://19000years.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://www.articlecity.com/articles/religion/article_1309.shtml

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God and Depression

The Thinker, sculpture by Auguste Rodin, in Madrid via Wikipedia

Author: briddickw

When you stop to think about the causes of depression, anxiety and feelings of unrest and nervousness, it’s easy to think that the only solution is drugs.  I firmly believe that when you treat the cause of depression as opposed to its symptoms through spiritual practice, the symptoms fall away naturally.

First of all lets examine the idea of depression and anxiety.  Depression and anxiety have become a regular way of being for both adults and children in the western world.  Never before have we seen such sickness?  How do I know this?  A recent study came out saying that 1 in 7 female women in the United States are currently using an anti-depressant to treat their anxiety or depression.

So why is this?

It’s my opinion that with the internet, technology, instant food, easy access everything, we’ve grown complacent and purposeless. We longer have to hunt for our food. We no longer have to create our own shelter.  Our communities are becoming less connected in the real world and more connected online which really creates a larger separation.

What does this have to do with God?

God is the source of all life and when we recognize and focus our energy on feeling good in the moment, in being completely present, in spending time with our friends and expressing our feelings, expressing our artwork, exercising and becoming a people of Unity as opposed to duality, the symptoms of depression fall away. A spirit cannot be depressed, it by nature cannot be anxious.

Other practices such as meditation has also been known to help with depression and anxiety as meditating is the practice of stilling the mind and becoming completely present, in the moment and experiencing the true nature of god where depression and darkness cannot reside.  A rule of thumb is to spend 15 minutes per day meditating and practicing stilling your mind for the purpose of feeling good.  If you’re looking for a good resource as to how to meditate for anxiety or depression, it’s on that link.

Of course, if one is feeling suicical and unable to get themselves unstuck they should get the proper anxiety and depression help and seek the counsel of a doctor or licensed practitioner.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/mysticism-articles/god-and-depression-5432372.html

About the Author

B writes for his Anxiety Cures website and has many of self help resources as well

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The Mystic Prophet Francis of Assisi

Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi via Wikipedia

Author: Madison Meadows

Francis Bernardone was born in 1182 in the town of Assisi.  When a war broke out between Assisi and Perugia, he rode off to war as a knight of Assisi.  He was captured as a prisoner of war in the defeat of Assisi.  At the age of 21, he spent a year in a Perugian prison and when released was gravely ill and spent a year in bed.

He would try to go to war again as a knight but God had other plans for him.  His first vision came to him when as a knight, in a Assisi regiment marching to southern Italy.  On the first night in the city of Spoleto, he dreamed of a large castle hall in which there were many shields adorning the walls, which a voice assured him were for him and his followers.  Francis took the voice literally and thought he was a great lord.  But then the voice spoke again.  ‘What is better, Francis, to serve the Lord or the servant?’

‘Why, the Lord, surely.’

‘Then why are you serving the servant?  Return to Assisi it will be shown you what you are to do.’

He deserted the army and returned home only to be ridiculed as a coward by his fellow citizens.  He began to pray in caves and abandoned churches.  The crucifix of San Domiano spoke to him.  He later saw a leper on the side of the road, and embraced the leper and gave him money.  He knew he had embraced Christ, and he went and began to live among the lepers.  Only a madman or a man in love would do such a thing.  Francis was both, he was a man madly in love with Christ.

In his writings Francis never uses the word imitate in relation to Christ, instead he uses the phrase ‘to follow in the footsteps of Christ.’  Christ’s invitation was to ‘follow me.’  In following Christ the self one thinks has been lost is actually found, so that one walks in the footsteps of Christ a whole and realized self.

In September of 1224 on Mount La Verna he had an extraordinary experience.  He was headed to Tuscany in preparation for the Feast of St. Michael on September 29.  On September 14 he had a vision of a Seraph with six fiery wings coming down from heaven.  It came to rest in the air near him.  Then he saw an image of a man crucified in the midst of the wings.  He took on the wounds of Christ.  He returned from La Verna a stigmatic who lived intimately and excruciatingly a Christlike passion for the final two years of his life.

Reference ~Mystics by Murray Bodo

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/mysticism-articles/the-mystic-prophet-francis-of-assisi-4905638.html

About the Author

I am married with two kids.  I live in Phoenix, Arizona.  I blog about my paranormal/spirtual experiences I’ve had since I was a child. I share those experiences now as insight to those whom have had similiar experiences, or are just searching for a deeper meaning in their lives.

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The Life of Rumi

Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi via Wikipedia

Author: Madison Meadows

Rumi was born in what is known today as Afgahanistan in 1207.  He descended from a long line of Islamic jurists, theologians, and mystics.  Rumi met a great poet and teacher as a boy, Fariduddin Attar who reported  to have said, Here comes a sea, followed by an ocean.’  He gave Rumi a copy of his Ilahinama (The Book of God). The family settled in south-central Turkey.  He became head of the medrese that his father was head of, after his death in his early twenties.  Its memebers used music and poetry and movedment. They sat in silence and meditated.

Rumi met Shams Tabriz, a fierce man of God in 1244.  Shams was sometimes lost in mystical awareness for days. One day Rumi was teaching at a fountain in a small square in Konya.  Books were open on the fountain’s edge.  Shams walked through the students and pushed the books in the water.

‘Who are you and what are you doing?’ Rumi asked.

‘You must now live what you have been reading about.’

Rumi turned to the books in the fountain, And Shams lifted the Maarif to show him it was dry. With this Rumi’s real life began, and his poetry. ‘What I had thought of before as God, Rumi said, ‘I met today in a human being.’

They spent three and a half years together.  One day Shams disappears and is never heard from again.  Rumi is reunited with Shams in the poetry, and in his inmost core.   Rumi’s message is it is the longing in a human being to live in unlimited freedom and joy, to move inside beauty, that the most profound need of the human soul is to flow with the namelessness that animates, burns, and transpires through form.

One of my favorite poems:  I Rocked My Own Chest

Yesterday I sent a message as clear and steady as a star. You that turn stones to gold, change me.  I showed you the longing and rocked my own chest like an infant to hush it from crying.  Undo your breast.  Take me back to love’s first place, where we were in union.  How much longer do I have to wander apart?  I will be quiet now and patient, waiting for you to turn and look.

Reference~ Rumi The Big Red Book, Coleman Barks

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/mysticism-articles/the-life-of-rumi-4843581.html

About the Author

I am married with two kids.  I live in Phoenix, Arizona.  I blog about my paranormal/spirtual experiences I’ve had since I was a child. I share those experiences now as insight to those whom have had similiar experiences, or are just searching for a deeper meaning in their lives.

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DEVIL IS CHRISTIAN NOT JEWISH

Pope Sylvester II and the Devil in an illustration of c. 1460 via Wikipedia

Special to Earthpages.org

Seventy percent of American Christians believe in the Devil according to a Gallup poll, compared to less than 5% of American Jews who believe in the Devil, according to Rabbi Allen S. Maller of Temple Akiba in Culver City, Calif.

Belief in the Devil among Christians did not vary much by age, and educational differences were limited to only 15 points; 55% of Christians with postgraduate degrees believed in the Devil compared to over 70% with only a high school diploma. Among Jews neither age nor level of education made any difference, said Rabbi Maller and Orthodox Jews were no more likely to believe in the Devil than Reform Jews.

Rabbi Maller pointed out that in the Jewish view Satan is not a Devil, (an independent source of evil in opposition to God) but rather an angel of God whose role is to tempt and test people. Without temptation humans can’t produce evil or good out of their own free will. Satan never forces a person to do evil. Satan gives us the opportunity to do evil, and when we resist doing evil, we have the opportunity to do good. No pain, no gain.

Satan makes sweet and fattening foods taste better than those foods that are healthy for you. Life is full of temptations and tests. When we fail; blaming the teacher or the test is a cop-out. Blaming the Devil or God is also a cop-out. God tells us to choose between the blessing and the curse. The choice is ours and so are the consequences.

Satan, according to the book of Job, is included in the Heavenly Court, among God’s disciples, because Satan is God’s agent of temptation, enabling us to overcome our self-centered desires and thoughts. If good was always more attractive than evil, we would have no reason to freely choice good, and therefore no opportunity to be moral.

Rabbi Maller’s web site is: rabbimaller.com

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Meditation as reboot for the mind and body

Horace Weston Taylor: Contemplation, 1919, gouache on board via Wikipedia

Author: Bryan

This is a familiar experience to any of us who has been working with a computer for a long time.  We open a number of windows and/or programs at the same time.  Our computer should be able to handle it because it was designed to multi task.  Then, in our haste to get more things done we run a few programs too many.  The impending result is the cursor not being frozen despite our mouse manipulations.  Eventually, error windows pop up.  Yes, our computer has hanged because of too many programs running and whatever we were working on may have been lost.   So much for technology.

The mind is like the computer that hanged.  Our minds often have too many ‘programs’ running in the form of worries, speculations, expectations, he said, she said, what happened in the past and what we think will happen in the future.  Eventually these programs cause our mental and emotional system to ‘hang’ just like the computer.

Fortunately, our computers have a solution when it hangs.  We often press the buttons ‘Ctrl-alt-delete’ or ‘Reboot’ or ‘Restart’.  This makes everything start up again with all the programs in their inactive modes.   Meditation is like the reboot function for the mind and body.  It restarts our stressed out minds by coming back to the present moment.  Being in the present moment is like being brought back to the menu page of our computer screen.  And as our minds relax, so does our bodies.

Technology consultants advocate not rebooting our computers too often because of the danger of losing memory files.  However, unlike computers, our human minds do benefit from frequent refreshing and rebooting from too much work and stress.  Meditation helps reboot our immune systems, refresh our focus, enhance our memory, and restart our lives in the present moment.    It’s an old technology for humans that’s far from being phased out.

Mediation from various schools and traditions have now been acknowledged by modern science as being beneficial to both psychological and physiological health.  Results have shown that inner stillness practices can alleviate stress, enhance immune systems and emotional quotients, and create better focus and creativity in a person.    Meditation is currently being used in some medical cases to compliment the management of illnesses and recovery.   Meditation and visualization is an ancient human tool passed down through the ages that all may benefit.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/meditation-articles/meditation-as-reboot-for-the-mind-and-body-5389827.html

About the Author

We are the online media producer that aid seekers in their journey towards ONEness within, Oneness with others and Oneness with the world around us. We translate the practices of the ancient traditions into a format that would be appreciated by the generation of the New Earth. We move with the current tends of the material world as a portal for others to the Conscious Universe. Through this portal, we contribute to adding to the ‘Critical Mass’ of higher human awareness that would lead to a world of Harmony and Peace.

Visit our website: http://www.onwiththeflow.com

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Lest We Forget

Lest We Forget, originally uploaded by earthpages.

Indo-Americans critical of India’s failure at curbing frequent stampedes

Evening view of Har-ki-Pauri, Haridwar. This is an older photograph as it shows the old Ganga Temple... via Wikipedia

Special to Earthpages.org

Indo-Americans are critical of frequent occurrences of deadly stampedes at religious gatherings in India.

Indo-American statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that although India was on track to become a global power but it had yet to come up with a foolproof plan to manage large crowds.

Zed, who is Chairperson of Indo-American Leadership Confederation, was expressing grief over the loss of lives at November eight stampede tragedy at centenary celebrations involving Mahayagya in Haridwar (Uttarakhand) on Ganga bank reportedly claiming 20 lives and injuries to about 60 people in an estimated gathering of up to two million.

India failed or refused to learn lessons from the previous stampedes as these continued to happen. It was blight on a country, which prided herself on having joined the league of hottest growth economies, Rajan Zed pointed out.

According to reports, about 1,000 lives have been lost at stampedes at religious gatherings in India during the last decade. Last such melee was around Sabarimala (Kerala) shrine in January last, killing over 104 pilgrims and injuring many others. Other such tragedies happened in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra during the past decade.

Suffocation and panic were reportedly some of the causes of tragedy. A magisterial probe has reportedly been ordered into the mishap and the five-day event, which began November six, has been curtailed. Haridwar is among India’s most popular pilgrim destinations.

Margaret Alva and Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri are Governor and Chief Minister of Uttarakhand state, while Pratibha Devisingh Patil and Manmohan Singh are President and Prime Minister of India respectively.

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Pope John Paul’s Jewish Miracle

Monument to Pope John Paul II in Rome via Wikipedia

Special to Earthpages.org

A second public miracle is needed in order to proclaim Pope John Paul II a saint, and that second miracle could be the revival of Jewish music and Jewish life in Poland, according to Reform Rabbi Allen S. Maller, who was a visiting scholar for two months at Beit Warszawa, a Reform synagogue in Warsaw, in the Fall of 2010.

Rabbi Maller points to an interview of Sir Gilbert Levine by Cecile S. Holmes, distributed by Religious News Service (1/5/11) that revealed John Paul’s role in the resurrection of Jewish music in Poland by the Jewish Cultural Festival in Krakow.

Sir Gilbert Levine, whose conducting career spanned the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic and the Dresden Staatskapelle, was a Jew from Brooklyn. In 1987, Levine was invited to be guest conductor and artistic director of the Krakow Philharmonic in John Paul’s native Poland. The invitation was unsettling since Levine’s grandparents had fled Poland to escape the Nazis and members of his wife’s family had died in Auschwitz. Also living in Krakow in 1987 meant living behind the Iron Curtain, but Levine accepted anyway.

Soon after Levine arrived in Krakow, the Vatican invited him to Rome for an audience with Pope John Paul. That invitation led to others, and Levine was invited to conduct a concert in 1988 to mark the 10th anniversary of John Paul’s election. Thus began almost two decades of musical collaboration and a joint mission of peacemaking. Three years later, in 1991, the first public Jewish Cultural Festival was held in Krakow. John Paul and Levine also worked together on a 1994 concert to commemorate the Holocaust.

When Levine arrived in Krakow there was no Jewish music festival in Krakow; but his presence and his close connection with the first Polish Pope inspired some Poles in 1989 and 1990 to dream of reviving the Jewish musical tradition in Poland. Today there are more than two dozen Polish (non-Jews) klezmer bands and several Polish (non-Jews) groups that play and sing both Yiddish and Hebrew songs. Today there are Liberal Reform synagogues with Rabbis in Warsaw (2) and Krakow (1) that welcome Poles to programs of Jewish music and culture. The partnership of a Polish Pope and a Jewish conductor, stimulated a musical engagement of Poles with Jewish souls, and Jewish music for Polish souls.

Levine still recalls his friendship with the pope with a touch of wonder:

Q: Tell me how your relationship with the pope affected you.
A: It deepened my faith, and he honored that Jewish faith wonderfully. It deepened my music making. I understand the spiritual side of music in a deeper and better way than I ever did before. It made me understand that there is no such thing as judging a person by the country they come from, the religion they practice or any other surface issue. Only by the character of their soul should a person be judged. I was always astonished by the fact that he could let me into his life the way that he did. For him to have been open to such a friendship is just amazing.

Q: What are the most important things you learned from the pope?
A: My 17 years with John Paul taught me so much. The power of music and spirit to foster hope, transformation, healing and love. And more about the mysteries of faith, not one but three—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The potential for reconciliation and redemption in the face of violence and sadness.

Rabbi Maller’s web site is: rabbimaller.com

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