Hindu dharma

Society Religion & Philosophy
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To all our friends who have been telling and blaming different stories on Hindu relgion, I would like to clarify the meaning of HInduism.

Although Hinduism is said to be a complex corpus of diverse religions and sub-traditions one does find in it a unity in a common vision of life. The Islamic or other western concept of religion may not be the best approach to understand this pluriform religious phenomenon. Hindus themselves call their relgious tradition Sanatana Dharma, i.e. an ancient guideline for an orientation of life in the world; it is a kind of philosophy of life and could be roughly translated as personal and social duty, eternal law, natural virtue, basic morality, unchanging principle. For example, the dharma of the fire is to burn. In the contex of human being, Dharma is comprised of rules and regulations so as to express a socio-religious ideal. In its broader sense, therefore, Dharma means a code of practice, a way of life, personal repsponsibility and duty, a socio-religious order, etc. It was only in the 19th century that the word dharma was freely applied to mean religion.

Unlike other relgions HInduism has no founder and, in a certain sense, is inaccessible. It is a complex mass of relgious systems, a mosaic of probably all known forms of religions, philosophies and social structures. It is not a static relgion but in the course of its history has developed and is still generating many reform movements.

That is the reason you can still find many social-flaws in this religion and point them as Hindu religious rites, but I would like to point out that most of them are not exactly what hinduism preaches (or majority of Hindus follow) but still may be followed by some Hindus in the name of religion.

So it is a religion which has evolved over thousands of years and is one of the oldest surviving religion which keeps on evolving and changing. So it is the most flexible relgion of the world.

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If you are a real hindu, dhir would you tell me if it's true or not that some hindus worship their god's penis. Not trying to be cruel, just wondering if its true, cause I heard so much of that from this Gupshup message board.

(And thats the bottom line cause Umair316 said so)

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when u are finished with this deep discussion, i have certain questions on islam, prophet and stuff like. equally deep and from knowledgeble sources on gupshup.

Maybe this is a headline since i said so.

[This message has been edited by ZZ (edited March 10, 2000).]

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What do you wanna ask about our prophets and our religion ZZ.

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This is a hurried response. I will be back after two weeks and reply again. I responded the way I did since the tone and tenor of ur post is not of a person who wants to know, but something like that of Mudayyas.
What I find amazing in Muslims in Pakistan is perfectly judgemental attitude. Given that they have no other achievement to show, they would like to say they are great since they have a particular religion.
The same statements come back recycles. You worship cows and monkeys and elephants and lions and ants and plants and fire and sun. How can u do it? The presumption is that human being is not a part of nature. He is someone who is very above all these lowly lives. 'Reincarnation! You may be born again as monkey' They have a big ego for something for which they have not worked. That of being human. God takes special care of humans apparently, though no other species explodes nuclear bombs and destroy all life around by dumping waste and destroying everything for his consumption. The entire philosphy has big ego for being human which are s small species that existed a few years in universe.
The reverence about all forms of life and nature thet is inherent in Hinduism is paganism to them. Another kinda catholic belief is how dirty sex is. So Shiva withholds his sexual urges and controls them. The philosophy is that he trnsmutes sexual energy into creative power (sounds like Freaud, doesn't it) Shivalingam, which is one of images that represent him signifies discipline and austerity gives him an aura and power which is creative or destructive depending on purpose.
Another form of Shiva is 'nataraj' which is an interesting sculture in which right half is male and left half female, blended smoothly. Again a sexual symbol. Symbol of creative power of male-female. Some interprete it as a 'female' part in each male and 'male' part in each female. Something like chinese yin-yang. That consists of a white half and black half. Black half has small white dot and white half has a small black dot. Reality is a complex interplay of opposites, male and female, as in Nataraja.
I personally, though an atheist, love the imagery associated with Shiva. One of only fair skinned gods. For a nation obsessed with whites as India, it is interesting that our gods were all black. Not shiva. He has blue neck since he is supposed to have accepted the poison which none was ready to accept and they rather competed for jewels and milk. Shiva temples are often outside town. On big hills. Like Amatranath in Kashmir. Unlike other gods who live rather lavishly. He just has loincloth, meditating at the top of himalayas.
And yet another image is Bhairav. God of destruction.

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[quote]
Originally posted by UMAIR316:
*If you are a real hindu, dhir would you tell me if it's true or not that some hindus worship their god's penis. Not trying to be cruel, just wondering if its true, cause I heard so much of that from this Gupshup message board.
*
[/quote]

For what you have said, first you have to understand the concept of Shiva as in hindu mythology.

Shiva is the destroyer - destroyer of ignorance, desire, ego, and death.
Worldly matters do not interest Shiva. Unaffected by the whims of the world, he is innocent and guileless, pure of mind and heart. He does not adorn his body with jewels or flowers; he mats his hair; wraps his body in animal hide and lets the serpent slither around his neck. He rejects social norms and does not mind the company of ghosts, gnomes , goblins, bhutas, pisachas and yakshas. He even rejects his body; hence he is worshipped as a linga.

Illumination. Shiva is the universal pillar of light. We define whatever we know by its limits. Shiva has no limits. The Jyotir-Linga, pillar of light, can only be conceived in the abstract. Hence the Shiva lingam - an abstract natural rounded pillar of stone. To worship an impersonal Being is a matter of extreme difficulty to our limited minds. Hence, Shiva allows us therefore to worship the stone Lingam as a divine representation of Him, and gives us access to Him through this simple mind-link device. Think of the Lingam as a lens to focus the mind on God. Out of His causeless mercy Shiva accepts our worship of this specially-empowered stone as worship of Him. The simple beauty of the form of the Lingam inspires us to yearn after the akarshic knwoledge. The Akarsh can only be known by Shiva, for It is He. Lingam directs us to become one with Shiva through the medium of the mind.

Lingam can be worshipped as Shiva Himself. Hence the Lingam can be regarded as a worshipful form of the Supreme Lord. Lingam is therefore often decorated, as above, with the trappings of Shiva in human form, in order to both propitiate Lord Shiva and to direct the minds of the devotees to the eternal truth that Lingam IS Shiva. Lord Shiva will accept ANYTHING in devotion. This is because in fact He will respond only to devotion and self-sacrifice and nothing else. The Shiv Bhaktas (devotees) offer him material sacrifices, and these are accepted, provided that they are given with the correct mental attitude. Hence the nature of an individual's sacrifice need not be similar to another's.

It has often been thought, by non-devotees, that the Shiva Lingam is a phallic symbol. This idea is in error.

So you see Linga as I explained is not the penis of Shiva, but of course you can say whatever you want because degrading other religions to show your religion as superior is the bottomline for all expansionist religions as Islam is.

And by the way what are merits of one belief over other. Both are equally logical or illogical. How two gods is less logical than one god and how one god is more logical than none. Islam is your belief, we never question whether they really are Allah's words or not because we know it is your belief that Mohd. has received this dictation from Allah, but you believe it just because you have been told so by Mohd.

[This message has been edited by dhir (edited March 13, 2000).]