The Hinduism way of Life

Ishwarya Star
Nov 2 · 4 min read

Why are you a Hindu ? The obvious answer that every one of the Hindus would give is — Because I was born one. Well , So many people have little choice over selecting their faith. Religion, I believe, is selected for people at birth by the accident of geography and their parents’ cultural moorings. The overwhelming population of Hindus alive today were born as Hindus. Converting to Hinduism is seldom heard of. A small population of Hindus are however Hindus because of marriage , migration or philosophical conviction. While every other religion has a fundamentalism , there is nothing called as Hindu Fundamentalism owing to the fact that we have no Founder , No prophet , no organized church , No compulsory beliefs , No rites of Worship in compulsion , No single sacred Book. My Hinduism has always been a Hinduism of Experience , A Hinduism of Observation , A Hinduism of conversation and experimentation.

The name Hindu itself denotes something less and more than a set of theological beliefs. In many languages , French and Persian amongst them , the word ‘Indian’ is ‘Hindu’. Originally Hindu meant simply those people who lived beyond the river Sindhu. It would be surprising for many of my readers to know that ‘Hinduism’ was coined by the foreigners to name what they saw as the indigenous religion of India. Research says that there are around 333 million Hindu Gods worshipped by the Hindus around the world. I couldn’t be fine with practicing a religion just because I was born as a Hindu or just because my geographical majority practiced it. And hence I always was curious in experimenting which religion would intrigue my beliefs and my Thoughts. Surprisingly , I concluded my selection with Hinduism as well. Hinduism is not a Religion it is a WAY OF LIFE.

Well, the best part that attracted me to Hinduism was the fact that It in no place says that there is only one religion and that is Hinduism. And I feel that this standard of acceptance of other religions is what makes Hinduism a Religion of Pragmatic faith. Hinduism can never be a religion of staunch principles , rules and regulations. It says in no place or no book that Hinduism is the best religion. Hinduism can never be described completely with just considering a single Book or a Single God or a Single Belief, it is a mountain of uncountable number of definitions and descriptions. It would be shockingly amazing to know that the Vedas itself mentions the Doubtful existence of God. They say that ‘ The God , ‘’IF’’ he exists……’’ and this ‘IF’ part is what makes sure that the Hinduism also accepts the part of Atheism amidst the myriad Hindu Gods. Atheism is also a part of Hinduism and can never be separated from Hinduism. Can any other religion on Earth ever accept a person to be contained inside a religion and still have doubts about the existence of God ?

The presence of a million Female Gods in Hinduism is also a very important proof to the fact that the Hindus also worshiped Gods irrespective of Gender. You can spot a million female gods worshiped by the Hindus equal to worshiping the male gods. Hinduism is also criticized in many ways for the weird creation of idols and trolled . But it is very seldom known that every single reason for worshiping gods with various weapons and equipment with them are so because of so many logical reasons , for example- the Goddess Saraswathi , the goddess of learning has rosary beads on one hand and the palm leaves scroll on the other , the rosary beads signifies the importance of prayer and meditation on one hand and the palm leaves depicts the importance of learning. she also sits on the lotus and sometimes on the peacock , a symbol of the ego that should be suppressed in the pursuit of true knowledge.

Worshiping animals as gods has also been ubiquitous in Hinduism . This kind of a worships also is a proof that people practicing Hinduism should never hold a Man superior over an animal , although modern Hinduism now believes in the Bali of innocent animals and this kind of a belief and tradition is mentioned no where in any religious books and Vedas , thus making it obvious that this was a belief that was added later on and not a true Hinduism way of beliefs and way of traditions.

One fact that shocked me so much was the fact that Hinduism and science were aslso very closely related. The Hanuman Chalisa predicted the distance between the Earth and the sun in the sixteenth century which is well before the calculation of the distance. ‘’ Yuga sahasra yojana para Bhanu , Leeloo Tahi Madhura Phala Janu’’ — according to this verse , the distance between the Earth and the Sun is Yuga sahasra yojana. As said by the Hinduism , 1 yuga is 12000 divine years , sahasra means one thousand and yojana means 8 miles. Now equating this calculation we get , 12000x1000x8=96 million miles , which is approximately 154.4 miliion km , much closer to the 20th century calculation of the 152 million km at aphelion. The English word Juggernaut which means — Huge and powerful was also derived from the God from Hinduism — Puri Jagannath. The holy river Ganga has it’s own Body guard, there is the presence of a particular bacteriophage , and this bacteriophage infects and kills the other harmful bacteria invading the River.

Well, Hinduism is not a religion , it is a way of life that makes sure that the people believing the way of Hinduism are never bound to be let down by the faith and traditions they follow as true Hindus. It is impossible to point out at a single founder , to point out at just a single book , to point out just at a single deity and call it as Hinduism , Hinduism is a way of life that looks complex from outside and completely comforting and soothing from inside.

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