barney

1. You may not need any review but millions of others would and have accepted changes to adapt to this age of kali. 2. I do not worry what a Japanese do or don't unless I'm in Japan. But in this case I'm not a Japanese nor do I work in a Japanese firm. But as far as I know Japanese firms in my country do not follow their tradition because they know how to adapt to circumstances in countries of others. So, don't give me examples of foreigners. Try to change when time requires. We are not living in the yugas gone by. 3. Neither do I care a damn what you preach. You can believe what you want that does not move me an inch. Only fools would think as you do. 4. Old story. Give me dsomething new. 5. The YET and IF is a big Q. 6. If you think so. I've heard many such stories and parables so what? Show me a butcher who is a vegetarian in this century. Show me a vegetraian who is a bar tender in this century. May be in your dreams. 7. I'm a HIndu and I believe that Kali Yuga has ending but not at the century or the next. There are some few hundred thousand years to go. So, I suppose your are talking . here. 8. I do not worry of anything as I know whatever has happened it happened well, whatever is happening is happening well and whatever is going to happen it will happen well. So, why worry over anything as all this is the WILL of GOD. "Goodness prevails by suppressing passion and ignorance; Passion prevails by suppressing goodness and ignorance; and Ignorance prevails by suppressing goodness and passion, O Arjuna. (14.10)" O Arjuna, the faith of each is in accordance with one’s own natural disposition that is governed by Karmic impressions. A person is known by the faith. One can become whatever one wants to be, if one constantly contemplates on the object of desire with faith. (17.03) I think you have the brain to understand what it means. 9. Oh! Yes, it can happened to any body even the most holiest of holy but than you are forgetting the law of karma. If the past was not affected by bat action surely the present will safe you of any disaster. May be you are unaware of it yet you talk so much about karma nad not the WILL of GOD. 10. So, I'm correct when I say you are a saddist. You do not wish to have friends and love to see others suffer and also jealous of others well being. What kind of a human being are you? As I have said you ought to be send back to the past yuga. Am I conversing with a freak? 11. Those who desire to for such let them experience it so that others would know the result of the suffering. It is a play by GOD and actors have been chosen. Just enjoy the play and wait for your turn to exit the stage. 12. A good Astrologer will predict the time of your death and the birth of a child. You are a weakling here who is yet to learn in your theething period. OM NAMA SHIVAYA

Whenever there is a decline of Dharma (Righteousness) and a predominance of Adharma (Unrighteousness), O Arjuna, then I manifest Myself. I appear from time to time for protecting the good, for transforming the wicked, and for establishing world order (Dharma). (4.07-08) The ignorant persons despise Me when I appear in human form, because they do not know My transcendental nature as the great Lord of all beings, and take Me for an ordinary human being. They are unable to recognize Me, because they have false hopes, false actions, and false knowledge; and possess delusive qualities of fiends and demons. (9.11-12)

Hinduism is a way of life described in the vedas and puranas some few thousand years ago. No Hindu will deny that but at the same time laws and values reviewed according to period of time. No Hindu walks with doty & sandals into an office these days. Changes take place according to time and so did the laws in Vedas or puranas. So, why does that affect you and in what way? 1. I beg your pardon! Did I mentioned to you that I picture HIM so? Boy! Looks like you are good at it..... and hope you know what I mean. If each and every human had followed what had been written in the GITA and other religious text from the start of creation than why talk about recarnation. The word would not exist in the Hindu dictionary and Webster too. So, your argument here is meaningless. Of course HE watches and that is HIS pastime. Whether I follow the Hindu religious law or not is irrelavant as to this very day there is not HINDU country where vedic laws have been legistlated. Not in India nor anywhere else. So to a comon man like me I follow the laws of the country I was born. Because if I strictly follow Hindu laws than I would become an outcast in my own country. I am now living with both my neighbours left and right non Hindus who eat beef. I buy my grocries from Super Markets that sell untouchable items not along with what Hindus need for their daily consumption. As HIndu there are so many things that a Hndu need to adopt as there are too many changes to this country as well in other parts. So how do you think a Hindu can be a TRUE Hindu in this 21st century, MR.KNOW ALL? Do not just talk for lip service. Come to reality and be a Hindu who has tolerency towards non Hindus. Because you need their help in times of emergency. MR.KNOW ALL, I think you ought to pray to GOD to send you back to vedic period. I think that is what fits you as an hypocrate. I know your kind and many I have met in my life. Speak as though you are purest of th pure and in close doors you are worst than perverts. You are talking like the hypocrate Christians waiting for Armaggedon. May be you have a link with them like ISKCON does. 2. Hello! GOD's WILL is everboy's concern. Whatever happens by the WILL of GOD affects all living being one way or another and if you do not realize this TRUTH than you must be a KOMALI. 3. So now you have taken the role of a GP to diagnose my health. Good, this is getting mor intersting..... 4. In your eyes when someone tell the truth is a sick camel uh? You are clearly displaying your hypocritic ways here. Do not pretend to be an innocent child. Boy! You are a great pretender. I wonder what your circle of friends th9ink of you. Oh! Yes, I remember you do not like friend as the always ask for your help and that you despise them. 5, So, HYPO looks like you are not happy and dislike the idea that scientist would eventually discover the drug to cure AIDS. What I see here is a saddist wishing for disaster to happen all the time. I'm sure the member in this forum would know the true YOU. 6. Could you please tell us your experience in meetng with GOD before you were cast onto your mother's[your choice] womd. I'm sure HE would have told you what you would be when you grow up and how you would turn out to be a saddist. We are waiting to hear your meeting with GOD before you were cast out into this world. Come on, let us knwo of your secret meeting with the ALMIGHTY. WE ARE WAITINGGGGGG..............

I am the water-god, and the manes. I am the controller of death. I am the time or death among the healers, lion among the beasts, and the king of birds among birds. (10.29-30) I am the origin of all beings, O Arjuna. There is nothing, animate or inanimate, that can exist without Me. (See also 7.10 and 9.18) (10.39) For those who worship the Supreme with unswerving devotion as a personal deity of their choice, offer all actions to Me, intent on Me as the Supreme, and meditate on Me; I swiftly become their savior ¾ from the world that is the ocean of death and transmigration ¾ whose thoughts are set on My personal form, O Arjuna. (12.06-07) The Supreme Being is the source of all lights. He is said to be beyond darkness of ignorance. He is the Self-knowledge, the object of Self-knowledge, and seated in the inner psyche as consciousness (See verse 18.61) of all beings, He is to be realized by Self-knowledge. (13.17) Goodness prevails by suppressing passion and ignorance; passion prevails by suppressing goodness and ignorance; and ignorance prevails by suppressing goodness and passion, O Arjuna. (14.10) Please understand the GITA well before making assumptions of your own.

I am Lord Shiva, I am the god of wealth, I am the fire god, and the mountains. (10.23)

Let us not argue if the vedic law permits or not. Because it is not only in Hinduism but the Muslims and Christians too have such ristrictions. May be you have not read their orthodox canon. Times have changed and Hinduism have gone through two to three hundred centuries of evolution. Hindus of the present are not so rigid with religious laws. That is why we Hindus can adopt with time and live along side side with with other faiths. If it was in vedic period, non Hindus would not be permited into a Hindu home or take a drink from a non Hindu. We do not see such in the present time because we are more tolerant with others. The Hindu scriptures have divine laws for the betterment of the society of that period. Every word in the Vedic scriptures have a valid meaning and reason otherwise the sages would not have put it there just for fun. They were given these divine laws by the Supreme Being and for the benefit of the society the sages put it in writing for all to benefit. It was so in that period of time. But after some few hundred centuries divine saints had came to revieve the old laws and they were more tolerant and acceptable by most but as usual there were some who rejected such changes. We do not critize or mock the old ways but changes has to take place for the good of the society. If a woman cannot live with a slave driver husband than she should be given the option to divorce him and vice versa. So is a widow who cannot live alone without a companion of a male in this cruel world flooded with rapist and murderers. Whatever happens it happens for good and by the will of GOD. OM NAMA SHIVAYA

Yes, each and every one including you and me will always have split personality. To our parents we would have been their son and behaved as one, to a friend we would behave as different from being a son and to our wives we would behave as a domineering male CP and to our subordinates we would be a serious no nonsence slave driver. Yes, that is what we are a split personality. To members in this forum, each with different views of our belief, surely one need to give them what they can perceive not what you or I understand. Asking one to understand what you understood is typical of ISKCON members. Always compeling others to receive their ideology and refuse to understanting what others feel. I'm sorry for being blunt here but that is how I see it. So, if it sounds nonsense to you it's a matter of opinion and it does not hurt me and by all means you have your right to judge others and so are others who would judge you. The world is not made of only maadhavs, sephiroths or barneys. It takes all kinds to form this world and that is why it is beautiful. But sad to say of late that beauty is tainted with Tsunami, Earthquakes, Katrina and latest monsoon flood in Tamil Nadu where 500 thousand people are displaced without food and shelter. Natural disaster is increasing by the year and death toll is rising by seconds can you or me safe the situation? Surely not, coz it is an order of the Supereme Brahman and no one can defy him. We accept what is willed and pray that HE shows mercy on those departed poor souls whatever their sins may be. As a human being it is our duty to show compassion and help in whatever way we can to lessen their burden. OM NAMA SHIVAYA

OM NAMA SHIVAYA, GOD has everything. This whole universe is HIS so why would HE want it back. HE is not asking but he people who think they represent HIM wants it. What actualy GOD wants you to do is HELP those who do not have from what HE has given you. Otherwise HE would himself take it away from you. Simple as that. But I know what you mean. You need fund to run you society and that is what you are harping on giving to GOD. Whe I ive to a misfortunate soul I have given to GOD. And I know HE is satisfied with my service. I do not need to look for a society like yours to give. Yes, HOLY NAMES...... By all means, KRISNA, VISHNU, SHIVA, DURGA, GANESGA, MURUGAN are all HOLY NAMES of GOD. That I would always but it is up to the person on the other side if he wants to receive it. Do not compel others, the will must come from within themsleves, not by force what the Muslims and Christians are trying to do. Free of samsara? Without that what is the use of this world? GOD put us here to experience this life not shed off in the believe that there is one better than this. You have been wrongly thought by your guru. When your KARMA is exhausted you will return to the spiritual life which differs form this and there is no return. So, this life is only now and there is no return to the same. Why are you so ignorant of this truth? I only live ones as barney and would not come back again as barney. This is a life that has been given to me and I would love to live this live as it is now. When the time comes I will return to my original state. You cannot lead me anywhee with your idiology. I've been brough here for a purpose and HE knows where it will lead me. I do not need a another guide as I have my guide 'GOD'. Whatever I do I do in HIS name. So, let us live the way we feel at ease. The rest is HIS.

1. You said 'HIS WILL' and yet you contradict your own statement. Nothing moves without HIS WILL and so whatever is happening is HIS. That is all to it. 2. Yes, HE can change if HE WILLS but in this case HE does not wish to change the senario. I did not say HE cannot change the situation. Do not assume that is what I meant. What is happening is according to HIS WILL period. 3.That was not willed by GOD otherwise I too would have been infected with AIDS. 4.'Man don't have sex with monkeys'? That is what you think. Man does all kind of wierd things to satisfy his lust. Pigs, Dogs, Donkeys and Horses. You name it and they have done it. Where are you living? Don't you read news papers. Soemtime back in Malaysia a man was caught having sex with a hen. May be you are living in a cocoon and do not see the outside world. 5. Here again you seem to lack in information. They are still experimenting and testing new drugs but yet to find the right one. Eventualy they will find a drug that can cure AIDS but for the time being they have drugs to slow the affect of the deterioation. 6. 'Rightful Living, Rightful Conduct, Rightful Mindset'. Yeh! That is what is expected of all men but in reality it does not happen and you should know the reason why. Please tell that to the Malaysian drivers. In Malaysia there are more deaths on the road than AIDS in a year. 7. You have to face reality. DEATH is evident. DEATH has many faces and DEATH has no fixed age. You are not aware of DEATH. GOD did not promise you anything when you were born. Your destiny is controled by your past KARMA. All lives in this planet are inter linked and that is the real TRUTH behind this whole prosess of BIRTH and DEATH. A child dies in the womb before its birth into this world but doctors would say what they think. But in reality GOD wants the mother to be to suffer the lost of the unborn child due to her bad KARMA in the past. In this birth she will grieve for the lost unborn baby which she had failed to understand such in her previous life. Or may be in her previous life she had caused someone to lose her baby in the womb and now she has to experience that same effect. You have to go deep to understand the UNKNOW, OMNIPREST and OMNOPOTENT. True man would not brag of his service to mankind. They do it in silence. Yes, you can pray to GOD to release these unfortunate souls from their suggerings but that is not only your prayers but millions of others. But GOD has other options which you and I would not know. So, stop howling and start the ball rolling by selling all your assets in order to safe the children in africa. If that is what your wish is.......

<<<<It is fools like this which justifies me praying to God that the World we see today is destroyed and a new cycle with responsible people is ushered.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> As long as there are smart people like you there would always be fools like them. It is part of GOD's plan when HE created this universe. This is what KRISHNA says in the GITA "Whatever has happened it has happened well" "Wharever is happening is happning well" and "Whatever is going to happen will happen well" From the above you should understand that this is all predestined and no one can change time [destiny]. It is also been told in the GITA that in the age of KALI such things will happen and itis happening. Do you want to defy GOD? AIDS is Almighty Induced Disease. So, you and I cannot prevent it from happening coz it's the will of GOD and so it is there otherwise men would have found a complete cure of it by now. Can you tell me how this AIDS virus appeared? No one knows except sopme speculations that is originated form African monkeys but there is no conclusive evidence that it came form there. Thailand is a hot bed for AIDS like India and so are some European countries but it's now more than 20 years and yet man has not found a cure for it. Wishing for the end of the world is stupidity coz it shows how shallow is your faith in the Almighty.

Manu smriti was written some few thousand years ago and you can imagine how that world would have been. You and I know nothng about that period except what the manu smriti says. So, do not take that as an excuse to vent out your frustrations here. You should read other purans too about Andal and many other women saints of our Hindu margam. Do not blame the sastras for the wrong doing of society and ignorant people who do not have much knowledge about Hinduism. There is a certain period in a women's life where they too can par take in rituals in temples or home. That is when she has completed her menopause, she can participate in all rituals. There is a reason for not allowing a woman to par take if she has not completed he menopause. Hindusim is perfect but those who interprete it are imperfect. Like they say if all men are right the world would also be right. It is because of these unrighteous men we say te word is cruel. So Hinduism is perfect in the sense that if we do the right thing which benefit the society on the whole otherwise it would be a good example like you blaming the religion whithout realizing the real issue here. It's like Islam where some Muslims would like to live the life of 6th century. They would discard television, telephone, chairs and tables and what not. So who is to be blame here? It's some of the followers who think they know all and would like to teach others how to lead their life according the the religion they think they understand better..

Read Karma Yoga: 3:13. The righteous who live on the remains of (their) sacrifice are liberated from sins. But those who are anxious only about their own food — they feed on sin. Do not miscontrue the GITA for your own selfish reason. There are many like you out there thinking that doing service to mankind is against the teachings of the GITA. All of your kind have received perverted version og the GITA. So, do not portray yourself here as master of GITA. Your mind is nothing but full of perversion. Any right minded guru would chase you out of his asram if you have such thoughts in your mind about serving mankind.

Kali Yuga or the Age of Confusion By Michel Danino Sanskrit Day address (revised here) presented at a function organized by the Chinmaya International Foundation, Veliyanad, at the Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Tripunithura (Kerala), on 15 August 2000. I am much honoured to be invited to speak on this special day. At the same time, I must admit that I am rather shy of addressing this gathering of distinguished scholars and Sanskritists, I who am neither. For over twenty-five years, if I have studied something of Indian culture, it has not been in a bookish or theoretical manner : experience is what has always interested me—to live at least something of what sent so many in this land, like nowhere else on earth, in search of the truth of this universe and this human adventure. That something I slowly learned mainly from Sri Aurobindo, for although he came to be regarded as a philosopher and a thinker, he really was an experimenter before anything else. It is a happy coincidence that his birthday should fall today, the 128th anniversary of his birth, and I shall take the liberty of quoting him a few times. If I have honestly warned you about my limitations, it is because I wish to examine with you a few important issues which, in India’s present intellectual climate, are usually regarded as “sensitive” or “controversial”—in other words, fit to be discreetly swept under the carpet. Yet I find that examining them turns out to be immensely profitable, provided we do so from the standpoint of Indian experience, not from dry philosophy or hollow Westernized intellectualism. Conversely, turning away from them or blindly accepting conventional ideas about them is, to my mind, the source of the most serious confusion. Long ago we were warned about this unmistakable sign of our dark age : in the Mahabharata, for example, Markandeya tells Yuddhisthira that in the Kali Yuga, “Men generally become addicted to falsehood in speech,” and “intellectual darkness will envelop the whole earth.”[1] Yet we have done surprisingly little to dispel this darkness from our own minds to begin with. We have allowed others, unfamiliar with or contemptuous of the truths discovered by millennia of yoga and sadhana, to think for us, speak for us, and ultimately to dictate to us. What are these issues, then ? To discuss them—very briefly, of course—I have chosen a few convenient keywords ; they are : “God,” “religion,” “secularism,” and “tolerance.” Imposing words, no doubt, constantly thrown under our eyes and into our ears. Yet the one thing seldom mentioned about them is that they are Western notions, and correspond to no clear Indian concepts—hence the confusion they generate when mechanically applied to the Indian context. I will keep returning to this central point. But does not the word “God” at least correspond to an Indian concept, you may ask ? Apparently it does—but only apparently. We all know how Indians love to stress that “God is one” and “all religions have the same God.” We even find respectable swamis eager to get themselves photographed in front of St. Peter’s of Rome or in an audience with the Pope—although they do not realize that the same Pope would never care to visit a Hindu temple and offer worship there. We are also told that “all religions speak the same truth” or “are as many paths to the Truth,” and so on. Nice thoughts, full of goodwill, but unfortunately ignorant ones, and in fact slogans rather than thoughts. I agree that synthesis is desirable and essential in the search for truth, but painting the whole world with a single brush will not produce a synthesis, only a jumble. To reach a fruitful synthesis, we must learn again to make use of viveka, a laser-like spiritual discernment that extracts the truth but also the falsehood in each element. It is with good reason that viveka is the very first qualification required of a seeker, according to Sankaracharya.[2] The Semitic God Our first task, therefore, is to examine the Western concept of God. By “Western,” I mean the god of the three Semitic or Abrahamic religions, Jehovah or Allah ; I am not referring to more ancient Greek, Norse or Celtic gods since, as we know, the pre-Christian religions of Europe all but vanished under the onslaught of so-called monotheism (though some are now striving to revive). The first thing that strikes the unbiased, discerning Indian reader of the Old Testament, especially the Exodus, in which Jehovah (or Yahweh) first introduces himself to Moses under that name, is his ungodlike character. Jehovah is admittedly jealous : the second of the Ten Commandments reads, “You shall have no other gods before me,” while the third explicitly forbids the making and worship of any idols, “for I am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers....” Jehovah does speak as often of punishment as he does of sin, and periodically goes into a state of “fierce anger,” promising the most complete devastation to the Hebrews who reject him. Not content with cursing his reluctant followers, he also curses nation after nation, and finally the earth itself, which he inexplicably holds responsible for man’s sins : “The Lord is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it, he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants” (Isaiah, 24 :1), or again, “The day of the Lord is coming—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it” (Isaiah, 13 :9). In fact, he is so obsessed with sin that one looks in vain in his oppressive berating and legislating for any hint of a higher spirituality, such as the Gita’s final injunction to “abandon all dharmas.” Or contrast his “jealousy” with Sri Krishna’s insistence on spiritual freedom : “Whatever form of Me any devotee with faith desires to worship, I make that faith of his firm and undeviating” (7.21), or again : “Others ... worship Me in My oneness and in every separate being and in all My million universal faces” (9.15). But the god of the Bible and Koran will have none of this universality. If Jehovah had stopped there, we might have found him to be simply a foul-tempered and libidinous god ; after all, some Puranic gods too have such defects, although they usually retain a sense of their limits and a compassion of which Jehovah is spotlessly guiltless. But he has a clear plan, he means business and knows that coercion alone can establish his rule : when the Hebrews over whom he is so keen to hold sway go back to their older worship of a “golden calf,” he orders through Moses that each of the faithful should “kill his brother and friend and neighbour” (Exodus 32 :27). Instructions which were promptly complied with, for we are informed that 3,000 were killed on that fateful day ; to crown his punishment, Jehovah “struck the people with a plague.” I find it highly symbolic that Judaism was born in blood and fear, not out of love for its god. As Sri Aurobindo put it, “The Jew invented the God-fearing man ; India the God-knower and God-lover.”[3] It probably took centuries for the old cults to disappear altogether, and a stream of prophets who sought to strike terror into the hearts of the Israelites. It was a radical, unprecedented departure from ancient world cultures. Naturally, it did not stop there and was to find more fertile soils in Christianity and Islam : earlier, Jehovah was content with being the god of the Hebrews alone, but in the new creeds, his ambition now extended to the whole earth. Increasingly aware of this cruel, irritable, egocentric and exclusivist character of Jehovah, many Western thinkers, especially from the eighteenth century onward, rejected his claim to be the supreme and only god. Voltaire, one of the first to ruthlessly expose the countless inconsistencies in the Bible, could hardly disguise how it filled him with “horror and indignation at every page.”[4] In particular, he found the plethora of laws dictated by Jehovah “barbaric and ridiculous.”[5] Jefferson depicted him as “cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust,” while Thomas Paine found the Bible more like “the work of a demon than the word of God.”[6] With the growth of materialistic science, in particular Darwinian evolution, such views, which were revolutionary at the time of a Voltaire, became widespread in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Bernard Shaw, for example, describes the Biblical god as “a thundering, earthquaking, famine striking, pestilence launching, blinding, deafening, killing, destructively omnipotent Bogey Man....”[7] Freud, seeing in Jehovah an all-too-human creation, subjected him to psychoanalysis—a dream of a subject for a psychoanalyst. Aldous Huxley called the Old Testament “a treasure house of barbarous stupidity [full of] justifications for every crime and folly.”[8] Huxley traced the “wholesale massacres” perpetrated by Christianity to Jehovah’s “wrathful, jealous, vindictive” character, just as he attributed “the wholesale slaughter of Buddhists and Hindus” by invading Muslims to their devotion for a “despotic person.”[9] Because a few—not all—intellectuals had the courage to state the obvious, the power of Christianity was greatly reduced in the West. Yet I have always marvelled that Indians should learn about Christianity neither from their own inquiry nor from those bold Western thinkers, but from the very zealots who are no longer heard in the West. But is that all there is to the Semitic god ? Are we simply faced with a man-made demon or the product of some fevered brain ? If you look at Jehovah in the light of Indian experience, it is striking how he has all the characteristics of an Asura. Recall for a moment a being such as Hiranyakashipu : Had he not, too, forbidden all other cults ? Did he not order that he alone should be worshipped as the supreme god ? Did he not use fear and violence to coerce Prahlad ? That he was stopped by a divine manifestation, like many other Asuras eager to possess this world, is another story : the point is that we find here the same seed of pride and cruelty as in a Jehovah, and without a Prahlad and a Lord Narasimha, an exclusivist and cruel religion might well have taken root on Indian soil. Now, to pinpoint Jehovah’s identity we must remember that he himself acknowledges “Yahweh” to be a name new to the Hebrews : “By that name I did not make myself known to them” (Exodus, 6 :3). He does not say what his earlier name was, but the early Christian Gnostic tradition, which was brutally suppressed by the growing orthodox school, provides us with an answer—or rather two. In the Gnostic Gospels which survived centuries of persecution (most of which were found at Nag-Hammadi in Upper Egypt in 1945), Jehovah is named either Samael, which means “the god of the blind,” or Ialdabaoth, “the son of chaos.” Thus one of those texts contains this revealing passage : Ialdabaoth, becoming arrogant in spirit, boasted himself over all those who were below him, and explained, “I am father, and God, and above me there is no one.” His mother, hearing him speak thus, cried out against him, “Do not lie, Ialdabaoth ; for the father of all, the primal anthropos, is above you.”[10] This not only shows that Jehovah was not the supreme god, but also that he had a mother ! For the Gnostics, like the Indians, refused to depict God as only male ; God had to be equally female—and ultimately everything. Another text, in the Secret Book of John, points out pertinently, “By announcing [that he is a jealous God] he indicated that another God does exist ; for if there were no other one, of whom would he be jealous ?”[11] In fact, Jehovah is viewed in the Gnostic Gospels as no more than a demiurge or a subordinate deity—exactly what Devas and Asuras are in Indian tradition. The French novelist Anatole France, who made use of the apocryphal Gospels in his perceptive novel The Revolt of the Angels, has one of the rebellious angels depict Jehovah thus : I no longer think he is the one and only God ; for a long time he himself did not believe so : he was a polytheist at first. Later on, his pride and the flattery of his worshippers turned him into a monotheist.... And in fact, rather than a god he is a vain and ignorant demiurge. Those who, like me, know his true nature, call him “Ialdabaoth”.... Having seized a minuscule fragment of the universe, he has sown in it pain and death.[12] Now contrast this Semitic notion of God as a tyrannical ruler wholly separate from his creation, with the Indian notion of an all-encompassing, all-pervasive, all-loving divine essence. In the language of the Upanishads : “He is the secret Self in all existences.... Eternal, pervading, in all things and impalpable, that which is Imperishable ... the Truth of things.... All this is Brahman alone, all this magnificent universe.”[13] If Jehovah represents a radical departure from ancient worships, it is because he is “wholly other,” as Huxley puts it. Because of the unbridgeable gulf between him and his creation, no Christian would dare declare, “I am Jehovah” or “I am Christ,” no Muslim would dream of saying, “I am Allah.” But to the Hindu, so’ham asmi, “He I am,” or tat tvam asi, “You are That,” is the most natural thing in the world. Again, can Christian parents christen their son “Jehovah” or Muslim parents name theirs “Allah” in the way a Hindu child can be called “Purushottam,” “Parameswar” or “Maheswari” ? Clearly, if we use a single word, “God,” for such conflicting concepts as the Semitic and the Indian, we land ourselves in total confusion. “God is one,” perhaps, in the Vedantic sense that all is ultimately one, because all is ultimately divine, and yet Hindu inquiry always discerned a whole hierarchy of beings, not all equally true or luminous : a rakshasa, for instance, cannot be equated with a Sri Krishna. Some may object to calling the Biblical or Koranic god an Asura, but I use the word in the deeper sense of a mighty god who comes to his fall owing to ambition or pride ; moreover, the Indian approach has always claimed absolute freedom to inquire into every aspect of divinity, from the most personal to the most transcendent : if the Semitic god has the attributes of an Asura and not those of the supreme Reality, why should we look away from that essential difference ? And if a Christian or a Muslim scholar can examine Hindu gods in the light of his religion, and often deride them, or worse as we still see today, why could not a Hindu similarly look at their god in his own light and come up with his own assessment ? A more intelligent objection might be that in later Jewish mysticism (especially the Kabala), and in Christian or Islamic mysticism, we do find seekers going far beyond this loud-mouthed self-declared god. That is certainly true, but they did so despite, not thanks to, the Semitic god, because their own nature or spiritual thirst led them beyond to a truer experience. For that very reason they often had a brush with “heresy,” and most were ruthlessly suppressed, the Gnostic Christians to begin with, whose writings were “madness and blasphemy,”[14] for they had no use of dogmas and insisted on self-knowledge and the inner discovery : “Look for God by taking yourself as a starting point,” said Monoimus, “if you carefully investigate ... you will find him in yourself.”[15] Even a Meister Eckhart, whose teaching is so akin to Vedanta, was hounded by the Inquisition. The fact remains, at any rate, that those deeper mystics always were a very small number, and that masses of Europe and her Christianized colonies remained stuck with the cruder notion, their progress slowed down or arrested for centuries. I am not going here into the more complex question of Jesus, as he is portrayed in the New Testament, except for a brief observation or two. A Hindu would probably have no problem with him as a teacher or even an Avatar, were it not again for his exclusiveness which puts a fatal limit to himself and to God’s power to manifest—for why should God have an only child (a male one, of course) rather than ten or thousands ? Why should he send us only one saviour, and to be saved from what ? God creates us, creates sin and ignorance the better to curse us, sends us one and only one redeemer, and warns us that we shall be tortured for ever if we do not accept him ! Such crude notions are offensive to any deeper understanding. Also, the language of Jesus, though not so much as that of Jehovah, makes liberal use of threat and arrogance : “Fear him who, after killing the body, has power to throw you into hell.... Unless you repent, you too will all perish....[16] For judgment I have come into this world.... All who came before me were thieves and robbers.... No one comes to the Father except through me.”[17] How far we are from the Vedic concept of the whole universe as one family, vasudhaiva kutumbakam. Thus the first and central object of our inquiry, God, tells us that we have surrendered to facile assimilations. We must reject the use of a single word to describe two wholly different concepts. Sri Aurobindo did not fall into this all-too-common trap, and summarized the whole issue in these words : The conception of the Divine as an external omnipotent Power who has “created” the world and governs it like an absolute and arbitrary monarch—the Christian or Semitic conception—has never been mine ; it contradicts too much my seeing and experience during thirty years of sadhana. It is against this conception that the atheistic objection is aimed—for atheism in Europe has been a shallow and rather childish reaction against a shallow and childish exoteric religionism and its popular inadequate and crudely dogmatic notions.[18] Religion and Dharma This takes us to the concept of religion, and here again we have to confront the clumping together of a wide array of dissimilar faiths, creeds and practices under a single term. True, it may be said that all religions are concerned in some way with a supernatural being or creator, but that is not enough, since there is a fundamental disagreement on the said being. Moreover, a number of important differences between the Semitic family of religions and the older faiths cannot be ignored. The most visible distinctions, for instance the complete absence in Hinduism of dogmas, of an absolute authority in the form of an only Scripture or a supreme clergy, or also the belief in reincarnation, have been stressed often enough, and rightly so. But there are radical differences of a more serious nature. To begin with, the Indian and the Pagan approaches never made a distinction between the “faithful” and the “infidels,” the former to be saved in a single life and the latter to be “eternally barbecued,” as Swami Vivekananda once put it ; humanity was never divided into two irreconcilable camps, or reconcilable only through mass slaughter or mass conversion. Indeed, in the Hindu view, the only thing one may ever be “converted” to is one’s own concealed divinity, and that can only be done through a long and sincere inner effort, not through unquestioning adherence to cruel dogmas. By contrast, a fundamentalist Christian or Muslim can see no hope for a Hindu, a Buddhist or a Parsi or, say, an “animist” Red Indian ; today he may no longer openly spew venom on them (though sometimes he still does), but a close look at his utterances will show that this fatal division is central to his mentality. It is not only humanity that is divided in the Semitic religions, God is also separate from his creation and in particular from man, and by giving man one only Son or one last prophet, one Scripture—“only one book in all these ages,”[19] as Sri Aurobindo remarked—God has in effect ended his communication with man for all time to come. In the Indian view, the Divine is you and me, the bird outside and the wide ocean ; he or she or it is boundless, endless, and cannot be limited to any Book or manifestation or dogma. No Rishi or yogi ever declared his word to be final, or that one could reach salvation only through him ; peddling in tickets to heaven was something alien to ancient India, as was bribing the gatekeeper with a “confession of faith.” There was no easy shortcut on the arduous path to self-discovery. If one objects that these differences, however deep, are after all only theoretical, or perhaps theological, then we must point out that centuries of bloodshed, holy wars, jihad, plunder, Inquisition and persecution are ample proof that to the followers of Christianity and Islam, the division between the faithful and the infidels was no abstraction. If they indulged in such a barbaric behaviour over such a vast area and such a length of time, it is not because they were intrinsically bad, but because they followed the injunctions of their respective Scriptures and religious instructors. If the Hindu and Buddhist cultures never once tried to conquer other civilizations by force, never persecuted anyone for his beliefs, never waged religious wars, it is not because Indians were intrinsically good, but because their culture never taught them those aberrations, and on the contrary insisted on a complete spiritual freedom to choose or even create one’s own path. It is only the most superficial and hasty view that can equate such radically diverging phenomena. I used the word “culture” to describe Hinduism and Buddhism, because I cannot bring myself to use the word “religion” in their context : if the three Semitic faiths are religions, then Hinduism cannot be one ; or else call the former dogmatic or exclusivist creeds, not religions. Words should have some clear meaning, as long as we have to use them. Religion is a Western concept ; the Indian concept is neither religion nor even Hinduism or any “ism”—it is sanatana dharma, the eternal law of the universe, which cannot be formulated in any rigid and final set of tenets, because it must be discovered in life and through an inner quest. Still, we may say that pluralism, synthesis, universality, oneness are some of its central pillars, and go on to note that none of these essential values is to be found in the Abrahamic worldview. I do not mean to denigrate Semitic religions in any way. If any of their followers is happy with his faith and finds it helps him, all to the good. But bringing everything down to a single plane is a distortion and a running away from the truth of things. Recently, the Vatican proclaimed itself forcefully against the idea of “equality of religions.” If Christianity can thus insist on belonging to a separate plane, why could not Hinduism do the same ? And indeed, the ancient Indian culture is not on the same plane as the religions that flowed from the Bible, neither in theory nor in life. There are no doubt a few truths in common here and there, and it is good to note them ; there are also in the Bible (especially the New Testament) considerable borrowings from India, and it is good to be aware of them. But one must also have the courage to see where the two worldviews diverge, and to go to the root of the divergence. Only then can one begin to grasp some of the deeper forces at work in human history. Secularism and Tolerance The “synthesizers,” as the remarkable thinker Ram Swarup* calls them, or adepts of all-out sameness—“God is the same, all religions are the same,” etc.—are in love with big words. They bring in another Western concept, that of “secularism,” and tell us that it means “equal respect for all religions.” This too we are supposed to accept unquestioningly, like a sort of magic wand that is going to solve all our religious and social problems. But what really is secularism, in theory and practice ? I have noticed that the noisiest proponents of secularism in India are always careful not to evoke its historical origin. Secularism was born to challenge theocracy in the Christian and Islamic worlds. In medieval Europe, political power was in almost every country held or at least controlled by one Church or another. It took nearly two centuries, the eighteenth and nineteenth, to curtail that power and establish a complete separation between Church and State—which is what secularism has meant in the West, as any good dictionary will tell us.[20] In France, for instance, the Roman Catholic Church was virtually all-powerful until the French Revolution, and only a century later did it finally lose its control over education. Secularism meant keeping the Church away from political power and from education, it meant a polity free from Christian affiliation. Likewise, when Mustapha Kemal threw out the Sultan in Turkey and established a “secular republic” in 1923, it was because he had abolished the office of the Caliph of the Islamic world ; “secularism” to him meant keeping Islam away from political power. This notion of secularism has no application in India, where theocracy never existed ; how could it, in the absence of an organized Church or clergy ? Even so conformist a historian as Vincent Smith noted that “Hindooism has never produced an exclusive, dominant, orthodox sect, with a formula of faith to be professed or rejected under pain of damnation.”[21] Political rule was the business of the Kshatriya, not of the priestly class, and although kings often took the advice of a sage or a guru, it was usually in matters of governance. The very notion of a “State religion” is entirely alien to India. We almost never hear of a Vaishnavite or a Saivite raja imposing his creed on his population in the way Catholic or Protestant kings kept doing, and wars between neighbouring kingdoms were never caused by clashes of belief or cult. Quite the contrary, rajas often prided themselves on protecting all sects without partiality. Indians were a practical people, and they knew that political rule calls for expertise—hence the numerous treatises on the art of governance which Sanskrit literature has preserved for us (and from which our modern-day rulers could learn a thing or two if they were at all interested in the welfare of the people). Moreover, the Indian genius always endeavoured to spiritualize all aspects of life, including the social and political. If spirituality was of any practical value, why should it be kept out of governance ? Sri Aurobindo reflects that spirit when he states, “There is to me nothing secular, all human activity is for me a thing to be included in a complete spiritual life....”[22] In such a context, why did we have to hear at all of secularism in India ? And why do its loudest champions—apart from opportunistic and largely brainless politicians—happen to belong to the very religions against which Europe had to erect the defence of secularism ? Why are self-appointed leaders of Christian and Muslim Indians lecturing Hindus about the virtues of secularism, when their own religions were always dead against it (and would still be, given a chance) ? Just the other day, a Sikh leader from Amritsar followed suit, asserting that Sikhism is a “secular religion.” Such thoughtless hurling about of words is the bane of modern India. Not that anyone pays much attention anyway, but I feel sorry that we find so few Indian intellectuals to point out the extreme absurdity of the whole thing—they are probably put off by the wall of accusation of “Hindu fundamentalist” that rises before anyone deviating from the politically correct line. And yet, if secularism means, as it does, the separation of religion and State, why is it that the Indian government controls most Hindu temples while never touching churches and mosques, or can take over Hindu schools while Christian and Islamic schools are free to proliferate ? Why is nothing in the shape of Indian culture taught to children born in this land ? Why is a text like the Gita, universally praised as the best guide of ethics, kept away from the sight of Indian schoolchildren ? Perhaps our secularists would like to enlighten us on these questions ? Another big word the champions of secularism and “minorityism”—for in the end, the two amount to the same thing—never tire of using is that of “tolerance.” A great virtue indeed, one that Christianity and Islam scrupulously steered clear of throughout their history, but which was always so natural in India that there was not even a word for it. What they really mean is that they should have full freedom to prey upon the Hindu masses, with limitless foreign funds to assist them. The harm and disruption they inflict on India’s social fabric is the least of their concern ; tribes which had lived in relative peace and harmony for centuries suddenly find themselves divided into two opposite camps ; we have seen in recent years the tensions among the Santhal and Dangs tribes of Orissa and Gujarat, and I could give examples of cultural alienation among tribes of the small Nilgiris district where I live, which has, I am told, over 350 churches, ninety Bible colleges and 300 full-time and well-paid missionaries. More than forty years ago, the famous Niyogi Committee Report[23] provided a massive documented study of such practices, which should be prescribed reading for all those interested in the subject of religious freedom. The Hindu certainly needs no lesson in tolerance, especially from such ill-qualified zealots. He is always ready to tolerate and will never object to any Christian or Muslim practising his faith. But true tolerance can only be between mutually respectful faiths or societies or nations. “How is it possible to live peacefully with a religion whose principle is ‘I will not tolerate you’ ?”[24] asked Sri Aurobindo. That is why Hindus are growing increasingly restless at devious practises that target the most vulnerable among them with a well-oiled propaganda machine and the lure of monetary or other gain. The growth in tension is palpable year after year, and if we have not had any large-scale conflict as yet (on the level of what we see in Ireland or Indonesia, for instance), it is again thanks to the ever-patient nature of the Hindu. But Christian leaders do not realize that they are aggravating matters by raising the bogey of a “Hindu persecution of Indian minorities” for consumption by the so-called secular press in India and abroad, making up incidents when possible,[25] and hastening to accuse Hindus even when it is plain that others are involved.[26] Once again, note how followers of the two most brutal religions in world history, which stamped out all “Pagans” and minorities wherever and whenever they could, try to paint Hindus with the black brush of their very own past ! Strange that we never hear them utter one word of protest against the horrific treatment of Hindu minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh, or also in Kashmir. The net result in the Indian context is that, helped by sections of the English-language media, those two Semitic religions have managed to project themselves as tolerant, secular, equalitarian, progressive—an image almost perfectly opposite to what they were in their countries of origin at the peak of their strength. On the other hand, Hinduism is portrayed as retrograde, medieval, superstitious, increasingly intolerant. Oxymorons such as “Hindu fundamentalism” or even “Hindu fanaticism” are used day in and day out, forgetting that Hinduism has no identifiable “fundamentals,” no self-declared mission to convert anyone, no wish even to impose itself on anyone, and cannot therefore give rise to any fanaticism of the Christian or Islamic kind. Of course, Hinduism is also equated to the caste system—as though it were nothing else—whose abuses are blown out of proportion. The far worse abuses perpetrated in the names of Jesus or Mahomet are glossed over, as is the fact that caste discrimination very much persists unchanged among converts to Christianity and Islam. Such distortions have been steadily gaining ground in recent years ; they are “politically correct,” in modern parlance, but essentially untrue. They will throw in other catchwords of the day for good measure, such as the imposing “human rights” (which, again, Semitic religions never advocated or practised). It is common to see some of our “secular” politicians share a dais with an equally “secular” bishop or imam, while they would shudder to be seen with anyone in a Hindu garb. The Pope’s brazen call to “a great harvest of faith from Asia,” made during his recent visit to India, is a clear sign that the Hindus are simply not expected to protest—or if anyone does, his voice is drowned in the “secular” din. Money pours in from America and Europe to finance extensive missionary plans flaunted on the Internet, to build more churches and Bible colleges, or from Arab countries to build more mosques, madrasas and Koranic institutes. More than ninety years ago, the famous art critic Ananda K. Coomaraswamy gave this word of warning with reference to the methods of Christian missionaries in India : All that money, social influence, educational bribery and misrepresentation can effect, is treated as legitimate.... But even Hindu tolerance may some day be overstrained. If it be intolerance to force one’s way into the house of another, it by no means necessarily follows that it would be intolerance on the owner’s part to drive out the intruder.[27] India’s Heritage in Question The present intellectual climate in India is so perverted that it would be tempting to go on and expose the workings of the perversion in exhaustive detail. Others have done it better than I could.[28] I will give just one rather minor topical example, since we are gathered here to celebrate Sanskrit Day. Just last month, Tamil Nadu’s education minister, a proud “Dravidian” (whatever the word means), declared that Sanskrit was an “artificial language born in an old ware shop” and clearly inferior to Tamil ; he added (probably referring to himself), “No fool will believe that Tamil was born only after the birth of Sanskrit.”[29] Such unprovoked abuse of Sanskrit (as if the Tamil language could not stand on its own greatness) would not matter much if this were just rhetoric, but we find it reflected in practice, with Sanskrit virtually banned from temple rituals in Tamil Nadu, its teaching curtailed and discouraged at all levels (in fact all over India) and Urdu, for instance, receiving much more favour. The point I wish to draw your attention to is how catchwords are hypnotically brandished, with no intelligent debate permitted on their real meaning. Indian scholars and thinkers must develop the courage to grapple with the central issues hidden behind those words. If they do not, they in effect abandon the field to the kind of perversion that has been growing in recent years, increasingly eclipsing India’s heritage and its contribution to world civilization, portraying it as retrograde and responsible for all of India’s ills. This school of thought, based on a freak hybrid of Marxist dialectics, psychoanalysis and Christian revivalism, has been steadily invading Western and Indian universities, textbooks, media, public opinion, erasing the last traces of Indian culture from Indian education and uprooting younger Indian generations from a culture which should be theirs by birthright. Ram Swarup’s warning needs to be heard : Hindus are disorganized, self-alienated, morally and ideologically disarmed. They lack leadership ; the Hindu elites have become illiterate about their spiritual heritage and history and indifferent and even hostile towards their religion.... India has been asleep for too long, and it needed all these knocks and probably it would get more.[30] In 1926 Sri Aurobindo put it very simply : “Aggressive religions tend to overrun the earth. Hinduism on the other hand is passive and therein lies the danger.”[31] This renewed aggressive, conquering effort on the part of Christianity and Islam, hiding behind their misbegotten child of false secularism, must be resisted by the Indian intelligentsia for two reasons. One, of immediate urgency, to limit and hopefully reverse the harm done to India’s social fabric by artificial conversions, induced ninety-nine times out of a hundred by pecuniary allurements, not by any genuine religious feeling. Unless the tide is stemmed, the infinite complexity that is Indian society may become irretrievably fragmented into thousands of conflicting groups, with the kind of consequences we can already see in the North-East and many tribal regions of India. The second reason, more essential, is to pursue and renew India’s perennial search for the Truth. If we unquestioningly accept the falsehoods that are now bandied about, we shall in the end cripple our ability to discern the Truth. “It is Truth that conquers and not falsehood,”[32] says the Upanishad, and to work out that conquest for the world has always been at the core of India’s preoccupation. This is no ideological question, it is a matter of saving or losing our intellectual independence and ultimately our spiritual freedom—the only one left to the common Indian. As early as 1910, Sri Aurobindo asserted : Our first necessity, if India is to survive and do her appointed work in the world, is that the youth of India should learn to think,—to think on all subjects, to think independently, fruitfully, going to the heart of things, not stopped by their surface, free of prejudgments, shearing sophism and prejudice asunder as with a sharp sword, smiting down obscurantism of all kinds as with the mace of Bhima.[33] Were Indian civilization, ever in quest of new realms of reality, to surrender its independence of mind and spirit, the loss would be grave not only for India but for the world, for between moribund religious obscurantism trying to revive and grab the earth once more, and the new market fundamentalism that has well nigh grabbed it, humanity’s future appears rather bleak. We must work to see that India fulfils her role and opens a new path. We must make up for lost time.

Well, I would say he would look like anybody on the street. But most of us would not be able to recognize him since we have a tendency to condemn beggers and saints like Sawmi Ramakrishna , Ragavendra, Vallalur Ramalingam and many others who were and are here to part the message of Dharma. So, if you had made an innocent mistake, I'm sure HE would forgive you. But in future if you happen to meet a begger or a shadu on the street please do not question his motive but just give what you can because he could be GOD in mufti trying to test your sinserity and love for fellow human being.

If Srila Prabhupada wants to compare human to tree, I would sya the trees are better than human. They do not protest, sin against human beings, starve others to death, speak eveil of others, kill others for pleasure, destroy family, demand money to do service and many other sins known to man. Trees for your inofrmation trees provide shade, fruits, its wood for man to bulit whatever he needs such as building his house, to make fire to cook his food, make a sampan to travel on water, bridge to cross a river and many other services thant man cannot provide. So to me a tree is much more better than human beings. Many other living creatures are far more better than man as what I have observed. Trees do not discriminate who is taking shelter under it but man will. If someone takes shelter at your veranda you would chase him away if he is below your status. So, I would say any living entity beside man are far more greater than man himself.

Prathyagaram Visvamithra the great kingly saint shunned all desires (probably through practicing Prathyagaram) but just on seeing a beautiful angel, Menaka, he forgot his aims and fall in love with her. His action produced two things 1) Adding a colourful trace of experience to be erased once again, and 2) his morals stored in the form of spiritual powers were engraved with his revived sensual-weakness. Hence, whenever we commit a sensual mistake two things happen. So, we have to seek a two-way remedy to correct this drawback. The traces of past experience can be cured by Prathyagaram. The already debilitated morality should be corrected by strengthening the same through Tharanai, the art of rejection. Thirunavukkarasar had fulfilled the two-way effort but Visvamithra had not. This two way combat is explained by Saint Pattinathar as follows: The real seekers of wisdom will, (For their aim is only divine knowledge) Wander like ghosts in solitary places; (Far from the madding crowd in quest of divine wisdom) Stay detached, as if a senseless corpse; (If they happen to mingle with common people) Eat whatever is offered like a dog without choice; (Since the body is needed for all learning) Bear a pose of a fox seeking something; (They seek something that is odd for their fellowmen) Look upon at women as their mother; (To avoid the alluring colours their mind can otherwise develop) Polite to others as though they are related; (Since Temples they are but lacking sanctum)

Grace my dear, I'm happy to hear you are a Hindu and as all Hindus, you too have questions about our religion. That is not a sin. Asking question makes not learn more about worldly affairs as well as spritual knowledge. The stories you read in the puranas and Gita may sometime will puzzle you. Could there be such a thing or will a god incarnate do such a thing and so on. Worry not for what you have read and heard are all parables. These are all moral issues for us to understand why and how we should live our life. Even in the Muslim Koran it is written that Mohammed went to the seven havens and on his way he saw Jesus and Moses. I mean could you ever imainge a mortal going to haven in this flesh and blood? But the Muslims believe it and say that Mohammed was special and chosen my God and so he was taken there to meet God. They even believe he split the moon into two halves. Than they say he argued with God to reduce the time of prayers from seven to five times a day. Imagine a mortal arguing with God to reduce the number of time one can pray to the Lord. The Muslims do not know that we Hindus are praying every second of our life mentioning God's name and asking him to guide us in every way. I don't know about Krishna having 16,000 wives and for which the Muslims say Krishna was a womanizer and a pevert. But I know the Gopis [cow girls] were all in love with Krishna and so may be he would play prangs with them. Beautiful was his appearance that all the gopis dreamt to be his wife. That is part of his leela which the Gita says so. But why pay atention to small thing when there are more meaningful issues that you can learn from the Gita. For human value there are no other or better religious scripture than the Gita. As for your claim that Gandhi must be God, I would agree with you here and as a matter of fact we are all GODs. Many would say I'm stupid to say such. You see those selfrealized know that GOD resides in them and so they become GOD but not the kind of GOD you or I would imagine having superpower to give a boon or destory a nation. No, when we are in this imortal body our spiritual power is limited. Only to a certain extend one can utilize it. That too by sadahanas only. Daily prayers, keeping our mind free from worldly thoughts, abstaining from desires, doing meditation and yoga asanas and many other rituals in order to gain the higher spiritual power. Vallalur Ramalingam Adhikalar achieved and accomplised his desire to return to the origin [go back to the creator]. He just vanished into thin air and his method is so unique that now western scientist are studying his method on how one with flesh and blood could just vanish into thin air with no return to original body. Vallalur Ramalingam Adikahalar said GOD is in the form of a glowing light and so he started the JOTHI VAlIPADU before he vanished. Read about his biography and you will nnow what I mean. So that is why Kaviarasu Kanadasan said "MAN CAN BECOME GOD" and to achieve that on has to live in celibacy, cook only vegtariab food in clean pots, only a meal a day and some tim eonly live in milk and fruits, having love for all living entity irrespective of creed, clour or faith, daily meditiation on the SUPREME BRAHMAN who resides within your heart and soon with HIS grace one can surely become GOD on earth. But there need to be a purpose and it must be for the good of manking otheriwse it is all a waste. OM NAMA SHIVAYA

That is what you are and your kind. Politicians including Jayalaitha and Karunanith are corrupted to the core and yet the people of TM has done to punish them instead people like you are tryig to be a Judge and Jury here. I know 70% of Tamilians in Tamil Nadu are morons of the first degree and we know their ploys. You people are only willing to receive but none to give but when comes to talking oh! yes, plenty to talk. Talk..Talk...Talk... The police in Tamil Nadu are corrupted to the core too and you people can do nothing about it. The Officer in-charge of the Kanchi's arrest is a corrupted office who will do anything for money. He would even be prepared to sell his wife for money. So I am not amazed by the ongoings. I still remember when India refused to accept any foreign funds for the Tsunami victims saying it is self sufficient but TM CM Jayalitha requested for MR2 million from the works minister of Malaysia. What a shame. There is now a curse on the people and government of TM for humiliating the Hindu pontifs and that curse is going to cause the downfall of TN and its government. Just sit back and see the events unfold before your eyes within the next couple of months. Also Karunathi is not a saint and he is an atheist who have spoken against Hinduism. That is why he paid the price and it is not over for him as this is the ground for punisment for those who speak evil of Hinduism. I'm enjoying the senario here. You too have been added to the list.

In Bali, many religious activities performed by the people, in devotional, magical and artistic spirits. They are kind of social affairs that bond people together. Prayer, music, dance, song, painting, carving, beautiful offering, flower, incense, fragrance, costume, etc. all give their charm to the activities. It is not like some people might think about some form of Hindu rituals, yoga practice in all of it's form, various postures, meditation, liberation through quest for knowledge for the absolute, through selfless actions, even fasting and penance, etc. The Balinese practice more on the devotional aspect of Yoga, known as the path of Bhakti. Some people even think that the Balinese practice more the form of animistic rituals rather than practicing ritual of one of the world greatest religions. Other people still call the religion of the Balinese Hindu Bali. In fact that is not true. The Balinese learn, practice and have the spirit of Hindu Dharma religion more than other form of animistic and primitive religions, without losing respect to the later religions mentioned. Sure that the Balinese have many things that still need to enhance, in the ritual, daily life, the quest for the ultimate, etc. in order to achieve the goal stated by Hinduism as the goal of Dharma; it is soul liberation and earthly welfare for all sentient beings. No direct meaning of Dharma in English, but we can say that it's include righteousness, duty and cosmic order. The following are some fundamentals of Hindu religion which also called Sanatana Dharma ( Eternal Dharma ) as learned to be practiced by the Balinese. Tri Pramana, three means to know something: 1. Agama Pramana, through knowledge from the scripture and sage. 2. Anumana Pramana, through experiment and analytical study. 3. Pratyaksa Pramana, through direct experience. Panca Shrada, five holy convictions: 1. Belief in the existent of the ultimate One. 2. Belief in the existent of the Soul. 3. Belief in the existent of Karma Law. 4. Belief in the existent of Reincarnation. 5. Belief in the existent of Moksa or Liberation. Tri Guna, three intrinsic qualities of matter: 1. Satwam, truth and goodness. 2. Rajas, active and full of passion. 3. Tamas, passive or inertia. Catur Asrama, four stages of life: 1. Brahmacari, learning knowledge and wisdom. 2. Grehasta, build a family, collecting wealth. 3. Wanaprasta, toward more spiritual life. 4. Sanyasin, renounced earthly matter. Catur Yoga, four ways to achieve unity with Brahman or the absolute: 1. Jnana Yoga, unity through knowledge and wisdom. 2. Bhakti Yoga, unity through devotion. 3. Karma Yoga, unity through selfless action. 4. Raja Yoga, unity through spiritual practice or meditation. Catur Warna, four professional division of society: 1. Brahmana, religious matter profession. 2. Ksatrya, political and military profession. 3. Waisya, business profession. 4. Sudra, employee and physical work profession. Tri Warga, three means to achieve Moksa or liberation: 1. Dharma, righteousness. 2. Artha, financial. 3. Kama, pleasure or desire. One of the messages is, whenever we collect material things or wealth, and whenever we enjoy pleasures, we should always do such things in accordance or based on Dharma or truth. Sadripu, six enemies: 1. Kama, pleasure or desire. 2. Lobha, greed. 3. Krodha, anger. 4. Mada, drunk or under influence of strong emotion. 5. Moha, confusion. 6. Matsarya, jealousy. Sadatatayi, six types of sadistic killer: 1. Agnida, burn other belonging. 2. Wisada, poisoning. 3. Atharwa, practicing negative magic. 4. Sastraghna, run amok. 5. Dratikrama, raping. 6. Rajapisuna, slandering to the result of some one death. Saptatimira, seven darkness or drunkenness: 1. Surupa, beautiful face. 2. Dhana, wealth. 3. Guna, knowledge. 4. Kulina, genealogical matter. 5. Yowana, youth. 6. Sura, alcoholic or unhealthy drink. 7. Kasuran, victory. Trikaya Parisudha, three type of conducts that should be purified: 1. Kayika, physical action. 2. Wacika, speech. 3. Manacika, thought. Panca Yama Brata, five things concerned with moral life: 1. Ahimsa, non violence. 2. Brahmacari, self control on passion. 3. Satya, faithful or sincerity. 4. Awyawaharika, act based on peace and sincerity. 5. Asteya, non stealing and non cheating. Panca Niyama Brata, five things concerned with moral life: 1. Akrodha, not controlled by anger. 2. Guru susrusa, loyal to implement the teacher's teaching. 3. Sauca, purity of body and mind. 4. Aharalagawa, eat as much as needed. 5. Aparamada, sincerity in learning and practicing holy teaching. Dasa Yama Brata, ten things concerned with moral life: 1. Anresangsya or Arimbawa, not egoistic. 2. Ksama, forgiving. 3. Satya, faithful or sincere. 4. Ahimsa, non violence. 5. Dama, able to advice one own self. 6. Arjawa, honest in defending the truth. 7. Ijya, loving all creature. 8. Prasada, purity of heart and never thinking about reward. 9. Madurya, polite and have good manner. 10. Mardawa, humility. Dasa Niyama Brata, ten things concerned with moral life: 1. Dana, giving charity. 2. Ijya, devotion to the absolute and ancestors. 3. Tapa, self exercise for self endurance. 4. Dhyana, focus to the absolute. 5. Swadhyaya, learn and understand the holy teaching. 6. Upasthanigraha, controlling sexual desire. 7. Brata, faithful to one own oath. 8. Upawasa, fasting. 9. Mona, controlling speech. 10. Snana, purifying the body-and-mind, and praying. Veda scriptures often mention sacrifice, in which Brahmana groups often refer to this as physical religious sacrifice such as using fire, water, food etc. Although some other Vedic scholars and Hindu sages refer to this as a general sacrifice that can be performed and offered by human, this include non-egoistic actions, learning knowledge and wisdom and propagate them to the society, devotion, etc. which is not always associated with physical religious offering. In Bali today, the first mentioned meanings of sacrifice is more prominent, although some more philosophical based Ashram and Hindu or Dharma religious groups has born in Bali to bring forward also their more philosophical meanings. Panca Yadnya, five sacrifices: 1. Dewa Yadnya, sacrifice to God. 2. Pitra Yadnya, sacrifice to ancestor. 3. Rsi Yadnya, sacrifice to sage. 4. Butha Yadnya, sacrifice to nature and its spirit. 5. Manusa Yadnya, sacrifice to people and society. Other mantras from Veda and other Hindu scriptures familiar to the Balinese are the followings. Om Swastyastu, used when opening speech, writing etc. O The Supreme, may all in good condition. Ekam sat viprah bahudha vadanti. One existence, the wise call it with different names. Ekam eva advityam brahman. Only one without a second is Brahman. Tat tvam asi. That is you. It means all is one. Aham brahmasmi. I am Brahman. Satyam sivam sundaram. Truth, goodness, beauty. Moksartham jagaddhitaya ca iti dharmah. The objective of dharma if for soul liberation and welfare of the world.

TIMES ONLINE fEBRUARY 2005 Muslim apostates cast out and at risk from faith and family By Anthony Browne While Christians who turn to Islam are feted, the 200,000 Muslims who turn away are faced with abuse, violence and even murder: THE first brick was thrown through the sitting room window at one in the morning, waking Nissar Hussein, his wife and five children with a terrifying start. The second brick went through his car window. It was a shock, but hardly a surprise. The week before, another brick had been thrown through the window as the family were preparing for bed in their Bradford home. The victim of a three-year campaign of religious hatred, Mr Hussein’s car has also been rammed and torched, and the steps to his home have been strewn with rubbish. He and his family have been regularly jostled, abused, attacked, shouted at to move out of the area, and given death threats in the street. His wife has been held hostage inside their home for two hours by a mob. His car, walls and windows have been daubed in graffiti: “Christian bastard”. The problem isn’t so much what Mr Hussein, whose parents came from Pakistan, believes, but what he doesn’t believe. Born into Islam, he converted eight years ago to Christianity, and his wife, also from Pakistan, followed suit. While those who convert to Islam, such as Cat Stevens, Jemima Khan, and the sons of the Frank Dobson, the former Health Secretary, and Lord Birt, the former BBC Director-General, can publicly celebrate their new religion, those whose faith goes in the other direction face persecution. Mr Hussein, a 39-year-old hospital nurse in Bradford, is one of a growing number of former Muslims in Britain who face not just being shunned by family and community, but attacked, kidnapped, and in some cases killed. There is even a secret underground network to support and protect those who leave Islam. One estimate suggests that as many as 15 per cent of Muslims in Western societies have lost their faith, which would mean that in Britain there are about 200,000 apostates. For police, religious authorities and politicians, it is an issue so sensitive that they are accused by victims of refusing to respond to appeals for help. It is a problem that, with the crisis of identity in Islam since September 11, seems to be getting worse as Muslims feel more threatened. Muslims who lose their faith face execution or imprisonment, in line with traditional Muslim teaching, in many Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Yemen. In the Netherlands, the former Muslim MP Ayan Hirsi Ali had to go into hiding after renouncing her faith on television. The Prince of Wales recently held a meeting with religious leaders to consider ways to stop former Muslims being persecuted in other countries, but Britain itself is also affected. Mr Hussein told The Times: “It’s been absolutely appalling. This is England — where I was born and raised. You would never imagine Christians would suffer in such a way.” The police have not charged anyone, but told him to leave the area. “We feel completely isolated, utterly helpless. I have been utterly failed by the authorities. If it was white racists attacking an Asian guy, there would be an absolute outcry,” he said. “They are trying to ethnically cleanse me out of my home. I feel I have to make a stand as an Asian Christian.” Yasmin, who was raised in the North of England, has been forced out of her town once, and is now trying to resist being chased out again. Brought up in a Muslim family, she converted after having a vision of Jesus when she gave birth to her youngest son, and was baptised in her thirties.. “My family completely disowned me. They thought I had committed the biggest sin — I was born a Muslim, and so I must die a Muslim. When my husband found out, he totally disowned my sons. One friend tried to strangle me when I told him I was converting,” she said. “We had bricks though our windows, I was spat at in the street because they thought I was dishonouring Islam. We had to call the police so many times. I had to go to court to get an injunction against my husband because he was inciting others to attack me.” She fled to another part of Britain, but the attacks soon started again as locals found out about her. “I wasn’t going to leave again,” she said, adding that it was the double standards of her attackers that made her most angry. “They are such hypocrites — they want us to be tolerant of everything they want, but they are intolerant of everything about us.” With other converts, Yasmin has helped to set up a series of support groups across England, who have adopted a method of operating normally associated with dissidents in dictatorships, not democracies. They not only have to meet in secret, but cannot advertise their services, and have to vet those that approach them for infiltrators. “There are so many who convert from Islam to Christianity. We have 70 people on our list who we support, and the list is growing. We don’t want others to suffer like we have,” she said.

You have not directly replied to my statment. You come here boasting of converting to Islam and than give a few names of those ingnorant Americans converting to Islam. Heh! ISCOK is based in America and you know how many Americans have become followers of HRE KRISHNA chanting this mantra in the streets of NY? But they are not boasting of their membership strength. Whereas you think by tell us all ths we would be surpriesed, I think some think is wrong with you in your mind. Michael Jacskon is a WACO who feels ashame to be born a black and changed the color of his skin. He sleeps with several women and than claim to only want a child from them and not the women. So a psyco such as MJ will do anything for a kick and publicity. Cat Stevens is a good businesman. He knew the Arams have tob=ns of money and one way of milking them is to convert to Islam and get their fund for his project GOD knows what. All these black Amerians converting to Islam is to show the white Americans that they are disgusted with their attitude against the blacks. The blacks have been treated very badly by the whites 200 over years and to teach the whites a lesson they are converting to Islam. It is not for the love of Islam but vengance against whites. Go to Africa and ask about Islam they will tell you al about Muslims tarding in black slaves. Muhammad had a black slave too and you say compassion. Please don't make me laugh. All the names you mentioned were against the white supermercy. Ali fr instance wanted to escape draft and the easiest way to escape is convert to Islam ans say as a Muslim he cannot fight a kafirs battle. What a lame excuse for a yellow belly coward who thinks he is the greatest. The rest is the same an excuse or vengance against the US government. So off with this silly notion that Islam is the fastest growing religion. The rate is declining secretly and Muslims are worried. There are those who have officially remounced without fear but most do not wish to announce and live in fear. Author Salmamn Rushidi wrote " SATANIC VERSES" and I don't think you have read it. I'd advice you to read what he had said about Mohammed. He is an apostate and codemns Islam. Read this encounter: June 16, 2005 Pastor Hamid Pourmand of the Assemblies of God Church was acquitted of the charges of apostasy and proselytising on 28th May 2005 by an Islamic court in his hometown Bandar-i Bushehr. Hamid Pourmand, who converted to Christianity in 1980, was arrested during a church meeting last year on 9th September together with another 85 participants. Others were released within three days, however Pourmand was charged of deceiving his superiors about his faith, since according to Iranian law, non-Muslims cannot hold a position of authority above that of a Muslim. So Pourmand should not have been allowed to be an army officer. Other charges he was accused of were apostasy and proselytising. These charges, if he were not acquitted, would have led to a death sentence. A spokesperson of Middle East Concern (MEC) who has been following the case said: "On Saturday May 28th an Islamic judge in Bandar-I Bushehr, on Iran's Gulf coast, acquitted pastor Pourmand of charges of apostasy and proselytising Muslims." However, he still stays in prison: "He remains imprisoned for allegedly deceiving the Iranian army about his being a Christian," the spokesperson continued. He was found guilty of this charge on 16th February 2005 despite the fact the documents proving his superiors had known about his Christian faith were presented during the process. As the result, he was sentenced to 3 years in prison. Later, in early April, he was accused of apostasy and proselytising and appeared before an Islamic court several times from 13th April for two weeks. During the hearings he was forced to convert to Islam again. On 16th May he was transformed to his hometown to stand before an Islamic court there. The case has attracted a lot of international attention, as the statement of the local judge reveals: "I don't know who you are, but the rest of the world does." Is this the religion of compassion? International Religious Freedom Report 2004 Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor The Constitution provides for freedom of religion; however, the Government placed some restrictions on this right. Sunni Islam is the official religion, and the practice of non-Sunni Islamic beliefs is significantly restricted. Non-Muslims are free to practice their religious beliefs with few restrictions. There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom during the period covered by this report. Restrictions on Religious Freedom In practice Muslims are not permitted to convert to another religion. In several recent rulings, secular courts have ceded jurisdiction to the Islamic courts in matters involving conversion to or from Islam. In 2001, a High Court judge rejected the application of a woman who converted to Christianity and requested that the term "Islam" be removed from her identity card. The judge held that the Islamic court had jurisdiction in the application. In 2000, an Islamic court sentenced four persons to 3-year prison terms for not recanting their alleged heretical beliefs and "return[ing] to the true teachings of Islam." The court rejected their argument that they were not subject to Islamic (Shari'a) law because they had ceased to be Muslims. Dismissing their appeal, the Court of Appeal ruled in 2002 that only the Islamic court is qualified to determine whether a Muslim has become an apostate. The case is pending a final decision in the Federal Court. In a 2004 ruling, the Kuala Lumpur High Court held that only the Islamic Court had jurisdiction over a suit by a non-Muslim mother to nullify the conversion of her two children to Islam without her agreement. The father converted to Islam after he became estranged from his wife and allegedly converted his two infant children to gain custody over them. The MCCBCHS said the ruling "tramples over the rights of non-Muslim parents." The mother filed an appeal, which was pending at the end of the period covered by this report. The Government opposes what it considers "deviant" interpretations of Islam, maintaining that the "deviant" groups' extreme views endanger national security. In the past, the Government imposed restrictions on certain Islamic groups, primarily the small number of Shi'a residents. The Government continues to monitor the activities of the Shi'a minority. Control of mosques is exercised at the state level rather than by the federal Government; state religious authorities appoint imams to mosques and provide guidance on the content of sermons. While practices vary from state to state, both the Government and the opposition Islamic party have attempted to use mosques in the states they control to deliver politically oriented messages. In recent years, several states controlled by the ruling coalition government announced measures including banning opposition-affiliated imams from speaking at mosques, more vigorously enforcing existing restrictions on the content of sermons, replacing mosque leaders and governing committees thought to be sympathetic to the opposition, and threatening to close down unauthorized mosques with ties to the opposition. Similarly, in states controlled by the opposition Islamic party some government-affiliated imams have been banned from speaking. These decisions vary from state to state. In 2002, the Government began enforcing a requirement that all Muslim civil servants attend religious classes taught by government-approved teachers. Proselytizing of Muslims by members of other religions is strictly prohibited, although proselytizing of non-Muslims faces no obstacles. The Government discourages but does not ban the distribution in the peninsular portion of the country of Malay-language translations of the Bible, Christian tapes, and other printed materials. The distribution of Malay-language Christian materials faces few restrictions in East Malaysia. In 2003, the Government briefly banned a Bible, translated into the language of the indigenous Iban in Sarawak, on the grounds that the Bible's use of the Islamic phrase "Allah Taala" (Almighty God) could create confusion among Muslims. However, the acting prime minister quickly lifted the ban following the addition of a cross to the cover of the Iban Do not trouble trouble unless trouble troubels you. YOU ASK FOR IT.

Here is more why Islam is a religion of terrorism: According to the FBI, the definition of terrorism is: "Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." The religion of Islam fulfills each and every criteria of the above-mentioned definition of terrorism. The following irrefutable facts and deductive logic will amply demonstrate this statement. Ever since Islam was founded it has left behind a legacy of violent atrocities and horrible crimes. The holy book of the Muslims, the Koran, contains specific instructions on how to loot, pillage, plunder, rape, torture and murder in order to further the interests of Islam . It can clearly be called a specific instruction manual of terrorism. The Holy Koran is full of very unholy and terrorist ambitions, it is obviously not from God, as the Muslims would have us believe. Any sane individual can see that it is a journal and collection of a terrorist's criminal activities and ideas. This terrorist's name is Mohammed (popularly known as the prophet of Islam). During his lifetime, Mohammed organized at least 86 expeditions against people who either refused to follow his teachings or simply came in the way of his power crazed ambitions. He led the life of a serial killer, terrorist and rapist, who perpetrated genocide throughout Arabia. Along with the pagan Arabs, many Jews and Christians were victims of this mindless terrorist. Mohammed was a man who destroyed peace wherever he went, and in its place brought terror, carnage and death. And he did all this in the name of God! Mohammed has clearly stated in the Koran that God has instructed him and all pious Muslims to loot, pillage, plunder, rape, torture and murder innocent human beings, in order to further the interests of Islam. I have stated below just a few of the verses from the Koran, which support this fact. As the Koran is supposed to be timeless and universal, the verses in it hold true even today and are used everyday by pious Muslims to justify their brutal and terrorist activities. 1. (Koran 8:12) "Remember Thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the believers, I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger tips of them." In the above verse the great prophet of Islam, Mohammed, is giving step by step instructions on how to torture and kill the unbelievers if they don't follow Islam. He is clearly instructing Muslims to commit cold-blooded murder in the name of religion. 2. (Koran 2:216) "Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that you hate a thing which is good for you and it may happen that you love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, you knew not." The above verse was stated by Mohammed after his first terrorist attack. He and his followers mercilessly massacred four innocent and unarmed merchants at Nakhla in 623 AD. The massacre came in January, the sacred month of Rejeb. Arabs regard this month as a sacred month, when warfare and violence is forbidden. Since this barbaric criminal act was led and sanctioned by the "great" prophet Mohammed, we can conclude that Islam's sacred activities include loot and cold-blooded murder of innocent individuals. The very beginnings of Islam are stained with the blood of innocents. By stating the above verse, Mohammed completely absolved himself from all blame for having murdered innocents. The most insidious and devilish implication of this verse is that God is completely justifying Mohammed's murder of the innocent Meccans. The import of this verse is that killing and violence are JUSTIFIED for Muslims, because they are doing it by divine ordinance! It is a religious duty of every Muslim to murder anyone who comes in the way of Islam. Since it is also the duty of every Muslim to ensure that the entire world is converted to Islam by force if necessary, one must directly conclude that it is the religious duty of Muslims to kill all those who are non-Muslim. This conclusion is derived directly from the supreme edict of Allah, who admonishes that even the Muslim who feels it is wrong to kill, must murder in the name of Allah, otherwise he is not a true Muslim. Over and above this, Mohammed is hypocritically implying that warfare is hateful to him, but he participated in it because God ordained it. 3. (Koran 69:30-37) "It is not for any Prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land. You desire the lure of this world and Allah desires for you the hereafter and Allah is Mighty, Wise.. Now enjoy what you have won as lawful and good and keep your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is forgiving, merciful." This verse is in reference to the prisoners that Mohammed held for ransom after the battle of Badr. This battle occurred on March 17, 623 AD. This is the month of Ramadan—another sacred month for the Muslims! In this battle, Mohammed and his followers killed at least 70 innocent merchants from the Quraysh tribe of Mecca and slaughtered several hundred soldiers who came forward to defend them. Here God the "Merciful" is saying that all the non-believers deserve to be killed! In addition, God is conveniently commenting that whatever loot Mohammed has plundered is "lawful and good" because it was done in service to God. So murder, rape, plunder and destruction are all perfectly legal with the Muslim God as long as they are done in the name of Islam! Mohammed is also insidiously making himself seem very kind for having spared the lives of the prisoners, when in fact he only let them live so he could ransom their lives for more money. In today's world this is called "taking hostages" and defines "Terrorism" of the worst kind. 4. (Koran 69:30-37) "(It will be said) Take him and fetter him and expose him to hell fire. And then insert him in a chain whereof the length is seventy cubits. Lo! he used not to believe in God the tremendous, and urged not on the feeding of the wretched. Therefore hath he no lover hear this day nor any food save filth which none but sinners eat." The above verses from the Koran prove that Muslims are specifically instructed not to tolerate unbelievers. It directly states that people who do not believe in Mohammed and the Islamic God are to be tortured and murdered.. Not only does this verse clearly implicate that unbelievers must be tortured and killed, it goes on further to state prescribed methods for committing torture. The horrific acts mentioned above are in practice even today in Islamic countries. In fact, in India, Muslims tortured the Sikh Gurus and their families exactly as prescribed by the Koran. For example, the Sikh guru Tegh Bahadur was imprisoned in a cage like a wild animal, when he refused to forsake his religion for Islam. Three of his disciples were murdered in front of his eyes. One of them was Bhai Mati Das. He was sawed alive into little pieces. The other was wrapped up in cotton and burnt alive. Bhai Dyala, the third one, was boiled alive in a cauldron. Guru Tegh Bahadur himself was brutally tortured and killed in a similar fashion. One wonders at the mercy of "The all beneficent Allah" who enjoys watching the roasted burnt flesh of hapless innocents falling off their bones. 5. (Koran 5: 33-34) "The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet and alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom; Save those who repent before ye overpower them. For know that Allah is forgiving, merciful." 6. (Koran 22: 19-22) "These twain (the believers and the disbelievers) are two opponents who contend concerning their Lord. But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them, boiling fluid will be poured down their heads. Whereby that which is in their bellies, and their skins too, will be melted; And for them are hooked rods of iron. Whenever, in their anguish, they would go forth from thence they are driven back therein and (it is said unto them): Taste the doom of burning." 7. (Koran 76: 4) "Lo! We have prepared for disbelievers chains, yokes and a blazing fire." The above verses clearly state extreme terrorist activities, as they contain nothing but detailed recipes of horrific torture. Cutting off the hands and feet of individuals and then making them walk and jump, pouring boiling waters over their victims, making them drink it, burning them alive, inserting hot iron rods into their bodies, dismemberment and disembowelment, genital mutilation etc. are common Islamic practices.

Please allow me to say what I feel and would answer to your ignorant questions. YOU SAID: Of the three great cultures, namely hindu, western and Islamic, I've chosen Islam because: 1) It is based on compassion, unlike Hindu/western which centers on exploitation 2) There is no class (western) or caste (Hindu) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Islam is not a great culture. What Mohammed did was just assimilated what the Jews and Christians practiced centuries before the birth of Islam. Circumcision is a traditional pratice of the Jews as well as the early Christians and Mohammed assimilated it inot his cult. Washing of ears elbow, ankle and so forth were the tradition of the Jews. There are amny such tradition of the Jews that Mohammed copied so there is nothing great about Islam when Jews had been practicing for centuries before Islam. Culture must be born with the race and that is why it is called a great culture. So you are wrong in claiming Islam as a great culture. As for science and mathematics it has been proven that they were copied from the vedas and here to Islam just borrowed what others had lomng before Islam came to be. As for class division it is a common knowledge that division of class was based on the proffession of what one does. Not that they are down graded but certain group of people used it to for selfish reason and has nothing to do with Hinduism. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ YOU SAID: 3) There is no capitalism (western) or its offshoots such as socialism (which hindus follow rigorously), systems which consider man as just another commodity. Islamic (economic) principles are based on ethics such as no interest rate and things like that. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ What no interest rate? Any form of charging extra is considered interest otherwise the bank will have to be folded up. Use your comon sence. Of course this is one why of telling the Muslims Islam does not pratice USURY but indirectly takes interst in the form of negotiated profit which in western world is called INTEREST. Intersts is what the lender gains as profit and so is the Islamic banking. Otherwise the investers would all pull out their investment if there is no profit. So, do not use other words to delude the followers. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ YOU SAID: 4) Islam says, "Live and let live." Western/hindu way of thought infringes on other cultures through war, terror, imperialism, crusades, migration etc. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Is that what Islam did in Afghanistan, Persia, India and now in Sudan and Algeria? Come on don't make me laugh with your silly excuses for your conversion. Say that it is because of a beautiful Muslim girl that you need to convert otherwise you will lose her. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ YOU SAID: 5) Islam believes in limited consumption and to use the rest of one's wealth for social service, unlike hindu/western values that believe in unlimited consumption. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ If that is so than why are people in Islamic countries suffering in poverty? Take an example of people in Iraq, certain sects have been left to fend for themselves while the the ruling sects were enjoying the wealth of the oil before the invasion and over throw f Sadam the Butcher. Where is the Islamic nation when the Kashmir part of Pakistan was hit with disaster? When Aceh was hit by Tsunami? Did the Arab Muslims share their Thrillions of oil money to these suffering nations? I too can go on but it is a waste of time as you have been thought to deny everything others say. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ YOU SAID: I can go on and on, but i hope you can all understand why ISlam towers above other civilizations, especially hindus and western for they happen to be the most dominant at the moment. That is why I choose Islam-it is based on ethical values. Go to any Islamic country and even strangers give you accommodation at cheaper rates, whether you are hindu or western or buddhist or whatever. There is no discrimination. You cant say the same thing about other nations. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Islam does not tower in anything except TERRORISM. Ii is the only discovery of Islam and its founder Mohammed. It's nothing to boast about since it goes against the order of nature and GOD. I can give you more references but am afraid it would be deleted by the moderatror as my earlier reply to you was deleted. May be he did not want to hurt your feelings. That is te quality of Hinduism.

But have taken KRISHNA as GOD and that makes you a HINDU or a follower of Sanathana Dharma which is Hinduism as known throughout the world. All religion have their differences. Christians have theirs such as Protestants disagree with Chatolics, Methodist oppose to Chatolics and Protestants and vice versa. Muslims with their four divisions are against each others practice and ullamas. So Hinduism has its own squabbles but it is ours. In a way it is healthy because we get to learn much from such and for your information we do not blow ourself up because of this differences. This forum is a platform for healthy discussions but there are some who get highly emotional over small things but we understand them and we will depart with friendly advice. So, do not worry about such issues as you will learn many important issues here and you are welcome to present ayours as you feel right. OM NAMA SHIVAYA

Dear Ajit 12, I'm glad you ask these question. I too was an atheist who had ask the same question some 35 years ago. My mother could not answer and so were people who had knowledge in the vedas. All they could say was GOD is unseen and HE dwells in all living entity. I was not happy with the answers given and refuse to accept the Hindu faith. Once a close friend approach me ask me if I'm intersted in joining him in a bajan session organoised by a certain group. My reply to him was this "If GOD is intersted in me let him come to me, why should I go to him". I do not believe he exist. My just laughed at me and went on his own ro the bajan. Although a Muslim Girl [Malay]]was in love with me and so was I but than I had no interest in her religion and so she left me after waiting for a year for my decission.. Than some time later I fell in love with a Christian [Eurasian] girl and my mother was worried again that I might convert to Christianity. I told my girl no matter what please do not ask me to change my religion. I'm not a practicing Hindu but I respect my parents and I would like to die a Hindu. She agreed and we were married according to Hindu tradition. After three years of marriage on e day I had a strange dearm. In that dream someone looking dark and tall with strange looking hair style appeared and ask me to come to his gathering. He only tapped my shoulder and bid good by. The very next day my friend I mentioned was at my front door and told me to accompany him out. I did not ask him where he was going as it was normal for us to gather at a caffe for a cupa. But this time he drove me straight to a building hall whee a few hundred people were sitted and beautiful kirtans we being sung. at the far end of the hall I noticed frame of the same person who appeared in my dreams and on enquiring my friend I was told he is Sri Satia Sai Baba the reincarnation of Shridi Baba. The strange thing was there were other frames beside his and I was seeing tenples of all GODs in one house. Buddhism, Sikism, Christianity, Islam and Zorrastraism. The bajans captivated my heart and from a non believer I became a believer. Than I remembered what I said to my friend some some months ago before " If GOD is interested in me let him come to me". And the dream I had made me realize there is a Supreme Being and so began my quest to read about Hindusim and its Saints, yogis and avathars. You see my friend, we breath in oxigin but we cannot see it. Aks to discribe we can't but it is there and we can feel it breezing over our skin. It is formless yet it keeps us alive. Without it we would lifeless. God too is such we cannot see yet HE is with us and inside us. The ATMAN that is glowing inside every living being is HIM. IF HE decides to leave than we become stiff cold lifless body which would decompose in less than 24 hours which would emit a stench that not even your loving wife , children or parents who gave birth to you would like to stand near your body.. Believe me when I say HE exist. When Swami Vivekananday asked Swami Ramakrishna before becoming his desiple that if he had seen GOD and the reply Swami Ramakrishna gave was he had seen. When ask to elobrate Swami Ramakrishna said he sees GOD in each and every one he meets. From than on Swami Vivekananda became his desiple. I believe Swami Ramakrishna because when he says I see GOD in each and every on ehe meets I understand what he meant. The ATMAN which is hidden is GOD and so we are alive and kicking and some time even deny the existance of GOD. Yet HE does not punish us for our ignorance. The reason is HE knows that it is our own freewill and whatever we do is what we gain hereafter. What we did in our past life is what we are enjoying here now. When our karma is exhausted we will leave in silent to meet our next course of life who knows what. Anyway, you are right according to your toughts but please probe further as there are more to life than what we see here. What we learn in our life time is only as small as a mustard seed and what we need to learn is as vast as the ocean.