Be proud of Hinduism

barney · May 15, 2004

Jean-Sylvain Bailly said:

"The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the tables of Cassine and Meyer (used in the 19-th century). The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as the discovered by Tycho Brahe - a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria and also to the Arabs who followed the calculations of the school... "The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest and that from which the Egyptians, Greek, Romans and - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge."

(source: The Politics of History - By N. S. Rajaram Voice of India ISBN 81-85990-28-X. 1995 p. 47).

128. Hans Torwesten (1944 - ) a native of Germany, studied art in Vienna and Indian philosophy, meditation, and yoga in England. A writer, lecturer, yoga teacher, and painter, he now lives in Austria. In his book Vedanta - Heart of Hinduism he writes:

"A fair number of leading physicists and biologists have found parallels between modern science and Hindu ideas. In America, many writers such as J. D. Salinger (An Adventure in Vedanta: J.D. Salinger's the Glass Family), Henry Miller, Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, and Christopher Isherwood, were in contact with the Vedanta. Most of them came from elevated intellectual circles which rejected the dogmatism of the Christian Churches yet longed for spirituality and satisfactory answers to the fundamental questions of existence. In Vedanta, they found a wide-open, universal, and philosophically oriented religion where even the penetrating scientific mind could find something to its taste".

"To the Hindu, shruti is what cannot be thought up by the limited human intellect, but is of God. It is what is forever valid, never changes, is not dependent on the limited capacity for understanding of any one historical person. The Hindu for this reason is proud not to need a historical founder. The founder and foundation of the Vedas and the Upanishads is the Brahman itself, is what is indestructible and timeless."

" The Upanishads are indeed thoroughly suffused with the spirit of transcendence.

129. Mark Tully former BBC correspondent in India, author of several books, including No Full Stops in India and The Heart of India, said:

"The genius of Hinduism, and the very reason of its survival for so long, was that it does not stand up and fight."

It changes and adapts and modernizes and its absorbs and that is the scientific and proper way of going about it as well."

" Why is Christianity in so much trouble at the moment? Because it is so difficult for it to adapt," says the celebrated television journalist. Saying that Hinduism would prove to be the religion of the next Millennium."

"The Kumbh Mela could only take place in India. In no other country would millions and millions of pilgrims, driven just by faith that the sins of this life and previous lives would be washed away by bathing in the confluence of two rivers at an auspicious time, brave severe hardships, some walking barefooted, to get to bathe. Where else would you find hundreds of holy men willing to march naked in processions through the crowds of pilgrims, or one thousand Brahmins sitting around a hundred sacred fires offering a sacrifice for world peace?" At what gathering of one religion would you find such a variety of teaching, such an acceptance that there are many ways to God?"

(source: cnn.com).

It was the promotion of the ancient Indian tradition of religious tolerance, a tolerance which owes so much to Hinduism’s own pluralism...This tradition provides a basis for Hindus and for Indians who believe in many of the many other religions of this country to live with self-respect, in peace, and proud of their national identity. This is very much an Indian tradition, a tradition which is very different too from the tradition of countries where Semitic religions like Christianity and Islam have dominated. It is the tradition which could meet the needs of so many other countries in the world"

(source: Opposites distract - By Mark Tully - hindustantimes.com).

134. Klaus K. Klostermaier Professor of Religion at the University of Manitoba. Author of several books including A Survey of Hinduism states:

"Hinduism has proven much more open than any other religion to new ideas, scientific thought, and social experimentation. Many concepts like reincarnation, meditation, yoga and others have found worldwide acceptance. It would not be surprising to find Hinduism the dominant religion of the twenty-first century. It would be a religion that doctrinally is less clear-cut than mainstream Christianity, politically less determined than Islam, ethically less heroic than Buddhism, but it would offer something to everybody. It will appear idealistic to those who look for idealism, pragmatic to the pragmatists, spiritual to the seekers, sensual to the here-and-now generation. Hinduism, by virtue of its lack of an ideology and its reliance on intuition, will appear to be more plausible than those religions whose doctrinal positions petrified a thousand years ago."

135. Professor Louis Renou (1896-1966) French Indologists, author of several books including Hinduism, Civilization in Ancient India, L'Inde fondamentale. He wrote in 1962:

"Truth is for Hinduism an indivisible treasure; spiritual immediacy is widely distributed, the mystic path is open to everyone. In its purest forms, this religion becomes a type of wisdom, that wisdom which impressed the ancient Greeks when they visited India and which could be of some fruitfulness again for our blase cultures. It is as wisdom that we should like to define Hinduism rather than by the equivocal term spirituality."

(source: Hinduism - By Louis Renou p. 56 - 57).

India is the only country that feels like home to me, the only country whose airport tarmac I have ever kissed upon landing."

"The Vedas still represent eternal truth in the purest form ever written. And they are what drew me to India in the first place, what kept me there, and what draws me back still. There is no stable principle of evil in Vedic philosophy. There is no infernal realm for sinners. Its non dualism is really beyond monotheism - which creates a fundamental duality of God and man. Evil is not envisaged as a quality opposed to good. It is the absence of good, just as darkness is the absence of light, not its opposite quality."

(source: Empire of the Soul: Some Journeys in India.' p. 299 -325).