Posted on 09/04/2006 8:36:21 PM PDT by voletti
To be Hindu in America is much more an intentional choice than it is in India," said Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies and director of The Pluralism Project at Harvard University. "Even if you're first generation, you have to decide if you perpetuate it or if you just kind of let it go.
That reality has created a challenge for Hindus here - and for their temples and cultural organisations - as they try to pass the faith on to a younger generation.
At the Ganesh Temple in Queens, founded in 1977 and one of the oldest temples in the country, there's a community centre that people can use for weddings, performances and other events; education activities from religious instruction to language lessons and academic tutoring; and the youth club that Shivraj is part of.
Those are not elements commonly found at temples in India, said Dr Uma Mysorekar, one of the temple trustees. But in India, she pointed out, they don't need to be - because Hindus are surrounded by their religion.
"We just observed and followed and never questioned," she said.
When Indian immigrants started coming to the United States in larger numbers, in the years after the 1965 revamping of immigration laws, they carried their religious traditions on as best they could, meeting for prayers and worship at one another's homes, or renting public spaces, said Anantanand Rambachan, professor of religion at St Olaf College in Minnesota.
That realisation came from seeing how religion is done in the United States. Here, Christian tradition relies heavily on doctrine, on what people believe, Rambachan said, rather than what they do. In India, the emphasis goes the opposite way, since Hinduism covers a wide spectrum of gods and beliefs, and ritual is very important.
In America, Hindus "are increasingly being challenged to articulate the Hindu tradition in a manner that places more emphasis on doctrine," Rambachan said. "People will ask, 'What do you believe?'" Rambachan said.
Faced with that, temples and cultural organisations that had been working to make outsiders understand more about the faith realised they needed to help young Indian Americans know what they believed, if the religion was going to be passed on.
"If we don't do our part, we will lose these youngsters,' Mysorekar said.
"There was a lot of foundation we had to lay even to exist as Hindus among non-Hindus," she said. "Now it is for us to do the job within our own community."
Jainism pre-dates Buddhism. 24 different Buddhas??
Moses kept them moving so that they would forget Egypt. After 40 years, not many of the old-timers were left.
Don ;r know how deep it is. Thomas Merton tried out the Quakers and enjoyed the silence. Then some woman in the congregation felt moved to speak, and the silence ended---for a long while.
No doubt you have a different name for them ~
Louis hated this group in particular. Even today the number of Protestants in this part of France is far below the percentage found elsewhere.
The only problem is they AREN'T Buddha. Any of those 24 :-|
I can believe it's hard for Hindus to pass on some traditions. I went to junior and most of senior high school in the Clear Lake area of Houston. This is the area where NASA's Johnson Space Center is located. Literally tons of Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese and other Asians immigrated to this area. Among them I can't think of a single one that didn't chow down on hamburgers every time they were served for lunch. When asked, one told me that his parents just gave up trying to compete with the culture around them.
I think it's safe to dismiss the "traditional dates" as probably having a political origin.
Jainism used to be a much bigger element in Indian religious life than now ~ just like Buddhism.
Here's a thought for you ~ being a Jain carries with it all the burdens of the highest levels of Christian morality with none of the benefits.
The last of the Tirthankars i.e Mahavira pre-dates Buddha, hardly within his "lifetime".
The "traditional dates" are always a matter of contention and is so in every religion including the Judeo-Christian ones.
Jainism is bigger then what Buddhism is in modern India and at no point in history did it assume any greater space in Indian religious life. It always had a fringe existance.
"being a Jain carries with it all the burdens of the highest levels of Christian morality with none of the benefits."
Morality itself is a burden or a benefit depending on how you see it. What other benefit are you talking about?
That is your opinion, but not what the Vedas themselves reveal.
The Vedas forbid the killing of cows. Cows have many names, one of which is "anagha" which means "that which should never be killed", and the cow is considered one of the seven mothers who should always be honored. The bull is one of the seven fathers. Cow is mother since she gives her milk to humanity, and bull is a father since (traditionally) his strength helps to grow grains in the field.
In the Manu Samhita there are stringent punishments for killing or mistreating cows and bulls.
BTW, I know I asked you before for a link to the online Gita you quote occasionally - could you post the link again or send it to me?
Thanks!
Not sure about that -- In fact, it's more like Judaism in that one's identity as a Hindu is tied into one's ethnic origin in the subcontinent, just as the faith of Judaism is inextricably bound to the land of Israel.
Christianity and Islam, as "revealed" faiths, are open to all (although Islam arguably has a built-in favoritism toward Arabs).
The classical greco-roman pantheon also differs greatly from Hinduism in view of the classical pantheon's paucity of theological/philosophical doctrine.
Just noticed your comment. Funny - you think an eldery Bengali swami born in Calcutta was an American?? Or his teacher, whose teachings he brought to the west, the late Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, was an American? Or maybe Saraswati Thakur's teacher and father, a noted scholar who, like his son, was fluent in Bengali, Oriya, Sanksrit, Urdu and English was a US citizen?
I am certainly no fan (to put it very mildly) of the ISKCON organization, but many religious teachers have had many idiot (or worse) followers. How people who claim to follow Jesus Christ have little or no understanding of his message?
Christianity, for example, allows us to eat anything we please. There are no dietary restrictions.
The Vedas were most likely "written" by scribes who knew the original Sumerian hieroglyphic script.
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