Pramukh Swami Maharaj, Whose Hindu Sect Became Largest in U.S., Dies at 94

AYESHA VENKATARAMAN
NY Times
AUGUST 19, 2016

MUMBAI, India — Pramukh Swami Maharaj, the spiritual leader who engineered the global expansion of a socially conservative Hindu sect that grew to be the largest in the United States, died on Aug. 13 in Sarangpur, a village in the state of Gujarat in western India. He was 94.

The guru’s death was confirmed by Jayesh Mandanka, a spokesman for the sect, Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, known as BAPS.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew to the village to deliver an emotional eulogy. Mr. Modi built his political career in Gujarat.

Under the guru’s leadership, the sect, which practices a relatively modern form of Vaishnava Hinduism, established more than a thousand temples worldwide. He made numerous trips to East Africa, to Britain, to Canada and later to the United States after American immigration laws were loosened in 1965, attracting a tide of educated Indians.

The BAPS philosophy helped moor those immigrants, especially those from Gujarat, to their homeland.

“Immigrants of all backgrounds experience nostalgia, homesickness, a desire for companionship,” Hanna Kim, an associate professor of anthropology at Adelphi University, said in a phone interview. “It’s absolutely reasonable to say that BAPS provides a very welcoming place for the newcomer.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/world/asia/pramukh-swami-maharaj-whose-hindu-sect-became-largest-in-us-dies-at-94.html

Hindu View of Christian Salvation

DR. DAVID FRAWLEY 
Hindu Post
March  27, 2016

Christian conversion is based upon the promise of forgiveness of all sins and everlasting salvation by belief in Jesus. It is important that Hindus and all others subject to conversion efforts understand the wrong ideas and wishful thinking behind these views.

Christianity is based upon a theology of sin and salvation. In the Christian view, one is born into sin owing to the original sin of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, as described in the Bible, who were tempted by the Devil and went against God’s will. We gain salvation through Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, whom God sent down to Earth to redeem us. Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins and the original sin of Adam and Eve, which his blood washed away.

Those who accept Jesus as their savior and become Christians are said to be immediately saved. Faith in Jesus is the basis of salvation, not any action of our own. According to Christian thought, nothing we can do apart from accepting Jesus can save us. Souls who fail to accept Jesus are condemned to damnation, however good or wise they may be. Each individual has only one life to make this decision to accept Jesus or not, which is then irreversible for all eternity.

After death, those who are saved go to heaven, where Jesus dwells. In Christianity, heaven is usually a physical world, which requires a physical body, such as promoted in the Christian belief in the Last Judgment and resurrection of the body, and the reason why Christians bury the dead. Those who are not saved are condemned to eternal damnation.

Such is a brief synopsis of historical Christian theology, which has slight variations among different Christian sects. There is no Christianity without Jesus and no salvation without faith in Jesus. This idea of sin and salvation by belief in Jesus and gaining a place in heaven is the basis of Christian conversion efforts, and of baptism to become a Christian.

Evangelical Christians, such as are coming to Bharat from the USA, take this theology literally, and still argue that the world is only six thousand years old as proclaimed in the Bible. Some modern Christians, perhaps embarrassed by the condemnation of the majority of the human race that remains non-Christian, try to explain it away as metaphorical. Yet to date the Catholic Church has not disavowed this theology of sin and salvation either.

Hindu View of Liberation

Hindu Dharma respects freedom of belief for all people, holding that there is ultimately One Truth and a unity of consciousness behind all existence. Hindu Dharma states that each individual should be free to follow whatever spiritual path he or she feels most drawn to, or even no path at all.

Yet this view of religious pluralism does not mean that Hindu Dharma regards all religious theologies as correct or equal. The Hindu view like that of science allows for the existence of a variety of theories but these theories must be proven by experience and cannot be regarded as correct merely because someone believes in them.

Hindu Dharma encourages us to inquire into our inner nature through examining our own minds and striving to come to a direct realization of truth, which it teaches through various dharmic philosophies and meditation practices.

Hindu sacred texts like the Upanishadsand Bhagavad Gita describe the supreme truth or Brahman as an infinite and eternal Being-Consciousness-Bliss (Sacchidananda) beyond all names and forms. This unlimited Being is the Self of all, Atman, dwelling within each creature.  The Supreme Reality dwells with you as you, not as your mere physical body but your core awareness, the inner witness behind all your thoughts and experiences.

In Hindu Dharma, the soul is an individualised power of consciousness and has many lives as it evolves in consciousness to realize its true nature of unity with the Supreme. The individual soul is bound by ignorance and karma, which is the cause of rebirth and suffering, a failure to recognize its true nature that causes attachment to the external world of appearances, birth and death.

The Hindu view is one of karma and rebirth, not sin and salvation and one life only. All souls will gain liberation eventually and return to their true nature of pure consciousness. The goal is not one of heaven but of Self-realization. It is not of a glorified physical world but a blissful awareness beyond body and mind.

Interfaith Discussions

We must be very clear about our concepts in interfaith discussions. There has been a superficial and uncritical approach that equates Christian salvation and Hindu liberation (Moksha), as well as equating religion as faith with the Sanskrit term dharma.

In Hindu Dharma there is no original sin attributed to our ancestors or to any Devil that we must atone for. There is only an ignorance and wrong actions that arise from it. This ignorance is removed by knowledge of truth and development of higher awareness, not by mere belief.

We as individuals are responsible for our condition in life that results from our own karma. There are certain actions that are inherently wrong, like harming others. These do not depend upon the commandment of any deity but on a violation of dharma and natural law.

No Salvation or Spiritual Realization by Proxy

In Hindu Dharma , there is no salvation or liberation by proxy. Neither Jesus nor any other figure can save you or realize the truth for you. In fact you do not need to be saved at all!

You only need to understand your true Self and the nature of existence, which are one, which takes you beyond all suffering born of attachment to body and mind. To transcend ignorance requires a sadhana or spiritual practice, defined in Hindu Shastras through dharmic living, ritual, mantra, Yoga and meditation.

One cannot go beyond karma and ignorance simply by believing in someone or by accepting someone as your savior. That is merely wishful thinking. Just as another person cannot eat food for you, or be educated in your place, you must do your own spiritual practices to purify body and mind in order to access the universal consciousness.

A heaven that requires a physical body is only an attachment to the earth and physical reality in disguise, not understanding our true spiritual nature. The soul does not need a body for its happiness. Its true nature is the pure light of awareness.

One may honor the compassion shown by Jesus, but Christian theology of sin and salvation is far from the truth. It does not reveal our true nature or explain our real purpose in life.

We must have a clear discernment of different theologies and their different goals. Only Self-knowledge brings about liberation. Christian theology, including that endorsed by the Vatican today, does not teach this and its goal of salvation is very different.

http://www.hindupost.in/society-culture/hindu-view-of-christian-salvation/

Weekly Hindu Persecution Digest: 15 March - 22 March 2015

1. Woman killed in Tripura for practicing witchcraft

Report: A 55-year-old tribal woman was killed by her neighbours in Tripura for allegedly practising witchcraft, police said on Tuesday. Kanyapati Debbarma, a mother of three children, was shot dead from a close range at Shyamraichara in Kamalpur, Dhalai district in northern Tripura on Monday night. The practice of branding women as witches and torturing them continues in remote, rural and tribal areas of Assam, Tripura and other north-eastern states. In the last few years, more than 50 women have been tortured and beaten on suspicion of practising witchcraft or black magic in Tripura.

Link: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/woman-killed-in-tripura-for-practising-witchcraft/article7002802.ece?homepage=true

2. No rallies or outrage for Ramkrishna Mission Sadhvi raped in West Bengal

Report: As per a report in Patrika, a Sadhvi from the Ramkrishna Mission was brutally gang-raped on 13th March 2015. This unfortunate incident occurred in the evening, when the Sadhvi, a resident of the Mihir Das colony in English Bazaar district in West Bengal, was returning from a market in her neighbourhood. This is when 4 youths from the neighbourhood dragged the Sadhvi into a Mango grove and gang-raped her. It is also reported that the Sadhvi repeatedly visited the Police Station to lodge her complaint against the rapists, but instead of registering her FIR, the cops were more interested in sitting with the accused and the victim to settle the matter.

Link: http://www.opindia.com/2015/03/no-rallies-or-outrage-for-ramkrishna-mission-sadhvi-raped-in-west-bengal/

3. BJP MLA takes oath in the name of Vaishnodevi, creates controversy

Report: As BJP MLA from Nowshera, said “I do swear in the name of Mata Vaishnodevi”, member on the opposition benches objected to his taking oath not in the prescribed format. They drew attention of the protem Speaker Mohammad Shafi Uri, a senior National Conference leader that it was not provided to swear in the name of Vaishnodevi. The member can swear in the name of Ishwar,” said M Y Tarigami of CPI (M). Raina tried to convince member that he being worshipper of Ma Vaishnodevi considers her as his Ishwar, but the Protem Speaker went by the objection from opposition benches making the member to swear by the name of “Ishwar”.

Link: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/bjp-mla-takes-oath-in-the-name-of-vaishnodevi-creates-controversy/

4. Dental Student From India Fatally Shot After Temple Visit

Report: Investigators say a 37-year-old dental student from India was shot to death at her San Francisco Bay Area apartment hours after attending services at a Sikh temple. The body of Randhir Kaur was discovered on March 8 by her cousin after UC San Francisco officials became concerned about her well-being.

Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/dental-student-india-fatally-shot-temple-visit-29658656

5. Statute protects culprits; 15 new cases of forced marriages of Hindu girls this year at Hyderabad high court

Report: As many as 15 new cases of forced marriages of Hindu girls have been taken up by Sindh high court in Hyderabad since January 1– the first 80 days of 2015, a Hindu lawyer and human rights defender told this correspondent on phone Thursday.

“Very little is reported in media,” Veerji Kohli said. Most of the Hindu victims belong to the extremely impoverished Bheel and Bhagri Hindu communities of lower Sindh whose parents do not have the resources to protect their girls from the powerful and lustful Muslim abductors.

According to the Associated Press of Pakistan, the government registered 1,261 cases of kidnapping of women and girls, many of them minors, for forced marriage in 2014. At least two big names have repeatedly cropped up in the unending saga of forced conversions and marriages in southeastern Sindh province. One of them is Mian Abdul Khaliq Mitthoo of the Pir of Bharchoondi Sharif shrine, a former member of the national assembly who belongs to the Pakistan People’s Party of former president Asif Ali Zardari. The second culprit is Pir Ayub Jan Sirhandi “whose target is there should no Hindu, only Muslims, in the entire region,” Kohli said. “Mian Mitthu is busy in Upper Sindh and Sirhandi works in lower Sindh,” said Kohli, who himself faced life threats for defending the hapless Hindu girls.

Kohli said the forced conversions of Hindu girls became a huge social problem ever since the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq four decades back.In a report IRIN, humanitarian news and analysis, quotes Sunil Sushmat, father of a 14-year-old abducted girl as saying he is concerned about how his daughter is being treated. “We know many converts are treated like slaves, not wives.” IRIN reports a growing number of Hindus have been fleeing Pakistan, mainly for neighboring India, because of the kidnapping of their girls. According to Hindu rights activists these refugees have faced brick-walls of mistrust in the Hindu-majority nation as well, though the government Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to make India more welcoming for Hindus escaping persecution.

Veerji said discriminatory laws that are part of Pakistan statute book is the main challenge for Hindus. He specifically pointed out to articles 31 and 203 in Pakistan constitution that help people like PPP’s Mian Mitthu and Pir Sirhandi constitutional cover. “Article 31 states that it is the state obligation to respect Muslims but is silent about respect to Hindus and others,” said Veerji. Article 31 of the Pakistan constitution states, “Steps shall be taken to enable the Muslims of Pakistan, individually and collectively, to order their lives in accordance with the fundamental principles and basic concepts of Islam and to provide facilities whereby they may be enabled to understand the meaning of life according to the Holy Quran and Sunnah.” It also states that the State shall endeavor “to make the teaching of the Holy Quran and Islamiyat compulsory.” Human rights defenders call the article highly discriminatory. “Do others like US and UK have to come here to show respect to followers of the other religions?” Kohli asks.

Article 203 clearly Islamized the laws of Pakistan by setting forth the guidelines of the Federal Shariat Court. No court in Pakistan has the power to challenge the Shariat, or canonical laws based on the Quran. Article 203 states, “The Court may, [either of its own motion or] on the petition of a citizen of Pakistan or the Federal Government or a Provincial Government, examine and decide the question whether or not any law or provision of law is repugnant to the injunctions of Islam, as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah of the Holy Prophet, hereinafter referred to as the Injunctions of Islam.”

Discrimination and second class status of Hindus and other religious minorities have constitutional cover as constitution states prime minister and president of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan can only be Muslim. Kohli said forced conversion of Hindu girls is also taking place in Punjab. “The Cholistan area in Punjab is full of Hindus,” said Kohli.

Source: This report was contributed by journalist and researcher, Ahmar Mustikhan from the United States.

6. Hindu widow gang raped by Muslim till 6 days in Bangladesh

Report: On 18 March 2015 Police  recovered a housewife who was gang raped and confined in a house for six days in Kumarkhali village of Rampal upazila under Bagerhat district of Bangladesh. The gang abducted the woman, (whose husband passed away a few years ago) on 12 March and took her to a boat where they raped the woman repeatedly.

The criminals later took the housewife to a solitary house and confined her. Being informed by neighboring people, Talukder Nazmul Kabir, union parishad chairman, informed police about the matter. Then, police with the help of local people rescued the woman from the clutches of the rapists in the morning.

But sensing the presence of the law enforcers, the criminals made their way. In the afternoon, the medical test of the victim, who has a 12-year-old daughter, was done. Brother-in-law of the victim filed a case with Rampal police station against four unidentified people under Children and Women Prevention act. The victim while talking to journalists said: “I along with my brother-in-law went to Boro Sannasi Phultola village to take part in religious programme. When I went to toilet, the miscreants abducted me and took to a boat. Since then, I have remained confined in a house where the miscreants tortured me again and again.”

Local people alleged that some local goons under the shelter of a union parishad chairman Rafiqul Islam had been committed several crimes. But, Rafiqul Islam said that his local rivals were hatching conspiracy against him to tarnish his image. The brother in law of the victim field a case in the Rampal police station but police could not arrest a single person till now. Bagerhat, Sathkhira and Jessore have become dangerous for the Hindus for some years.

Source: This report was contributed by IndiaFacts reader and supporter.

http://indiafacts.co.in/weekly-hindu-persecution-digest-15-march-22-march-2015/

What different religions say about aliens - A brief guide

October 26, 2014
Boston Globe

Religions have surprisingly diverse approaches to the issue of possible extraterrestrial life, David Weintraub found. Below, a quick survey adapted from his book “Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How Will We Deal With It?” and interviews with the author.

Roman Catholicism

Rifts have emerged among Roman Catholic theologians in trying to understand whether all sentient beings in the universe suffer Original Sin, whether all require redemption, and how God will offer it to those in need. Depending on how these issues are resolved, Catholicism might make sense but also might make no sense on a Klingon world.

Judaism

Judaism offers a set of rules for humans on or from Earth that encourages them to develop a relationship with the God of the entire universe. Judaism is not for the Klingons, unless the Klingons wish to live on Earth, though Judaism could continue to make sense as a religion for descendants of humans living on other planets.

Islam

In multiple places, the Koran asserts that other rational, intelligent beings exist on other worlds. Furthermore, those creatures worship and are accountable to Allah. The religion practiced by followers of Mohammed is only for humans on Earth. Other worlds would have their own prophets and their own prophetically revealed religions.

Hinduism

Hindus would embrace and not be at all surprised by the discovery of extraterrestrial life. The only concerns for Hindus would be where those creatures fit into the hierarchy of living beings, which extends from plants to animals to humans to gods. Hindus could practice their religion anywhere in the universe, and any sentient being anywhere in the universe could practice Hinduism.

Buddhism

Buddhism imagines a universe that is unimaginably large and complex and beautiful. Life forms beyond the Earth must exist in such a universe, whether we are able to find and identify them or not, and Buddhism works everywhere in the universe.

Evangelical Christianity

For evangelicals, the discovery of advanced extraterrestrial life has the potential to be devastating. Humans, in the view of most evangelicals, are the singular focus of God's creative attention and Christianity is the universal religion. Therefore, other advanced intelligences cannot exist.

Unitarian Universalism

Members of the UU Church embrace no single set of beliefs or sacred scriptures. The discovery of extraterrestrial life would trigger no issues.

Mormonism

Mormon scripture leaves no doubt that other worlds exist and are inhabited by sentient beings who are "begotten sons and daughters unto God.”

Christian Science

The Church of Christ, Scientist, appears to have nothing to say one way or another about extraterrestrial life.

Jehovah’s Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Earth is here is to provide a home to those faithful to Jehovah. Extraterrestrial life, whether in advanced or primitive form, does not exist.

Chris Wright is a writer and editor living in London.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/25/how-different-religions-would-deal-with-aliens/LMaD7Mwuit4vQXELgICSQK/story.html

U.S. evangelical Christians are chilly toward atheists – and the feeling is mutual

Michael Lipka
July 16, 2014

The feelings that members of America’s religious groups have about one another run from warm to neutral to cold, but some of the chilliest attitudes found in a new Pew Research Center survey were between evangelicals and atheists.

We asked Americans to rate eight religious groups on a “feeling thermometer” from 0 to 100, with higher numbers indicating warmer, more positive feelings and lower numbers indicating colder, more negative feelings. On average, Catholics give atheists a rating of 38, and Protestants give them a frosty 32 – lower than either group’s ratings for Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Mormons or Muslims. White evangelical Protestants express particularly cold feelings toward atheists, with an average thermometer reading of 25.

For their part, atheists are similarly chilly toward evangelical Christians, who receive an average rating of 28 from atheists. (Respondents were asked to rate “evangelical Christians” on the feeling thermometer. White evangelical Protestants analyzed here are a subset of this group.) Overall, atheists express somewhat more positive feelings toward Catholics (47). Atheists give Hindus a relatively warm rating of 58, Jews a 61 and Buddhists a toasty 69. Granted, these groups are, like atheists, small minorities in the United States, and atheists may feel especially close to Buddhism because it often is viewed as a nontheistic religion that does not require belief in a divine creator. Some mutual warmth between atheists and Jews also is apparent: While atheists give Jews a 61, Jews give atheists a 55 – the warmest rating that atheists get from any group other than agnostics, those who claim no particular religion and atheists themselves.

While a number of religious groups harbored cool feelings toward atheists, Muslims are the only religious group that received uniformly negative ratings of 50 degrees or fewer from all the groups large enough to analyze. (The survey’s nationwide sample of 3,217 adults does not include enough Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims or Mormons to be able to tell how members of those faiths feel toward U.S. religious groups.)

When Americans consider religious groups other than their own, Jews receive the warmest overall ratings – an average of 63 – followed by a 58 rating of Catholics by all non-Catholics. One-in-ten Americans (10%) rate Jews coldly (33 or below), which is lower than the percentage who give similarly cold ratings to all of the other groups. Among all the religious groups in the survey, white evangelical Protestants express some of the most positive feelings toward Jews, an average rating of 69. The feeling, however, is not mutual. Jews give evangelical Christians a 34 – among the lowest they give any group.

Evangelicals’ positive feelings toward Jews may not be surprising, given the role of Judaism in the history of Christianity and the place of Jews in the Bible. Born-again or evangelical Christians tend to express a strong belief in the Bible as the word of God, and in a survey we conducted last year, a substantial majority of white evangelicals (82%) said that God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people.

The reasons for Jews’ relatively cold feelings toward evangelicals are not as clear. Possible explanations could include differences over proselytism (evangelicals often seek converts, while Jews traditionally do not), separation of church and state, and politics in general (evangelicals tend to be conservative, while U.S. Jews are mostly liberal).

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/16/u-s-evangelical-christians-are-chilly-toward-atheists-and-the-feeling-is-mutual/

How many people of different faiths do you know?

July 17, 2014
Michael Lipka

Given the wide variety of faith groups in the United States, it would seem natural that most Americans know someone of a religion different from their own. With that in mind, we recently asked members of the Pew Research Center’s new American Trends Panel whether they personally know members of other religious groups.

We found that a big majority of Americans (87%) say they know someone who is Catholic – perhaps not surprising, given that as of 2012, 22% of U.S. adults were Catholic.  Somewhat fewer Americans (70%) say they know an evangelical Christian, even though nearly a third of U.S. adults (32%) describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians.

The percentage of Americans who know members of smaller religious groups varies widely, with little apparent relation to the actual size of the group. For example, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus each comprise about 1% or less of the U.S. population, but many more Americans say they know a Muslim (38%) than a Buddhist (23%) or a Hindu (22%).

Atheists, Jews and Mormons each make up roughly 2% of the U.S. population, but a majority of Americans say they know someone who is Jewish (61%) or atheist (59%), while significantly fewer know a Mormon (44%).

One possible explanation may be that the geographic distribution of a group matters as much as its size. A higher percentage of the population in the West – where Mormons and Buddhists are heavily concentrated – know a Mormon (68%) or a Buddhist (36%). Fully 70% of people in the Northeast know someone who is Jewish; not coincidentally, 43% of U.S. Jews live in the Northeast.

All together, the average American personally knows members of at least four of the eight religious groups included in the survey. In general, whites tend to know people in more groups (four) than do blacks (three). And there is a gap between people with a college degree – who know, on average, members of five different religious groups – and those with only a high school diploma or less education, who know someone in an average of three groups. There is virtually no difference, however, between Republicans and Democrats on this measure (four groups each).

We asked the same panel to rate each religious group on a “feeling thermometer” from 0 to 100, with a higher number indicating a warmer, more positive feeling toward that group. While it’s the first time we’ve asked such a question in that way, others – including professors David Campbell and Robert Putnam in their book “American Grace” – have conducted similar studies (with broadly similar results).

In our panel’s answers, we noticed a pattern that holds across all religious groups: Americans who know a member of a group tend to rate that group more positively. For example, among those who know an atheist, the average rating of atheists is 50; among those who don’t know an atheist, it’s 29. And among those who know a Buddhist, the average rating of Buddhists is 70. The comparable rating by those who don’t know a Buddhist is 48.

Overall, Americans express the warmest feelings toward Jews (average rating of 63), Catholics (62) and evangelical Christians (61). They are coolest toward atheists (41) and Muslims (40). Buddhists (53), Hindus (50) and Mormons (48) are in the middle.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/17/how-many-people-of-different-faiths-do-you-know/