Let’s consider the patent scenario between two religions.  What if religion A adopts the appearance and practices of religion B with the ill intention of deceiving the people of religion B?  What if those practices are deliberate means to convert unsuspecting and ignorant folks of religion B into religion A? One religion can blatantly copy and appropriate characteristics of other without any repercussion. Regrettably between religions, there is no preventive mechanism or laws to discourage such malpractices. And this is what happening in India today. Certain Christian evangelists are unethically and superficially copying many of the practices of Sanatan Dharma to facilitate conversion.

These are not simply isolated events. This is a well established and articulated policy adopted by various branches of Christianity and by the Roman Catholic Church called inculturation where Church teachings are adapted and changed to make them more palatable to non-Christian cultures. The precise definition of this term as listed at Vatican site is following:

The process of inculturation may be defined as the Church’s efforts to make the message of Christ penetrate a given sociocultural milieu, calling on the latter to grow according to all its particular values, as long as these are compatible with the Gospel. The term inculturation includes the notion of growth, of the mutual enrichment of persons and groups, rendered possible by the encounter of the Gospel with a social milieu. ‘Inculturation [is]the incarnation of the Gospel in native cultures and also the introduction of these cultures into the life of the Church.’

Further Vatican site also describes specific efforts required on the part of evangelists to achieve inculturation:

The inculturation of the Gospel in eye modern societies will demand a methodical effort of concerted research and action. This effort will assure on the part of those responsible for evangelization: (1) an attitude of openness and a critical; (2) the capacity to perceive the spiritual expectations and human aspirations of the new cultures; (3) the aptitude for cultural analysis, having in mind an effective encounter with the modern world.

If the purpose of inculturation is not avidly clear from the above references, then following statement from John Paul II describes its purpose without leaving any confusion:

The Church must make itself all things for all men, bringing today’s cultures together with sympathy. There still are milieus and mentalities, as there are entire countries and regions, to evangelize, which supposes a long and courageous process of inculturation so that the Gospel may penetrate the soul of living cultures, respond to their highest expectations and make them grow in the dimension of Christian faith, hope and charity. Sometimes cultures have only been touched superficially and in any case, to continuously transform themselves, they demand a renewed approach. In addition, new areas of culture appear, with diverse objectives, methods and languages.

Herein the Vatican is quite explicit in that the ultimate purpose of the inculturation process is to bring non-Christians who are residing in other cultures into the Christian fold.  There are many such inculturation practices adopted by missionaries in India. 

Christian missionaries in Hindu saint dress

1. Christian Evangelists masquerading as Brahmins, Purohits or Sanyasis adopt Hindu names while wearing saffron outfits.
2. The Christ presented as a yogi is combined with an entire range of missionary subterfuges.
3. Missionaries sing bhajans to Jesus instead of Hindu deities like Rama, Krishna or Shiva by substituting their names with Jesus.
4. Idols of Jesus and Mary are placed side by side with murtis of Hindu deities.
5. A Christian form of Bharat Natyam has been invented leveraging traditional Hindu dance forms as offerings to Jesus.
6. Hindu pillars or stambhas are placed in front of churches in South India to look like Hindu temples.
7. Churches perform arati to Jesus rather than performing the usual Christian rituals.
8. Churches describe their crowd gathering event as satsang which is a Hindu term.
9. Mother Mary is made to resemble Hindu Goddesses in her depictions.
10. Yoga and meditation techniques are copied and presented in desankritized Christian forms.
11. Deliberately misquoting, mistranslating and misinterpreting Hindu scriptures and puranas in an attempt to prove that Jesus was both an avatar of and a Hindu God.

Infant Lord Ganesha with Mary and Jesus depicted in form of Lord Vishnu

One may wonder why evangelists need to operate using such fraud and deceptive practices in the first place. The answer is simple.  If Hindus were aware of their true practices and beliefs beforehand, then they would not entertain their hidden conversion efforts. Hence evangelists temporarily shield Christian practices and beliefs from Hindus until the missionaries are convinced that the unsuspecting conversion targets are ready to accept Jesus as their ‘only savior’.

It is critical to understand the ethicality of such practices by missionaries from the lens of Christianity itself.  For example, Christianity largely opposes idolatry and even considered such ‘pagan’ practices as a ‘radical sin’.  But during the process of inculturation, no such tenets are adhered to by evangelists.  Does this mean that idolatry is now acceptable by followers of Christ the world over?  Christian authorities will certainly not permit this for their flock as these manipulative practices are intended only for luring the unsuspecting locals.

Furthermore, there are major issues with the use of native Hindu practices by missionaries in the first place. This usage constitutes nothing less than appropriation and, in many cases, fraud and cheating. 

Finally, there is the issue of the subversion of original practices of Hinduism.  Many of these practices lose their inherent meaning and value when they are distorted. For instance, the chanting of bhajans without Sanskrit words do not produce the same effect as they do in their original form.

Rajiv Malhotra, prominent Hindu intellectual, elaborates on the long-term impact of the inculturation process on native cultures:

By assuming the mantle of the originators and bearers of universal truths – both sacred and secular – the West has often embarked on and justified programs, missions and schemes to bring the rest of mankind around to its own worldview. I use the metaphors of “tiger” and “deer” to illustrate the process of what I call the “digestion” of one culture by another, carried out under the guise of a desire to assimilate, reduce differences and assert sameness. The key point being made is that the digested culture disappears. This digestion is analogous to the food consumed by a host, in that what is useful gets reformulated into the host’s body, while that which doesn’t quite fit the host’s structure is eliminated as waste.

The post Inculturation and How it is Subverting Hindu Practices in India appeared first on Dharma Today.

In contrast, the rich USA with an area three times the size and only a quarter of India’s population allowed only in 1991 one thousand Tibetan families to enter.

Indians never hesitated to accept those who were in trouble and who wanted to preserve their faith because they did not distinguish between human beings on religious lines. Their attitude was that all belong to one big human family and all have the same divine essence in them. For them “religion” was not an identity but a natural, ideal way of life.

So what happened that nowadays there is a lot of talk that Christians are under attack in India? Have Hindus become intolerant?

No. Hindus have not changed. All the so called attacks on churches which were hyped up recently on many TV channels turned out to have been minor crimes unconnected with “Hindu extremists”. In other countries they would hardly find space in the local paper. Why were they flogged for days on TV channels? Why were Christian spokesmen given plenty of airtime to falsely blame the “Hindu right” and claim that Christians are under attack? There seems to be an agenda by the Churches and it would need to be investigated why so many TV channels obliged.

A smashed glass pane outside one church, a fire due to short circuit in another church, a theft of 8000 Rupees in a convent school, stones thrown by a mixed group of Hindus and Muslim surely don’t warrant hours of hyped coverage.

Yes, there was also the break-in into a convent school in West Bengal, where not only 1,2 million Rupees were stolen but a 72 year old nun was allegedly gang raped.

This was shameful no doubt and this news reached in no time all corners of the world. It fitted well into the image that had already been crafted over the last 2 years – of India as a rapists’ nation. The Vatican radio spoke of India’s shame which went viral on the internet.

It turned out that Bangladeshi Muslims, probably encouraged by the Pakistani secret service, were behind it.

Typically, the media fell silent. The BBC ran a scroll that an arrest has been made in the nun gang rape in India. They didn’t mention that he was a Bangladeshi Muslim. Neither the Vatican, nor the cardinal or the bishop apologized for their wrong, greatly publicized pre-judgment of the case that it was connected with the Hindu re-conversion drive of RSS and VHP.

The campaign of media and Christian representatives against “Hindu extremists” is not likely to end soon. New incidents will come up and the Christian spokesmen will again peddle the “truth” that under Narendra Modi as Prime Minister the Hindus are emboldened to “attack” Christians in hate crimes and that Christians feel helpless and insecure. The TV anchors will continue to prod them: “Do you feel unsafe in India?” and all Christian spokesmen will again reply “Yes” and claim that hate crimes have increased since Modi came to power.

There are other voices, too, who do not take part in this back stabbing of their Hindu brothers and, probably closer to the truth, blame the Christian clergy for trying to sow discord between communities. Yet those Christians, like Robert Rosario or Hilda Raja, are not likely to get an invitation to represent the Christian side, because they wouldn’t further the agenda to portray Hindus in poor light.

Mainstream media has tremendous power to shape opinions. Churches have tremendous financial and political clout. Both obviously cooperate to portray Hindus as intolerant and hateful of other religions – contrary to facts. There is a third power that wants India to get a bad image the world over, at least as bad as its own image is. It is Pakistan. The Sunday Guardian of 21th March exposed that the Pakistani secret service increased its budget six-fold to achieve the goal that India is put into the same bracket with Pakistan on human rights issues and downgraded by the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

This goal has already been achieved in regard to projecting India as a rapist country. In the west, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh are now seen as being on the same level. In fact, India stands out negatively: it is openly thrashed for its ‘anti-women attitude’, while it is politically incorrect to thrash Muslim countries. The German professor who quoted India’s rape culture as reason to reject an Indian shows the huge damage that this false portrayal of India has done.

Unfortunately, India did nothing to put the issue into perspective when the maligning campaign started, and it seems that India again does nothing to prevent an equally damaging, also false perception that Hindus are prone to hate crimes against Christians. Sometimes I wonder whether Indians are even aware how detrimental to India’s image abroad the media campaign has already been.

At least the government, if not the public at large, would know that India is neither in the top league of rape countries, nor are Hindus known for hate crimes and discrimination against members of other religions.

They would know that India has presently a population of 1270 million, and that it is unfair to compare absolute numbers of crimes with other countries. If the crimes that happen in the USA, Canada, in all European countries including Russia plus Australia were added up, then they could be compared with the number of crimes that happen in India. Can the media be made to give a balanced reporting on the issues it takes up? Does anyone remember the hype that media created about AIDS some 20 years ago? “India second only to South Africa” they screamed. Nobody mentioned that India had 1000 and South Africa 50 million inhabitants.

If the media were fair, they would discern that the charge of 160 hate crimes against Christians in the last 10 months, especially when those include theft and a stone thrown by a drunkard, is no reason to shout “Christians don’t feel safe in India”? Why do they play into the hands of the west which will be pleased to get a stick to beat India with?

In England, there were over 1,000 hate crimes only against Jews in the last year. This would equal over 20,000 hate crimes in India if it is put in proportion to the population. In USA, several Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims were killed only because they were Sikhs, Hindus or Muslims. Should the USCIRF not put the US and Europe on its watch list, before it even thinks of condemning India?

There are several indicators that clearly show that Christians are not persecuted in India and are even pampered:

The percentage of Christians keeps increasing. Their places of worship multiply manifold and are free from government interference, unlike Hindu temples. Many Christians are in high positions. Missionaries have the guts to openly declare that they want to plant hundred thousand churches in India and “evangelize the whole country in this generation” (from a Christian youth magazine called “Blessings”). Christians and other minorities are privileged and get special benefits like scholarships, etc. Christians can teach the catechism in their schools to Christian students, while ethic teachers in those schools must not mention Sri Krishna, or Hindu philosophy to Hindu students. Compare this with the situation in Pakistan and it becomes evident that the “operation equal blame” depends entirely on spreading falsehood and manipulating the world opinion.

How to counter this mischievous agenda? Certainly not by going on the defensive and giving special attention to Christians. “Justice for all, appeasement for none” is the way to go. The nun gang rape has been carried to the eight corners of the world as a ‘communal crime’ because the victim was a Christian. How would the kin of a Hindu girl feel who has been raped and maybe even killed by Muslims or Christians, yet neither the media nor even the police take any interest in the case, because it is not communal enough when Hindus are at the receiving end? Crimes need to be treated as crimes and religion should be out of consideration.

Hindus have no reason to be defensive. Spokesmen are dishonest when they claim that Christian are unsafe in India. It will be difficult to find any other country where Christians in minority are as safe and pampered, as among Hindus. If someone needs to be on the defensive, it is the Christian clergy and they may know it. Maybe that is the reason why they act as bullies in tune with the dictum ‘attack is the best defense’. They will stop playing the bully only when they perceive their opponent as strong.

Strength here doesn’t mean to bully back. It simply means to be clear, stick to truth and stick to dharma. It also means not to be afraid to point out the adharmic, divisive aspects in Christianity.

We live in the 21st century when science has discovered that there are different levels to reality. The apparent variety in this universe is based on uniform oneness. Our deepest essence is made of the same stuff, as it were. The Indian rishis knew this, ages ago. Where then is there place for a huge fire where billions or maybe trillions of heathens will burn for eternity after the Day of Judgment?

What is more of a hate crime: when a stone is thrown at a church by a drunkard or when respected clergy declare without any proof that Hindus are damned to eternal hellfire if they don’t become a member of the Church, and when they brainwash Christian children to believe this? Will TV anchors be outraged at such discriminatory, baseless allegation which can lead to real hate crimes? Will Hindus (and other heathen like Buddhists, atheists, etc.) demand an answer from the Churches?

Christians who originally came as refugees, and later went berserk during the Goan Inquisition, are now on a well-planned mission with huge funds from the west to change the broad-minded attitude of Hindus from “We revere ALSO Jesus” to a narrow-minded “We revere ONLY Jesus”?

Contempt and intolerance for other religions is inbuilt in Christianity. Its goal is clear: all must follow Christ. Hinduism must disappear. If they say something else in Interfaith Dialogues, it is deception. The spread of Christianity is not in India’s interest. It is not in humanity’s interest either.

Hinduism unlike Christianity and Islam, has no agenda and never had an agenda to wipe out other religions. In India, there always were innumerable paths to the one truth. It is India’s job not only to honour their valuable heritage and educate their own people and the world about it, but also prevent their people from being deceived, threatened or allured by unfair means to a divisive ideology.

The Churches don’t succeed anymore to enforce belief in unreasonable dogmas among Christians in the west, yet their financial and political power is mind boggling. They have plenty of funds to defame Hindus and Hinduism the world over. India is no equal in this fight, as most of her own media seems to have switched sides.

Maybe the Prime Minister himself needs to point out on his visit to Europe that Christian Churches are on a massive conversion spree in India because they have this strange and baseless notion that otherwise Hindus go to hell. They should relax. Hindus won’t go to hell. Most Europeans will agree with him.

However, I don’t know how much damage the media campaign “Christians are under attack” has already done. I just checked with a cousin in Germany. Yes, he heard already that there were attacks on Christians in India…

(reposted from https://mariawirthblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/christians-are-not-under-attack-in-india/)

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One is automatically disowned by the church under such circumstances.

This becomes a classic case that demonstrates the difference between Dharma and Religion; the latter a creation of invading forces post 1st century and Dharma that has a itihasa of more than 30,000 years.

The followers of Christ claim that if you are not Christian and don’t follow Jesus you go to hell. Which means if your mother is not a devotee of Jesus, the follower has to choose Jesus over the former as the mother ‘deserves’ to go to hell. This is precisely what the Church means by denying burial to the actress’ grandmother. Compare this to the great Vishnu bhakta, Prahlada, who was terrorized by his anti-dharmic father, King Hiranykashipu, an asura. On his deathbed, when Prahalada was asked by Sri Narasimha (an avatara of Vishnu) for a boon, he requested Bhagawan to liberate his father from this life to ensure he can be reborn to perform karma yoga again.

Within our Dharmic (now known as Hindu) tradition, the dead have a greater chance of getting a fair deal. Our spiritual texts determine the last rites of the dead not by their actions (karma) but as a necessary ritual for the soul to be reborn. Notably, if the cremation of a relative, however adharmic or immoral he may be, is not done, it is a matter of deep indignity as well as accumulation of negative karma for the relative. The Dharmic code of conduct deems denial of final rites of a deceased relative abdication of one primordial duty. Several instances from our इतिहसा (history not mythology as the Indologist mafia and their brown sepoys like Devdutt Pattnaik have decided) indicate this profound philosophy.

Sri Rama, after the death of Ravana, asked Vibhishana to perform his brother’s last rites, despite Ravana being his enemy, a rakasa, and indulging in all sinful deeds. Interestingly, Ravana was not only a great Brahmin scholar as also a great devotee of Shiva.

Notwithstanding the atrocities perpetrated against him and his family, Yudhishthira Maharaja without any ill feeling ensured that Dhritharasthra had enough resources to perform the ceremonies for his dead sons.

Shahajan’s son, the tyrannical Aurangzeb not only imprisoned his father but denied him all that he desired in in his last days. He was not allowed to even get water from the Yamuna, a river he was very fond of. Shahajahan’s famous statement to his son exemplifies this great difference between following Dharma as in Bharat and seeking power through conquest as in Christianity and Islam. He exhaled,

My dear son, you don’t provide water even to your living father, and see the Hindus they offer water even to their dead ancestors.

When the great Maratha general, Shivaji killed the barbarian Afzal Khan, his body was not thrown away. He was given the burial based on Islamic traditions though he did not deserve that respect. This clearly reveals the depth of Shivaji’s सम्स्करा (value system). Unfortunately many foolish Hindus go to worship his burial place as if it is tirthasthal like they do with Aurangzeb, Akbar, and Babar today. This was also shown in Farhan Akthar’s beautiful film Lakshya in the debate our soldiers have with their leader Amitabh Bachhan on why should the Pakistani Army’s dead soldiers be buried with respect.

Significantly, the entire Gita is based on Arjuna’s primordial question of the significance of last rites for the living.

This is the Dharmic way, the Bharatiya Way.

The post The Right to Final Rites appeared first on Dharma Today.

Where is the Cultural Identity

First, these people have a problem only with ‘Hindu’ India, but not with ‘Muslim’ or ‘Christian’ countries. Germany for example, is a secular country and 59 percent of the population are registered with the Protestant and Catholic Churches. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, recently stressed the Christian roots of Germany and urged the population ‘to go back to Christian values’ Two major political parties, including Angela Merkel’s ruling party, carry ‘Christian’ in their name. Government agencies collect Church tax (8% of the income tax) and pass it on to Churches.

Germans are not agitated that Germany is called a Christian country, though I actually would understand if they were. After all, the history of the Church is appalling. The so-called success story of Christianity depended greatly on tyranny.

“Convert or die”, were the options given to the indigenous population of America some 500 years ago. In Germany, 1200 years ago, Emperor Karl the Great decreed death for refusal of baptism in his newly conquered realms. Heresy was put down with an iron hand. In the Nuremberg castle prison, one can see the torture instruments and chamber that were used during the inquisition.

Second, Hinduism is in a different category from the Abrahamic religions. Compared to Christianity and Islam, its history is undoubtedly the least violent as it spread by convincing arguments and not force. Hinduism is not a system that demands blind belief in dogmas and the suspension of one’s intelligence, but encourages using one’s intelligence to the hilt. Ancient rishis enquired into truth, discovered universal laws and showed how to live life in an ideal way. Hinduism comprises a huge body of ancient literature, covering Dharma and philosophy, music, architecture, dance, science, astronomy, economics, politics, among others. If any other western country had this kind of literary treasure, they would have proudly highlighted its greatness at every opportunity!

We Germans have to be content with one ‘ancient’ epic “Nibelungenlied’ which was written around the13th century and probably refers to incidents around 400 AD. That is how far back ‘antiquity’ reaches in Europe. Naturally Westerners consider the existence of Sri Krishna and Sri Rama as myths. How could they acknowledge a civilization much more ancient and refined than their own?

Is Indian Tradition any inferior?

Inexplicably, Indians cater to western arrogance and ignorance by downplaying and even denying their tradition. There is a “Copernicus Marg’ in New Delhi but Indian children are not taught in school that thousands of years before Westerners ‘discovered’ it, the Rg Veda mentions that the earth is round and goes around the sun . (Rg 10.22.14)

When I read some Upanishads, I was stunned at the profundity. Brahman is not partial; it is the invisible, indivisible essence in everything. Everyone repeatedly gets the opportunity to discover the ultimate truth and is free to choose his way back to it. Methods are given but not imposed!  In my early days in India, I thought that every Indian knew and valued his tradition. Soon I realized that I was wrong!

A western colonized mindset

The British colonial masters have been successful in not only weaning away many of the elite from their ancient tradition but also making them despise it. That the ‘educated’ class could no longer read the original Sanskrit texts and believed what the British told them helped. This lack of knowledge and the brainwashing by the British education system is the reason why many ‘modern’ Indians are against anything ‘Hindu’. They don’t realize the difference between western religions that have to be believed (or at least professed) blindly, and which discourage, if not forbid, their adherents to think on their own and the multi-layered Hindu Dharma which gives freedom and encourages using one’s intelligence.

Most do not realize that on one hand, Westerners, especially those who dream to impose their own religion on this vast country, will applaud them for denigrating Hindu Dharma, because this helps western universalism to spread in India. On the other hand, many Westerners, including Church people, know the real value and surreptitiously appropriate insights from the vast Indian knowledge system, drop the original source and present it either as their own or make it look as if these insights had been known in the west.

If missionaries denigrated Hindu Dharma, it would not be so bad, as they clearly have an agenda. But sadly, many Indians assist them because they wrongly believe that Hinduism is inferior to western religions. They belittle everything Hindu instead of getting thorough knowledge. As a rule, they know little about their tradition except what the British told them, i.e. the major features are caste system and idol worship. They don’t realize that India would gain, not lose, if they solidly backed its profound and all inclusive Hindu tradition.

Hindu civilization is gradually being depleted of its valuable, exclusive assets. The Dalai Lama said that as a youth in Lhasa, he had been deeply impressed by the richness of Indian thought. “India has great potential to help the world,” he added.

Now then the question arises- When will the westernized Indian elite realize it?

(reposted from https://mariawirthblog.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/when-germany-is-christian-is-india-hindu/)

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