I have recently listened to a lot of pundits/brahmins/agents to god. Some of them offer various levels of services (depending on the amount of money you can shell out) to assure moksha for your loved ones. Well, I am not annoyed too much by their greediness. They need to live life too and they are giving you a peace of mind in exchange for money. Its perfect business. But I am much more concerned about the dangerous ideas that they are propagating.
According to Hindu Philosophy, one has to go through "eight hundred and forty thousand" rebirths as different animals and plants before one gets a chance to be human. Everyone gets 4 births as human: shudra (lowest caste only fit for doing cleaning jobs etc), vaishya(businessman), shatriya(warrior and ruling class) and above all a brahmin(devotees of god). If one does not follow the righteous path, he has to again go through the full cycle of 840000 births before getting another shot at being human. And this goes on forever. If however, one does follow the righteous path and prays to god everyday, he gets Moksha. Moksha is a state where you are free from this incessant cycle of birth and death and you live in paradise with God forever.
There seems to be an inherent problem in this philosophy. This assumes that living is painful, and our only aim while living should be to pass a test so that we are not given the punishment of living again. Moksha is a state of absolute happiness, stillness and calm; where nothing happens. Whereas life: life is full of emotions, attachments, pain, hunger; and all this is bad. God gave you life as punishment. You are not actually living. According to this philosophy, nobody is living. All you are doing is paying for all the bad karma you did in your imaginary previous lives.
If one really sincerely believes in this philosophy, will there be a point left in living? Do you really want your society to believe in the futility of living and work for a cause which makes us stop living. What kind of society will that be?
Disclaimer: Hindu philosophy is used in a loose sense based on what is being preached by various brahmins today. There are various sects and branches of Hindu Philosophy which are all different.
According to Hindu Philosophy, one has to go through "eight hundred and forty thousand" rebirths as different animals and plants before one gets a chance to be human. Everyone gets 4 births as human: shudra (lowest caste only fit for doing cleaning jobs etc), vaishya(businessman), shatriya(warrior and ruling class) and above all a brahmin(devotees of god). If one does not follow the righteous path, he has to again go through the full cycle of 840000 births before getting another shot at being human. And this goes on forever. If however, one does follow the righteous path and prays to god everyday, he gets Moksha. Moksha is a state where you are free from this incessant cycle of birth and death and you live in paradise with God forever.
There seems to be an inherent problem in this philosophy. This assumes that living is painful, and our only aim while living should be to pass a test so that we are not given the punishment of living again. Moksha is a state of absolute happiness, stillness and calm; where nothing happens. Whereas life: life is full of emotions, attachments, pain, hunger; and all this is bad. God gave you life as punishment. You are not actually living. According to this philosophy, nobody is living. All you are doing is paying for all the bad karma you did in your imaginary previous lives.
If one really sincerely believes in this philosophy, will there be a point left in living? Do you really want your society to believe in the futility of living and work for a cause which makes us stop living. What kind of society will that be?
Disclaimer: Hindu philosophy is used in a loose sense based on what is being preached by various brahmins today. There are various sects and branches of Hindu Philosophy which are all different.
"Yeh bhog bhi ek tapasya hai
ReplyDeleteTum tyaag ke maaron kya jano"
I don't believe in after life thing. I think Moksha is way to achieve happiness in this life only and there can be numerous ways to achieve it. Some like doing Pooja, for some people paying off their responsibilities is itself a way to happiness and for some people it is achieving their goals. So be happy and make happy and you are in a state of "Moksha" !! :)
ReplyDelete@A: I don't know how bhog can be justified.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous: That is a perfectly valid philosophy to believe in... the problem with after-life is that we have no proof whether it is true or not.
I do not know who told you about the 84 lakhs births and also about the ascending shudra-vyshya-kshatriya-brahmin thing. None of our most revered scriptures mention this as far as I know. There are lot of myths going hand-in-hand with truth in Hindu oral tradition as well as pop culture. We should be careful not to completely disown the faith based on unverified conceptions.
ReplyDeleteYes, I know that the concept of rebirth was introduced in Gita and is not present in Vedas. But, I am not sure where did the figure 840,000 came from.
ReplyDeleteI am not disowning the faith but disowning the ideas being preached as Hinduism these days.
I dont see anything wrong with this philosophy...
ReplyDeleteattaining moksha is sort of a bait for the common hindu to rather live his life in a what you call "righteous manner". Point of living??? is to pass the test. I think it passes for the "point" in living.
ps: am a man of no faith.
Reincarnation is first cited as we know today in the Upanishads (before Gita). And Upanishads are nothing but Vedantha (conclusion of the Vedas).
ReplyDeletehmm ... hinduism never claims life is punishment , its just ur extended interpretation ... it just claims uniting with God a.k.a moksha is better ... and that talk abt other species .. is innate human superiority complex ... initially caste system was not on the basis of birth .. but actions ... brahmins were supposed to live an austere life and lead others through teaching ... but rise in their greed ... caused fall in faith. People tend to reject what they don't understand , like earth being round. And simply there is no way to prove as there is no to disprove it. Maximum what you can do is blow things out of proportion just enough that it starts appearing ridiculous. Karma logic is something we need to believe in as we love to dwell in causality. And as none cud explain events happened only on the basis of actions taken in this life .. they came to concept of previous life. And yes i cannot prove any of the statements made above. Mysteries of this life baffles me enough that i dont seek mysteries beyond it
ReplyDeleteWow what a description about Indian philosophy, it`s the result of poor knowledge, not your mistake.
ReplyDeleteI should recommend that if you really understand this ,you should read about Indian yogi`s. how u can justified this which is came from many years. I think you are next Albert Einstein whose mind power is so great.
A suggestion to understand it go here and read MANAs or SPANDAN it is by gulab Kothari who is a chief editor of patrika:
ReplyDeletehttp://gulabkothari.wordpress.com/