Hinduism

I wanted to write a blog on hinduism for a long time. After reading the article by Nita on Hindusim, I got interest to write it immediately.

Hinduism is not a religion. It is actually called as Sanathana Dharma. Sanathana Dharma is a set of rules, culture, and about life beyond birth and death, etc. It does not contain the words Hindu, or Hinduism. Whoever were following Sanathana Dharma were called as Hindus by Arabs, because they were living on the other side of Sindhu river.

All the scriptures in Sanathana Dharma are compiled/written by Veda Vyasa (Except Ramayana, which was written by Valmiki). It contains, 4 Vedas, 18 Puranas, 18 sub-puranas, 108 Upanishads, 2 Ithihasas (Mahabharath, and Ramayana). This contains entire Sanathana dharma. There is no other scripture that belongs to this. However there are other books that we have to read to understand these scriptures (like Vyakarana, Jyothishya etc.). But, they do not belong to the scriptures of Sanathana Dharma. Nothing else belongs to Sanathana Dharma.

Sanathana Dharma is NOT a religion. It just says what you should do, and the punishments that you will get, if you don't do those things. There is nothing like one belongs to this or not. It is just that whether one follows that or not.

The question, "Whether Mr/Ms.X is accepted in Hinduism or not?" does not have any meaning. There is nothing like some one belongs to Hinduism or not. It is just that whether someone follows those rules or not. If any so-called brahmin does not accept this, I would like him/her to point out the correct scriptural reference from any of the above scriptures. The present caste-system is not supported by Sanathana Dharma, and that is another big topic.

Few centuries back, when muslim kings were demolishing all the temples, at that time, many leaders of Hindu religion established few principles to protect the temples, and culture. One of those principles was, not allowing non-hindus into the temple. It was required to protect the temples at that time. But, the present temple administrators, and priests are still following those rules established for a completely different reason.

Temples in Puri, Udupi, Guruvayur, and Srirangam do not allow non-hindus, or non-indians. If a rational person enters into Puri temple, they will never like to go there again, and will get very bad impression on Hinduism. The priests in those temple are destroying hinduism in all possible ways, and many people are thinking that, what they are doing is hinduism. And they are getting very bad impression on Hinduism. Many people do not know that, 90% of the priests in all the big temples are the actual destroyers of the Hinduism.

As Ankur pointed out in the comment to Nita's article, the only way to cleanse the puri temple is by demolishing the entire premises. I completely agree with Ankur. It is better not to have a temple which is spoiling, degrading, and giving bad publicity to Hinduism.

By the way, eventhough I am a hard-core spiritual person, I can hardly count how many times I went to a non-ISKCON temple in the last 5 years. I am fed up with the money-demands, useless rules, mis-interpretations of the scriptures and many other things in the temples.

I hope people will not take those big temples as the authority of Hinduism, and appreciate the philosophy of real Hinduism.