8-17-2009

Dr. Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975) the great British historian:

His massive research was published in 12 volumes between 1934 and 1961 as `A Study of History'. Author of several books, including Christianity: Among the Religions of the World and One World and India. Toynbee was a major interpreter of human civilization in the 20th century.

'It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation is the ancient Hindu way. Here we have the attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together in to a single family. So now we turn to India.

This spiritual gift, that makes a man human, is still alive in Indian souls. Go on giving the world Indian examples of it. Nothing else can do so much to help mankind to save itself from destruction.

'This is a hard saying for adherents of the higher religions of the Judaic family (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), but it is a truism for Hindus. The spirit of mutual good-will, esteem, and veritable love ... is the traditional spirit of the religions of the Indian family. This is one of India's gifts to the world. At the close of this century, the world would be dominated by the West, but that in the 21st century "India will conquer her conquerors." 

Let us all remember the time Toynbee was talking about India. Now it is time that we talk about Hindu India rather than India. The present India can't even say the word Hindu any more. Lord Rama did not exist according to the Indian government. Eighteen percent of minorities in India rule the country making Hindus the second class citizens. In fact more than 40 percent of government positions are occupied by non-Hindus. The Congress government is bent on destroying the Hindu religion by grabbing , selling and encroaching Hindu temple lands; distributing the sacred lands for so called poor to be occupied late by politicians, using temple money to send Christians and muslims to their sacred places such as Mecca, Vatican and other places; destroying Hindu Temples, allowing encroachments and defying court orders.

The secular government and it's officials deceive people by making them think that they are Hindu by putting Bindu on their foreheads while in fact practicing Christianity. During elections, they put Bindu on their forehead, campaign in the villages, and go to Temples and offer prayers. So called minorities get special privileges in the areas of education, employment, promotions, housing allotments etc, denying the meritorious Hindu students to their rightful place.

Hindu must recognize that they are part of the time tested, rich Hindu traditions - the only religion that withstood the onslaught of Muslims and Christians till now. They should feel proud of their religion, should identify themselves as such, learn more about their own culture, be ambassadors of their own religion, challenge the narrow mindedness of other religions, talk about the freedom of religions, and advocate virtues of living in peace and prosperity.  Now is the time to fight for their survival and survival of their own religions.  If we do not engage in this monumental task, human race will end up in destruction as predicted by Arnold Toynbee.

Please read the article in NEWSWEEK about Hindu way of living in USA.  I hope that secular government would not ban the NEWSWEEK for glorifying Hindu principles and tolerance. It is doubtful whether media would even cover this news item.

We Are All Hindus Now
By Lisa Miller, NEWSWEEK
Aug 31, 2009

http://www.newsweek.com/id/212155

America is not a Christian nation. We are, it is true, a nation founded by Christians, and according to a 2008 survey, 76 percent of us continueto identify as Christian (still, that's the lowest percentage inAmerican history). Of course, we are not a Hindu-or Muslim, or Jewish, or Wiccan-nation, either. A million-plus Hindus live in the United States, a fraction of the billion who live on Earth. But recent poll data show that conceptually, at least, we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, our selves, each other, and eternity.

The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: "Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names." A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur'an is another, yogapractice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional, conservative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me."

Americans are no longer buying it. According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life"-including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people
who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing. Thirty percent of Americans call themselves "spiritual, not religious," according to a 2009 NEWSWEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has long framed the American
propensity for "the divine-deli-cafeteria religion" as "very much in the spirit of Hinduism. You're not picking and choosing from different religions, because they're all the same," he says. "It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great-and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that's great, too."

Then there's the question of what happens when you die. Christians traditionally believe that bodies and souls are sacred, that together they comprise the "self," and that at the end of time they will be reunited in the Resurrection. You need both, in other words, and you need them forever. Hindus believe no such thing. At death, the body burns on a pyre, while the spirit-where identity resides-escapes. In reincarnation, central to Hinduism, selves come back to earth again and again in different bodies. So here is another way in which Americans are becoming more Hindu: 24 percent of Americans say they believe in reincarnation, according to a 2008 Harris poll. So agnostic are we about the ultimate fates of our bodies that we're burning them-like
Hindus-after death. More than a third of Americans now choose cremation, according to the Cremation Association of North America, up from 6 percent in 1975. "I do think the more spiritual role of religion tends to deemphasize some of the more starkly literal interpretations of the Resurrection," agrees Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion at Harvard.

So let us all say "om."

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