29 Dec 2015
Dr. Nikhil asked: What are the various main misunderstood interpretations in Hinduism?
Shri Swami replied:
1) Unimaginable God:
a) This is a misunderstanding in all the religions including Hinduism. This space, which is subtle energy, is infinite. This infinity is not the absolute inherent characteristic of the space. It means that the space is not infinite by itself. The space is generated from the unimaginable God. If you reach the boundary of the space, you touch God like touching the soil on reaching the boundary of the ocean. You cannot touch or imagine God. This is the reason for the infinity of the space. Thus space is relatively infinite.
b) Take the case of a stream of smoke coming from the fire. If you travel in the smoke, after some time, you can touch the fire. The stream of the smoke is finite because on reaching the boundary of the smoke, you can touch the imaginable fire. On contrary, you cannot reach the boundary of smoke (space) if the fire (God) is unimaginable. Hence, the finite or infinity of the space depends on the imaginable or unimaginable nature of God respectively. The infinity of space is not its characteristic, but, is due to the unimaginable nature of its generator, the God.
c) The constant expansion of the universe also speaks the same. As you travel along the universe, it expands so that you cannot reach its boundary and touch the unimaginable God. By this, the constant expansion is again relatively justified i.e., with respect to the unimaginable God. The constant expansion is not the absolute phenomenon of the universe, but, it is a relative phenomenon since the aim of the expansion is only to see that you should not touch the boundary of universe or God.
d) The space cannot exist in God since the product (space) cannot exist in its cause (God) before its generation. If the space exists in God even before its generation, it means the generation of space becomes meaningless. Anything is said to be generated, if it is absent before its generation. This means that the space and hence, the spatial dimensions do not exist in God and hence can never be imagined. The unimaginable nature is, thus, justified.
e) The unimaginable God proves Himself by performing unimaginable events called miracles. You cannot discard a genuine miracle as magic. Even if you discard miracles, the infinite space with unimaginable boundary stands as the solid proof for the concept of existence of unimaginable nature indicating the existence of unimaginable God.
f) The bending of space along the boundary of object proves that space is something (subtle energy) and not nothing. Hence, generation of space becomes a logical concept since something can be only generated and nothing cannot be generated.
2) Gayatri:
a) Gayatri means the divine song on God, which brings the grace of God for our protection. This is the root meaning.
b) Gayatri is not a Vedic hymn, which is composed in a specific meter called Gayatri. The meter is named as Gayatri without its application of root meaning. Hence, the Vedic hymn in the Gayatri meter is not at all Gayatri.
c) Any devotional song on God is Gayatri and every human being is eligible to sing a devotional song on God.
d) Hence, it is foolish to say that Gayatri is prohibited to certain castes.
e) It is doubly foolish to say that the ladies are not eligible for Gayatri. In fact, the ladies with their sweet voice singing devotional songs are really eligible for the real Gayatri.
f) The misunderstood Vedic hymn called as Gayatri, prescribed only to certain castes brought splits in Hinduism.
g) No injustice was done to any caste from the beginning of the creation since every human being is eligible for the real Gayatri. The initiation of Vedic hymn called Gayatri through holy thread (Upanayanam) is not necessary to all the human beings because all the human beings are eligible for the real Gayatri.
3) Yajna or sacrifice:
a) The fire is of three types: wooden fire (loukika agni), electricity (vaidyuta agni) and the burning hunger in the stomach (devata agni or vaishvaanara agni).
b) The first two types of fire are used (Yajna Sadhanam) for cooking the food by heating with the ghee. The third type of fire is in a hungry person (Aham Vaishvaanaro... Gita), which should be served (Yajna Upaasyam). The cooked food with ghee should be submitted to the hungry person and such submission is called as Yajna or Homa. The ghee fried food is the best and hence the submission of such food is the best practical service.
c) Ghee also means the food fried with ghee. When two items are associated, one item represents the other. A person carrying apples is called as 'apples'. Ghee is misunderstood as the direct ghee only. The third type of fire is misunderstood as the wooden fire. Both these misunderstandings resulted in burning ghee directly in the wooden fire causing pollution, which stops rains.
d) Agni means the spiritual preacher as said in the first hymn of the first Veda (Agnimeele...). The word Agni comes from Agri (first), which means that the spiritual preacher must be worshipped in the beginning by serving the special ghee fried food and this is the real Homa to Agni.
e) Deities are said to eat through the mouth of Agni, which is mouth of the spiritual preacher in Whom all the deities reside as per the Veda (Yaavateervai...). This is again misunderstood and food or ghee is burnt in wooden fire.
f) Practical sacrifice of wealth in the form of food is considered to be the real service for which alone the divine fruit appears. Based on this point, cooking and serving the food to hungry people was considered to be the most important sacrifice and hence almost all the volume of the Veda speaks about such sacred practical sacrifice.
Veda Means Knowledge Studied By Knowing Meanings
4) Blind recitation of the Veda:
a) The Veda itself means studying the spiritual knowledge composed of Pravrutti and Nivrutti. The word Adhyayana also means to know the knowledge. Hence, the Vedadhyayana means to understand the spiritual knowledge from the Veda and not blind recitation of the Veda without knowing its meaning.
b) In the ancient times, the printing technology was absent and the Veda has to be preserved through recitation only. Hence, the recitation was also done apart from studying its knowledge. Moreover, the preservation of the Veda through recitation avoids the additions and deletions by certain crooked human beings to bring wrong knowledge. Today, the printing technology is developed and the Veda is printed. Additions and deletions are not possible. Therefore, there is no need of blind recitation and all the time should be spent in studying the Vedic knowledge by the student in the present schools of the Veda.
c) Blind recitation of scriptures is not done in other religions also like Christianity, Islam etc. This is the wise and correct tradition avoiding wastage of time in blind recitation. The same tradition should be followed in Hinduism.
d) The scriptures are in their mother tongues in the case of other religions. Unfortunately, in Hinduism, the scripture is in Sanskrit and very few only know Sanskrit. Either all the Hindus should learn Sanskrit or read the translated Vedas in their mother tongue. When the meaning of the recited scripture is not known at all, the scripture is no more the Veda because the Veda means knowledge studied by knowing the meanings of the words.
5) Untouchable:
a) The Veda and the Gita speak about four castes only created by God and there is no fifth caste created by God, which is untouchable. The untouchable caste is formed by the union of boycotted sinners from all the four castes. It is like boycotting a student from the school for the sake of the reformation and not for revenge.
b) The sins like killing the helping animals like cows, buffaloes, bulls, etc., for food is the greatest sin since the Government does not kill a retired employee! Hence, the concept of untouchable is only to reform the person by diverting from the sin and it has no any other meaning. This is misinterpreted and an untouchable is treated permanently untouchable extending the concept even to their further generations!
c) Shabari was from untouchable caste. The Lord ate the fruits bitten by her! She was the only lady selected leaving all the Brahmin sages to go to the abode of God with the alive body!!
Genes Transmit Certain Mannerisms And Not Talents
6) Caste System:
a) The caste system is based on the qualities and related actions only and is not based on the birth. The birth gives only the address of a person that one is born in the caste of Brahmins though he may not be a Brahmin by qualities and actions. Ravana is a Brahmin by birth and not a Brahmin by qualities and actions. Rama is a non-Brahmin by birth but a Brahmin by qualities and actions. Respect is always linked to the qualities and actions. The Gita says that the caste system was established by God purely based on qualities and actions only (Chaaturvarnyam...) and is never based on birth.
b) People say that the Veda says that a Brahmin is born from the face of God (Brahmanosya...). This is the wrong interpretation. The right meaning is that a Brahmin stands as the face of the society leading it by spiritual knowledge.
c) Of course, a child born in a caste will acquire the talents and knowledge of that caste due to influence of the surrounding atmosphere. This should not be attributed to the genes since genes transmit only certain mannerisms and not the talents. A child acquiring talents due to the surrounding atmosphere is misunderstood as acquiring the talents through blood (genes) by birth. The real reason (acquiring talents from surrounding atmosphere) is hidden and the false reason (acquiring talents by birth through blood-genes) is projected in its place and this resulted in the split of the unity of Hindu religion.
d) In the beginning of the creation, those human beings, who were interested in the propagation of spiritual knowledge, were called as Brahmins. A person is not born as the stamped Brahmin from God. In course of time, their children also achieved the talent in the profession due to the effect of surrounding atmosphere. Therefore, there was no unjust partiality in the beginning and in course of time.
e) Certain castes eligible to recite Gayathri hymn were not favoured in any way since the ladies of the same caste were not given that chance. In fact, such chance is not at all a favour since the real Gayathri is only to sing the devotional song on God, which was universal to all the castes. Not only the caste system by birth is meaningless to give respect but also the blame of ancient sages showing partiality in the caste system is baseless.
7) Kundalini and Chakras in Yoga:
a) The Chakras are misunderstood as the lotus flowers existing in the spinal cord and Kundalini was thought to be a serpent sleeping in the first chakra. A chakra is a whirlpool representing illusion of a specific worldly bond in which the Kundalini should not be stuck and should pass on. Kundalini means the awareness, which is nervous energy travelling in the form of waves like a serpent. The awareness should not be attracted by the scent of the lotus flower and should not be caught in the whirlpool or chakra to be stuck there itself. The five chakras are related to the five elements representing gradually mother, father, wife, children and guiding preachers in the ascending order. The sixth is mind and the seventh (Sahasraara) is the intelligence.
b) Your attention or awareness should cross all the worldly bonds and finally should fix in the intelligence through analytical knowledge and confirmation on God. Leaving this essence, people are carried away by the misinterpreted yoga with an illusion to get the miraculous powers. Such powers can be attained only by the grace of God in the service of the spiritual society.
c) Yoga is misunderstood as doing certain physical exercises and doing the exercise of breathing, following meditation of some imaginable form by force and finally ending in unconscious state called Samadhi. All this is done to get miraculous powers. The real concept of the Veda is to equally enjoy the happiness and unhappiness in this world and to maintain the continuous bliss like God constantly enjoying the world.
8) Incarnations:
a) The human being must always catch the contemporary human incarnation, which is relevant to the humanity. This is not done due to repulsion between common media. Due to the same reason, after death also, the soul in energetic body repels with the energetic incarnation of God in the upper world. Thus the loss is now here as well as afterwards there and thus everywhere and forever.
b) Due to ego and jealousy, the relevant human incarnation is misunderstood as an ordinary human being and the irrelevant energetic incarnation is always worshipped. The repulsion between common media is very powerful due to which even a servant-soul (Indra) in energetic body is worshipped by the human beings (Yadavaas) neglecting God in the human body (Krishna).
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