The myth of Surya's Deva's sudden change of views

A few of my enemies(recent enemies and long time enemies) have accused me of doing a 180 degree turn and gone the exact opposite way against my previous views and convinctions, such as my view of Hinduism. I have been accused of changing suddenly and dramatically and this has been likened to some kind of psychosis by Sarva and his expert friend who has a background in psychology(lol) Well, in my long standing tradition of supporting and demonstrating the truth of my arguments, I will show in this thread how this is false by quoting my old posts before I went to India.

On Puranic Hinduism:

I have always had a problem with Puranic Hinduism, idol worship and superstition within HInduism and called for its eradication. Here is your proof:

07-23-2010, 11:48 AM
Yoga is a secular branch of Hinduism and is not affiliated to any Hindu god or goddess tradition. They all appear later on in the puranic period, prior to that Hinduism only believes in an impersonal god called Brahman or ishvara
Hinduism is defined by its philosophy not by the gods and goddesses present within it. This is why it is possible to meet Hindu atheists.
http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=32622&postcount=16

09-17-2010, 02:49 PM
Christianity resembles the Puranic phase of Hinduism. Which is also full of mythology, and horrendous stories, to convey messages. The difference is, we know they are mythology and they are not authorative texts in Hinduism. The Vedas are. I personally am not a fan of the Puranas, they were necessary to teach the masses Vedic philosophy in a decadent age(Kali yuga) but we are once again in a scientific age, so we can do away with all the mythology and go back to how Vedic philosophy was taught in Vedic times. Though pure philosophy and Yoga.

This is why Christianity, Islam and Puranic Hinduism needs to go off this planet. To make way for Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Sufism, Vedanta, Buddhism and Quantum mysticism. In other words spirituality.

But this requires people in their religions to do the responsible thing and discard the obsolete and regressive parts of their religion.

10-17-2010, 05:05 PM
Here is why Hare Krishna is considered a sect of Hinduism and not an actual religion itself.

Hinduism simply refers the Vedic religion. The Vedic religion has existed in two phases 1) Vedic phase where there were no temples, no pantheon of gods(in Vedic times they were devas, not separate gods, and the devas were understood to be powers within nature) and no concept of avatars. This was during the period of Sat/krita yuga where people use to go to gurukuls and learn Vedic knowledge under the guru and meditate 2) Puranic phase this is during the period of the Kaliyuga where the temples sprang up, the Puranas were composed and various sects were created to worship a pantheon of many gods. The main gods being: Vishnu(Vaishnavism) Shiva(Shivaism) Shakti(Shaktism).

But irrespective of this beating at the heart of eact sect of Hinduism was the philosophy of Vedanta. This considers the true god to be Brahman who is without name, form, attributes - called Nirguna Brahman. And god with name, form and attribute is called Sadguna Brahman. So it did not really matter ultimately whether you took your Sadguna Brahman to be Vishnu, Shiva or Shakti. It is for this reason why no conflict took place between the various sects in Hinduism, because everybody recognised ultimately everybody was worshipping the same god.

The HK is a sub-sect of Vaishnavism. They reject Nirguna Brahman and take Sadguna Brahman in the form of Krishna to be the true god. They are literalists, they interpret scripture and literally and really believe the way Krishna is depicted is how god really looks. They believe the events in the Puranas as literal and the descriptions within it to be real. Such as believing that the planets are a certain distance from the earth as the puranas say and that the earth floats in the ocean on the back of tortoise.

They are of course very different from other Hindu sects, and most Hindus themselves want to disown them lol, but they are still a sect of Hinduism(a sect of a sect)
http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=40170&postcount=19

01-04-2011, 08:12 PM
Yeah, and two wrongs have never made a right. You don’t ignore wrong things just because there are wrong things elsewhere too, you put what is wrong right.

This is what we are doing by pointing out how barbaric the OT part of the bible is and how the OT should be removed from the bible. How is this different from my insistance that the Bhakti and Puranic Hinduism should be removed from Hinduism.

We should strive towards something which is faultless and free of error. Why tolerate faults and errors? First, let us begin with the most severe of faults and errors in religion and that is Christianity and Christian ideology that rules this world. Let us purge this world of that errorneous ideology and replace it with what is right. The future generations of humans will thank us for it.
http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=46728&postcount=109

My current views:

is interesting to note that as soon as the idea of god is given to the masses they immediately start making images. Incidentally, it is during this Puranic phase of Hinduism that India was ravaged by invasions. Invasions had happened before the common era as well, such as the Greeks and Persians, but India was organized and strong enough to repulse them. Now, India was highly fragmented, and soon fell prey to various invasions from the Huns, the Arabs, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French, the English.

Like Christianity bought about a dark age for Europe. Puranic Hinduism bought a dark age for the Indian subcontinent. Now let us literally look at why Puranic Hinduism is the most stupidest religion in the world

This Sanatana dharma has informed the evolution of Hinduism. Hinduism has remained closer to the spirit and ideal of Sanatana dharma during the Vedic age, where Hinduism was predominantly abstract and the main practice was the original Vedic practice of contemplation, meditation and self inquiry, but then became corrupted over time declining into the primitive and superstitious form of Puranic Hinduism(where the traditions of Vaishnavism, Shiavism and Shaktism emerged) characterized by the rise in idol worship and fragmentation into various sects and denominations, and further deteriorated into barbaric and backwards practices. It was during these times that India was ravaged by invasions, which ironically were by people who were against such practices.

The Puranic and Bhakti phase of Hinduism is basically reverting to old ritualism mentality that the Upanishads rose against and ended. The rituals in the Vedic age were simple fire sacrifices, but the rituals in the Puranic age became overly complicated and bizarre ringing the bell x amount of times, going around the temple x amount of time, fasting for x amount of days, going up and down the steps on to the temple x amount of time, feeding food and milk to statues. The practices have become increasingly bizarre and vary from sect to sect

The intellectual and spiritual temper of the Upanishads which lead to such a brilliant intellectual and prosperous culture in early India, was replaced by the sentimental, fairy-tale and childish temper of the Puranas, and since then India has gone downhill, ravaged by invasions, steeped into superstition, hypocrisy and caste system.

On Hinduism as science more than a religion:

I have never really considered Hinduism a religion, though have been forced to refer to it as a religion because of conventional language. I have made clear though on several occasions Hinduism is not really a religion, but more so a science and philosophy. Here is your proof:

07-13-2010, 06:31 PM
I covered this point already in another thread. Hinduism is not a religion, it is a spiritual science and philosophy. Its authentic name is “Santana dharma” meaning the eternal law and principles of the universe. Those principles are dharma, karma, reincarnation and yoga.

Hinduism has no particular deity, no particular founder, no particular scripture, no particular code of laws and no particular way. It is clearly not a religion as we understand religion.
http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=32047&postcount=4

09-15-2010, 10:24 PM
Hinduism is simply the perennial science and philosophy, every enlightened person anywhere in the universe knows this, but they are not using any secetarian labels. I see myself as both spiritual and Hindu. That is because I understand that the Hindu religion is an eternal religion because it is pure spirituality(science of existence) but the name “Hindu” does not matter at all. It is obviously not called that on other planets. However, by identifying with the label “Hindu” I am showing my allegiance to the eternal religion and my intention to spread it and protect it.

http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=37840&postcount=15

04-15-2011, 11:45 PM
If religion is understood as faith and a set of dogmas, then Hinduism most definitely cannot be a religion. Many say, and I was reading the abstract of an article in the Oxford University press echoing the same, that Hinduism as a religion is a modern colonial invention. In order to understand dharmic culture more coherently the West had to classify it under their framework, but later Western scholars of Hinduism would actually find this classification to be highly controversial, because Hinduism does not fit any of the major categories of religion, philosophy or science neatly. In fact the tradition itself does not have an equivalent words or concepts for these Western categories. The closest are: dharma for religion, but dharma means way/essential nature or order of something; darshana for philosophy, but darshana means a viewpoint or vision of reality; and the closest to science is vidya, but vidya means any kind of systematic knowledge including metaphysics and spirituality. Moreover, the Indian scientific method is a pure epistemology and not exclusively empirical.

Thus the question needs to be posed do we really need this term Hinduism when it is proving to be so problematic and become a liability for Hindus today or must we keep it to ensure that we retain our cultural integrity?

http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=57706&postcount=1

05-18-2011, 10:40 PM
Hinduism is santana dharma it is universal. I have no doubt in my mind that civilisations on other planets are also practicing it. This is because Hinduism is nothing more than spirituality raised to the level of a science. This is in short what Vedic dharma is all about:

  1. Know the fundamental and absolute reality that is underlying all by delving into your being
  2. Gain control of your senses and mind and enlighten your intellect
  3. Enoble yourself and enoble others by serving the world selflessly and doing good deeds - think nobe thoughts, speak noble things and do noble things
  4. Live in harmony with dharma

http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=61422&postcount=31

05-19-2011, 09:13 PM
I just had an epiphany - and I will share it before I retired to bed - and I’ll let you know if it remains the next day:

Hinduism, which refers to what the British classified as a religion, is not the equivalent of Vedic dharma. I have known for this for a while, but insisted that Hinduism was just the foreign term for the Vedic religion. I know realise my folly(well at least at this hour) that to call Vedic dharma religion is to force oneself to look at Vedic dharma through the lens of the Western categorical framework.

Dharma does not mean religion. It has no equivalent in Western languages. If we look at the etymology of the word it means that which sustains and maintains the order of something. If we combine this with Vedic, meaning knowledge, then Vedic dharma is the knowledge of the eternal order of reality and the principles and it is about living in harmony with them. The concept originates from the concept of Rta in the Rig Veda as the eternal laws of nature.

The best way to understand dharma then is as pure spirituality, the synthesis of knowledge, experience and art of life. When there is so much going on, the term religion seems to do nothing but trivialise it. Thus I now arrived at the understanding Vedic dharma is spirituality and has nothing to do with any kind of organized religion. It is an entire categorical framework itself where everywhere everything is spiritual - even breathing is spiritual.

[B]Call it Vedic dharma/sanatana dharma and not Hinduism. What is in a name? An entire categorical framework is hiding in the name Hinduism which is completely at odds with Vedic dharma.[/B]
http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=61514&postcount=1

Current view:

Hinduism is geographical and is bound only to the Indian subcontinent, its history and its traditions. Sanana Dharma is universal and is not bound by any place or time period. Santana dharma implies that its teachings are timeless and scientific in that they can be discovered by anybody at any time. It is not bound by any founder, scriptures, practices, symbols, language.

I was under the illusion that Hinduism was the same as Sanatana dharma, but I was in for a rude awakening after I went to India, and recently a Hindu internet forum, just how intertwined Hinduism is with Indian nationalism. I am not a Indian national, so technically I am excluded from being a Hindu, because I an not an Indian national. Moreover, I do not care for Indian gods and goddesses and its social and moral codes. I broached the topic on the Hindu forum(where else would somebody go than to their own community to discuss religious issues) and I was greeted with great intolerance for even thinking that Indian identity can be separated from Hinduism. My aim was to expand and redefine the definition of Hinduism to bring it closer to its actual meaning of Sanatana dharma, so that all nationalities can be included within it and other traditions around the world which have affinity within it can also be included within it(Such as Christian Gnosticism, Sufism etc) The suggestion was so despised, that many Hindu members started to personally attack me and the moderator banned me.

I thought what a great shame that the tradition that has historically been very tolerant, pluralistic, democratic and intellectual has today been trivialized and reduced to nothing but a dead, stubborn Indian tradition worshiping stones, trees and snakes. It is for this reason I announce that I am no longer Hindu. I obviously cannot relate to Hindus as they are today and thus formally renounce the religion of “Hinduism”

I am still a follower of Santana Dharma, and still have as much love for Vedic philosophy as I did before. I still follow the universal Aryan religion that the Vedas outlined. The universal Aryan religion is a religion of humanity - about becoming a noble human being, cultivating virtuous character and doing noble deeds. It is primarily about spiritual development. Thus the term “spiritual” is perhaps the closest and most accurate term we have to express this religion. Thus I am more comfortable now just calling myself ‘spiritual’ and thus have freed myself from the fetters of religion.

Now in my tradition of providing analysis. It is shown that contrary to the accusation that my views have dramatically changed, the opposite has been proven beyond a reason of doubt: None of my views have actually changed significantly, they are still highly consistent with my old views. Instead one will notice how my views have evolved gradually, how I have always shown my ability to introspect on my views and adjust them in the light of honest reflection.

Even before going to India I had posted on this forum about my doutbs about the term Hindusim. I first posted a thread entitled, “Is Hinduism a religion” where I raised a question on Hinduism status as a religion. I questioned the term ‘Hindu’ and even called it a liability. Then I posted a thread a month later entitled, “Letting go of Hinduism” where I said I stated I had come to the realization that Hinduism is not the same thing as Santana Dharma, and that we should stop calling it Hinduism and trivialize it to a native religion".

Now, after returning from India I post a thread called, “Why I am no longer Hindu” stating exactly the same reasons I stated for letting go of Hinduism just a month before I went to India. Look at the logical progression of the thought in chronological order of threads I started:

Is Hinduism a religion
Letting go of 'Hinduism’
I am no longer Hindu

There has therefore been no sudden and dramatic change in my views, but rather my views over the years on this forum have shown a high level of consistency, independence and refinement.

So Sarva tell your psychology expert friend to go back to school :wink:

Who cares what men think? Are they your refuge?

Sanatana Dharma is an approximation. As is Islam. As is Christianity. They are not the whole thing, but a a beginning.