After a series of discussions, I am back with a spiritual post. I have another serious topic for discussion which I would post soon. After my post on the "Inner meaning of the Caste System" - I would like to put up this post which tells you the inner meaning of sacrifice in Hinduism unfortunately misinterpreted by the common man as sacrificing animals to Hindu Gods.
According to Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba [Dharma Vahini - Chapter 1]:
"You have to understand ancient Dharmakarmas by entering into their symbolic meaning. The spiritual field has many a technical term, with its own special connotation. These have to be clearly understood, so that you can grasp correctly the teaching of the Sastras. Let us take an example: People used to celebrate Yajnas in ancient times; and they sacrificed Pasus or animals in these Yajnas. But, the animal is only a symbol. It was not the dumb creature that had to be cut to pieces. The animal leads a life of sacrifice, without man completing its career at the sacrificial pole! The animal that has to be disemboweled and offered is different; in the spiritual vocabulary, animal means "the body-consciousness", "the I-consciousness"; and it is this that has to be slaughtered. The Lord is known as Pasupathi or Govinda; Pasupathi means the Lord of all Jivas, Pasu meaning Jiva; Govinda means the Guardian of Cows or Jivas, "Go" meaning Jiva. The tending of cows is a symbolic leela of Krishna to indicate His Mission of tending Jivas."
This is what the Saiva Siddhantha preaches as Pasu-Pathi-Paasam. Its three basic codes are 1. Pasu(the contained state of the spirit) 2. Paasam (the three threads that bind -Ego, Karma and Mysticism) 3. Pathi (primordial matter - God). Liberation of the spirit from attachments and attaining salvation (Mukthi) and identifying with God is the ultimate aim.
Unfortunately, people have misunderstood these concepts and ended up slaying animals for sacrifice.
posted by Gnana Kirukan @ 1:00 PM
25 Comments:
Parvati - thanks a lot for ur comments :)
First of all I never defended the caste system! I am wondering where I did :)
What I pointed out is that the concept of caste system has been misunderstood throughout the ages and that is the reason for all those things you have mentioned. So the wrong was done by the people who misinterpreted things not Hinduism. I am pointing that Hinduism never separated humans by birth! What hinduism preaches is the divisive nature based on the state of the human mind!
That too when I said I want to be a Brahmin - that doesnt mean I want to be born as a brahmin - brahmin by definition is one whose mind is fixed in Brahman. That's what I meant - I never advocated for the brahmin society as such :)
"Whereas, those who cannot even lead a simple dignified life of a human being, but have been treated in the past, and are being even now continuously treated like dogs (in inner TamilNadu, in Bihar, in Uttar Pradesh), how do you think they should look at your Divine Caste System? "
That is what I am trying to say - these poor people who had been tormented by the so called upper class people should know that Hinduism never advocated the caste system by birth - it never created any divisions! If we they understand that the fault mainly lies in the people and not the religion - conversions wouldnt have taken place!
So my argument is Hinduism should be properly understood - if people understand it - then they wouldnt go to some other religion!
"Hinduism might have nothing to do with the ill treatment of widows. But Hinduism is attached to such practices and should detach itself from them."
How can you detach is the question? The mind of the people should change! Inorder to change - they should know the inner significances first..Without knowing the inner significances - people will be always ignorant.
Arjuna,
Hinduism as a system has its unwanted dogmas. Its quite natural for a system to degrade over time. Spirituality adorns the clothes of religion to bring in all stupid issues. Moreover, knowing the inner significance of things is not a easy job. It requires some effort and we cannot expect all the tormented people to put forth such efforts. When it is difficult for them to even earn a daily bread, how are we ever going to make them understand about the "inner significance". I don't mean to be pessimistic here. All I am saying is, while spreading the eternal message of Hinduism efforts must be taken to relive it from the wretched claws of unnecessary hegemony.
Arjuna
Wanted to comment on the earlier one but refrained from doing so. But watch out for these funny intellectuals
they wont allow you to move further or the other way ,the point they wanted to make is hinduism is bad for the country period. While caste system has been exploited and need to be addressed, but to say other religions are free of these things is fooling people. Economic disparities have been there for long time in Europe and they also practise racial discrimination based on color so to whom are they preaching when their own house is to be cleaned.
They said india is poor because of following false religion, whereas countries following the 'true' religion are prosperous, another autoricios lies
just see Africa,Philipines and other latin american countries they all accepted the great religion, they all are suffering from poverty,violence and choas.
The problem with 'these' people is they are so happy and keen to sermonise hindus while conveniently trying to ignore or brush away their own faults.
Parvati-we all agree on the malaise of this caste system and same with sati etc, but you should remember we are making progress, and thats a good thing.
Btw some of xtians do quote the bible to justify race difference just of your info.
@ parvati : I wouldn't call what Sri Ramanujar did, a conversion as what we would call them today. He wanted people to understand the greatness of Sri Hari irrespective from whatever social background one came from. And this is not new to Vaishnavism which holds bakthi saints like Namazhwar, Thirupaanazhwar at its helm. Ofcourse it was a great revolutionary step but it was selfless. Conversion as we speak of it today has a selfish motive. So, it would be great if you could refrain from calling it as a conversion which just portrays a bad image of Hinduism.
dude all the terms in hinduism are misunderstood, even if you clarify something here, there's no doubt people are going to misunderstand your post also. what I mean to say is the realization or the knowledge doesn't come from outside, but it comes from within, it is revealed in your inner intuition. only that is true ;)
Hinduism, Hinduism, whats this Hinduism???
I have never done an animal sacrifice, nor do i ever discriminate people based on birth. Am i a hindu??
Kasthuri - yes - what needs is people like us to get into the society of the poor people - help them - serve them with love and live an exemplary life like what Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba or Mata Amritanadamayi have done! When we go serve the poor - we partake in their pain and then we can tell them about our religion! We can also let know that our religion is not the cause for their pain - but its the ignorance of some!
I will tell u an example of conversion that took place in Jaffna -
Once during the war - the people were in search of a place to stay and protect themselves..so what happened was the so called lower class people went to the temples to stay - but the higher class people didnt allow the lower class people to come and stay in the temples! Simultaneously a christian priest seized this opportunity and asked the lower class people to come and stay in the church and started preaching about Christianity! The entire group of people converted to Christianity!
Now how do u solve this issue is my question? Is it not our dharma to protect our religion? How do we do that?So the basic solution is to change the remove these social stigmas by knowledge and love only..
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Ganesh - good points there - but as I said - I dont want to comment on other religions since no religion talks injustice to the society - its the people who try to flex the rules imposed by their religions to suit their needs! :)
Parvati - very good points from u about Sri Ramanujar - I didnt know about it :)
"I said that you defended the caste system because the moment you see start seeing the inner significance of it, you sound like you want to rationalize it."
No - it wasnt like that :)..as I said I just wanted to point out that caste system is not something to do with birth but rather with mind! So all these so called brahmins, kshatriyas, vaishyas and sudras do not belong that particular caste since a sudra could be a brahmin through his love for GOD - there are so many examples for that :)
saravana - dude - how do u get an intuition without jnana?
TJ - very good question :)) - that's what I am saying - ur a true hindu :)
The world would be a lot better if animals are killed just for Burgers and Chicken Nuggets..rather than as sacrifices.!
Just kidding.!!
I am against all this and just like Parvathi, who started this comment chain...I feel these stupid acts have to be stopped.!
But Puritans aren't there references in the Mahabharatha and Ramayanas! of such sacrifices? Can we also erase those??
Arjuna, thnx for the post and i dont know this before...edho romba pesareengannu puriyudhu, enna pesareengannu puriyala...neways, bottomline is, shudn't sacrifice animals - true...the caste system is to be eradicated - correct...:-))
I wish u, to put a good post. your example for Animal Sacrifice is nice. god lives in animals when we kill them it equal to kill god. people should avoid killing animals.
Narayanan sir -
"The world would be a lot better if animals are killed just for Burgers and Chicken Nuggets..rather than as sacrifices.!"
LOL :P
Parvati -
"if you read the Mahabharata in full, birth, birth, brahmin, Kshatriya is what you keep reading. They are obsessed with it. In those days the importance of your blood, as defined by your caste was enormous"
Again, you read what others have interpreted and written isnt it :) - thats what I am trying to say - when Sage Vyasa wrote the Mahabarata - his interpretation was based on what I have pointed out - but the others have misinterpreted his work!
I guess the fault lies in Sage Vyasa since he must have given the definitions of Brahmin/Kshatriya first in an Appendix :))
Caste system is never useful to the society - from what I see is caste system is useful to ones own self to see at what stage he is in his life! I know I am in the Kshatriya state since I am waging an inner battle - the battle of Kurukshetra within me to fight my evil qualities like anger,lust etc..I am trying to overcome them and become a brahmin! So the caste system is useful to identify the one's own stage in spiritual progress..
Parvati -
"Well, killing animals for burger and chicken nuggets should also go!"
I wish they did that - so I would stop eating my favourite spicy burger with chips/KFC spicy zinger salad and my favourite chicken tikka and sweetcorn pizza! :P
Sundaresan - ur a real fundoo :)) - very correct :))
jeevan - well said :)
Parvati - do u know ramakrishna paramahamsa says that fish is kadal pushpam and its veggie :)
Btw - I really dont like eating chicks :( - what I am doing is - I am giving salvation to those poor creatures :P
Hi there,
I came to your blog from Adi's blog. Great work.
I have a lot of doubts and thought of asking if you could answer a few of them. Hope I am not troubling you :).
Regards
cb
Whoiscb - sure - no prob - do ask :)
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