Tandava

A stunning portrayal of Shiva Tandava. I'm not the one to take credit—full credit goes to source.

Met shree Shankaracharya ji maharaj

Hey all. So I’ve been on a bit of a spiritual journey recently. I grew up Baptist, became an atheist in my teens, and then did a degree in philosophy. I’ve spent most of my 20’s as a kind of agnostic philosopher. I’d read a lot of academic philosophy and theology, watch lectures, and visited a lot of places of worship.

About a year ago I started watching Swami Sarvapriyananda’s lectures and it’s really changed my life! I read The Gita and a number of upanishads, and took up chanting, prayer, and meditation. I drank daily for almost 8 years and not only have I stopped, but the compulsion to drink is completely gone. I’m very thankful to the swami

Swami Sarvapriyananda is going to be giving a series of talks at a university near me later this year. I’ve already reached out and they said I can come. I feel indebted to the swami and I want to show him the proper respect that’s due a swami. I’ve never meet a swami before. What’s the correct way to greet and address him?

I am an Indian and Hindu myself. I want to read Rig Veda philosophy. I am not trying to "poke holes" or looking to enlighten myself or trying to understand ritualistic aspects of Rig Veda.

I am reading various ancient world philosophies and while there's a lot of material about western philosophy, it's hard to find a good one for ancient Indian/Hindu philosophy. I am also aware that some foreign translations may not always be accurate, but I am only looking for a primer of sorts.

While I understand that Vedas are deeper and requires deep interpretation but there's got to be a place to start.

Hello to my fellow Hindus or Sitaram as we would say in the part of the world I'm from.

Disclaimer: I have basic knowledge of Hinduism and hardly even practice the faith so feel free to stop reading if you believe I'm unqualified to give my opinion (I'm not being sarcastic).

I'm a descendant of Indian indentured labourers who were brought to the shores of Guyana during the 19th century, and like many Indo-Guyanese my ancestors were Hindus.

I was around 10 years old when my father converted to Christianity and the rest of the family obviously had to follow him.

I was ardent follower of Christianity up to about my mid 20s when I realised that this is not a faith I wanted to be in (I can write a book about my experience why I felt this way 😅).

Long story short I made up my kind to 'follow' Hinduism and I must say I'm spiritually happier (in my opinion).

So enough with all this clutter of background info. So there is something I always notice about Hindus while I was a Christian and even up to today: many of them be it a well knowledgeable person or just a regular Joe, they always get tricked into trying to prove that Hinduism is 'right' when interacting especially with Christians and Muslims.

Why do this when you are fully well aware of how Hinduism is viewed in those religions? No matter what you say or what scriptures you use you will NEVER be 'right' to those individuals, it's completely futile.

I have a lot of Christian relatives who are still trying to convince me up to today that Hinduism is 'wrong' but I will never get tricked into trying to prove my religion.

Be proud of your religion, you don't need to prove anything to anybody. A spiritual path is not a competition but a connection to the divine.

Jai Shree Ram

Now I like to research very much and so I read some Kabirpanth scriptures said to be written or atleast told by Kabir which are Kabir Sagar and Sadgranth Sahib of Sant Garibdas ji and that scripture talks about Mahabharat and Ramayan in it's own way where it says that Kabir took birth in all yugas and and is Supreme God whereas all Hindu Gods and Goddess and Brahman are evil forces covering the minds of people and then comes some entity known as Par Brahm and then finally Purna Brahm who is Kabir himself. It also says that Kabir is the God who gave salvation to Brahma Vishnu Shiva and even bhakti saints like Guru Nanak, Sant Mirabai, Sant Namdev finally became his devotee Now this person, who is a Labir panthi have evidence of all this from Hindu and Sikh scriptures and books. Now this seemed legit and made me confused. So I would be very grateful if somebody pls clarify this

News: https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/others/religious-leaders-call-for-sanatan-board-101738001470638.html

The board would work on the following areas:

1. Every temple to have Gurukul and gau-shaala.
2. Release state control of temples and manage temples by the board
3. Help poor Hindu families in finance and education, and other supports
4. Nurturing and promoting culture and philosophy
5. Dispute resolution and legal advocacy
6. Hindu legal rights, voice for Hindu representation at local and national level
7. Welfare and education - Sanskrit and Vedic education
8. Mandir Development

Structure:

https://preview.redd.it/6243oy050jge1.png?width=2320&format=png&auto=webp&s=d5b87c43d7c6963ae0234a2871f42270c8ffdcd2

https://preview.redd.it/xt06g3nd1jge1.png?width=3042&format=png&auto=webp&s=8738b6724e3a8cef2cec5cd3391cbf235fc99cac

What are your thoughts about this?

Source: https://youtu.be/D5iuvbOCpEg

Well should I follow what she said or is it just BS?

Manakamana Temple, located in the historic Gorkha district of Nepal. Late Crown Prince Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah inagurated the first cable car of Nepal on 24 November 1998 in this region.

https://preview.redd.it/xzrkvr7qgige1.png?width=529&format=png&auto=webp&s=e7f8c8d1a6aa8bf8202c376c7a33e5afbd232e1b

Found this lovely picture of Maa Saraswati on r/kolkata as Saraswati Puja approaches, which is a prominent festival for us Bengali Hindus. (Had to repost this due to technical issues)

I do a pancopacara puja offering:

1. Akshata (instead of gandha, as I’ve read is ok).
2. Flower.
3. Incense
4. Fame.
5. Fruit as naivedya.

It’s not always possible to get flowers. Is it ok to either skip that offering or maybe offer rice again?

The obvious answer is that they did have the foresight but they did it anyway as part of a larger plan. But to this, I feel that letting this all play outs resolves in a net adhamara. When everything is said and done, the world is not a more dharmic place.

Questioner: Heaven and hell - what are they? Sri Ramana Maharshi: You carry heaven and hell with you. Your lust, anger, etc., produce these regions. They are like dreams

As soon as the desires are removed, this very earth becomes Heaven. (Reference : Tattvapodesha of Sri Trailanga Swami by Umacharan Mukhopadhyay).

What is the spiritual significance of Bhagwan Mahadev's Trishul as per Puranas? Does it have any specific name to it or is it just generally known as Mahadev's Trishul?

Realistically , how to find a guru. Please don't tell me to continue Sadhana and the guru will find me. The horse cannot drink water unless it tilts it's neck and I won't find one unless I search. So realistically do I ask someone in the temple or something. Or is it anything else?

I’m bisexual and a Post-Marxist (most influenced by Marx and Engels, Nietzsche, and Foucault). My views are even reflected in the religious poetry I write such as this poem I wrote on the Aghori being the exemplification of Nietzschean/Foucauldian antinomianism which really exemplifies my views or this poem on Shakti as Kali punishing man with natural disasters and unusual weather because our corporations polluted her earth. Both as a queer man and as a leftist I felt a calling towards Shri Vidya Tantra but there is no guru for that in Northeast Arkansas or Memphis. But certain strains of Shaivism seem cool, and the Aghori are awesome and they’re Shaivites. So hopefully this guru is cool.

I've been reading the Bhagavad Gita for some time now, but I find it difficult to understand certain words. I'm reading the Kannada version, and some words are unfamiliar to me since I've never used them before. Did you guys face a similar issue? How did you deal with it?

Before today, I didn't know that a sect like Smarta existed. From what I understood, after reading a little about it online, is it was made to avoid having a single god as the supreme being, that's why it had 5 major gods... Plus it was founded by adi shankaracharya, who believed in advaita, so it's also influenced by the advaita philosophy of Brahman.

Can someone knowledgable tell me more about it ?

I've been chanting Gayatri Mantra since the time I was invested with Janeu at Shankara Mutt when I was 19 years old (Yes my Upanayanam samskara happened late due to some familial issues) I read somewhere that the Gayatri mantra begins with Om Joom Sah or something like that followed by Gayatri Mantra? Is this correct? Can someone clarify?

There was a claim that Christian rosary is appropriated like yoga can easily be seen to be false as using prayer beads/rosary is a tradition more than thousand years old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Rosary

Outrage-bait posts on appropriation expose the basic lack of information that Hindus have on which Christian efforts are causing severe damage. Catholics, much less the Eastern Orthodox Church, are nowhere near the frontier of missionary efforts. Indeed, even Catholic countries in South America are being converted by American evangelical churches.

Criticizing 'devil-mongering' is valid. But the important part is which 'devil-mongering' evangelical organizations are taking over the education sector, thanks to laws like RTE, and using that as a incentives to convert large numbers of poor Hindus. Whereas a local Hindu organization cant set up a school without government control of admissions, teachers, syllabus.

This is thousands of times more urgent than appropriation and yet this sub(and social media outrage in general) is focussed on the latter and ignorant on the former.

In pre-Independence era, as a response to missionary efforts, *Hindus started large number of schools and colleges*. We can do that again, provided first we acknowledge the problem and not get sucked into bubbles of emotion driven by outrage-bait.

माँ सरस्वती का आशीर्वाद, ज्ञान और विवेक का वरदान, आपके जीवन में सदा रहे, सफलता और सम्मान।