सिंहस्थ- कुसुमाग्रज PS: (डॉ. नरेंद्र दाभोलकरांनी ही कविता पनवेलच्या व्याख्यानात वाचली होती)

व्यर्थ गेला तुका, व्यर्थ ज्ञानेश्वर संतांचे पुकार, वांझ झाले

रस्तोरस्ती साठे, बैराग्यांचा ढीग दंभ शिगोशीग, तुडुंबला

बँड वाजविती, सैंयामिया धून गजांचे आसन, महंता‌सी

आले खड्ग हाती, नाचती गोसावी वाट या पुसावी, अध्यात्माची?

कोणी एक उभा, एका पायावरी कोणास पथारी, कंटकांची

असे जपीतपी, प्रेक्षकांची आस रुपयांची रास, पडे पुढे

जटा कौपिनांची, क्रीडा साहे जळ त्यात हो तुंबळ, भाविकांची

क्रमांकात होता, गफलत काही जुंपते लढाई, गोसव्यांची

साधू नाहतात, साधू जेवतात साधू विष्ठतात, रस्त्यावरी

येथे येती ट्रक, तूप साखरेचे टँकर दुधाचे, रिक्त तेथे

यांच्या लंगोटीला, झालर मोत्याची चिलीम सोन्याची, त्याच्यापाशी

येथे शंभराला, लाभतो प्रवेश तेथे लक्षाधीश, फक्त जातो

अशी झाली सारी, कौतुकाची मात गांजाची आयात, टनावारी

तुज म्हणे ऐसे, मायेचे माइंद

त्यापाशी गोविंद, नाही नाही.

I am tired of godmen scaring us at every opportunity they get. They scare us about problems in our kundalis. They scared my wife by saying that if we don't perform this pooja, my son will not get good marks, he won't behave properly, he won't aim for a good life, etc. He made a list of problems (all that generalized crap) my son will face, gave it to my wife, and asked for 3000 for a private pooja. My son is just 1 year and 2 months old. The Brahmin wants to extort 3000 + 7000 for his useless services, and I initially agreed because everyone at home except me (and my sibling) believes what he says. My siblings and I do not believe in deities, religions, or any fictional crap. The reason for mundan is also very stupid, and there are no real benefits.

Today, I got angry thinking about how they can earn more than a physician in a day, all in cash, pay no income tax, and run an unregistered business, so no GST. Basically, they have black money and contribute nothing to society except the fear of the unknown.

Why should I pay some casteist person who thinks of himself as superior to others, whose identity exists only because people have been brainwashed for centuries? I told everyone that I don't believe in any religion or these useless rituals. I will keep donating my time or money where I want. I have decided to carefully trim my son's hair on Saturday (because I can).

Supreme goal/destination=Moksha

So before I describe where I am at now I need to talk about how I got to where I am today. So in short my path went something like Catholic->Muslim(very extreme had extreme hell anxiety for years after I left)->Agnostic->Hindu(very surface-level understanding)->Theravada Buddhist(for a month)->Advaita Vedantin->Christian Advaita Vedantin->Hindu Advaita Vedantin->Shiva Bhakt(with let's say Vishishtadvaita metaphysics)->now(esoteric Shiva Bhakt currently exploring Trika Shaivism). So my path was quite rocky. My exploration of Hinduism was generally the biggest thing that rid me of my religious trauma(that came after my Muslim conversion) and once I got to the point of focusing on Bhakti it sort of completely got away. My faith is sort of the thing that keeps me going and I feel like Shiva truly is the one who is leading me. It helped me find peace of mind in a way.

Now when I started with Hinduism I was very ignorant about the bad sides of it. Brahminism(and everything that is included within it like misogyny, casteism, lgbtphobia, the purity culture, the Manu Smrti etc.) and generally the traumatic experiences of ex-Hindus I didn't know about. Now today I sort of found a way to explain it. I tend to view Brahminism as not being true Hinduism and genuinely consider Hinduism to be accepting(as a whole) and view that sort of traditionalist attitude as contrary to the Hindu ideal as that is how and why I got into it. Unlike most Hindus, I do not consider any text as authoritative(including the Puranas, the Gita or the Vedas) and consider their creation stories as symbolical and deeply esoteric and also do not consider them to be in the same form as they were when they were created nor do I believe that the timeline of scripture is literal. I deeply dislike the caste system, the strong emphasis on purity and also the Islamophobia that is present in Hindu circles. This would naturally make me go away from Hindu thought but it didn't because I sort of have a weird way to look at it. And over time I focused more on my experience through meditation than on scripture(that is actually how I got to the path of Bhakti and the Trika system).

I consider my faith as simply put my vocabulary to explain the core of reality(not as something objectively true or literal) hence why I am not truly a theist(or an atheist for that matter). But lately, I did struggle a lot with trying to distance myself from the clear message of Brahminism that is present in the Puranas and the Hindu community in general. But eventually, I figured to look at all this scripture as texts I openly disagree with(while I can see some stuff to be meaningful). Then I got a bit into tantra. Tantra is known for sort of diminishing the caste system, purity culture and an extremely esoteric interpretation of the Puranas and the Vedas (to the point of the moral/ritualistic teachings not being relevant). So I am exploring Trika Shaivism which surprisingly very closely aligns with the exact thing I realized through my meditation (but I never found words to describe it so Trika has sort of given me the system required to systematically look at it instead of something I didn't know how to talk about that I realized through my meditation). And this seems nice but I still honestly am struggling with a Hindu label (even tho I would argue that the tantric system at least the system I am exploring now is not filled with the Brahminist problems because it has little to no focus on the Puranas, the Gita etc.).

I love being Hindu if I look at things I consider to be Hindu(Peaceful pluralism, purity culture, the Manu Smrti etc.. Now today I sort of found a way to explain it. Unlike most Hindus, I do not consider any text as authoritative(including the Puranas, the Gita or the Vedas) and consider their creation stories as symbolical and deeply esoteric and also do not consider them to be in the same form as they were when they were created nor do I believe that the timeline of scripture is literal. I deeply dislike the caste system, the strong emphasis on purity and also the Islamophobia that is present in Hindu circles. This would naturallyful pluralism, perennials, seeking truth, acceptance, love, non-orthodoxy, etc. but I feel that if I were talking to any ex-Hindu and I told them that I am Hindu they would consider me as in many was the opposite of that and someone who is very traditionalist. And I want to be someone who is accepting, I deeply find the experience of any ex-Hindu truly valid, what some of you went through is so bad and I know how bad it can get as I also have experienced religious trauma. But I can't ignore my experience with Shiva, the way it helped me but again it is sort of clashing with Brahminism. I would love to hear your thoughts. Do not hesitate to post criticism or any expression of discomfort, I value your perspective and I feel like I would not be sincere if I didn't truly look into how you perceive this. It may lead me out of Hindu thought in general but I don't care, I don't want to be ignorant about it. Thank you in advance, it truly means a lot to have your input.

Hey Recently I have been trying to counter this argument but I quite seem to fail it

Here it goes

I say that if there is a god than why is there so much suffering?

Person X: Well this means that in the past life they must have commited some sins

then what about Animals that get killed by other animals

Person X: Well this means that in the past life they would have been human and must have commited sins so god is punishing them now.

PLEASE help me get through this argument

Let's start a chat in comment section

So a couple of days ago i posted a post on this community about some child marriage thingy and some comments defending it.

This guy texts me yesterday inviting me to a chat. He starts berating me that I am very disrespectful towards his religion and am disrespect his state aka, rajasthan. (Nowhere in my post have i bashed rajasthan because child marriage is prevalent all across India).

He stalks my profile, finds another post and asks me to shut up and be a good daughter and respect my dad (i just had a little chat with my father about some topic and he didn't agree with that, as simple as that).

Its honestly so messed up that an IIT student (what he described so proudly about himself) comes to my chats, tells me that I'm not even 18 yet and bashes me for no apparent reason while taking imaginary things I said out of his ***. Honestly disappointing how i never even disrespected anyone or the religion and still have to face this toxicity. No wonder why I stopped following the religion.

Hi. I am not a Hindu but still fear them being right. I have a couple of questions.

Is Hindu creationism as unscientific as Biblical creationism?

Also, what's with all the supposed fulfilled Hindu prophecies?

Hi everyone, I am a teenage ex hindu (I think I officially became an atheist at around 10/11) and I was wondering if any if there are any others in a similar position to me on this subreddit or others who also deconverted as an adolescent. I still haven't come out to my parents (they would still force me to go to temples even if I did) so I am curious to hear your what your experiences of coming out were like if you have done so. I feel as if there are very few ex hindu communities online, with the majority of them primarily being ex c christian and muslim spaces so I am really glad to have stumbled across this page! Why/how did you guys de convert?

Hello, I'm 17F. I was talking to my father about evolution. I honestly love the concept and may also opt for studying it for my college. So I was telling my father about this and he goes "oh but that's white people theory, it's all what them Christians think. It makes no sense". Mind you my father was an mbbs student (he didnt complete all the years because his father passed away). I found it weird that he was denying evolution as a whole concept.

And that's when he insert, "our books say this, they never believe us, ramayana had this, we had fire controlling powers, powers to control weather" and a whole lot of other things written in our books. I asked him "they got proof for evolution, they got proof of fossils and they actually managed to make certain biological compounds from scratch by imitating primitive earth conditions. What proof do you have to prove your sayings except for some written things on a book?" He said thats not the point and went away.

I found it funny, not kidding😂. It meant I won.

I have a few friends that say that they don't believe in god rather they believe in the teachings of the vedas which seems reasonable but when I try to challenge their ideas by telling that many vedas contain absurd things like ashvamedha yagna, mysogini and other things, they always come up with one arguments that the translation is wrong etc.

I wanna know one more thing when I counter someone while saying the idea of god and idea of religion in hinduism is wrong because they have too many gods and other shit, they always come up with one argument that real hinduism(sanatan) has only one god and vedas have shit like this, i wanna know how do you counter that.

Why did you left Hinduism? What backlash did you felt being a Hindu what scripture, vedas and puarans set a bad example in the religion? What practices you hate the most? Which saint you dislike the most?

Just like the title says, which country would be your first choice to live in as a ex hindu? Assuming you’d want to stay as far away from Hinduism and religion as possible.

Edit: also, why? Why do you think that’s the best country as an ex-Hindu to live in?