Hindu way, most natural & ideal

Maria Wirth, a German, came to India 38 years ago on a stopover on her way to Australia after finishing her psychology studies at Hamburg University. Mesmerized by India’s unique spirituality and culture, she chose India as her home, practicing one of the most ancient and scientific way of life.

 

Being born and brought up in Germany to Christian parents, she was taught that God was someone to be feared and ‘Eternal Hell’ was what one was subjected to if one failed to adhere by the religion. This had troubled her since her childhood but in India she learnt that this was not the case with Sanatana Dharma where one had the option to pursue his own path and live a life based on his own learning. In ancient India, debates were an integral part of the education system and one had the right to question a doctrine.

 

She says that while Christianity and Islam almost forced the followers to believe in the one Supreme God, Sanatana Dharma is all about searching, seeking one’s own path. “The many Gods in Hinduism symbolizes the many facets of life, the ‘Devas’ are energies in various form and meditation and ‘Sadhana’ paved ways to access these energies that are within ourselves, our consciousness…the Brahman,” she says.

 

Maria says that Sanskrit is the most perfect language as there is a rhythm in the syllables that one cannot miss and no wonder why it is the most scientific language.

 

She is critical of how the Britishers have robbed the Indians of their language, spirituality and pride. She urges Indians not to go defensive on debates where the natural superiority of India is challenged by the West and by some internal forces in India.

 

“Today the media make a huge outcry when one Muslim or one Christian comes back to Hinduism. This should not be called ‘conversion’ as they are coming back to where they belong. However, when Hindus are being converted in mass by luring them with money and promises of education and a better life, there is a comfortable silence around it and no one wants to talk about it,” Maria argues.

 

Maria urges all to live the ‘Sanatana’ way of life which is not only beneficial to the Hindus but to humanity at large. She has written several articles and blogs describing her experiences in India and Sanatana Dharma. She is of the firm view that there is a concerted effort to prevent even Indians (and the world) from knowing how valuable their ancient heritage is.

 

In the book, “Thank you India – a German woman’s journey to the wisdom of yoga,”she describes her encounters with several Gurus and her experiences in travelling all over India.

 

Excerpts from the exclusive interview she had with Pradeep Krishnan for Organiser:

 

 

In March 1980, on my way to Australia, at the Swami Vivekananda Memorial, Kanya Kumari, I bought the book Jnana Yoga. Only when I read Swami Vivekananda and came to know about Vedanta philosophy, I realized the treasure in Hinduism and wanted to discover it.

 

Soon I attended the Ardh Kumbh Mela in Hardwar and met Devaraha Baba and Sri Anandamayi Ma, who made me realize the ancient wisdom of the Oneness of all. They inspired me to do sadhana to remove the veils that hide one’s true being. Though I felt comfortable with Jnana Yoga, Anandamayi Ma stressed the path of Bhakti Yoga. From then on, I had a purpose in life. If I am not what I think I am (a separate person in a big world), I wanted to know what I really am.

 

 

Vedic knowledge or Sanatana Dharma or Hinduism is the original, most ancient and complete knowledge about what is true regarding us and the universe. Though an ‘ism’ usually means a fixed doctrine that must be believed, Hinduism is exactly the opposite. It allows the greatest freedom to connect with one’s essential Self, gives hints and methods, and does not go against one’s conscience. In contrast, Christianity and Islam put their doctrine above one’s individual conscience and have given great sufferings to humanity.

 

All the other religious belief systems, including the offshoots of Hindu dharma, are either limitations or distortions because they insist the followers to identify with a sage and to follow a set of texts. The Abrahamic religions demand not only blind belief in a God but also blind belief in wild claims about this God, which have no foundation in truth and actually are harmful for harmonious co-existence.

 

While Hinduism encourages asking intelligent questions in the search for truth, Christianity and Islam don’t permit their followers to raise doubts but insist to accept ‘the one and only truth, revealed only to one human being! This divides humanity into believers and non-believers called heathens. This blind belief and the fabricated division are still causing much damage to the world.

 

In Hinduism, WHAT is said is more important than WHO said it. In Christianity and Islam, the words of the founder must be blindly believed without any scrutiny.

 

Though destroyed, Hinduism still has incredible knowledge. Millions of texts were burned in Nalanda and Vikramshila by people who believed only in ONE book. Millions of Hindus were killed, including Brahmins, as they preserved the knowledge.

 

How could the ancient Indians map the sky so absolutely detailed and correctly? How could they know the distance to the sun and the moon, or discern the planets of our solar system from stars? How did they understand that the twin stars of Vashisht and Arundhati, hardly visible, move around each other? And even more astonishing, how could they develop astrology, know the qualities of the planets, their influence? It truly needed an intimate connection with the cosmic awareness. They must have experienced that the whole cosmos with its planets and stars is alive, is a manifestation of Purusha himself, and they could reach out to it or rather see it within the vast space in themselves.

 

 

Actually, I just wanted to stay longer in India. I was actually on my way to Australia, but then it so happened that I went on an inner journey in the best place for this, in India. Those living in India may not realize how different the atmosphere in the West. While life in the West is empty, living in |India is spiritually uplifting as the quality of life is definitely higher.

 

 

Leaving Christianity and adopting a Hindu way of life were not connected as I had already distanced myself from Christianity during my teenage. I could not believe in a vengeful God who would put me into eternal hellfire if I did not obey his commands!

 

In India when I realized that the Hindu way of life was the most natural and ideal way of life, I became a Hindu. Hindus not only acknowledged a supreme intelligence (Brahman/ Ishwar) as the cause and base of everything, but also allowed each one the absoulte freedom to chose his/her path to God.

 

 

I have met several Gurus, famous and unknown, including Osho, Devaraha Baba, Anandamayi Ma, Swami Chinmayananda, Babaji of Herakhan, Ramsurat Kumar, Amma, Karunamayi, Sri Sri Ravisankar, Baba Ramdev, Sadhguru Jaggi, etc. Though I am grateful to all of them for giving me direction, I consider Sri Satya Sai Baba and an unknown Guru of Kodagu, as “my” gurus.

 

From Ananadamayi Ma I learnt to take the presence of Bhagawan for real, to develop love for my inner Being, to do japa and to chant always the name of one’s of one’s Ishta devata. She kindled the desire to really find out who I am.

 

 

The concept of God in the Abrahamic religions and in Hindu Dharma is vastly different. The description of God according to the four Mahavakyas as the eternal, all-pervading consciousness is in tune with modern science and can be experienced by anyone.

 

But, the God (a male) of the Abrahamic religions is separate from his creation and is biased towards his followers. It’s amazing that the majority of Westerners, who consider themselves as rational and intellectual, accept a God that will fall flat on genuine enquiry. How can the omnipotent and omnipresent creator be separate from His creation? If he is all-powerful, Satan must also be under his control. Why is he partial to believers?

 

 

The word secular has been completely distorted in India. It is a shame that teaching Hindu philosophy is considered anti-secular and fostering Christianity and Islam is considered secular. Secularization in the west happened to curtail the power of the Church as the Church had used state power to enforce its belief with blasphemy laws. Remember the terrible things happened in Goa during the Portuguese rule.

 

When scientific knowledge mainly from India reached Europe, the Church persecuted scientists for telling the truth.

 

The different schools of Sanathanadharma are guided by logic and reason and must definitely be taught in schools. The Upanishads in the form of question and answers contains the highest knowledge. I hope that the absurdity of fostering irrational belief systems over the rational, profound insights of the Rishis will end soon.

 

 

Indians are sitting on a box of pure gold without knowing it and are eager to get artificial jewelry from the West. However, many Indians have now realized that the West is not cultured and highly degraded. Even science which the west is so proud of has its foundation in India. Every field of knowledge originated in India. Surprisingly, Indians still learn that Copernicus discovered some 500 years ago discovered that the earth goes around the sun! It’s already there in the Vedas.

 

 

The three forces; Christianity, Islam and Communism, are very dangerous for Hindu Dharma because they were responsible for wiping out ancient cultures from the earth. In South America, Christianity vanquished Inkas, Mayas, Aztecs, in Middle East, Islam took over Egypt, Babylon, Persia. Ancient Indian culture, the cradle of civilization, is still alive but greatly diminished mainly due to Islam. Many Hindus are not aware of the danger that the hostile forces are trying to wipe out the Hindu culture.

 

Hindus believe in Vasudhaivakutumbakam, a beautiful idea, but enemies, who want to defeat you, must not be treated as family. All the three want Hindu Dharma to disappear. Even Mahatma Gandhi seemed to have been ignorant about the goal of Islam and supported the Khilafat movement. Hindus of Kerala paid a heavy price for this.

 

If Hindus do not learn to analyze their enemies and keep allowing conversions to continue, they will be doomed. Instead of facilitating conversions, de-conversions should happen in a big way. There should be debates about the tenets of the different religions. It would become obvious that Hindu Dharma is the best option, greatly superior to the blind and divisive belief in strange dogmas. Vicious propaganda against Hindus, especially Brahmins, is spread through media to make Hindus defensive and apologetic about their tradition. Instead of Hindus, Muslims and Christians have every reason to feel apologetic.

 

 

Christianity and Islam will never say that all religions are the same and will never respect Hinduism because it would be the end of their empires. These two institutionalized religions are firmly rooted on the concept that the Supreme God has ‘revealed’ the full truth only to Jesus or Mohammed and all human beings must follow their teaching. But for this false claim, they lose their identity and would collapse. The Indian Christians are more indoctrinated and rigid than European Christians.

 

Hindus must openly debate and expose the incongruence with probing questions. Recently, when the news appeared that Tablighis deliberately spread Corona virus, they carried out a massive propaganda to make it as fake news and vilified RSS. The RSS is too good-natured to believe that Indian Muslims and Christians with their connection with tradition would one day realize the goodness of Hindu Dharma.

 

 

The solution has just come in the form of the Corona Virus. Half of the world was under lockdown and Nature got a chance to get purified. Prime Minister Modi put it aptly at the recent G20 Summit that humanity has to become the focus again, not business. If we realize that happiness doesn’t come from outside, if we develop compassion and stop killing millions of animals daily for meat, it is a chance for India to show how to live a fulfilled life. As India’s huge population is still connected to its traditional values and knowledge, Bharat Mata can become once again the Jagadguru, as she was in the past.

 

 

The single most important matter to achieve a united, strong and culturally vibrant Bharat is to bring back all those who had converted out of Hinduism.

 

During my school days in Germany, my friends and I had lost faith in Christianity and we felt that religion was on its way out. But in India, I realized the role religions, not Hindu Dharma, but Islam and Christianity that the invaders brought to this land, played in dividing the country.

 

Intriguingly, Hindu Dharma is constantly accused of being ‘divisive’, which is mischiveous, because only Hindu Dharma is all-inclusive. This false accusation is meant to keep Hindus perpetually on the defensive and not let them realize that it’s actually Christianity and Islam which divide.

 

India cannot afford to have those Muslims and Christians, who believe that Hindus are inferior. Dogmatic religions claim that their God rejects non-Christians and non-Muslims and will throw them into hellfire. If you believe that your God doesn’t like certain people, will you respect them? One can respect others as brothers and sisters only when he admits that the one great Creator cannot possibly reject a huge chunk of humanity just because they do follow a different path. This arrogant mindset “God loves only us” would lead to genocide without feeling any guilt. History is replete with examples of millions of Hindus being killed just for being Hindus.

 

As an insider, I know these predator religions. Hindus, being very good-natured are unable to believe that others can be so unreasonable and want Hindus should be subdued because they worship the Supreme Intelligence under a different name. But it is officially their doctrine: Islam has the goal to make the whole world accept Islam and Christianity has the goal to make all Christians.

 

Since 2016, I have been suggesting to petition the United Nations to ban the dehumanization of Hindus as heathen and kafirs as a blatant violation of their dignity and equality. Not because I have trust in the UN, but to internationalize the issue and make it clear that indoctrinating children into hate for Kafirs and disdain for Heathen is absolutely unacceptable.

 

I drafted a petition myself and sent it to PM Modi and also contacted several Hindu organizations which all were in favour of it. Pakistan keeps petitioning the UN, to ban Islamophobia. In contrast to Pakistan’s petitions, India’s concern is genuine and urgent.

 

Most Christians in Europe, except for the clergy, don’t believe any longer that Hindus are rejected by God and will burn in hell unless they convert. That means, it is possible to get out of early childhood brainwashing. We Hindus must tell the followers of these two religions: ‘you have every right to worship the Supreme Creator by whatever name you want. But you have no right to claim that He loves only you and hates me, when you don’t have any proof except that one person allegedly said it many centuries ago’.

 

God has given us intelligence. Nobody needs to be threatened to believe in what is true. Only untruth needs threat and violence and blasphemy laws, which both Christianityand Islam made terrible use of.

 

Moreover, we have samples in Pakistan and in the ‘Christian West’ what the outcome is, when their religion dominates. These societies certainly are not ideal.

 

If Indians follow again Dharma, reason, intuition and take the help of the profound insights of the Rishis, I am convinced that Bharat will quickly become strong, united and culturally vibrant. Hindus owe it to their forefathers who have left them such precious knowledge in so many fields that they honour it and defend it, if need be.

 

 

You are so lucky that you were born in India. Be proud of your identity, not in the sense of being arrogant, but holding your head high. You belong to the most ancient civilization that has given maximum knowledge to the world. Without the amazing knowledge of your ancestors, “western science” would not exist.

 

See the vast knowledge contained in Ayurveda. Yet many Indians are not proud of their heritage and their amazing history and the high culture that was there already during Ramayana and Mahabharata times.

 

You are the torchbearers for a better future for humanity. Do not copy the West. It went down on a wrong path. Many Westerners realized it and turn to India’s wisdom. Learn about the wisdom of your forefathers, know about the richness of your land, for example the amazing temples which hold many secrets and do sadhana, in whatever way it suits you. Do not abuse your body by eating junk food or even taking drugs. Try to discover your true essence that is Satchitananda. Make the Divine in whatever form you prefer, your best friend. Remind yourself that Bhagawan is REALLY present. This makes life worthwhile and fulfilling. Nothing in this world can compare with the bliss and love that is your own already, waiting to be discovered in the depth of your Self.