As Esther, my next door neighbour promised me to have a discussion about the 'Miracle maker' the movie about Christ, I asked her if she had time of Friday evening. I was free as usual on Friday evening.
So, I gathered my laptop and Bhagvat Geeta and reached her house at 8pm. We decided a cut off time at 9:30pm just to restrict ourselves as discussion may prolong to any time of length as the topic was religion. I too agreed to that as I was looking forward to my cycle trip next morning.
So, my aim of discussion was to talk about the movie and seek some explanation about various events that occur in Jesus's life. The concept of Satan and all. As we started the discussion we started in different note. Father, Son, Holy spirit.. I started pointing out the similarities between the Hinduism and Christianity. It is not that I am very religious person and know all about Hinduism. But in front of me was a person who had studied the Bible for many years. Well instead of taking non conformist's attitude and boasting about how Geeta is revelation of God I started on similarities, We discussed about Atma, Paramatma, Avtar (Krishna was Avatar of Vishnu) and I tried to relate that to Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Let's not discuss everything in details here. We talked about rebirth versus resurrection. we tried to find the answers to many questions. Why Animals are not food of man according to Geeta. But bible says you can eat animals. The most important difference ( after similarities we came on to differences) Geeta talks about Karmayoga, i.e. कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन. That means every human has a choice of doing karma. A free will to choose what to do and what not to do, but s/he doesn't have a choice in the consequences that are caused by the deed that s/he has done. in nutshell, everyone is responsible for the consequences of his or her own karma and everyone has to face those consequences. Now Jesus came upon this earth and took sufferings, and go crucified so that entire earth will be free from sins, this is something like holding somebody else responsible for somebody else's sins. Making Jesus a scapegoat. This word scapegoat has come from the same ritual where in they take goat, send it to the desert to die, offered as sacrifice so that sins of entire community will be washed away. Jesus did the same thing. Esther was not able to give me a satisfactory answer. Let's not consider this as victory of Hinduism over Christianity. We also have funny concept that if you take a dip in Ganga or take a dip in Kushawarta kund, Tryambakeshwar,Nashik, all your sins of 7 births will be washed away ( and you are free to make more and more brutal sins) where water is so dirty people don't take head to toe dip but merely sprinkle some water on them...See everywhere there are loopholes and runaways.
So, I gathered my laptop and Bhagvat Geeta and reached her house at 8pm. We decided a cut off time at 9:30pm just to restrict ourselves as discussion may prolong to any time of length as the topic was religion. I too agreed to that as I was looking forward to my cycle trip next morning.
So, my aim of discussion was to talk about the movie and seek some explanation about various events that occur in Jesus's life. The concept of Satan and all. As we started the discussion we started in different note. Father, Son, Holy spirit.. I started pointing out the similarities between the Hinduism and Christianity. It is not that I am very religious person and know all about Hinduism. But in front of me was a person who had studied the Bible for many years. Well instead of taking non conformist's attitude and boasting about how Geeta is revelation of God I started on similarities, We discussed about Atma, Paramatma, Avtar (Krishna was Avatar of Vishnu) and I tried to relate that to Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Let's not discuss everything in details here. We talked about rebirth versus resurrection. we tried to find the answers to many questions. Why Animals are not food of man according to Geeta. But bible says you can eat animals. The most important difference ( after similarities we came on to differences) Geeta talks about Karmayoga, i.e. कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन. That means every human has a choice of doing karma. A free will to choose what to do and what not to do, but s/he doesn't have a choice in the consequences that are caused by the deed that s/he has done. in nutshell, everyone is responsible for the consequences of his or her own karma and everyone has to face those consequences. Now Jesus came upon this earth and took sufferings, and go crucified so that entire earth will be free from sins, this is something like holding somebody else responsible for somebody else's sins. Making Jesus a scapegoat. This word scapegoat has come from the same ritual where in they take goat, send it to the desert to die, offered as sacrifice so that sins of entire community will be washed away. Jesus did the same thing. Esther was not able to give me a satisfactory answer. Let's not consider this as victory of Hinduism over Christianity. We also have funny concept that if you take a dip in Ganga or take a dip in Kushawarta kund, Tryambakeshwar,Nashik, all your sins of 7 births will be washed away ( and you are free to make more and more brutal sins) where water is so dirty people don't take head to toe dip but merely sprinkle some water on them...See everywhere there are loopholes and runaways.
All this discussion went on and on, final a question cropped up. Which none of us could answer. Geeta says there is only one God and 'Sarvashaktiman Vishnu' is the figure in which we saw it. Christianity also says one God. Then I said, why there are two (two is just exemplary, there are many religions with many different thoughts ) different principles or religions? Why the God has given two (many) altogether different revelations about itself? Which is the true revelation of God? This could be the spark of argument. She kept her hand on bible and said this is true revelation of God. I kept my hand on Geeta and I said this is true revelation of God.
We both appreciated and respected each other's religion and concluded that religion is 'partially' psychological concept.
Esther complemented my for having such a wonderful discussion. It was first time in her life that a discussion about religion ended without any argument. I also wondered about my awareness about Hinduism...probably as you go away from your country the bonds of religion grow more stronger, I guess.
So with that we ended our discussion at 12:30 at night instead of 9:30 cutoff time.
No comments:
Post a Comment