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What Development ?Reader comment on item: [The Issue of Compulsion in Religion:] Islam is What Its Followers Make of It Submitted by Shailendra (India), Dec 5, 2007 at 03:27 Hello Sir, Thats the thing mising in your philosophies. You people tell that you are developed, but what about the philosophical development. In U.S. there is a 60-75% chance of a collage going girl becoming pregnant. What the hell you do with such a development. Since decades, you people are suffering from personal problems in lifes like dippressions, divorces, etc. Actually, ISLAM is better when compared to christainity. According to its rituals, its is HINDUISM in pure form. It came out of anti-idiol worship revolt in hindus. Muslim rulers destroved hindu temples, because in quran it is said Quran 9:5 Quran 47:4 Quran 73:12 Quran 22:19-22:23 Quran 5:51 Quran 5:64 Quran 33:26 Quran 59:2-5 So, for muslims the truth is that "NO IDOL WORSHIP" Some Muslim thinkers have made a distinction between Islam and Muhammadanism and they have preferred the word Islam to Muhammadanism. The former is a more universal concept than the latter, the truths taught in it being impersonal in origin. This is the meaning of Sruti in the Hindu or the Sanatan Dharma tradition of India; the sages of the Upanishads, or of the Srutis, were only discoverers of eternal spiritual truths, which can be rediscovered by any one else also at any time. But the latter, namely, Muhammadanism, refers to a person as the sanction for the teachings it expounds. Without the personal founder, the teaching cannot stand. Such teachings constitute, as I said earlier, the Smrti dimension of a religion, which is limited by place, time, and history. The Hindus consider even their Bhagavad-Gita as a Smrti in form though a Sruti in content, since it deals with ethical and spiritual truths only and not social rules and regulations. In the Hindu tradition, unlike in all other religious traditions, there is a clear distinction between its Sruti and its Smrti elements. The Sruti stands for the body of eternal and impersonal truths valid for all times and peoples. And the Smrti stands for the temporal and the local elements; and because they are temporal and local, they cannot be universal. And Hinduism emphasizes that they need to be changed age after age, in response to changing socio-economic conditions. The Sruti is represented by the Vedas generally, and by the Upanishads particularly. They contain truths of the spiritual dimension of life discovered by different sages, among whom were many women also. These truths, like any truth, about the physical world, are eternal and are capable of being re-discovered by any human being equipped with moral purity and mental penetration. Among these truths is the innate divinity of man, the unity of God as infinite and non-dual consciousness, which is the Self of man and nature, man's capacity to realize this truth in life, and the availability of different paths to realize God. The Hindu mind discovered the presence of these truths in every world religion. And the mystics of every religion, including the Sufi mystics of Islam, apart from the Prophet himself, have borne witness to these eternal spiritual truths. This is what India calls the Sanatana Dharma of any religious tradition. The Smrti is represented by the various law books of the Hindu tradition, like Manu Smrti, Yajnavalkya Smrti, Apasthamba dharma-sutras etc. They deal with rules to regulate the day-to-day life of people individually and collectively; they deal with subjects such as food, dress, marriage, inheritance etc. This is what India calls the yuga dharma dimension of any religious tradition, the dharma relevant for a particular yuga, age or epoch. The Hindu tradition, even in its orthodox form, provides for the giving up of old Smrtis and the creation and adoption of new Smrtis. That is why, in the long history of the Hindu tradition, there have been many Smrtis, but only one Sruti; and in this modern period, the most arresting fact of Hindu life is the rejection of the authority of the old Smrtis, and the free and fearless adoption of a new Smrti by the people, in response to the onward march of history and the demands of the modern age. The age-old experience of the Hindu tradition demonstrates the truth that the changing of these Smrti elements of any tradition, which become at a later age, what in Greek mythology is called, procrustean beds, not only will not harm that tradition but, on the contrary, will only strengthen that tradition, and make it better fitted to achieve human development. The Hindu tradition recognizes the fact that, with respect to human development and fulfilment, these Smrti elements of a tradition are like the bark of a tree; as the tree grows, the bark also must grow side by side; if not, the bark will choke the tree and destroy it. But a living tree will cast off its old bark and create for itself a new bark suitable to its growth. With regard to Smrti, in general, this far seeing and orthodox national wisdom finds beautiful expression in the pithy saying of Sri Ramakrishna (1836-1886), which presents the essence of Hindu wisdom aptly: ‘The Mughal coins have no currency under the (British East India) Company's rule.' One of the features that helped to sustain the impressive millennia-long continuity of the Hindu tradition is the general acceptance of this dominance of the Sruti over the Smrti. This produced two great results, namely, the emergence of a galaxy of mystics and saints and reformers, and the high respect they commanded from the people, even though some of them preached openly against several aspects of the teachings of the current Hindu Smrtis. If, on the other hand, the Smrtis, what in Islam is called the Sariyah, had dominated the Hindu tradition, these mystics and saints and reformers would have been silenced or destroyed. In our own time, a Vivekananda (1863-1902) appeared, and he preached strongly against several beliefs and practices advocated by the Hindu Smrtis, showing them to be obsolete and enemies of human development and fulfilment; and yet he was accepted, respected, and honoured even by the orthodox tradition. This stands in sharp contrast to the tragic fate of several lovable saints and innovators in the wide spectrum of the Semitic tradition This is actually the end of islam. But, Hindus should accept Muslims as their brothers. Saying anyone to get converted to islam is wrong. Actually, even muslims follow the same religion, the religion of humanity thats "HINDUISM" Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". << Previous Comment Next Comment >> Reader comments (374) on this item
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