Posted on 08/12/2010 1:19:22 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Her parents were Baptist and Catholic and she was born in Georgia, part of the US Bible Belt. But Hollywood superstar Julia Roberts says she is now a practising Hindu. Speaking to the September issue of Elle magazine, Roberts said she goes to the temple to "chant, pray and celebrate."
The 42-year-old actress, who won a million hearts with Pretty Woman and an Oscar with Erin Brockowich, took to Hinduism during the shooting of her upcoming film, `Eat, Pray and Love' last year. In the movie, she plays a divorced woman who travels to Italy for food, India for spirituality and Bali, where she finds love. In the interview, Robert also spoke of reincarnation. "I've been so spoiled with my friends and family in this life. Next time I want to be just something quiet and supporting," she said.
Swami Dharamdev of Hari Mandir, Pataudi, where `Eat, Pray and Love' was shot for three weeks in September-October last year, said it is good news if someone accepts Hinduism from the heart. During the film's shooting, he said, a makeshift temple had been constructed nearby where unit members would light lamps and burn incense sticks. "Julia too would pray there, run her hands over the lamp and her hair as we all do," he recalled. "She also got her three kids here. I tied the sacred red thread on their wrists and applied the tilak on their foreheads," he said.
Swami Dharamdev recalled the actress also requested him, through her private assistant, to pray for her mother who was ill. "Before she left I told her, `you may choose not to eat or love. But don't forget to pray. Make that a part of your life, not just acting in this film'. She smiled and nodded affirmatively," he said.
In a statement, Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism in the US, also said he and his fellow practitioners welcome Roberts into the fold.
Julia's move to Hinduism has sparked off a torrent of online response. Some are highly critical of her; others the opposite. "Another confused celebrity trying on the religion "flavour" of the month. Hindu? Does she even know what that means? How can you convert to another religion after making a film? Next thing you know she'll be wearing a Kabbalah bracelet after going to a Madonna concert!," was a comment posted on The Daily Mail's website. However, Anne, Leicester, wrote, "I like Julie Roberts, admire her work on screen and her commitment to her beliefs. If she's living her life to the ideals of Hinduism, that's all to the good. I look forward to seeing her latest film.
I’ve always known she wasn’t a Christian, even though she comes from the South. She’s always said things a person of faith never would.
To paraphrase a dixie chick, I’m ashamed she’s from the south. The strange things she’s done and said strongly indicate she has no traditional moral base.
Another empty Hollywood actor...tell me it ain’t so!
No whore means sleeping with all her leading men and taking them away from their girlfriends/wives. Google it.
If she was a sincere devout Hindu, she would be a strong social conservative.
Hindus share the same basic moral absolutes as Christians.
Is she changing her name to Dot?
Yeah, maybe it will cure her from speaking through her nose, too. I can’t stand to hear her talk.
Is that so? I thought there was some scandal about her and her current husband. I don’t pay that much attention - Hollywood types always seem to be hopping into one bed or another, with or without papers.
We should start a thread on actors that have one good, longterm marriage. I bet it would be a short one.
With a mouth like that,she should be eating oats out of a burlap sack.
I wonder if she knows what the 300 million Dalits in Hinduism go through everyday ?
There isn’t a Hollywood personality with enough sense to bell a buzzard.
They are all weird,insane, liberal,crazies ,and half of them don’t even know what sex they are.
Excellent post.
Hinduism is not a moral relative cult, sorry. Many Hindus (especially famous ones like (puke) Deepak Chopra) are as ignorant of Hinduism as rainbow sash wearing “Catholics” are of real Christianity.
Tin foil hat alert!
A children's game without end.
That, too. And she's one of them, an Untouchable, to anyone from a standard caste.
Hollywood will always be attracted to religions which focus on the individuals "climbing" the stairs of getting over their stench from a hollywood lifestyle. Hinduism offers a clean slate...over and over and over and over again thru reincarnation. Zero accountability as something in your "past life" must be playing out in this life. It's phony baloney on every count if you take a look at it...unfortunately if one isn't aware of what God says about these religious practices of Hinduism and various others.... they'll fall hook, line and sinker into anything out there ready to snatch them up....it happens... and they fall down a shoot that ends in darkness.
Just as with all the others who come out of these fake and false religions......they'll tell you they were indeed deceived and had no idea what they were really getting into..but they thought they did and it wouldn't hurt to "try".....much to their surprise they got sucked right in. Never underestimate the wiles of the enemy of God....he's not called the father of lies for nothing and the great deceiver.
Thank God it was not i s l a m (evit word not worthy of being wrtten correctly)
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