Posted on 01/30/2007 10:42:21 PM PST by Coleus
The only religion in the world with empty minds is Christianity.
All dozens of other religions fill your head with the right beliefs.
TigersEye say "Can't find horse if barn filled with manure."
IBTZ
Ecotrin writes:
The only religion in the world with empty minds is Christianity.
nevadan responds:
Why do you say that? How do you know that is true?
Ecotrin writes:
All dozens of other religions fill your head with the right beliefs.
nevadan responds:
How do you know what "right beliefs" are?
Yoga (Devanagari: योग) is one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy, focusing on meditation. In India, Yoga is seen as a means to both physiological and spiritual mastery. Outside India, Yoga has become primarily associated with the practice of asanas (postures) of Hatha Yoga (see Yoga as exercise).
Yoga as a means of spiritual attainment is central to Hinduism (including Vedanta), Buddhism and Jainism and has influenced other religious and spiritual practices throughout the world. Hindu texts establishing the basis for yoga include the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and many others.
And here I thought Public Schools were not supposed to push any religion, however well intentioned.
The Gita is NOT post-Buddha. It predates Buddha by atleast 2 millenia. The Gita is about 5000 yrs old and are the spiritual lessons given by Lord Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield of the Kurukshetra war.
The word Hindu originated, not as the name of a religion, but as a geographical marker. Hindu derives from the Sanskrit word for river, sindhu, from which the Indus River received its name. Sometime in the first millennium B.C., the Persians, who were then South Asia’s closest neighbors, mispronounced sindhu, and designated the land around the Indus River as hindu. Over a thousand years later, in A.D. 712, the Muslims invaded the Indus Valley. To distinguish themselves, they called all non-Muslims hindus; the name of the land became, by default, the name of the people and their religion (Schoeps, 1966, p. 148). Christians, upon entering Hindustan (as it was then called), committed the same error of reduction. From their perspective, the indigenous people were all idol-worshipping pagans, so they christened the Indians gentoo, a derogatory synchronization of “gentile” and “hindu.” Thus the name hindu originally was given by outsiders to denote a geographic territory, but through the encroachment of various other religious groups it came to encompass all native religions in South East Asia.Information about the Vedic religion apparently introduced by the Aryans is gleaned largely from the Vedas. Focus was on yajna, ritualistic performance of sacrifice, and on joining the ancestors in heaven.The pre-eminent doctrine was Purva Mimamsa, largely non-theistic and with some strands trying to prove that God is non-existent, or at least redundant. Uttara Mimamsa (Vedanta) emerged towards the latter part of the period with the compilation of the Upanishads. Scholars say that there was no clearly enunciated doctrine of reincarnation at this time. The predominant deities, different from those in later Hinduism, ...
Though it is not exactly clear when the Bhagavad Gita was composed, western historians assume a date between 500 and 50 BCE. There is, however, considerable debate on the subject. Based on the differences in the poetic styles and supposed external influences such as Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, some scholars have suggested that the Bhagavad Gita was added to the Mahabharata at a later date.
Theories based on archaeoastronomical calculations from passages of the Mahabharata place the incidents upon which the Gita is based around 5561 BCE.[19] The traditional date reflecting the beliefs of many devotional Hindus places the text in the 4th millennium BC. See Mahabharata for a discussion of attempts to date the epic as a whole.
Obviously it is not an established fact as to when the "Gita" was written much less called the Bhagavad Gita. It is very clear that there was and is no one religion called 'Hinduism' and what existed in 500 BC when the historical Buddha lived was a precursor to what evolved as 'Hinduism.'
As for the Buddha (Guatama) being Hindu that is absurd. Firstly because there wasn't Hinduism at that time and secondly because...
Early life and marriageSiddhartha, destined to a luxurious life as a prince, had three palaces (one for each season) especially built for him. His father, King Œuddhodana, wishing for Siddhartha to be a great king, shielded his son from religious teachings or knowledge of human suffering.
This accords with the history of Sakyamuni Buddha as told in Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions and several other histories translated by western authors. Guatama followed several spiritual masters of the time, none Hindu, before rejecting them all and finding his enlightenment under the Bhodi Tree. That is the historical account as passed down by his followers.
Welcome to Free Republic.
Dude, your Free Republic follows strange logic.
According to you, if something is given a nickname that becomes popular, it is assumed that the thing did not exist before it was given the nickname!
The word "Hindu" is a corruption of the word Sindhu (Indus river) by the Iranains who have no "H" sound in Persian language. It is just a nickname given by dudes living west of Indus river for dudes living east of it.
The word Hindus obviously doesn't occur in any of the "Hindu" sacred literature like Vedas, Upanishads, etc.
But did you ever pause to ask what the Hindus have always called themselves and their religion -- what is their "real" name, as opposed to the nickname "Hindu"?
The answer is "Sanatana Dharma". This means "Eternal Faith" and is the real name of the religion that Hindus follow and they call themselves "Santan Dharamees". This is the name that occurs in their sacred literature.
"apparently introduced by the Aryans is gleaned largely from the Vedas."
The Aryan invasino theory has been discredited as imagination of the 19th century Missionaries like Max Muller and modern day Indian communists. It has been abandoned by most historians, including American universities.
"Obviously it is not an established fact as to when the "Gita" was written much less called the Bhagavad Gita."
You know that Gita and Bhagvad Gita refer to the same text, don't you?
"It is very clear that there was and is no one religion called 'Hinduism' and what existed in 500 BC when the historical Buddha lived"
Santana Dharma existed for thousands of years before that, inclduing all its scriptures like Vedas and Gita and the two epics.
Sure, the nick-name "Hindu" did not exist as Persians had yet to discover India.
Got it?
Got it?
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