[Advaita-l] Conversion story

[Satish Arigela]

>Okay, maybe you did. Lets say I found HH more convincing and lets just
>leave it at that.
 
But HH's dear student shrI abhinava vidyAtIrtha seems to accepting others as Hindu-s per shrI Stig's mention. He also quoted manu. That seems to have more strength.
 
>
>  He/She does not need a varNa.
>

>Thats very interesting! Solves lot of "problems" within Hinduism
>itself, not necessarily only westerners converting to Hinduism.
 
This is for non Indians. They dont have a varNa and so they would not need one. They can follow the general prescriptions common to all varNa-s.
You know this and still why do you try to muddle up the issue? 
 
> They can be learned at any age.. it is most effective if learnt from young
> age. But that does not mean you should not learn later.

>And that would help his spiritual progress in your opinion. I disagree.

And why do you disagree? Please state your reasons. They were some swami-s who led a secular life till 30 or 40 s then started learning and attained GYAna(or so we hear).
 
What is the logical or scriptural basis for your disagreement?
 
>>Where will that person find himself in some
>>more years after conversion?
>
> In Hinduism - in one of its branches. Is it so hard to see?
>

>Yes, to me it is, without varNa as it seems he will have adhikAra as
>defined by whoever will convert him, I suppose.
 
As said before non-Indians need not be fitted into varNa-s.
See for example when the siddhAnta and the vAma streams of the shaiva mata made their way into East and South East Asia i.e. Combodia, Vietnam, Thailand etc as early as
5 or 6 th century CE, they followed the shaiva mata there. And apparently they followed till the 13- 14 centuries till the Muslims wiped them out. 
 
They were all non- Indians who did not have a varNa but followed shaiva mata for many centuries. They still do.. eventhough in small pockets. As you can see I am not suggesting something new!!
 
>That he will be a good fit isn't an assumption, somehow, but he may be
>lost is an invalid assumption?
 
Because I personally have seen a few and heard about many who were apparently not lost but their children also grew up as Hindus. This is the basis for my saying they need not be lost. Maybe there are few cases where people felt confused but that has to do with the individual and not the process.
 
> How can you convert by the way?: There is nothing that can convert one into
> something called Hinduism.

>Why are you contradicting here? If there can't be a conversion, you
>may have let HH's words remain as they are instead of putting
>them aside and making your own suggestions on what to do!
 
There is no contradiction here. see below why. By the way it is clear now that it is not just my suggestion. HH AVT supports this. This suggestion was followed outside India(Thailand, Indonesia etc) for centuries. And it makes logical sense. These are strengths behind this line of argument

> However, one(here I mean any westerner) can become a shaiva, vaiShNava,
> shAkta, kaula,etc by dIkSha into the respective systems. Even a person born
> into normal Hindu family becomes a shaiva only through this dIkSha.
>

>>I'm confused whether or not then this person (here I too mean that
>westerner) will become a Hindu; or will become a shaiva or
>vaishnava, etc, without being a Hindu; or will become a Hindu as well
>as a shaiva, vaishnava, etc. Would this be the conversion
>ceremony that you said didn't exist?

There are two possibilities: Either you dont understand what I say or you act as though you dont understand because it undoes your earlier statments about not allowing non-Indians to become Hindus. Whatever..
 
The said practitioner will become a shaiva(or any specialised shaiva like saiddhAntika, bhairavAchArin etc),  or vaiShNava or shAkta  because of his dIkSha into the same.
 
Since these various sub-sects are under the Hindu banner, they can be called Hindus.
 
This way is suggested because no purANa, or Agama talks about a Hindu dIkSha but only talk about dIkSha into their respective sub-sects.
 
Is that clear?
 
>>! If all men
> are not born equal due to their past karma, where is the scope for one
> to convert one's faith from what he is born into due to his
>>karma?
>
> I find this somewhat silly.

>Thanks, that solves at least one problem: we won't have to argue
>further, because the entire premise of HH and my faith in HH's
>premise is based on this past karma! :)
 
I should have clarified that what I found silly is the statment "where is the scope for one
to convert one's faith from what he is born into due to his karma?" and not the former part of the statment.
Isnt this similar to saying "where is the scope for one to migrate to kAshi because he/she was born in Andhra "- oh yes past karma made him take birth in Andhra..no? So he should stay there only..