[Advaita-l] Conversion story

[Michael Shepherd]

Namaste Satish

Distinguished Western scholars of Advaita Vedanta such as John Grimes, Greg
Goode and Dennis Waite have taken part on this web list over the last years.

Because Hinduism is both a faith and a philosophy intertwined in wisdom, it
is difficult to draw the line in practice between studying Hinduism for its
philosophy, and the 'ashram-tripping' of the 1960s onward..

There's no need for Hindus to make the distinction unless they wish.. but if
Westerners don't, it can lead to frictions.

However superficial 'New-Age-ism' may seem in the US, I'm optimistic that
eventually it can only lead to a deeper good or sacchidananda.

Michael


-----Original Message-----
From: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
[mailto:advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org]On Behalf Of Satish
Arigela
Sent: 04 September 2009 10:50
To: Praveen R. Bhat
Cc: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Conversion story



Namaste,
 
-----
European proprietor of a nearby cenna factory and a friend of his
sought an interview with HH. HH pointed out to them that God
must have had a purpose in giving them birth in Christian families and
that it was their duty to seek spiritual progress along the
lines chalked out for them by the religion and not to waste time in
trying to find out relative value of the several faiths.
-----
 
I appreciate this and thanks a lot for posting the exact paragraph. As we
can see, HH asked them to seek spiritual progress in their religion but
never said coming or converting into Hindufold will somehow hamper one's
spiritual progress.
 
>From the passage it looks like these 2 Europeans were sort of trying to
evaluate the relative value of faiths and not really interested in
praciticing Hindu rituals which seems to justify why AchArya asked them to
practice their faith without bothering us. Like i suspected.
 
I am sorry if this following up troubled you, but I thought the initial post
gave a wrong impression and seems to discourage(**) non-Indians by improper
quoting of HH. Ofcourse our memories are imperfect and they can be blurred
over time. I will say no more on this.
 
**given the present religio-politic scenario in the world...this may not be
good
 
Best Regards
Satish



_______________________________________________
Archives: http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/
http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.culture.religion.advaita

To unsubscribe or change your options:
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/advaita-l

For assistance, contact:
listmaster at advaita-vedanta.org