Comparison of religions and their philosophies and concepts.

This is WIP.

First lets start with hinduism and understand what it is. I already have a blog on this and this is just a continuation. Hinduims has many meanings.
1. hindu = hindustani, indian, barathiya vasi (the land beyond the sindhu from the west)

2. the religions of hindustan

3. sanathana dharma.

4. the indian way of life.

5. the news paper the hindu

and so on.

it is because of the meaning 1 that we say all indians are hindus including muslims, christians etc..

it is because of meaning 2. that we say that jainism, sikhism and all other indic religions as hinduism.

it is because of 3. that we see so many different forms of god. in the medeival or ancient times, the vedics attempted to convert and encompass all major, minor and pagan beliefs into a commonfold called the sanathana dharma as their belief was of a single god which man can perceive in different forms. this was done by adding such gods as characters in puranas to bring social acceptance and belief in people that they can worship any of the forms ans still they pray to the same one common god.

we'll see the reason for the forth one soon.

the fifth one has no relevance here.

inside hindusim there is every form of philospphy from various schools, so if you are trying to relate allah to hindu god it will surely fit in more than one of the philosophies but surely not with advaitha.

so many philosphhies due to the evolution of the concept of god in hinduism. the same happened with western philosophies which all derived from zoroastraism. except the difference is that due to sanatha dharma these were not called religions but just dharmas.
so in both western adn eastern religions it is the same original concept which has been distorted and misunderstood by each religion. hindusim had space for all these concepts to live together due to its flexibility while western ones pitched religiously against each other.


one morepoint to add is that zoroastraianism itself was a sister or offshoot of vedic philosophy. the difference was due to non acceptance of someideas. especially that of rituals sacrifice and recluse culture of vedics while zoroastrians concentrated on grahasta or family life. zoroastrianism alsodiverged into dualism of god and evil. otherwise ahura mazda is the equivalent of iswara/saguna brahman the spenta maniyus are equivalent of the deities like shiva,vishni, devas etc. though warly zoroaztrianism talks of ahura mazda or ashura medha in sanskrit as both nirguna and saguna, the concept of maya in advaitha or agnyana in other schools was replaced by evil arhiman. hence the dualism in it and later ahura mazda became purely saguna and became monotheistic. but if we consider the spenta manyus it was polytheistic too. but then the focus of zoroastrianism was on ahura mazda hence monotheistic. since it lost the concept of a nirguna ahura mazda it lost the next level concept of god as monistic.

also in actual life the zoroastrians split from vedics by warring against them. vedics who initially praised ashuras later praised devas and zoroastrians otherwise. when vedics did ritual sacrifice for devas the ashuras used to disturb the sacrifices as described in the itihasas and puranas.
however the contents and language of the gadhas and rig veda are very similar or even the same. infact the zend avesta written in pahalvi was equivalent to the upanidhads as commenteries of the gadhas which was not understood. modern lingusts interpreted using vedic sanskrit.

studying zarathustra-ism and zarathustra the first prophet of the world and his relationship with both vedic and western religious concepts is very important for understanding the unity of religions.

judaism was highly influenced by zorastrainism, islam came at a very later developed and much misinterpreted versions of both zorastrianism and judaism. hence god or allah in islam is just a later time interpretation of vedic god without having any links with hinduism then. hindusim too had gone into various misconceptions of this concept then absorbing similar concepts as judaism, christianity etc by forming various sub religions like shaivism, vaishnavism etc which are similarly monotheistic and has similar belief system as judaism or christianity.
though there were also other systems and schools developed liek jainism, buddhism, yoga and other schools.
it was later during the time of shankara that the old and original vedic school of advaitism was recovered however the effect of sanathana dharma it just became another school of it.


which means all gods are different interprations of the same concept of god, which was basically a form less characterless nirguna infinite thing which we gave life to as god our super power, creator etc. etc.

other than the philosophical and conceptual differences it is in the social, cultural and ritualistic aspects that religions majorly differ. this is the reason for religious differences. and hence is also the reason y hindusim in spities of its vagairies of philosophies is a single social system and many consider it so as a way of life.

Reincarnation and rebirth

you can get definitions and explanation of reincarnation and its association with karma here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation#Hinduism
and contrast this with this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebirth_%28Buddhist%29


In my view, I believe that reincarnation as a concept is based on the law of conservation of energy.
i.e., considering life, knowledge and consiousness(soul/Atman) are forms of energy that power the human being, according to this theory, "total inflow of energy into a system must equal the total outflow of energy from the system, plus the change in the energy contained within the system. In other words, energy can be converted from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed."

So when the body dies, the soul has to get into a new system. i.e, the life energy has to be converted to some other form or move into another system. It need not be another living being but just another form of energy and ultimately it has to reach the source of the energy(brahman, the sum total of all energy and matter in creation). This is the logic of soul reincarnation.

With regard to karma being the basis of next rebirth or reincarnation, this is a dogma. This was created in good faith to control human beings.

the meaning of this can be interpreted this way,
1. In todays world your karmas affect you instantly or within the same physical life. i.e, what you do today affects your tomorrow. if you do good, it pays tomorrow. if you do bad, it gets back tomorrow.

2. what karma you do affects your next generation(or any one in your domain). if you do good and teach them good, they become good an vice versa. you mould the character of your/the general next generation, implicitly or explicitly. i.e, your thought energy (knowledge and conciousness) transforms into the thought energy of the next generation(or any one who has been affected by you). This is thought rebirth.

Now we hear stories of rememberance of punarjanma etc. This can be explained by my interpretation of rebirth of thought energy.

My philosohpy on God, religion, rituals, brahman, creation, etc..

After a lot of searching and research I am more than convinced that the "concept" called god is needed for humanity. But religion is a curse on humanity(see my other blog on religion).
prophets and gurus created god to get control and order into the barbaric humans. But ironically that has added more barbarism in the so called cultured humans as we are still figiting in the name of religion. remember for any civilization the other culture is barbarian.



When was god created?
well if we look at the history of religions, you will understand this.
lets take the most modernmajor religion. Islam, this was a reformation of christianity and judaism.
reformation means both social and changes to the concept of god. similarly christianity was a reformation on Judaism. Judaism itself was based on beliefs in zoroastraism and some more imagination to the conditions in which Abraham lived.
Zoroastraism itself was an offshoot of the vedas (concept of god/devil, i.e., dualism evolved) with some more non vedic concepts.
similarly in the east we had a similar thing happening, with vedanta dharma(modern hinduism) borrowing from jainism(vegeterianism), buddhism(non violence) and other pagan beliefs(idol worship) and western concepts from zoroasrtianism(dualism), judaism(god as an entity) and christianity which had come into india by 1st mil a.d. and reforming ancient (vedic) hinduism giving less importance to spirituality and more to bakthi cult. buddhism itself was a reformation of hinduism and borrowed from jainism. buddhism and jainism were contemprory and had some the same effect and were the best interpretations of the vedas regarding god. they are atheistic and wrote dharmas for people to live a righteous life and not about religion and religious worship etc.

So we can see that the concept of god itself comes from the vedas. and vedas did not have god as an entity. vedas only had demi gods, worshipped nature objects(not in the bakthi/devotion sense) for thanking them and believed everything is brahman. Brahman is not god but the creation itself(advaitha). Brahman is not worshipped or needs any devotion. Brahman is ultimate truth. i.e., everything is the universe/creation. from now on when I use the word Brahman I will mean the creation/universe.

The vedas created science and not religion. They gave the knowledge of what we are and whats around us, whats the universe etc and just thanked these and not pray to them. infact you don't pray to anybody in the vedas. you just tell your self to be something(gain knowledge, be good, destroy ignorance, etc) . Similarly Rituals were created to give social and legal messages. They are equal to todays contracts, affadivits, celebrations, parties etc. since writing was not developed then.

Now we can see that this concept of Brahman and rituals were confused by various people thus creating god as an entity and various religions and the original idea has been blown out of propotions. Society, philosophy, science and other knowledge were mixed too and thus several religions came.

So is god any kind of entity like a super power or creator or almighty or trinity or what ever?
The answer is no. There is no entity called god.
(Well this are Abrahamic concepts of god which crept into Indian society post vedic period. )

Even according to Vedic Hinduism god(Brahman, the source in "the matrix") is another name for the creation and the source of all energy(including life/thought energy) .
This is also my interpretation of true advaitha, if you remove all social, political and other aspects of it. This is the true belief in Hinduism and so in Buddhism. These religions can be called as atheistic by believers of Abrahamic religions. Theistic interpretation of vedas is technically and scientifically incorrect(doesnt appleal to intelligence/common sense), though it could be socially correct.


So why do people believe in god, why dont they realise/accept the truth. why does humanity need god. the answer was given by Morpheus in movie "The Matrix" when Neo asked the same question about why people live in the matrix and why cant they get out. This was the reply from Morpheous "You have to understand that many people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."

You get the idea? God has formed the basis of our civilizations.

Ok. in simpler words, I believe god represents the good part of us and is just a funcion of the 6th sense of the brain, just like what we call the mind and heart.
To live a ordered and cultured life without god is very hard. one needs to get to a cetrain level of maturity, independence and control to do that. Until some one reaches there, belief in a super power or what ever called god needs to exist.

An ignorant person is made to imagine a god, this imagination is made possible because of the brain's thinking capabilities. This god is just inside you and a part of u, the good things learnt by you.

Most of what people call god is because of ignorance. When ignorance is removed you realise truth. If this truth is called enlightenment or atheism whatever be it. The truth is that there is nothing as god. It is just a guide line like the latitude and longitudes. It helps you in navigating life until you become a good sailor. After which you can continue to use if you feel. I dont feel the need to use it anymore. So I am Atheist or Buddha(some one with buddhi/intelligence/ knowledge), you can decide what I am. If I am a buddha, I am a Pratyeka Buddha trying to be a Samyaksam Buddha, hehe ;) .


So why do knowledgeable people like saints and prophets and other intelligent people even after realising this truth, continue to profess the concept of god and say they see god in everything and every one. Think about it. the answer is social reasons. To avoid the implications of a godless ignorant society and to build a amicable society by saying every one is the same.

Godless ignorant society? When the truth is known how is the society ignorant? that is the question.
Well reason
No 1. just by preaching the truth, people and society don't change (how many of us follow religious preachings or even know it. remember what happened to islam because of wrong interpretations of preachings). They are so immersed in their worldly thought that they cannot so easily break out of it. It take not just knowledge, experience but fearlessness and courage to do that. i.e., the agents in the matrix control u and u need to fight it. Not every one can do that.
No.2 not all knowledgeable people good. they use this to expolit ignorant people in various ways.
No.3 This truth cannot be preached or taught. it needs to be realised by one.

So why do I tell this? Just to tell u that when u have realised the truth, don't be afraid ur alone and don't confuse yourself further.

So the next question of the seeker is who created everything or who created the brahman itself.
This is beyond my comprehension and should be beyond any humans comprehension and researching this tends to infinity. Some might say its god or what ever, this is just some kinda placeolder for the unknown/not knowable and imagination.
then I can ask who created god?
Humans of course, so it gets back to that chicken and egg situation.

The basic axiom is Brahman exists and always existed and will always exist. we cannot go beyond this.
there are many mythological stories in hinduism which substanciate this. do you know the story of thiruvannamalai jyothi? it says you can never find the adhi or antham of Shiva(representing the creation here). if some one said so. They are lying.

unfortunately the brain and the body(sense, including the sixth) has limited capabilities while the brahman is infinite. So no amount of thinking can get you beyond a certain point. Our scope is limited. whats beyond us can be called as god or infinite or what ever, its upto you. for me, I simply dont care about whats beyond any humans capabilities. we simply dont posses the logic to feel it. and what ever we presently say, feel or believe as god or not is just our imagination.

Is this the ultimate truth?

To conclude I should say, be good, be good to others. take life as it comes. do some decent planning for the near future. give your 2 cents(or may be more) worth contribution to humanity/world/Brahman. gain all possible knowledge. differenciate the good and bad in that. do what your common sense tells. make sure you learn good things so your common sense tells u good things. enjoy life and dont worry if god exists or not. if you think you are strong enuff you wont need to. if you are weak it helps. thats it.


PS:- ofcourse I am not against god or a blind Atheist. Blind belief in anything be it in god or being atheist is not good. Basic principles of any good religion asks you to ask questions and gain knowledge. The more you do this the more you will agree with what I has written here.

Religion and being religious is bad.

I do not like religions. It divides human beings and destroys humanity. To me religion means an affilitiaion to a particular belief. All religions say they have the ultimate aim of reaching god/heven/understand the truth or whatever. But in reality they impose a set of rules and the followers blindly follow(being religious) it and set an affilitiaion to a particular way of living life(instead of understanding the real intention of the belief) and oppose and fight others.

While Religion is a mix of Dharma + philisophy + rituals. In reality the rituals supersede the philosophy and order(dharma) behind it as most humans are stupidm or ignorant and dont reason why they do things. Even most religious people break religious rules for some gain or evil purposes. so what the point in having religions? Religions through history has only complemented politics and served as a reason for doing all kind of evil things.

So religions(with respect to god/philosophy) are bad.
If some one gets spiritual, understands philosophy and logic behind the religion, then they are not religious anymore. They can be considered spiritual, as they follow the phisolophy in spirit and not litrally and ritiulastically.

Philosophy/Dharma etc are the same for all of humanity. It is the rules of logic and common sense for the good of humanity.
Now do you understand the difference between religion and dharma/belief etc and why religions are bad.

What is Hinduism?

Hindu is an arabic/perisan word which refered to people, who lived beyond the river sindu which in persian was called hindu and greek indus thus India. the word hind in persian is equal to the greek word india and the word hindu is a synonym of Indian.

Hinduism is an anglasized form of the word hindu which refers to all the beliefs followed by the people of hind(hindustan aka Bharatvarsh the real name of India).
so it is not one particular faith/belief/religion but a collective noun which refers to all indic beliefs, lifestyles,culture, science, medicene, etc.. It can be compared to Americanism, europeanism, africanism chinese-ism or what ever but not compared to cristianity, islam, etc.
Believers of hindu religions live all over the world, it has high following in indonesia, java malaysia and other SEasian countries. but they all cannot be called hindus in one sense and be called hindus in another. this is because Hinduims has many meanings.

1. hindu = hindustani, indian, barathiya vasi (people of the land beyond the sindhu from the west based on the arabic/persian word), in this context india and hind mean the same.

2. all the religions of hind or hindustan followed by the inhabitants of india today.

3. sanathana dharma or universal duty of righteousness (or common ness) of all indic religions

4. the indian way of life including the indian social systems and customs.

5. a religion which is based on the original vedic philospphy and which has been trans formed over many thousands of years and still the core vedic ideas remain which some minor changes in the view points.



it is because of the meaning 1 that we say all indians are hindus including muslims, christians etc..

it is because of meaning 2. that we say that jainism, sikhism and all other indic religions as hinduism.

it is because of 3. that we see so many different forms of god. in the medeival or ancient times, the vedics attempted to convert and encompass all major, minor and pagan beliefs into a commonfold called the sanathana dharma as their belief was of a single god which man can perceive in different forms. this was done by adding such gods as characters in puranas to bring social acceptance and belief in people that they can worship any of the forms ans still they pray to the same one common god.

it is because of meaning 4 which includes the smirithis of hinduism which are rejected by other indic religions, the reason why one has to be born hindu and not be converted . its like saying one has to be born indian and cannot be converted to indian. It is a ethinic or cultural or regional identity and not a religion. this is changing in modern times as the smirithis and other social customs are time bound and needs to change according to times. caste system and things like hindu of indian birth only are chaning today. these days, some hindu sects/faiths religions do allow conversion like Arya Samaj , ISKON

Vedic dharma or Sanatana Dharma is the basis of most if not all indic beliefs. even today, there are many local and pagan beliefs(like village gods, iyanar, kali, amman temples which are not vedic or vedantic gods, they are non agamic) which are considered hindu, which surely does not follow the vedic/vedantic dharma or the social systems of smrithi but these are all constuients of the universal religion of sanatana darma. these pagan religions were initially non vedic but later merged to become sanatana darma and accepted the vedic authority and these are now a mix of vedic + pagan beliefs. though recently there have been attempts by politicians to divide people again to create vote banks and these pagan beliefs are being delinked from the vedas and sanathana dharma ideologies.


Also Dharma is different from religion.
i.e, hinduism is not a religion in the usual sense. It is an umbrella term used to encompass all indic faiths. it is not a single belief system. It is a collection of indic beliefs.
Atleast it is a misnomer for Vedantic dharma(the major intredient of sanathana dharma followed today), which itself has many schools of thought. Moreover most indians follow more than one hindu belief simply because they dont understand their religion i.e., ignorance. infact the influence of sanathana dharma is so secular that they would go to a church or dharga and still pray to the god as their god.

Brahminism(or vedantism), Buddhism, Jainism, Saivism, Vaisnavism, Saktism etc can be considered hindu religions or sub-religions.

Hinduims can be a religion for the West who are ignorant of what faiths we Indians follow and especially see and compare all beliefs to the Abrahamic religions. But surely an indian cannot consider hinduism as a religion. its like saying islam as arab-ism or christianity as israel-ism. The problem is we always see, learn and do things as seen by the west.

If we do consider that when people refer to hinduism they refer to Sanathana dharma, it is still a misnomer as Sanathana dharma means universal duties of righteousness or universal laws for being right.
Since Sanathana dharma is universal, attaching it to a regional/narrow scope of hindus or indians is not right.

(depricated post) What is God?

After a lot of searching and research I am more than convinced that the "concept" called god is needed for humanity. But religion is a curse on humanity.
prophets and gurus created god to get control and order into the barbaric humans. but ironically that has added more barbarism in the so called cultured humans as we are still figiting in the name of religion.



When was god created?
well if we look at the history of religions, you will understand this.
lets take the most modernmajor religion. Islam, this was a reformation of christianity and judaism.
reformation means both social and changes to the concept of god. similarly christianity was a reformation on Judaism. Judaism itself was based on beliefs in zoroastraism and some more imagination to the conditions in which Abraham lived.
Zoroastraism itself was an offshoot of the vedas (concept of god/devil, i.e., dualism evolved) with some more non vedic concepts.
similarly in the east we had a similar thing happening, with vedanta dharma(modern hinduism) borrowing from jainism(vegeterianism), buddhism(non violence) and other pagan beliefs(idol worship) and western concepts from zoroasrtianism(dualism), judaism(god as an entity) and christianity which had come into india by 1st mil a.d. and reforming ancient (vedic) hinduism giving less importance to spirituality and more to bakthi cult. buddhism itself was a reformation of hinduism and borrowed from jainism. buddhism and jainism were contemprory and had some the same effect and were the best interpretations of the vedas regarding god. they are atheistic and wrote dharmas for people to live a righteous life and not about religion and religious worship etc.

So we can see that the concept of god itself comes from the vedas. and vedas did not have god as an entity. vedas only had demi gods, worshipped nature objects(not in the bakthi/devotion sense) for thanking them and believed everything is brahman. brahman is not god but the creation itself(advaitha). brahman is not worshipped or needs any devotion. Brahman is ultimate truth. i.e., everything is the universe.

Now we can see that this concept of Brahman was confused by various people thus creating god as an entity and various religions and the original idea has been blown out of propotions. So is god any kind of entity like a super power or creator or almighty or trinity or what ever. no. there is no entity called god. There is notthing called god or god(Brahman, the source in "the matrix") is another name for the creation. Theistic interpretation of god is technically and scientifically incorrect, though it could be socially correct.

This is also my interpretation of true advaitha, if you remove all social, political and other aspects of it.

So my do people believe in god, why dont they realise/accept the truth. why does humanity need god. the answer was given by Morpheus in movie "The Matrix" when Neo asked the same question about why people live in the matrix and why cant they get out. This was the reply from Morpheous "You have to understand that many people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."

You get the idea? God has formed the basis of our civilizations.

Ok. in simpler words, I believe god represents the good part of us and is just a funcion of the 6th sense of the brain, just like what we call the mind and heart.
To live a ordered and cultured life without god is very hard. one needs to get to a cetrain level of maturity, independence and control to do that. Until some one reaches there, belief in a super power or what ever called god needs to exist.

An ignorant person is made to imagine a god, this imagination is made possible because of the brain's thinking capabilities. This god is just inside you and a part of u, the good things learnt by you.

Most of what people call god is because of ignorance. When ignorance is removed you realise truth. If this truth is called enlightenment or atheism whatever be it. The truth is that there is nothing as god. It is just a guide line like the latitude and longitudes. It helps you in navigating life until you become a good sailor. After which you can continue to use if you feel. I dont feel the need to use it anymore. So I am Atheist or Buddha(some one with buddhi/intelligence/ knowledge), you can decide what I am. If I am a buddha, I am a Pratyeka Buddha trying to be a Samyaksam Buddha, hehe ;) .


So why do knowledgeable people like saints and prophets and other intelligent people even after realising this truth, continue to profess the concept of god and say they see god in everything and every one. Think about it. the answer is social reasons. To avoid the implications of a godless ignorant society and to build a amicable society by saying every one is the same.

Godless ignorant society? When the truth is known how is the society ignorant? that is the question.
Well reason
No 1. just by preaching the truth, people and society don't change (how many of us follow religious preachings or even know it. remember what happened to islam because of wrong interpretations of preachings). They are so immersed in their worldly thought that they cannot so easily break out of it. It take not just knowledge, experience but fearlessness and courage to do that. i.e., the agents in the matrix control u and u need to fight it. Not every one can do that.
No.2 not all knowledgeable people good. they use this to expolit ignorant people in various ways. No.3 This truth cannot be preached or taught. it needs to be realised by one.

So why do I tell this? Just to tell u that when u have realised the truth, don't be afraid ur alone and don't confuse yourself further.



PS:- ofcourse I am not against god or a blind Atheist. Blind belief in anything be it in god or being atheist is not good.