Islam and A Blue eyed Blonde Jesus !

After I moving to US, somebody from the largest Islamic country asked me couple of questions - How do US treat the muslims? Why many Christians change their religion to Islam etc. The question came with a 'what do you think?' prefix or suffix.. In what way my opinion matter if Christians change their religion to Islam when I do not follow neither of the religions? I don't know.

I had never thought about such a scenario till I face this question. But what do I think, if I have to think?

The outlook of the americans towards muslims changed after that 9/11 incident, thats a fact. Bin Laden even gave a direct message to US to accept Islam or face consequences. Attacking US (India too) is jihad for him/them. I live in a place which has considerable muslim population. This area is said to have the largest Afghan population in this State (or even country, not sure). I do not think they are being discriminated here at least in my locality. Or I better say I never felt so (no such news so far).

Why do Christians convert into Islam? I did not think about it. But this question made me recollect certain things that came and gone through my head. First of all, I am not sure about this conversions. But the person who asked me gave Michael Jackson as an example. Yes, thats true, sometimes back I too had blogged about his conversion. Then I realized that an acquaintance of mine too left Christianity and embraced Wicca. Some more conversions too went through my mind. Two of my acquaintances changed their faith to Islam to marry muslim guys (one Christian and one Hindu. Islam and Hinduism has polar difference at this point. There is no exit clause for Islam. If you change religion, you get death. In Hinduism there is total freedom – you worship Jesus, you worship Allah, you worship this or that, you don’t worship anything at all, you worship Satan, you change religion to a cat's of dog's or even donkey's religion, no questions asked. Hinduism do not believe in forcing religion on to others or even among Hindus). One thing common with couple of these people were that they were African Americans or dark skinned people. Is Islam picking up in African countries? Not sure but if it is, I am not surprised coz...

Last week, I was checking (at the largest online store in here in US/in the world) the list of the top selling books here in US . There was an interesting book which tells us about a boy's near death experience (NDE). What is interesting is that this boy claims that he went to heaven and met Jesus and even God (plus angels and some of his relatives -who died earlier- etc). This book is promoted as a true story and people are buying it and giving very high rating too. Surprisingly, lots of them believe that it is for real (personally, I do not believe because the book is written by his father who is an evangelist and the boy says funny stuffs like Angels always carry sword to fight with Satan etc. Sword? Oh yeah? So, they still live in the iron age? I expected at least a Light Saber...if that boy really had an NDE, I don’t think he is telling lies. But his these sort of experience can be very much explained in terms of psychology/para-psychology). But in what way this is connected to Islam?

How did the Jesus look like? He was tall , white skinned and had blue eyes. So, Jesus is a tall white man with blue eyes (there is a confusion regarding the color of his hair; some say its blonde and some say its chestnut). So, Jesus was probably an American?

I spent a lot of time reading stuffs here and there to find how the americans feel about Jesus. Many of the white people like this 'fact', they believe Jesus was a white man for sure (in reality, if they check Jesus's DNA, it would be closer to Bin Laden and not Gorge Bush !). But the problem here is when Jesus gets promoted as a blue eyed blonde white man, may be it is bit hard for the darker skinned people to digest (I have seen some pictures of Jesus where he was shown as a dark skinned man, may be this was to promote Christianity in Africa). But Prophet Mohammad wasn't a white man plus Islam believes in Jesus (as a messenger).

I have heard it from some of the very popular promoters of Islam that when Jesus comes again, he will be coming to testify to Christians that he never said he is God and he will be coming to re-assure the words of prophet Mohammad, the words or Allah, spoken in the Koran. According to Islam, Jesus's message was exclusively for Israel. I spend about 6 hours to listen to the talks and teachings of one of the 'islamic evangelists'. He speaks convincingly. I think even the celebrity evangelist/televangelist Benny Hinn can not counter his points. He says Jesus was a muslim and muslims are more christians than the present day christians because they follow the teachings of Jesus better than the christians....lots of stuffs like that

So, these new Jesus image and promotions could be one of the reasons why Christians are changing their religion to Islam. At least thats one possibility.

Sleep and the World

Sometime back I wrote about falling asleep during meditation. So, is sleeping heavily bad for spiritual growth? I did not say so. Sleep (at night) is always good. Look at one wonderful thing about sleep (apart from its healing properties).

Science may not accept this at present but at least some people know/think that our thoughts also play some role in creating the environment around us. As we know, thoughts have some connection with our desires because desires can influence our thoughts. Dreams have some connection with our desires. Many dreams, especially the repeated ones,  could be the reflections of our deep rooted desires. When do we dream? We dream when we are asleep.

By observing our dreams, chiefly the repeated ones,  we can trace some of our deep rooted desires residing within us which could play a role in creating ‘our world’.

So, we can use our dreams as a tool to analyze and assess the strength of our desires and modify it to enhance even our spiritual growth.

See?

 

Story of Stories

In every tradition, there are many beliefs and some stories behind it. For example, in India, people used to say

“While sleeping if you keep your head facing towards north, you will die (early)”

To support that they might say the story of how Lord Ganesha got his elephant head (the elephant was sleeping keeping its head facing north. The story has no importance here so I am skipping that). This story will keep kids away from keeping their head towards north.

(Now science has explanation for this belief in terms of magnetism and how our health is affected if we sleep that way)

In my native State,  to get relief from neck sprain there is this belief among the elderly to keep a ‘nazhi’ (a round measuring cup) under the neck and rest. Now docs and physio therapists ask us to roll up a towel and keep it under our neck and rest or use a cervical pillow (btw, some people still do not know the logic and insist in keeping exactly the ‘Nazhi’ …..its their ignorance)

If those ‘wise guys’ of the long past knew the reason behind it,   why didn’t they say it straight instead of making up some stories?

Ever heard of 'grandma stories'? Yes, every one of us. (But what about grandpa stories? Well, at least I am not sure about such stories). In every country and tradition, it was the grannies that used to tell stories. Women were the one who used to take care of the babies and kids. They used to feed them telling stories; they used to put the babies to sleep telling stories. Some stories were just stories and some stories had something within it.

Women in India never used to go to school in the past. Men were the bread earners and women were the ones who took care of the household things. The beauty those old stories is that everybody can understand it, at least the story part. Those old grannies were illiterate but they always had lots and lots of stories to tell. They gave turmeric telling a story and not telling that its an anti-septic.. they gave pepper with another story...there comes garlic with a glass of story...

We don’t need to be educated to listen to such a story or to tell a story. So, those ‘wise ones’ made things simple (well, in India, they also made stories with super depth,  which demands higher understanding, with a different purpose) – instead of trying to explain how things are and making it complicated, they passed the knowledge through stories. It is true that there were lots of people who really did not care for or understood the logic and they kept telling stories ( In this ‘modern' era too many people take even medicines without reading the ingredients!).  

Story time…

“Athazhamundal ara kaatham nadakkanam”

(After having dinner, one must walk a little)

A Parallel World !

Do parallel worlds exist?  Look at this:

I live in the ground floor of a wooden apartment (which has three floors). Somebody lives just above my apartment who always creates some sort of noise…. Stuffs falling, heavy stamping.. From my observation, he works from home and that too at night. When I am in the hall, he stamps and pounds just above me.. At night, when I rest in my bedroom, he too moves to his bed room and starts pacing or stamping just above me creating creaky noises and mild ‘bangs’.

I am convinced that parallel worlds do exist !

Christ and Kali

In some Hindu homes we can see this picture of Goddess Kali. She is the most ferocious and fearful form of God. Her tongue is out and all red.. holds the head of a demon she just killed… holds lots of weapons.. What is the point of having such a God concept? Actually, it is not to scare anybody but to scare away the scary things.

Hinduism teaches to love God. We don’t get scared by those who we love irrespective of their looks. So, when one learns to love such a scary figure treating her as mother, nothing is scary. That is the logic behind it. I personally knew couple of Kali worshippers and they were never scared of the dark. 

But what if that picture scares one and keeps them away from that picture at night? I think such a person should remove that picture from the pooja room/place. Hinduism offers lots of God forms (including the formless) to suit all kinds of worshipers. That person better choose something which is comfortable for him/her ( There is a reason/logic why there are many different forms).

Once a Christian friend of mine told:

“We hate Jews because they crucified our Jesus”

I asked:

“Do you have that cross at home? The crucified Jesus?”

I got the answer “Yes”

The very idea of Jesus in the cross is not to remind who killed him (or that is what I personally believe). So, if what that cross bring is the memory of his killers, I think one better replace that with a picture of Jesus holding a lamb close to his heart. I think His life was there to teach love and not hatred.