The Conquest of Heaven

The current religious and sectarian strife, the world over, points to the fact that each religious group is trying to show their direct connection with the ‘heavens’ and make sure it stays under their control and is made available peacefully or forcibly to as many people as possible. Any such remark about Islam can be easily construed as ‘blasphemy’. When
the US media ridicule Islam’s concept of heaven and the availability of virgins there after death, it brings several other concepts to mind. Christianity considers sex as synonymous to ‘sin’. Wouldn’t it be natural to think then that there are different heavens,
Is the one in the islam then promoting sin by christian standards ?
Over 50 years ago, I remember, in remote India, my Brahmin/hindu father, who was more friendly to muslims than to his hindu bretheren, and was often ridiculed for it, will often ask, and make people laugh, ‘If Muslims go to heaven ‘, since hindus believed the muslim way of life was kind of undeserving to go to heaven.
About 30 years ago, working at a medical school in Illinois, I attended bible study during lunch once a week for several months, encouraged by my supervisor, a bright molecular
biologist and a devout evangelist, where only two of us will generally be present. He was amazed that coming from India and not knowing Jesus personally, how come I was so polite, nice and good. This is not a place to discuss the ignorance of average american towards the affairs of the world, but is definitely one of such examples.
The extreme tolerance ( which tends towards meakness and subservience) of Hinduism
(the so called Hindus will like to name their calling as Sanatan Dharma, the religion or way of life, that is present since time immemorial and will last for ever) can easily attend any religious service at a church, synagogue, mosque, gurdwara or temple believing God is omnipresent and has many forms, since hindus have several hundred kinds of gods and goddesses of their own.bbbbb
My supervisor at Illinois will many times ask me if I believed in resurrection of Christ. My apparent disbelief in agreeing to the fact that a person can rise from the dead made him to comment that he was so sorry, for a nice person like me would not go to heaven. This reminds me of a story I heard in India about Gandhi in late 1960s. When
Gandhi was fighting the british in India and began his movement in Champaran, Bihar, there was widespread belief that british police/army can not touch/catch Gandhi, as he will fly in the air. This added much to the following of Gandhi, but waned some, when several of his devotees saw him going to the latrine for his morning rites, and realized that Gandhi was like them.
It should also be added here what I heard from an agnostic american friend in St Louis in early eighties, when Attenborough’s movie ‘Gandhi’ received several oscar awards, that after many, many humdred years, this Gandhi will also walk on water.
Ghalib, the late Persian poet/philosopher who lived in India all his life, almost 400 hundred years ago, has a poem beginning with, ‘ham to jante hain jannat ki hakikat lekin…’ (I know the truth about heavens, but it (heaven) is a good idea to keep us engaged). Another revolutionary, Kabir, a muslim by birth, practicing customs of Hinduism, lived in Banaras (varanasi/kashi), one of the holiest places for hindus. It is also believed by hindus that if you die in Banaras, you will definitely go to heaven. No wonder elderly hindus flock to Varanasi to die there eventually and to have a claim on heaven. Kabir, who ridiculed going to mosque/temple for prayers, as gods did not live there in his opinion, left varanasi in the last days of his life, to die elsewhere ( really in
Magah, present day Patna, not considered to be a holy place), to avoid going to heaven.
My agnostic father whom I mentioned above, who enjoyed being friends with muslims, will also tease hindus, about several of their four or more headed gods and goddesses, asking which one of the hands these deities might be using for tending to their runny nose. Common hindus treat their gods as part of their family, and not an abstract concept as philosophers do, and can make these amusing remarks.
The discussion of Darwinian evolution and intelligent design or creation is often summed up by prophetic sayings, like ‘religion without science is lame, and science with religion is blind’ without realizing that this discussion in India happened about 50,000 years ago and was concluded in the following way. That God created the earth and has come upon it (earth) several times, as avatar or incarnation to help mankind in the form of fish, tortoise, boar, half man-half beast, pigmy vaman, warrior parashuram, rama , Krishna, lord budhha, in nine different forms so far. He will come again as Kalki (the tenth incarnation/avatar), in human form, riding a white horse with sword in his hand, which the new testament also talks about.
This makes me to postulate that the three wise men who came from east to celebrate the birth of the child Christ should be retold. Child Jesus, when he was 8/10, like a child Dalai Lama, who is located when the old Dalai Lama dies, as his reincarnation, went to
India, especially Kashmir to study the scriptures, and returned back as Christ around age 32, to the middle east, as a social reformer to inculcate spirituality in his fellow human beings with his message of love and service. The saying of lord Krishna, ‘sarvadharma
parityajye, mameka sharanam braja ( leave everything behind an come into my fold)’ in Gita helped Jesus define his moto, ‘no one reaches the lord without going through me’.
No wonder, why my 75 plus years old mother-in-law in India, who spends several hours
in front of hindu deities everyday, when asked what gift I bring her from USA will ask for a nice picture of Jesus Christ, which she can put in her worship room with other gods/goddesses.
Hindus will have no difficulty accepting Jesus as one of the incarnations of God, but will hesitate to agree that Lord Father is single and has no wife, that women were created from the rib of a man, the earth was created merely 6000 years ago, as well as about the virgin birth. Hindus have their own sets of queer incidents described in scriptures, but ridiculing them is no blasphemy. Vivekanand said, different religions are different paths to reach the same God. He likened them to vehicles ( like bike, car, train, bus, plane etc) for God realization. But things are not so simple elsewhere, as most of the other great religions of the world forbid worshiping other’s gods.These religions also claim only their right on the heavens, and do not believe any good in ways other than that of theirs. Mahavir and Budhha are revered by hindus as incarnations of god Vishnu. But Jains and budhhists , the followers of Mahavir and Budhha, teach their devotees, that these two (Budhha and Mahavir) came from heavens into the wombs of brahmin women on earth, but since brahmins were not good enough, the wombs were transferred into women from warrior caste (kshatriyas), hence both were born as sons of hindu kings. Both Budhha and Mahavir were contemporaray in the state of Bihar in northern India, over 3000 years ago. It is obvious, Budhha and Mahavir were mad at hindus, especially brahmins, as the latter controlled the society then, and were not leading a respectable life style. Hence Budhha and Mahavir succeeded in reforming the hindu society, and have
great influence in India and all over the world. But the story of their birth is kind of far fetched at the least.
Devotees of swaminarayan have been successfully building temples all over the world for the last decade or so, as did Prabhupad of Krishna Consciousness did in the last 25 years.
Devotees at Iskcon, internatiobnal society for Krishna consciousnous, consider Krishna as supreme and other hindu gods as kind of inferior. This Christian transformation of hindu god Krishna into the concept of one Jesus/Christ brought this sect so much popularity in the West. In swaminarayn temples, it is amusing to see hindu gods and goddesses like hanuman, ram and sita relegated to the position of security guards at temple entrance while swaminarayan incarnation and their human forms occupy the central position at the sanctum sanctorum.
If the hindu cnocept of sanatan dharma and vasudhaiva kutumbakam (world as one family) and the immense respect of nature can find a wider and favorable following in the modern world, we will experience greater tolerance between civilizations, lesser terrorism, and improvement of global environment; leading to more peace and prosperity for mankind.