Sanathana Dharma

Santana Dharma as the word denotes is a form of faith that is ageless and dateless. No one has been able to definitely say when this form of faith originated and by whom.  Hence the name given to this faith is Santana Dharma and colloquially referred to as Hinduism thanks to the British who came to the country as traders and later took to ruling the country.  

There has been a strong fundamentally flawed opinion among most of the literate people of the country.  They all feel that it is the people who follow the Santana Dharma only have to be secular accommodating people of all religions and not vice versa.  The main reason for this anomaly is found in the articles of the constitution that the country adopted which expressly prohibits the teaching of the scriptures of this faith in educational institutions.  However, there is no such bar on other religious scriptures being taught.  Moreover, with the misguided concept of secularism in our country since before independence, we have been brainwashed to denounce our own faith with little or no knowledge about this faith whose teachings surpass all others that came after this. The political parties are vying with each other to accommodate the interests of followers of all the other religion except that of Santana Dharma.  This includes, sadly the party ruling in the center for the last ten plus years.  Only one politician has expressed his concern about the pitiable condition of the people following Santana dharma, expressing that there is only one country in the entire world for those who follow that faith.  It is really brave of him to openly express such views in a public meeting when every other politician of every other party tries to hide behind the fake secularism and appease the minority for their votes.  

Be that as it may, how many of the followers of this faith know about the truth of our religion and the sacrifices made by those who followed the faith.  This is the only religion in the entire world that does not need any one to convert to this faith for seeking the truth.  It gives a broad leeway to all the people to follow the religion worshipping any god form they prefer at any day and any time.  No prescriptions to worship on a particular day or time or if one does not follow no threat of punishment of hell.  Every action of the living being in the world has its own consequences and as a result of this, a living being during its life time on the earth, accumulates the karma that is either positive or negative.   The carried forward karmic balance determines the living being's rebirth as another one either as an animal, bird, insect or human with birth as human is considered far superior.  The faith has lots of meaning in the concept of rebirth and the karmic balance carried forward.  The concept of hell and heaven are not that well explained in any of the literature of the faith as compared to the books of other faiths.  Some of the literature in the faith had been extremely influenced by the books/ teachings in other faiths like Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Christianity, and Islam.  The first three religions above were born out of Santana dharma and the later two were imported into the country by the invaders like Mughals and Anglo Saxon traders.  Garuda Puranam details about the punishment for bad karma to the soul on death of a person.  This is mostly influenced by the Bible wherein the teachings of the apostles talk of heaven and hell and the punishment to those who are destined to hell. 

The main principle of the faith is for one to meditate to arrive at the answer himself for all questions instead of putting everything in a capsule form and injected into the brain of the seeker.   The ancient rishis, many of whom were just not philosophers, but mathematicians, scientists, practitioners of medicine, law etc., imparted the knowledge to one and all but asked the seeker to find the answer themselves to all the questions.  This is well established in some of the Upanishads which talk of dialogues between the teachers and students.  The concept of atom, the distance between the different planets to the Sun, the helio-centric concept of the planets, surgical methods, electricity etc., were detailed in many writings in almost all the Vedas.  The ancient Indian sages were the first to give a concise explanation of gravity and the planets of the solar system in different planes in an egg like formation where the planets are revolving around the Sun.  Not only that, they were the first to give a clear idea of what a cosmos is all about and how the Universe is perpetually expanding with no end in sight.  They also enunciated the theory of identifying different galaxies in the visible universe, the age of the earth in a fashion that corresponds to the present day evaluation of the age of the earth through modern calculations. A very few modern scientists have acknowledged the role played by the ancient rishis in these areas.  The Atharva Veda and the Rik Veda have many mantras which when studied in detail give information about the ancient rishis and their scientific work on many areas.  It is a sad commentary that when Universities in Finland, Germany etc. have set up schools to study these the country of origin of these does not bother in a large way to study and propagate the ideas to the world.