I wanted to write for the longest time and i felt that i was going crazy while the hurricane passed us. even after it was long gone, it left us without electricity for nine days. it was nine very unusual days though. i documented all of them and i will share them soon. however, i wanted to write of something that i had in mind all the time since i was first introduced to it.
on the night of the hurricane, i read siddhartha from beginning to end. i realized many things while reading the book and even after i am still thinking. i can almost hear the wheels turning in my head...at these times i feel as if my brain is one of those naked watches where you can see the wheels rotating inside...and you can almost hear them if you stop and listen too.
well here's the deal with siddhartha....
it was an exceptional book in that it makes one think long after one has finished reading. it makes you evaluate your presence here and it makes you wonder if you are here to take up space on earth or if each person has a higher aspiration in life that we are oft times diverted from. well there is something else that i was thinking too...my mind is at crossroads and when that happens, you have to stop only long enough to make a decision on what road to take or else before you know it, the roads disappear and you are left in the middle of a forested wood with no roads....
i think this is the root of my restlessness right now.
i was raised in a traditional hindu way and i grew up in ritual hinduism. many times i never really understood what the rituals were meant for but as i grew older, i investigated and saw why they were necessary. however, the problem comes with the promise that L. Krsna gives to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. He says in ch 4, v. 7-8 that he comes from time to time to reestablish dharma or restore righteousness if there is a threat to dharma....so i understand the purpose of L. Rama and L.Krsna's respective incarnations.....but then why do most Hindus not include L. Buddha when he is the 9th incarnation of L.Vishnu?
L. Buddha lived in the middle ages and at that time the world was in deep turmoil and the blood of many innocent lives were shed in the so-called "name of god" when it was really only to satisfy man's baser qualities. so there was a reincarnation. and the incarnate lived a life that was supposed to set an example. he did not give any scriptural injunctions nor did he say follow me, he left people to choose their path by looking at him and deciding what they would do based on his example. he did not set rules nor did he come to make a new religion. but yet, there is a new religion formed...he came to set hinduism right.....i guess. he showed us that the rituals needed to be performed upon ourselves and that god dwelled within us and we would realize the supreme within ourselves if we persisted and persevered....
sanatan dharma is deeply intertwined within the culture of the hindus and the hindu culture was formed in the ancient times....just like the other ancient civilizations like the mayas and the aztec that are no longer alive today...we see societal structures like theirs in our hinduism...so when and where do we distinguish religion from culture...when do we realize that there are some things that are not really needed that exist today and prevent us from truly realizing our supreme goals in life?...as a hindu, it is here i decide which road i walk...whether i walk the road of the hindus, or as a hindu, i walk my own road with the guidance of my inner being..........isn't this what hinduism really is....our interpretation and our version of what we think the supreme really is...and when we finally choose a path, we stick to that path and concentrate on it until the seeds split and eventually a tree with fruits replaces it?