Author: Maria Wirth
Shefali Vaidya, herself from Goa, has done a lot of research on Goan history under Portuguese rule and has several eye-opening videos on the net. Recently she spoke on Sangam Talks on the horrifying brutalities of the Christian Inquisition in Goa. A short clip of her talk was posted on X. I commented: So true. The Church has a horrifying history. I find it hard to understand that Indian Christians who know this history still identify as Christians. By all means, worship God and love Jesus but ‘being Christian’ means to accept the irrational Church dogmas which have nothing to…
My very first visit to India was in October/November 1974. India has changed a lot since then. Here, I want to focus only on one point: on food. During my internship with Lufthansa, when I had the chance to take flights for very little money, I had visited many countries, but not India. Once, on my way to Bangkok, I looked down on India and somehow had the strange feeling that the ground is not solid there. Actually, it was true. Indian Vedanta says, that the ground is indeed not solid, but that we live in a kind of dream…
The Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 shattered the fragile hope that the situation in Kashmir has ‘normalized’. It showed again, that Hindus are not safe among Muslims, yet Muslims are safe among Hindus. Killing people, who go peacefully about their lives, goes against human nature. So why does it happen again and again? Apart from some pathological cases, the reason is that the attackers believe that they do the right thing. Of course, these youths are misguided, but by whom or what? To be fair – the Jihadis are not the first to be misguided. Communists, Nazis and the…
This was a question on Quora. Let’s analyze: An Atheist is usually defined as someone who does not believe in God. Now of course ‘God’ needs to be defined. In the Abrahamic religions, God stands for a personal God who is separate from human beings. In Judaism, Yahweh declared Jews as his chosen people. In Christianity, God the Father sent his son to earth to save humanity. And in Islam, Allah sent the last and final prophet, Mohammed. Now in India, a personal God is not considered the Ultimate. In India, the Ultimate, is all pervading, not personal. It is…
India has inherited vast and profound knowledge. However, it was not taught to students because the British did not want to let Indians know how profound their heritage is. They even told the students that it is not worth anything! It was a lie, which was intended to undermine their self-confidence. Yet fortunately, the New Education Policy with its inclusion of the Indian Knowledge System (IKS), makes Indians again familiar with their profound and vast heritage which encompasses all fields – from philosophy, science, arts, music, economy, medicine, architecture, metallurgy, astronomy and down to food and even warfare. I consider…
I try to put it as concise as possible: Hindus are common-sensical people and do NOT believe that the Supreme Being (God) loves only a certain group of people and considers all others as inferior and even sends them eternally to hell, if they don’t join that ‘certain’ group(s). Another point which is special and probably most important: Hindus believe that the Supreme Being (Brahman/ SatChitAnanda) is formless yet it sustains and permeates all forms. It means that the Supreme is within all of us. To claim that the human being is one with the Supreme Being is not allowed…
This was a question on Quora to which I replied the following: I was baptized as a Christian (Catholic) in Germany when I was only 3 days old, but if somebody asks me whether I am Christian, I reply that I am Hindu though I did not do any ritual to ‘become’ Hindu. Conversion means to change into some other state. Christianity and Islam do it big time. They force perfectly normal human beings into blindly believing some unverifiable dogmas that do not add to their spiritual wellbeing. For example, even as children they are told to believe that the…
“Such a huge festival and so peaceful, this would be impossible in Germany. There would be alcohol and brawls”, a German student told me once during a previous Kumbh Mela in Haridwar. The present Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, has attracted so far over 600 million visitors. And the final Shahi Snan (Royal Bath) on Mahashivaratri is still to come on 26. February. 600 million pilgrims streamed into a city of 1.4 million inhabitants! It is inconceivable. And absolutely stunning, how well organised and how clean the place is. No other country could manage this feat of hosting over half a…
The German philosopher Hegel (1770 – 1831) didn’t have a high opinion of Indians, in contrast to most of his German colleagues. He even claimed that the character of Indians is “cunning and deceitful and that moral and human dignity are missing”. (By the way, he never was in Bharat). Yet he wrote this about Indian women and he meant Hindu women: “There is a peculiar beauty in Indian women, whereby their face is covered with pure skin, with a slight, lovely blush, which is not just like the blush of health and vitality, but a finer blush, like a…
एक सभा में, जिसमें हिन्दुइस्म से संबंधित विषयों पर चर्चा हो रही थी, मैंने कुछ छात्रों से चाय के समय पूछा कि “क्या कोई मुझे बता सकता है कि हिंदूइस्म क्या होता है?” थोड़ी असहज सी शांति छा गई. कुछ देर बाद एक लड़की ने कहा “हिंदू बहुत सारे भगवानों / देवताओं को पूजते हैं “. मैंने पूछा, किसने बनाए इतने सारे भगवान / देवता? अब सन्नाटा छा गया. किसी ने कोई उत्तर प्रेषित नहीं किया. “क्या आप में से किसी ने ब्रह्म् के विषय में सुना है?” मैंने पूछा। “मेरा मतलब स्रष्टा के रचयिता भगवान ब्रह्मा से…