Author: Maria Wirth
This review was written by Saumya of Vitasta Publishing for the ‘books and beyond blogspot’. I recently had the opportunity to read an upcoming book by Maria Wirth — a German author and seeker who has long written about the depth and beauty of Indian spiritual traditions. Her upcoming work is a bold, honest, and at times uncomfortable interrogation of the widespread hostility and misconceptions directed toward Hinduism — not just from the outside world, but also from within India itself. Wirth’s central question is simple, yet profound: Why is Hinduism so hated, mocked, or dismissed — especially by those…
The world and humanity are in bad shape. It’s painful to watch how humans are dumbed down intellectually by low grade entertainment, and how egoism is promoted as the way to go, very convincingly with arguments like, “If you don’t look after yourself, who will?” Dharmic behaviour is going out of fashion even in Bharat. It occupied my mind a lot, watching how good, honest, courageous people are sidelined and evil, deceitful, powerful moneybags get their way. This morning, I woke up with a thought, which puts Indian philosophy into a nutshell and please correct me if I get it…
The tragic plane crash in Ahmedabad is heartbreaking. Especially a smiling selfie of a young family of five, taken moments before take-off and shared with relatives, is reminding us of how unpredictable life can be. Seeing that final photograph, full of innocence and trust in life is painful. Yet at the same time, we should not forget that death is not the end. In 1982, I wrote a series for a German magazine, which was made into a book in 1985. It was a glossary of 108 common words, seen from the perspective of the Indian Rishis. When I had…
Yesterday, there was an exchange on X/Twitter, where I took part. It was interesting so I post here, too. One Austrian, Gloria Gotthard Reich, posted the following: “Krishna is God. He is eternal. He does not belong to a particular person, people or nation. Krishna is God for everyone and all.” And she attached the below photo with the prominent line “Krishna is not Indian”. (I should mention that she had posted this earlier, too, and in another post she once said that Shiva is racially ‘white’ and has blonde hair.) Her tweet got over 1 lakh views within 1…
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…