Last week there was an event “Religious Founders Day” was organised by Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Australia.
Ajith Ramyavaran from Hindu Svayam Sewak has presented on behalf of Hindus and has done a very impressive presentation. Similarly Raj Singh from Sikh Youth Australia has presented on Sikhism.
The below article was prepared for that occasion –
Hindu, Hinduism has become regular words to represent this belief system and the people. But as many of you it is not a real word and made up by Islamic Persian invaders a 1000 years ago based on their own language to signify the people who live beyond River Sindhu.
In fact, our belief system does not have any name as it is not found by a human being or it follows a single book. According to Vedas which are the main source of the Sanatana Dharma (Veda means science / knowledge / wisdom), the knowledge of the Vedas was flown out the of the Lord Vishnu’s mouth to the great sages and written by sage Vyasa at a later stage.
Hinduism is regarded as Sanatana Dharma. Sanatana means no beginning or the end, means it is eternal and the Dharma means right behavior & social order or cosmic law & order or simply natural law. So, it can be translated into ‘the natural & eternal way to live”
No one can say where & when did Hinduism originated but one thing is sure that it originated with & from Vedas. The Vedas have guided our religious direction for ages and will continue to do so for generations to come. And they will forever remain the most comprehensive and universal of all ancient Hindu scriptures.
Some scholars have estimated Hinduism as 155 trillion years old, based on how many Maha Yugas, Kritas, Kalpas it has been which are time periods mentioned in Vedas.
Hinduism do not denote to a creed like Christianity or Islam, but represents a code of conduct and a value system that has spiritual freedom as its core. Any pathway or spiritual vision that accepts the spiritual freedom of others may be considered part of Hinduism. It is a unified world which consists of many beliefs & paths.
Sanatana Dharma recognizes that the greater portion of human religious aspiration has always been unknown, undefined, and outside of any institutionalized belief.
The universal flow of Dharma, regardless of what name you call it, whether Dharma or some other name, has eternally existed. It has been before any of the great teachers were born. It is not better than, or alternative to, but is inclusive of all. Dharma is that out of which our earth and humanity itself emerged. Dharma not only is, but always was, and always will be. To live in alignment with, and to know the true nature of that Sanatana Dharma is one of the ways of describing the higher goal of life.
Sanatana Dharma thereby gives reverence to individual spiritual experience over any formal religious doctrine. Wherever the Universal Truth is manifest, there is Sanatana Dharma, whether it is in a field of religion, art or science, or in the life of a person or community. Wherever the Universal Truth is not recognized, or is scaled down and limited to a particular group, book or person, even if done so in the name of God, there Sanatana Dharma ceases to function, whatever the activity is called.
Sanatana Dharma comprises of spiritual laws which govern the human existence. Sanatana Dharma is to human life what natural laws are to the physical phenomena. Just as the phenomena of gravitation existed before it was discovered, the spiritual laws of life are eternal laws which existed before they were discovered by the ancient rishis (sages) for the present age during the Vedic period. Sanatana Dharma declares that something cannot come out of nothing and, therefore, the universe itself is the manifestation of the Divine being.
Since Sanatana Dharma is referring to those ways of being which are in concert with the Absolute, and are therefore unquestionable laws, this term is not referring to something which is open to alteration. Just as the laws of gravity, mathematics or logic are not open to sectarian debate or relative opinion (gravity, for example, is an inherent law of nature regardless of whether one believes in the law of gravity or not), similarly the subtle laws of God transcend all partisan concerns.
