I am not a religious fundamentalist. This is my opening and concluding statement. But I love to be an archeologist who is digging deep into our religious texts to try to understand what is their real purpose.
In my childhood I was as confused as more Hindus are now. Why do we have so many gods. Whom should I pray to make my life peaceful. Some say even I am god as I was created by him. Some say there is no god, some say our nature is god. My parents show me the pictures and idols at temples and introduce it as god. I was confused.
I was fascinated with books at that age. I was keen in reading books particularly novels in Malayalam. Later this interest of novels transformed into reading biographies. Starting from our father of nation, Mahatma Gandhi it ended in Swami Vivekananda.
In his books I found a deep meaning of sense called India. It was here that my life took a sharp turn. I started to think freely. Why do I need to pray to god? Where is god? Has god got form? Many similar questions started to sweep in my mind. I began to learn a lot from our vedic texts. As I did not know go read Sanskrit I had to get this information second hand only. But I decided one thing.
I will start believing. This was the major break through. I believed in god and as Adi Shankaracharya taught non-dualism or Advaita, if there must be god then each and every thing around me is also created like me by him. Then why not believe in anything. Therefore I believe in whatever our Vedas says.
Now I believe why our Vedas says whatever way you come you will reach god. We are like rivers flowing from him and destined to reach him finally. Our purpose of life is then to make the land we are flowing through fertile. Our job or karma is then to provide means to those require our help, and then quietly flow away to reach the seas.
We therefore have identified two gods in this path. One is the mountain from which we are born or our parents. The second is the sea in which we join at lat. Do I die permanently then? Never.
When I join the sea I become one with god. And then after some time get evaporated and fit into the skies. Then in the form of rain I pour back to be a river or a stream once again. This is the main content I have come to know of till now.
Though there are even deeper meanings to our life, I am happy with this definition. I came to know of this meaning from our vedas. These Vedas are our cultural heritage. They must be preserved the way it was transmitted to us.
This is where my second interest lies. To preserve our culture. Unlike what has happened in now Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tibet etc where Sanathana Dharma had once flourished, it should be preserved in India at least. It should not merely become a mere book in our museums where our future generations will just praise it and forget its real meaning.
For this purpose at least there should be unity among Hindus. We must preserve our history. Unlike what British has taught us our history is not myth (which means a widely held but false belief or idea). It is ITHIHASA. The Sanskrit meaning of the word which I learned recently. It means "It thus happened."
Join me in preserving our history. Understand it, spread its meaning.