Raising a Cross-Faith Kid/Westerners Converting to Hinduism

With our ever evolving society, the number of interfaith marriages that occur are increasing slowly but steadily. Today, over a quarter of Americans are involved in an interfaith marriage. Pros and cons come with this type of marriage. It is common to see that these kind of couples develop a greater perspective of the world and become more tolerant of others. There is also the issue of agreement within relationships and the possible dilution of faith. It may sometimes prove difficult to retain certain aspects of one's religion exactly as they are supposed to be when involved in an interfaith relationship. Statistics show that divorces of interfaith couples are three times more common than of same faith couples. Along with marriage comes the idea of creating a family and raising children. Parents usually go about raising cross-faith children in one of two ways: choose one of the religions before any children are born and agree to teach them those beliefs or incorporate aspects of both religions and allow the children to decide. Young children tend to default to the more "fun" or socially prevalent religion because they do not have the capacity to make educated decisions about different religious traditions. Learning about both parents' faiths encourages the children to be less ignorant of others' beliefs. Western Conversion is rising as people explore more into different religions. Each person finds what they want in the religion and create their foundation off of that. For example, football player Ricky Williams converted into Hinduism after being introduced to yoga. With Hinduism being "a way of life," it allows individuals to create their own path. 

Would you consider marrying someone of another faith? Why or why not?
How would you go about raising your children if you did marry someone of another faith?
What aspects of another religion would make you consider converting?

HAW Week/Hinduism 101

This week is Hinduism Awareness Week at The University of Texas at Austin! The meeting topic was titled Hinduism 101 to give individuals a very basic idea of what Hinduism is!
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Hinduism is generally regarded as the world's oldest religions. As such, it is enormously complex and mysterious, even for those who have studied it their entire lifetime. Additionally, because of the complexity of the religion, misconceptions become easy to perpetuate. One such misconception is that Hinduism is a minor religion rooted in India. This could not be farther from the truth, as Hinduism is spread to almost every region of the world and is not just practiced by Indians. Other such myths are that Hindus worship cows, are anti-materialistic, and mandate the caste system. All of these, in one way or another, are false. Switching over to Hindu art, which is what Hinduism Awareness Week is dedicated to, the origin of it is just as old as the origins of Hinduism. The main body of religious text on Hindu art is known as the Natya Shastra, which is derived from the now extinct Natya Veda. Temple architecture and classical Hindu dance all fall under Hindu classical art. In total, there are approximately 64 types of art defined as traditional art.

With so many differences between religion in the north and south, can we still label them both as Hinduism?

How do misconceptions start, and what is the best approach to eliminating them?

Why are art and culture always tied so closely together in all cultures? 

Different Hindu Perceptions of a Diety

The ultimate truth or reality in Hinduism is Brahman, and the goal of Hinduism is to comprehend this truth. It is difficult to attempt to understand something like Brahman because Brahman is formless and eternal, so we visualize specific aspects of him, in the form of deities, to help us understand Brahman. Thus, deities come to represent specific aspects of the ultimate truth. With the rise of the Bhakti movement in India, an individuals personal relationship to God became very important. This created the concept of an ishta devata, or a deity of choice. Essentially, it is one's own deity of preference. The factors that go into choosing an ishta devata are numerous, and are primarily dictated by the lifestyle of the individual. However, there is also the idea in Hinduism that a deity is not necessary to realization, and that realization can be attained by pure self inquiry; this was the method used by Ramana Maharishi, and is also seen in Jainism. There is also the perception to some Hindus that at least some deities were people that physically existed on this earth. This idea gains credibility from evidence supporting the historical occurrence of the Ramayana, though such evidence does not in any way lend to a clear conclusion.

What's your ishta devata and why? 
Does a deities being real or not impact the way you view Hinduism?"

Oh My Gods!

In Hinduism there are many deities such as Vishnu, Shiva, Lakshmi
and Ganesh just to name a few. However, those deities were not always the
predominant and most popular in Hindu religion. Before Hinduism actual existed as
its own religion, it existed as only one piece of the PIE or the Proto- Indo- European
Religion. This religion was to thought to have originated in Volgograd, Russia in
4000 BC and proceeded approx. 0.7 miles/year. This religion gave rise to the Italic,
Greek, Celtic, Baltic, Slavic, Germanic, Indo-Aryan, etc. as well as many central
religious themes such as slaying of a serpent in many stories or the world tree view
(Mount Meru in Hinduism to Mount Olympus in Greek Mythology). After the PIE
religion, Hinduism started developing more independently. At this time the Rig
Vedas were written where there were four major types of deities: Indra- the leader
of Vedic Gods, Gods of Nature such as Sūrya -“Sun”, Vāyu -“Wind”, Maruts -
“Monsoon Winds” and Parjanya -“Thunderstorm”, Gods of Principles and Functions
such as Varuṇa “God of commandments”, Mitra “God of alliances” and Aryaman “God
of customs”, and Gods of Ritual such as Agni- “Fire”. From the Rig Vedas, the
Puranas followed giving a more modern perspective on the Hindu deities, which
was a supplement text to the Rig Vedas outlining genealogy of gods and creation of
universe. After that the shift in perspective lead to the focus on devotion to God
over rituals and caste system and ultimately the four different sects of Hinduism:
Vaishnavism= Vishnu and his incarnations, Shaivism= Shiva as Supreme Being,
Shaktism= Worship goddess Shakti, Smartism= Choose which deity to worship.
Here is where the more familiar deities become popular, such Vishnu, Lakshmi,
Ganesh, Surya, Saraswati, and Parvati. The interesting thing is that most of the
Hindu deities have comparable Greek Gods association with them. For example,
Surya is parallel to Apollo, Saraswati is parallel to Athena, and Laxshmi is parallel to
Hera. However, there are some, like Ganesh, that do not have comparable Greek
gods. This shows that even though all these religions branched from a central
religion, each religion adapted deities that incorporate different aspects of the
different cultures. For example, the elephant is an important animal in the Hindu
culture and Ganesh was adapted to represent that.

Discussion Question #1
Does knowing about the origin of Hindu deities take away from the divine
and mystical origin of the Hindu gods?

Discussion Question #2
Do you see the formation or removal of deities from Hinduism in the future?