I just took an online test telling me what religion would be and it turned out to be Hinduism.  I was brought up Catholic and to be honest, I never felt 'Catholic  '. So maybe there's something to this!  I will be looking into more of Hinduism and see where it takes me.  I was once many years ago advised to read a book entitled To Live Withinwritten by Sri Anervan, and now I want to take it down from my shelf and see if this man is Hindu.   Just thought I would share.   

Sep 26, 2012 -- 6:33AM, Bdev wrote:

Sep 16, 2012 -- 10:11PM, Anne47 wrote:

I just took an online test telling me what religion would be and it turned out to be Hinduism.  I was brought up Catholic and to be honest, I never felt 'Catholic  '. So maybe there's something to this!  I will be looking into more of Hinduism and see where it takes me.  I was once many years ago advised to read a book entitled To Live Withinwritten by Sri Anervan, and now I want to take it down from my shelf and see if this man is Hindu.   Just thought I would share.   

I grew up what Westerners call a Hindu and I am a practising Hindu. I have however studied Christianity and  Catholicism and have great respect for those. I think your worry/regret to be unfounded. What we consider the whole- either the  Universe (According to Abrahamic religions) or the Multiverse (According to Astrophysicists),  is what I think is the Microverse. It is not the whole story. Existence and Non existence are just like light and dark. Both are virtual- they exist in our imaginations. There's no such thing as light or any such thing as dark. There is no absolute infinity or absolute zero. Similarly, there's no existence or non existence execpt that these are the flip sides of our Consience or Brahman or the Self. So, Catholics/Protestants/Jews/Hindus all are trying to score an imaginary touchdown against an opponent that does not exist on a field that is not there to begin with. Moreover, there's not a football. Please compare these metaphors:

You= your ego

Your opponent= people/faiths you do not agree with

the field= your imagination/stubborness/preoccupation

The Game= An endless cycle of existence vs no-existence/being vs non being- which is all what Hinduism/Buddhism call Maya. In plain English, let's call it the Godly Tricks

You are the hallucination of your ego and I am a hallucination of mine. So Anne 47 and JessJoy, do not accept anything as a revelation or a truth because there's no such thing as The Truth for Truth/Illusion, Energy/Dark Energy, Matter/Antimatter, Light/Darkness Existence/Nonexistence only exist in pairs. You have to have one in order to have the other.

Winding Down, I'd say do not jump into once conclusion. For the nature of reality is that there's no absolute reality.

Jun 1, 2012 -- 9:14PM, Jessjoy wrote:

 I have considered myself a "Christian" my whole life due to going to Christian schools and family influence. But it never felt right. I felt very spiritual and wanted so badly to love Christianity with all my heart but after a decade I just couldn't get there. I knew I believed in ONE God but I just couldn't accept Christianity's "All or nothing" mentality. I thought (mistakenly) that Hinduism involved believing in more than one true God so I didn't even look into it for a very long time.

Going to Bible study and feeling so out of place and like an outsider I decided to see what Hinduism truly was. What's the worst that could happen? Well, after reading about it's beliefs and a bit into The Upanishads I literally was brought to tears. THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR!!! It is exactly what I have always felt in the deepest part of my soul. I can't believe it's taken this long for me to find it but I'm SO glad I did!!!

I feel whole for the first time in my life. There are other people who feel the way I do! My truest thoughts and feeling aren't that crazy!!! Mind you, I am VERy early into all of this but I am readin everything I can get my hands on and loving every minute of it! Just thought I'd share the beginning of my story! :) More to come !!!

Calling someone a HINDU is like calling the Native Americans-Indians. The word Hindu was used by outsiders and slowly got into our own lexicon.

On Absolute Reality, I believe it is an eternal Maya/Leela. Our understanding of things are based on the fact that we beleive there is Being (Call it 1 on mathematical model) and Non-Being (Say, 0). Just like the Binary Mathematical model. You see that 1 and 0 either exist together because one is relative to the other or neither exists. Here, 1 and 0 are our mental constructs. So is existence. So is reality.

1.Let's look at the Absolute Reality thing the way of Heisenberg.The process of observing something changes what is being observed. So what phenomenon you observe has already changed because of the act of your observing.

2.You could observe something from more than one point of reference and come to a different conclusion. Energy (matter is just lumped up/accumulated passive energy) exists in a multidimentional hyperspace. Time is one of those dimensions. So when you are looking at what you call a thing (be it matter or energy), you're looking at it from just one direction- this one of time. And nevermind that it has changed because you observed it.
 

Absolute Reality, my friend is thus that there is only Consciousness/Brahman. And Consciousness is neither a Thing, nor a Construct. Consiousness, I believe is a spasm, a wave that does not have an end or direction.