Saturday, September 20, 2008

A Chat with a Hindu

Once I attended a seminar at a university in Kuala Lumpur. I put up with a professor from India. After the seminar, back in our room, we discussed religion. I asked him why Hindus pray to images of their daities . He said those images were just objects without any divine attributes. Their main function was to help devoutees reach out to the real daities in heaven because they needed something in the form of images to help them concentrate. He was talking about "daities". I refrained from asking him why there were so many because I didn't want the discussion to get too deep in that first meeting

However, he complimented the Muslims for being able to reach out to God in prayer without the necessity of placing images in front of them as "Praying Aid". He also said in Hinduism only a person who has reached a certain level of holiness could do away with images when praying.

Hinduism is an old religion, much older than Abraham. I believe that all religions, Hinduism included, were started by God-inspired individuals but over the centuries the original teaching under went extensive changes by later adherents.

No comments: