"...here is another way in which Americans are becoming more Hindu: 24 percent of Americans say they believe in reincarnation, according to a 2008 Harris poll.
So agnostic are we about the ultimate fates of our bodies that we're burning them—like Hindus—after death. More than a third of Americans now choose cremation, according to the Cremation Association of North America, up from 6 percent in 1975." -- says the article by Lisa Miller.
Her article under the caption, "US Views on God and Life Are Turning Hindu" - also said -
"I do think the more spiritual role of religion tends to deemphasize some of the more starkly literal interpretations of the Resurrection," agrees Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion at Harvard. So let us all say "om".
Miller's article also said (in 2009 itself)
"Thirty percent of Americans call themselves "spiritual, not religious," according to a 2009 NEWSWEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has long framed the American propensity for "the divine-deli-cafeteria religion" as "very much in the spirit of Hinduism.
You're not picking and choosing from different religions, because they're all the same," he says. "It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that's great, too."
Then there's the question of what happens when you die. Christians traditionally believe that bodies and souls are sacred, that together they comprise the "self," and that at the end of time they will be reunited in the Resurrection.
You need both, in other words, and you need them forever. Hindus believe no such thing. At death, the body burns on a pyre, while the spirit—where identity resides—escapes. In reincarnation, central to Hinduism, selves come back to earth again and again in different bodies.
So here is another way in which Americans are becoming more Hindu: 24 percent of Americans say they believe in reincarnation, according to a 2008 Harris poll. So agnostic are we about the ultimate fates of our bodies that we're burning them—like Hindus—after death.
More than a third of Americans now choose cremation, according to the Cremation Association of North America, up from 6 percent in 1975. "I do think the more spiritual role of religion tends to deemphasize some of the more starkly literal interpretations of the Resurrection," agrees Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion at Harvard. So let us all say "om."
Is Hinduism plagiarised?
For instance, Canada, especially the West Coast, has witnessed the rise of hundreds, if not thousands, of yoga studios, meditation centres, vegetarian restaurants and ayurvedic health spas, all of which could be said to have roots in Hinduism.
The key Hindu teaching about reincarnation, as well, is now accepted by 30 per cent of all Canadians, including 37 per cent of Canadian women, according to a recent Leger poll.
Hindu meditation philosophy has also gone mainstream through best-selling spiritual teachers like Deepak Chopra and Vancouver's Eckhart Tolle, the author of The Power of Now.
In addition, a Pew Forum poll found that two out of three Americans now reject the theologically conservative Christian teaching that there is only one way to heaven, or salvation.
Most North Americans, even while declaring themselves "Christian" or "Jewish" or "secular," are signing onto the long-held Hindu attitude there are many authentic roads to spiritual truth.
It can't be claimed that Diwali, the autumn "festival of lights" that officially kicks off Friday at temples, is the main vehicle by which Hindu ideas and practices are becoming assimilated across North America.
Still, growing acceptance among non-South Indian Canadians, especially among school children in urban centres such as Toronto and Vancouver, may have contributed to the quiet trend.
As most Canadians know, Diwali is celebrated not only by Hindus, but in different ways by Sikhs and Jains of South Asian heritage.
And one of the many reasons Hinduism tends to be overshadowed in B.C. is that the province has four times more Sikhs than Hindus. Yet, across Canada, there are slightly more Hindus (roughly 360,000) than Sikhs (about 340,000).
Hinduism's unusually low profile in Canada is furthered by the fact Sikhs share many teaching with Hindus; both promote reincarnation, karma, cremation and the belief time is cyclical rather than linear. Both teach the soul is continually reborn in different bodies.
Yet, compared to Sikhism, Hinduism is a much older, much larger and much more geographically and philosophically diverse religion. Compared to Sikhism, Hinduism has had a much wider impact on the planet (including by indirectly giving birth to Buddhism).
What is the biggest reason most North Americans fail to recognize there is truth in the provocative statement: "We're all Hindus now?”
it's simple: The religion is often not given credit where it is due. To put it another way, Hinduism is being plagiarized.
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ReplyDeleteI would say maybe adopting Sanatan Dharma for all humanity that lives on this only living planet Earth may not be possible. But least many could adopt to cremate their dead, whether their beliefs allow or not.every burial requires land which is fast shrinking that's what the clever Americans in north America realized and adopted to cremate their dead, which is the best way dispose off the human body--probably Zoroastrians do it better way by placing their dead on the rooftops of their fire temples for vultures to feast on. Not many would know what Buddhists do to their dead but it is very interesting to note that their way of disposing the dead body may seem cruel but it is in line with the other cultures too while I was in Dirang, Arunachal Pradesh I came to know the people there don't eat river fish instead they wait for sea fish catch to come from Kolkata. The ritual of the Tibetan Buddhists population is to cut the dead body into small pieces and feed them to the abundant river fish , the carps -- the real reason why they don't eat river fish . When there is a death in local tribe, Dirang Monpas, ‘the body is carried to a nearby river and thrown into the water after being cut into 108 pieces as Tibetan Buddhists consider 108 to be an auspicious number. The Lamas recite a prayer and on the seventh day, a tree is erected in front of the house of the deceased to satisfy the soul.- Kat Patil, Pune
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