Nice points I think everyone in the forum (and also others I speak to outside) are pretty much in agreement of what plagues hinduism and hindus. Most of them say the below mentioned issues, I have mentioned and been proposing a society free of things below in my earliers posts here and in other forums as well. I also want to add additional points to this.
1) Refinement of scriptures of hinduism to reflect concept.
We spend too much time worrying about the wordings in hinduism. We think that sanskrit is the only way to say it and the EXACT way to say it too! but then sanskrit is a language (like english, tamil, telugu and so on..), which has words and meanings, so that means we can write it in other languages and make sure it can be enjoyed and understood by anybody and everybody.
Most of the people are purely convinced that the way slokas are said in sanskrit are the only way to go about as in it has some special powers or meanings or purpose that other languages dont!. Which is just plain wrong. If I say 'Karmanye Vadhikarasthey" and you write that in Tamil or English the phonetic pronounciation may be lost, like you could right 'Karmanae or charmanye" and so on... so when you say this reading from a english or tamil text it will surely be lost and wont convey the actual meaning.
When this gets translated, for eg., 'Duty... ' or 'Kadamai' or something it basically conveys the meaning (I am sure gods can understand many languages) and it serves the purpose.
This gives everyone to enjoy and appreciate the slokas and so on...
2) Refine to reflect political correctness.
In this day and age the hindu scripture have reflected a lot of things like varna/jati, with good intention, but bad interpretation, basically subject to interpretation.
for eg., if you take 'Purusha Suktha' it says brahmins came from mouth, kashtriays from arms, .. sudhras from leg, conceptually everything is Purusha, that is the universe is purusha every thing came from purusha, the universe and heaven. So every varna/jati came from purusha. The leg, mouth, arm everything is purusha, The 'Purusha Sukta' verse is a poetic (literary) rendition of the concept of 'Purusha', which is the omni-present/omni-scient reality from whence life was born. But then this leaves room for interpretation that is used by other religions and communities against hinduism. Some of the evangelists use this against hinduism and they say you are from leg and you are a bad person (as if I can choose my mouth over leg and vice versa) according to hinduism (or low person) and the community status also reflects that and they become easy targets for conversion.
The Varna/Jati are attributes and roles of people not a discriminatory tag. It is no worse than saying some one is a laborer and some one is a doctor. Only thing is humans made it permanent due to selfish grounds. Hinduism didn't acknowledge discrimination rather didn't clear it. The whole thing was taken out of context.
It is imperative hindus refine the scripture clearly such that ti doesn't leave room for interpretation.
3) Communicate among people
Hindus should community the best aspects of hinduism among hindus, hindus should be well aware of their own religion. How many of us (being brahmins in the first place) even know some level of vedas, especially the current generation, how many of us know upanishads, brahmanas and so on... It is imperative we communicate all these in simple language to everyone and anyone. Make sure they understand each other. Instead of learning about hinduism (and especially the bad version) of it from some evangelist. Hindus should be able to learn it from us.
Hindus should learn it in our temples (or other places as we see fit). All people should be invited, not just prasangam on some day or something, we should teach, indoctrinate the concepts of hinduism to everyone and anyone (hindu and non-hindu).
If people can understand and appreciate what is in it. It increase their bond and love towards that. Otherwise they are as detached as they can be and it is a easy for others to pull them out from hindu fold. If a person is armed with knowledge and some comes and says in Purshu sukta it is said like this, he will retort it and say "Dont be stupid!, Are you saying your leg is inferior to your mouth or hand, the scritpture is personifying God for a poetic rendition, but God is Omnipresent/omniscient, there is no leg or mouth or something like that" and think what will happen to the evangelist. He wil be shut, has to find new strategy isn't it.
Knowledge is the key to success!. Lack of it you are an easy target!.
4) Removal of meaningless rituals
How many of you believe in rituals in hinduism. There are so many meaningless rituals in hinduism that we follow and those should be removed too. Many of the rituals are not followed now-a-days in the current context. It is not mandatory and doesn't serve any purpose also!.
5) Standardization
The problem in Hinduism is everyone (every comunity/caste) is doing pretty much their own thing. We should standardize hinduism according to its principles and give a common format for prayer/worship/ritual to all hindus. Not that everyone will take it the first day. When we try soon we be successful over a period of time. This also gives room for us to extend this gift of god to others (non-hindus).
This is not very uncommon. The whole reason we have 4 different vedas
is because they re-wrote vedas according to changes! Otherwise why four?. Why different Upanishads, or Brahamanas etc..? Because early hindus re-invented themselves, improved themselves as they see fit in their times. Current hindu is not doing that. Rig Veda and Sama Veda I hear are pretty much similar on conceptual level, rig veda is first, sama veda is a poetic rendition, yajur veda is different than rig and sama etc..
This happens in other religion also. Old Testament is Jewish Religion, Christianity initially followed the old testament and the new testament. But after a while, they removed the old testament from the bible. Not only all the church groups (small and big) around 4 or 5th century AD, got together and agreed on a common wording in bible acceptable to all church groups. If you see there are so many gospels and so many other christians scriptures are left out over a period of time because things changed!.
Adaptability is the key!.
shankar said:
Self-introspection is very much required while analysing the reason for the exodus of people from Hinduism. Avoiding self-introspection and closing our eyes to the facts and reality, will not lead us anywhere.
Let us accept that we need to correct so many things in Hindu society:
*Caste hierarchy
*Untouchability (Still exists: eg. Papapatti, Keeripatti)
* Too much of importance to astrology and related problems
* Dowry
* Gender inequality ( Dont say it is more in Islam - That is not a reason not to correct ourselves)
* Brahmin and upper caste dominance in religious functions ( Why we want to play broker between God and man?)
etc.. etc...
We should have more missions like Sri Ramakrishna Mission.
Sivananda Gurukulam near Tambaram is doing yeoman service to orphaned children!
Sri Satya Sai samiti is doing wonderful social service! With the initiative of Baba, the water problem of Ananthapur district has been tackled to a large extent! A wonderful hospital is functioning in Puttaparthi and Bangalore!
Kanchi Mutt hospitals are doing good service!
But....
this is very less for the huge Hindu population!
Unless we succeed in making the poorest of the poor and the lower-most in the caste hierarchy to feel that they are one among us- we can not think of stopping the conversions!
It can not be achieved by law!
Let us all strive for that!
Shankar