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Who are Buddha, Guru Nanak and Jesus to Hindus?

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
It will depend on the Hindu. For me, Buddha and Guru Nanak (and Mahavira) are all great teachers as they founded dharmics religions that have a lot in common with Hinduism.

Jesus, on the other hand, founded a different kind of religion than dharmic, so I reserve comment. I see big differences between adherents of the Abrahamic versus dharmic paradigms.
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
  • I'm not familiar with Guru Nanak, but I have mad respect for Sikhism. So he must have done something right.
  • I like Buddhism and the Buddha's teachings.
  • Jesus didn't do a very good job. His intentions were good, but they were the wrong execution of the right idea. What he taught and tried to bring to the table is a fusion of Buddha's and Krishna's teachings. I believe he was influenced by them. But whereas they succeeded, and their followers have largely stayed true to them, Jesus failed miserably. What his "followers" have done to his message is an abomination. Right out of the gate his followers jockeyed for position, power and authority. It's been going on for 2,000 years.
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
I see them all as teachers that made such an impression on their peers that they gained enough of a following that resulted in the creation of religions venerating them and their teachings.
 

ajay0

Well-Known Member
All are enlighened masters and should be venerated as such.

Meher Baba, Yogananda and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had stated of Jesus's travels to India, in the footsteps of his friends who came to visit him at birth from the east. This is very similar to tibetan lamas travelling to the corners of the world intuitively searching reincarnated lamas or holy figures. The ancient Silk Route with its numerous merchant wagons traveling to and fro, connected India and Israel and anyone could access these lands easily from the other side.

Imo, Jesus synthesized the teachings of the dharmic religions and Judaism, which may account for the similarities. As per Aurobindo, Jesus's teachings humanized the west, and brought about refinement of feelings and sensibilities to some extent.

Christian missionaries like William Carey played a role in the banning of sati and Mother Teresa was a great karma yogi who worked for the upliftment of the orphans and underprivileged in India. Many educational and medical institutions in India were and are operated by Christian religionists, which has helped India's growth as a nation in the modern period.
 
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Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
Imo, Jesus synthesized the teachings of the dharmic religions and Judaism

So you see that too? ;) I've said it for a very long time. If Jesus didn't go to India (I'm on the fence about it, but it's possible for the reasons you said) then at the very least India went to Jesus. For the same reasons.
 

Shantanu

Well-Known Member
I see them all as teachers that made such an impression on their peers that they gained enough of a following that resulted in the creation of religions venerating them and their teachings.
I hope to make the same impression with my brand of theology in due course; but I am aware that I will not acquire a following within this life time. It is already too late for me for I am 62 years of age and undergoing several health concerns mentally and physically.
 

ronki23

Well-Known Member
If Buddha and the Gurus told Hindus not to use their current methods and instead do it their way then why do so many Hindus worship them? Jesus too told us how to worship and that it's different from Hinduism so why complain about Jesus but not Buddha and the Gurus just because they're Indian?
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
If Buddha and the Gurus told Hindus not to use their current methods and instead do it their way then why do so many Hindus worship them? Jesus too told us how to worship and that it's different from Hinduism so why complain about Jesus but not Buddha and the Gurus just because they're Indian?


I'm just a village idiot, and maybe I know nothing at all, or am grossly misinformed. But what I have deciphered or come to understand is that with Jesus (and some others) , it's 'My way is the only way, you need me to get somewhere, to progress, etc. In the dharmic faiths, and with dharmic teachers, its more the opposite. "I simply cannot do this for you. You must do it by yourself. Yes, there are helpers, teachers, who will advise, console, suggest, explain, and there are many of us. If not me, then someone else similar, but the path is yours and yours alone."

Again, I'm just the village idiot.
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
... I'm just a village idiot, and maybe I know nothing at all, or am grossly misinformed. But what I have deciphered or come to understand is that with Jesus (and some others) , it's 'My way is the only way, you need me to get somewhere, to progress, etc.

On the face of it, you're right, it's true (not the village idiot or grossly misinformed part :D), the differences between dharmic faiths and what passes for Christianity. And there's the rub... "on the face of it". That's the face the public sees. Where it all went south is that subsequent writers and church "leaders" fail to realize is the intelligence quotient of his followers, from the years 30 CE to the at least the late Middle Ages and early modern period.

They were largely illiterate, uneducated villagers who were incapable of thinking outside the box. Hence his (over)use of parables, hyperbole and limited menu choices. Sure, the puranas are full of outlandish and preposterous stories that are teaching aids. India over the millennia has had its fair share of illiterate, uneducated villagers. But here we're talking about a people who had the nous to make incredible strides in medicine, astronomy, science, literature, mathematics, philosophy, theology, music and all kinds of disciplines. Something the illiterate, uneducated villagers of 30 CE Palestine could not even dream of.

The truly sad part is that no one saw the deeper and finer points of his teachings, especially when he said "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" John 14:6. I might add, that verse is only in John's gospel, not the other 3... imo John had an agenda. So of course that's true, because his contemporaries could not understand anything more than that. For them that was enough to jump start their return to God.

I think this is more evidence that the Jesus stories and teachings were lifted almost word for word from the Bhagavad Gita, because Krishna says pretty much the same thing. The difference is that "Christians" (but not all, some are quite universalist) have bastardized it. Hindus again had the nous to remember that he also said "but if you want to worship another deity, I'm cool with it... you're still worshiping Me... haha on you" (I'm sooo going to hell... oh wait, there is no hell :D ).

That's why I kind of hold to what Gandhi (maybe apocryphally) said: "I like your Christ, I don't like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ".
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
If Buddha and the Gurus told Hindus not to use their current methods and instead do it their way then why do so many Hindus worship them? Jesus too told us how to worship and that it's different from Hinduism so why complain about Jesus but not Buddha and the Gurus just because they're Indian?

What Jesus said was misinterpreted, deliberately or not, and bastardized, deliberately or not.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
If Buddha and the Gurus told Hindus not to use their current methods and instead do it their way then why do so many Hindus worship them?
Hindus have nothing against different ways of worship. It is considered an individual's choice. Both emphasized 'dharma'.
India over the millennia has had its fair share of illiterate, uneducated villagers. But here we're talking about a people who had the nous to make incredible strides in medicine, astronomy, science, literature, mathematics, philosophy, theology, music and all kinds of disciplines.
Don't underestimate Indian villagers. They can dumb you down in religious debates. We have thousands of years of practice in religious discussions.
 
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ajay0

Well-Known Member
If Buddha and the Gurus told Hindus not to use their current methods and instead do it their way then why do so many Hindus worship them? Jesus too told us how to worship and that it's different from Hinduism so why complain about Jesus but not Buddha and the Gurus just because they're Indian?

Buddha 2500 years back, and later Guru Nanak preached equality and fraternity of all human beings, and denounced the caste system and untouchability. Basavanna through the Lingayats, Swami Dayananda Saraswati through the Arya Samaj and Rajaram Mohan Roy through the Brahmo Samaj, had also preached and taught the same.

If the Hindus had followed at least what Buddha had taught and implemented it, they would not have lived in slavery and foreign domination for the last 1000 years.
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
Don't underestimate Indian villagers. They can dumb you down in religious debates. We have thousands of years of practice in religious discussions.

Agreed, I'd say that in relative numbers I'd put money on the dumbest village Hindu over the smartest Judean goatherd of those times any day.
 

ajay0

Well-Known Member
If Buddha and the Gurus told Hindus not to use their current methods and instead do it their way then why do so many Hindus worship them?

It should be understood here that the caste system and untouchability are not part of the Vedas. These were man-made customs or smritis that came up at certain periods of times and ought to have been changed with times.

But those in power and privilege found it hard to relinquish them, and found it convenient to carry them forward instead of changing with the times as advised by Buddha and Basavanna. This brought about weakness in the system and consequently the Hindus, divided into thousands of castes, were ruled by foreigners numerically much inferior to them, but united by the ideals of equality and fraternity.

It was only the tenth Sikh Guru , Guru Gobind Singh, who was able to successfully thwart the tyranneous Mughal emperor Aurangzeb through the Khalsa, which was forged with the ideals of equality, fraternity and universal brotherhood.
 

Shantanu

Well-Known Member
If Buddha and the Gurus told Hindus not to use their current methods and instead do it their way then why do so many Hindus worship them? Jesus too told us how to worship and that it's different from Hinduism so why complain about Jesus but not Buddha and the Gurus just because they're Indian?
Dharma is the key to understanding the Indo religions so they are respected, whereas Jesus did not focus on dharma but on worship and prayer. That is why they complain about Jesus and Allah too.
 
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