DEVIATIONS AMONG THE INDO-ARYANS
Religion of Indo-Aryans today is far different from the religion taught by the Vedas. Their religious beliefs and thoughts underwent several changes till they reached us in their present state. Hinduism may be one religion, but it is conglomeration of a variety of beliefs, with different outlook to God or gods or mode of worship. To what extent this distortion has occurred can only be understood by initiating a fresh study of the Vedas and Gita (the two books that are said to be having Divine linkage); what is evident is that none can deny the fact that deviations and distortions have taken place during the several thousand years of history.
It cannot be said precisely when, how and under what circumstances deviations occurred among the Indo-Aryans. It seems that deviations kept happening at all times. Messengers and Prophets too kept coming, in order to correct the false beliefs of the people and lead them back to the worship of One God. Yet, man kept deviating from the true path, time and again.
Why is it that all major religions of the world have experienced gross deviations? Were the teachings of various preachers so difficult to follow? Is it because materialism provides such an attraction to humans that they fall easy prey to these vices and get deviated from the true path that revolves around righteousness and spirituality? Or is Satan so powerful that he knows how to deviate the best of men? Whatever the reason, the very fact that the followers of all the religions of the world are grossly deviated from the core teachings of their respective religions show that the path shown by each of the religion was not easy to tread. What was that path? You will know by the time you complete reading this BOOK.
History recounts Moses was disclaimed by the people amongst whom he was sent. Quran has mentioned in detail how the followers of Moses kept asking for signs and benefits from God, including food from heaven that continued to come for a long time. In spite of all miracles and visible signs shown by Moses time and again, they were always found wanting when the time came to stand up to their convictions and beliefs. Moreover, it required only Moses’ prolonged stay of about a week on top of the mountain for them to deviate. This shows that it is possible for seemingly the most righteous of men to deviate within a matter of days and we have to be on our guard at all times, lest Satan succeeds in his plan.
The same Jews, who had troubled Moses all through his life, continued to move astray after his departure and when Jesus came to remove the deviations that had come in the path laid by Moses and his predecessors, they denied Jesus’ claim to prophethood tooth and nail and tried their best to kill him. This was despite the fact that Jesus never claimed to have brought new teachings and held the Commandments of Moses in the highest esteem.
Jesus departed and those who gave the name of Christianity to his teachings corrupted that true path shown by him and, in a very short while, the entire Christian world was engulfed in practicing the greatest of vices, which in no way had anything to do with the teachings of Jesus. They got divided into Protestants and Catholics and history even recounts pitched battles between the two.
Mohammad, too, came endorsing the prophethood of both Moses and Jesus, and with a view to remove the deviations and vices that had crept in the teachings of various major religions across the world. Hordes and hordes of people embraced his teachings but it remains a sad chapter of history that within 50 years of his death, the same Muslims collected in huge number to slay Mohammad’s grandson, who was undoubtedly the greatest torchbearer of Mohammad’s teachings.
Mohammad had made it clear that he had come to culminate the teachings of God, propagated by various Messengers and Prophets who came prior to him. From the time of Adam, 124,000 Messengers or Prophets were sent and Mohammad was the last of them. In spite of Quran citing several examples to attest God’s relationship with Prophets like Moses and Jesus, the adherents of the teachings of these two had deviated to such an extent by the time of Mohammad that the conduct of practicing Jews and Christians appeared far different from that of Mohammad’s teaching, who claimed to be imparting teachings of the same path that was shown by Moses and Jesus.
Not that there were no true adherents of theese Messengers/Avatars who delivered the teachings of the Straight Path from time to time. Seekers of truth had always remained. But this too is a sad reality that paths for deviations were always open. Our beliefs are so fickle that they keep changing with time. Merely two hundred years back, nobody would have ever thought people would be standing in queues to supplicate in front of the image of a fakir (Sai Baba) with certain degree of spiritual powers. Today, a good number of Hindus claim to be followers of Sai Baba, even though he had no place in the religion merely a few decades back. A day was enough to reinforce our beliefs in idols when they, all across India, began to ‘consume’ milk. In older times, even a Tsunami could have triggered worship of the sea.
Our purpose is to express that Messengers/Avatars came to correct those who had deviated from the true path and had begun to regard people or things other than God as sacred. Krishna was the greatest champion of the teachings of the Vedas but fought those who claimed to be the most rigid followers of Vedas. Likewise, Rama waged a war against one who claimed to be a devotee of Siva and had worshipped Siva exceedingly in the past. Yet, that was undoubtedly blind worship, as Ravana failed to see that supplication to God can never be a physical exercise alone and true suppliant has to bade farewell to false ego, lust, greed, violence, injustice, corruption and all acts of evil forbidden by God.
Fact is that after Vedas and prior to Krishna, in the post Krishna period passing through Buddha and till this time, Indo-Aryans surely passed through several hostile periods where it was not easy to remain on the true path. There were kings who wanted their mode of religion to be followed. There was a period of about 1000 years when Buddhism reigned supreme and some rulers even tried forcefully to make people follow Buddhism. People were largely ignorant and hence it was easy to circulate myths and propaganda. This was followed by a long period of rule by those who called themselves Muslims. Later, for about 50 years or so, the British closed all madrasas and pathshalas, when they tried to implement their own education system. Moreover, with no state patronage during long periods of Buddhist, Mughal and British rule, the true teachings of the Hindus were always prone to digressions.
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