Am I a Hindu?

 
I was thinking that it might be worthwhile to document my own transition away from faith. What follows is what happened for me. Basically, my family is flexible when it comes to the religious part. My father and I used to be way too friendly. My grandfather was very devoted to Lord Shiva. Luckily for me, my father always stand back to hold. He doesn’t feel any sort of prompt or proxy is needed to be deeply religious. He always prays to one God, Lord Krishna (Guruvayoorappan).

            

    Children are more vulnerable and emulate those they respect. I still do. My father was a Brahmin, so I became one as well. Realising what I mean by that; I happy being a Brahmin but I didn’t decide to become a Brahmin; it just happened. As a child, if someone you love and respect tells you something is true or illustrates that they believe it be true – it become absolute. There will be no choice in these matters for a human until much later in life. The society is constructed in this pace, this something that people don’t realise.
     As I said, my faith was quite different from any traditional sect of Brahmin community. I don’t know much about The Bhagavat Gita and Upanishads. My basic beliefs are:
            God made everything
            God is extremely kind
            God will listen to you and answer your prayers.
       From there I pretty much developed my own way of worship to where I am is anybody who listens to your own shit is you and you only, get the crap out and work on it. Seriously, I wonder if I could ever been called a Brahmin. From childhood to the present time, I have had only two Brahmin friends.
       Ultimately, replying to everyone’s prayers are really hard for an omnipotent being. May be, all of our prayers would be still in pending list, may be. May be in Spam section. We have never prayed for anything without offering something in exchange. I believe the power of prayer is limited by the selfishness of the person making it. Do you really think God differentiates people by their community? Who knows?
        Mainly media, politics, you and I doing it purposely for some reasons. Do you think we are differentiated only by the means of Hindus, Muslims and Christians? Not really, we are differentiated by means of mind, heart and soul. As a more typical example, I have never heard of “Nammalava” and “Namma Aathu Vazhakka Padi Ippadithan Nadakanum”, these sayings in my 22 years of age. I was never been accused for not following my tradition. I was happily living my own life better. As these statements are emerging in my life and taking my life decisions at its own hands after 23 years right after marriage. My faith began to waiver. The questions in my mind were multiplying and it still does.
        The biggest issues were the obvious ones: why am I allowing it? Why the prayers are not working? And why do we have these traditions to ruin our own dreams? I am not prepared for how difficult to not believe. I may suffer with the guilt of turning back on my partner and relatives. But the truth is every one of us have desires to look upon, dreams to get accomplish and rights to choose what we are in and what we can do!
        So, the message is, if you are moral and religious it’s because you are moral. I don’t ask you to neglect religion or religious tradition outright. Just realise that you are already disobeying the traditions in massive ways every single day. Your religion and faith is not that of the traditions you force everyone around you. It’s your own.  Atmadiphah Bhav – Be your own light