Akira says: April 6, 2016 at 12:17 pm
Dear Admin,
I am not in a situation per se, I am just really really impressed by Ahmadi sect.
To this day, I have never come across a religion which is Islamic but also combine other religions within it e.g. acknowledging Jesus, Krishna. I watch a lot of videos on how their leaders want the followers to practice this religion “Love for all, hate for none”. Of course, nothing is 100% perfect. I am sure there will be people belonging to the Ahmadiyya community, who could point out the problems they face.
Nevertheless, in addition to this, I am fascinated by Pashtun culture. Just like most of the cultures we have, Pashtuns seem to be really nice people. They seem simple and grounded. I have now started to learn the language myself (its difficult but I am trying).
I do not classify myself with any religion. I am not an atheist, I just haven’t found ONE religion that resonates with me, that’s why I take the best from what is presented in front of me. As I grew, I have realized that in countries like ours, culture and religion are so inter-twined, its hard to tell one from the other e.g. women in smaller towns are suggested to wear traditional clothes (not jeans etc) in order to be safe. These women could be Muslim, Hindu, Sikh. We can’t fight against the cheap mentality of the general public who blame a woman by the way she dresses up. I must not digress, but I hope you got my point.
Your reply and/or help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,-Akira.
Akira says: April 6, 2016 at 11:06 pm
Wow! This is fun having a page to myself ???? Now I can pour my heart out.
Readers may think that I have not had ‘exposure’ to various religious beliefs yet and may be that’s why I cannot ‘label’ myself with one teaching/belief or cannot classify myself. Truth of the matter is that I have had a very secular upbringing. I have enjoyed Sikhism, Hinduism, Islam and the like when I was growing up. my studies took me to a different part of the country where I met Christians and Buddhists. After that, I came to the USA and met even more Christians.
US is a melting pot for various cultures, nationalities, religions etc. My thirst for having a multi-cultural, multi-religion community around me, made me very open and welcoming. Believe me when I say this, after you step outside your comfort zone, your home, your perspective changes (Hold on. It only changes when we are open to learn stuff and we aren’t so rigid in our thinking). I became more and more tolerant towards others. Of course I had a lot of preconceived notions about various ethnicities and religions but everything falls flat on your face when you see how amazing humans can be.
All these years of upbringing in a certain society makes you think in a certain way and we all assume that ours is the best/only way of life. Things change when you meet people, share stories and realizes, we all are basically the same. Our expression of love, anger, guilt etc….it’s all the same, only the language varies. It’s just like having similar framework (read-skeleton) underneath various physical appearances.
I was so surprised to learn that most of the Asian cultures overlap, despite the various religions that we enjoy. More so, some of the westerners I met, had a similar upbringing as I did. -Akira
Akira says: April 8, 2016 at 11:18 pm (Edit)
Dear Admin,
Thank you for your kind words. A lot of people complement my writing style. I guess they like it because I write from my heart. I still have a long way to go, I just hope that my content does not get copied from here :p
Coming back to the discussion, my experience and various interactions over the years have taught me this- Morality and religion are not always connected. Meaning, an atheist could have a heart of gold and he could be an angelic soul or you can find a ‘religious leader’ for example doing unethical things. Same holds true for education as well. An uneducated person can have more wisdom than ‘literate’ illiterate.
Sometimes I feel that there is a problem at the grassroot level, not necessarily the parenting (which includes our learnings from home, school and elsewhere) but the way we are loaded with information without any practical application or reasoning.
Let’s talk about a young girl from a small town. She was sent to a school in a bigger city where the culture was modern and more lax. She would commute from her hometown everyday and spend most of her day at school and basically came home only to change her dress and get ready for private tuition. For a young and growing mind, it is very easy to get lured by her surroundings. She would interact with her friends who would tell her about the new pair of jeans they got or new tops etc. She would get excited about the thought of owning a pair of blue jeans. Her peers from this big city had a more liberal upbringing. They would talk about things that she could not relate to. For this little girl,it was so easy to feel ‘left-out’. She could not talk about it with her friends, fearing they would judge her or make fun of her. She could by no means talk to her parents. Parents are always right (aren’t they?. They had asked her to wear traditional shalwar-kameez as soon as she got back from school and headed to her tuition lessons. She was growing up and the content on TV made her dreamy, so did her school friends. But she had no choice than to dress up like a ‘bhenji’. Of course it played with her confidence and the way she looked at herself.
Now, tell me this, wouldn’t it be so simple if her parents could understand what she was growing through? They are her parents. But they are also the parents who can never be questioned or argued with. Being a parent gives you this title of always being right. Not for once did they sat her down and told her that, “Dear, we know how you feel but we love you and want you to be safe. We reside in a small town and the crowd here is not used to seeing western attire. It’s for your best to wear traditional clothes when you step out.” No, this did not happen. She grew up fearing her parents and eventually started lying to them. She was just so scared to discuss anything with them bcos every little joke would turn into a lesson (desi parents).
This is a very simple example to discuss what I mentioned before. I guess, one can get the point!?
Few may think that it’s wrong to question parents, they love you, care for you etc etc. Nobody is questioning this. I am only trying to share my experience. I am lucky that in our house, we had a dialogue and I grew up understanding the reasons behind the no’s and the yes’s.
One day, I overheard a fellow bus passenger talk about his kids (this was in the US). He was proudly stating how her 6-year old daughter corrected him and how she tells him if she doesn’t like something and so on. In the end, before deboarding, he said, “Learning should never end. We as parents are not always right, for we are humans too. It takes a 6-year old to teach you this fundamental.”
Applying this thought on interfaith relations, I think it’s more to do with who-gets-to-have-an-upper-hand. You are right, it’s more acceptable to have multi-religious friend circle than to get married to someone. I feel that if a couple is left to make decisions for themselves, hardly any disputes will arise. It’s always when a third person (in this case the in-laws family or own family) intervene. They would want you to sort out everything from day one. How many kids? Which gender? Which school? Color of the eyes? Religion? Name? so on. Sometimes, parents could be supportive of this decision but then they succumb to the societal pressures.
It’s funny yet ironic that in our countries we are so scared of this magnanimous force called ‘society’. ‘Log kya kahenge’ (what will people say). Excuse me, which people are we talking about? Oh that Uncle of mine who only meets me once a year or that Aunt who rolls her eyes when she looks at my grades or that passerby in red shirt who doesn’t know I exist. Shouldn’t the only people involved in this personal decision be parents? Parents who gave me birth, taught me how to walk, cared for me, wanted me to wear traditional attire to protect myself from the preying eyes.
Ah, I wish things were so simple. I wish we had more and more discussions in families. I wish we did not have to maintain pseudo-blood relations. For those who care about you seek their happiness in yours.
I also wish for more people to join this discussion thread. I’d like to know different perspectives on this.
(Admin- I belong to a Hindu household but my parents do not follow any religion. They took me out to pray in church, mosque, gurudwara, temple. Mom would say, “God just has different places where he resides.” That’s how I became more tolerant 🙂 ) -Akira
View videos: Interfaith Marriage with Equality, All you want to know about the Hindu-Muslim Marriage, Sharia: Hindu-Muslim Marriages,
Also read: Hindu-Muslim marriages, Hindu-Muslim lovers’ experiences, Koran on Hindus?, Love-Jihad, Don’t fake-convert, Polygamy and talaak, Akansha unwillingly converted to Nusrat, Hindu girl-Muslim boy, Idols, pluralism, SRK-can you do it?, Zakir Naik, Christian-Hindu marriages, Sikh-Muslim marriages, Malaysia in love, Marriage laws.
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Wow! This is fun having a page to myself 😉 Now I can pour my heart out.
Readers may think that I have not had ‘exposure’ to various religious beliefs yet and may be that’s why I cannot ‘label’ myself with one teaching/belief or cannot classify myself. Truth of the matter is that I have had a very secular upbringing. I have enjoyed Sikhism, Hinduism, Islam and the like when I was growing up. my studies took me to a different part of the country where I met Christians and Buddhists. After that, I came to the US and met even more Christians.
US is a melting pot for various cultures, nationalities, religions etc. My thirst for having a multi-cultural, multi-religion community around me, made me very open and welcoming. Believe me when I say this, after you step outside your comfort zone, your home, your perspective changes (Hold on. It only changes when we are open to learn stuff and we aren’t so rigid in our thinking). I became more and more tolerant towards others. Of course I had a lot of preconceived notions about various ethnicities and religions but everything falls flat on your face when you see how amazing humans can be.
All these years of upbringing in a certain society makes you think in a certain way and we all assume that ours is the best/only way of life. Things change when you meet people, share stories and realizes, we all are basically the same. Our expression of love, anger, guilt etc….it’s all the same, only the language varies. It’s just like having similar framework (read-skeleton) underneath various physical appearances.
I was so surprised to learn that most of the Asian cultures overlap, despite the various religions that we enjoy. More so, some of the westerners I met, had a similar upbringing as I did.
P.S.- Please edit the heading of the topic to “Love for all, hatred for none”, this is the motto of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
Hi Akira,
Welcome to InterfaithShaadi. Yes, please pour your heart out here. We love your pluralistic messages. May be one day you may even a write a book based on what you expressed here, good luck!
We have observed that most people are secular and open-minded but that ideology changes when comes to marriage. It is easy to be Hindu-Muslim friends and go do charitable work to help poor and needy, but hell will get loose when that two friends start taking about marriage. We hope you will come to this site to guide youths in interfaith love.
We are curious-what is/was the religion of your parents?
Dear Admin,
Thank you for your kind words. A lot of people complement my writing style. I guess they like it because I write from my heart. I still have a long way to go, I just hope that my content does not get copied from here :p
Coming back to the discussion, my experience and various interactions over the years have taught me this- Morality and religion are not always connected. Meaning, an atheist could have a heart of gold and he could be an angelic soul or you can find a ‘religious leader’ for example doing unethical things. Same holds true for education as well. An uneducated person can have more wisdom than ‘literate’ illiterate.
Sometimes I feel that there is a problem at the grassroot level, not necessarily the parenting (which includes our learnings from home, school and elsewhere) but the way we are loaded with information without any practical application or reasoning.
Let’s talk about a young girl from a small town. She was sent to a school in a bigger city where the culture was modern and more lax. She would commute from her hometown everyday and spend most of her day at school and basically came home only to change her dress and get ready for private tuition. For a young and growing mind, it is very easy to get lured by her surroundings. She would interact with her friends who would tell her about the new pair of jeans they got or new tops etc. She would get excited about the thought of owning a pair of blue jeans. Her peers from this big city had a more liberal upbringing. They would talk about things that she could not relate to. For this little girl,it was so easy to feel ‘left-out’. She could not talk about it with her friends, fearing they would judge her or make fun of her. She could by no means talk to her parents. Parents are always right (aren’t they?. They had asked her to wear traditional shalwar-kameez as soon as she got back from school and headed to her tuition lessons. She was growing up and the content on TV made her dreamy, so did her school friends. But she had no choice than to dress up like a ‘bhenji’. Of course it played with her confidence and the way she looked at herself.
Now, tell me this, wouldn’t it be so simple if her parents could understand what she was growing through? They are her parents. But they are also the parents who can never be questioned or argued with. Being a parent gives you this title of always being right. Not for once did they sat her down and told her that, “Dear, we know how you feel but we love you and want you to be safe. We reside in a small town and the crowd here is not used to seeing western attire. It’s for your best to wear traditional clothes when you step out.” No, this did not happen. She grew up fearing her parents and eventually started lying to them. She was just so scared to discuss anything with them bcos every little joke would turn into a lesson (desi parents).
This is a very simple example to discuss what I mentioned before. I guess, one can get the point!?
Few may think that it’s wrong to question parents, they love you, care for you etc etc. Nobody is questioning this. I am only trying to share my experience. I am lucky that in our house, we had a dialogue and I grew up understanding the reasons behind the no’s and the yes’s.
One day, I overheard a fellow bus passenger talk about his kids (this was in the US). He was proudly stating how her 6-year old daughter corrected him and how she tells him if she doesn’t like something and so on. In the end, before deboarding, he said, “Learning should never end. We as parents are not always right, for we are humans too. It takes a 6-year old to teach you this fundamental.”
Applying this thought on interfaith relations, I think it’s more to do with who-gets-to-have-an-upper-hand. You are right, it’s more acceptable to have multi-religious friend circle than to get married to someone. I feel that if a couple is left to make decisions for themselves, hardly any disputes will arise. It’s always when a third person (in this case the in-laws family or own family) intervene. They would want you to sort out everything from day one. How many kids? Which gender? Which school? Color of the eyes? Religion? Name? so on. Sometimes, parents could be supportive of this decision but then they succumb to the societal pressures.
It’s funny yet ironic that in our countries we are so scared of this magnanimous force called ‘society’. ‘Log kya kahenge’ (what will people say). Excuse me, which people are we talking about? Oh that Uncle of mine who only meets me once a year or that Aunt who rolls her eyes when she looks at my grades or that passerby in red shirt who doesn’t know I exist. Shouldn’t the only people involved in this personal decision be parents? Parents who gave me birth, taught me how to walk, cared for me, wanted me to wear traditional attire to protect myself from the preying eyes.
Ah, I wish things were so simple. I wish we had more and more discussions in families. I wish we did not have to maintain pseudo-blood relations. For those who care about you seek their happiness in yours.
I also wish for more people to join this discussion thread. I’d like to know different perspectives on this.
(Admin- I belong to a Hindu household but my parents do not follow any religion. They took me out to pray in church, mosque, gurudwara, temple. Mom would say, “God just has different places where he resides.” That’s how I became more tolerant 🙂 )
Akira,
You should certainly plan to write a book 10 years down the road. Start writing in pieces at different forums/Newpapers and later make that a part of your book. We have written many articles on interfaith marriage and all are on this web site. Now we are compiling into a book to publish in 2017. Do the same.
Now you explained us all your pluralistic views with this statement “I belong to a Hindu household.” It is easy for you to think like this. Please read what Koran, Bible and Torah has to say. You will noticed that these are absolutely exclusivist religions. We are not saying Hindus cannot be exclusivist (one should follow only Krishna and not Shiva or Jesus) but fundamentally Hinduism is a pluralistic while Abrahamic faiths are exclusivists. These days, Christians in the West are now becoming more pluralists and Islam has still a long way to go.
Do not get confused for who you will marry to. Those Abrahamics would love to date you because you are a pluralist, but most will want you to covert to their exclusivist ideologies (BBS). Unfortunately you will learn only after getting trapped into love. Let us know if you think we are wrong. Share your views on exclusivity of these 3 faiths.
Admin shows only on koran on hindus, bible on hindus , torah on hindus ,
but hides vedas on muslims,vedas on christians, vedas on jews.
This is tolerant mind of admin. .
Akira,
We loved your message. There are more and more educated people are raising questions like you do.
If you are looking for a religion that “combine other religions within it e.g. acknowledging Jesus, Krishna”, meaning PLURALIST, then you are with us. We cannot believe exclusivist thinking that there is one God and that is mine! Unfortunately there are only very few people like you, and that means wars and killing in the name of religion will continue.
Have you explored Christianity and Buddhism? Is not Jesus message very loving (read)?