Myths of Hinduism

Myths of Hinduism 

Almost everyone in this world has a religion, and almost every person has a place of worship. Christians go to the Church, Muslims go to the Mosque's and there are many other places of worships. Most of the minor religions tend to say the word temple, which is a word originated by the Greeks. When someone ask's me what I do on Sunday's I say I go to temple, the only reason why I say that is because most people don't know what a Mandir is! But now I want to tell you that a place of worship for Hindus is called a Mandir.Here the idols of God are placed, we have a pujari (poo-ja- ree), a person that takes care of God, he is the one that feed's god, he changes God's clothes, he does the prayers, (basically everything that needs to be done). At my Mandir we have classes for different age groups and we teach them about our belief. Hinduism is split up according to beliefs and I belong to the Bochasanvasi Akshar Purshotam Upasana (BAPS). Our belief is that Swaminarayan Bhagwan is supreme God, he is above Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva (the only God's that are taught in History classes). The word Bhagwan means God! My Bhagwan has an ideal devotee whose name is Gunatitanand Swami. We believe that we have to be an ideal devotee like him and please Bhagwan.
The word Reincarnation is usually associated with Hindus but that is WRONG! Reincarnation is when a person comes back on earth after dying with the same body... what Hindus really believe in is that when you die, your body is burned and your soul comes back in a different body, this process is called Transmigration.

For today this much info is enough, if you are interested come again next Sunday to check what I have to inform you about BAPS Hindus!

Leave me alone

Leave Me Alone!

I have so much on my plate, I have to grade papers, I have to grade at lease 500 pages worth of homework, I have to prepare presentations to teach, I have to teach, I have temple exams next month and I have to read two books, don't even bring up school work, I have to write this blog, I have to improve a paper, I have to do all these readings for English, I have to read the next Biology chapter take notes on it and then take a quiz, I have to write a Liberal Studies (Motherhood) Paper, I have to read my Research Methods chapter and take a quiz on that, I have to read chapter 4 and 5 for Criminal Justice, I have to read the Biology Lab Manual and take a quiz on that! Lets talk about social life (which I don't have), I have guests coming over and because of the shortage of space they will be staying in my room which means that I need to clean my room! I need to finish a project for work (I work for a medical retail store, where they sell scrubs, I make advertising emails to let the customers know about the daily deals, these emails go out to thousands of people so I need to be very professional).

I cleaned my closet, only to end up with a dirty room! :/

All this work just makes me so exhausted I just want to scream LEAVE ME ALONE! I actually want to run away from this place and go somewhere far where I don't have to do anything, no one knows me, where I am just free from all these "duties". I pray to God every night before I go to sleep and tell him to take me to his divine abode so I don't have to do these things, and in the morning I thank him for the day he gave me but I pray that he take me to his abode before the I go to sleep. Because of this, I feel like I am depressed, I mean what normal person asks for this? 

I hope one day someone just takes me from this place and free me from these chains of duty!

Relationships

This to That

Today I was just wondering about the meaning of the word "relationship", to me it means having a connection with something or someone. But, I hate the fact that when the word relationship is used by society, its people always take it to be a relationship between a boy and a girl, without even realizing that there are so many other kinds of relationships in this world. 

Me and my mother!

For example, the relationship between a mother and a daughter, the relationship between a mother and a son, relationship between a brother and sister, husband and wife, teacher and student, individual with other workers. The word relationship means connection, and it can mean any kind of a connection, you can have a connection between you and your teddy bear, you can even have an emotional relationship where you can express your ideas freely to a teddy bear rather than an actual person.
God may not have sent us with wealth when we were born, but he definitely sent us relationships, which is priceless. Relationships should have a deeper meaning, because if, the word relationship only means "girl and a guy" then we reduce the meaning of other precious relationships. We need to redefine the word, in our heads.
But then again this is how I see it, you may have a different meaning, a different perspective of the word relationship, which I totally respect. I don't mean to offend you, I just sensed a change of interpretation the society was making with the word relationship.
For example the word mad used to mean crazy but now it means being angry. The word relationship is not being changed from its meaning, but the connotation that it is receiving is definitely changing. Current connotation of relationship: connection between a girl and a guy. What the connotation should be: connection between anything or anyone. (This may only be my view, feel free to disagree). 
I hope this blog made a little difference in your understanding of the word relationship. Thanks for reading. Have a great day! :)
-Dhruvi Barot.