A Muslim Pluralist Celebrates Easter

A MUSLIM CELEBRATES EASTER

The first response from a few Muslims would be "no, no and no!" Muslims cannot celebrate resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus did not die, he and his message lives on! 

Whether Jesus was buried and resurrected, or taken up by God, faith in him is shared by more than half of the world inclusive of Muslims and Christians. Whether you believe in Jesus or not, his message of love thy enemy, love thy neighbor and forgive the other will set us free. Can we celebrate that message? 

Perhaps I may be the first Muslim to be baptized. It was an enriching experience to me in particular, feeling the symbolic transformation of the feeling of love towards all of God's creation. Muslims feel the same upon performance of Hajj Pilgrimage; we become child-like with love for all of God's creation; life and matter. The Hindus cherish an identical feeling when they take a dip at the Sangam in River Ganges, particularly during the Kumbh Mela.
To this Muslim, Easter represents resurrection of Jesus through his message, and Easter is a symbolic day to celebrate that message.

Continued - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse/a-muslim-pluralist-celebrates-easter_b_2976582.html#es_share_ended

 PLEASE SHARE ON FACE BOOK AND TWEET FROM THE HUFFPOST

full story in the link at Huffington post

 Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam,Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building aCohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day atwww.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links

Happy Mahashivratri - Maha Kumbh Mela 2013

Festivals mark a significant milestone in one's life. It is a ritual to transform oneself from being one to the purified one. Hindus believe taking a dip in the Holy River Ganges washes their sins off and renews their spirituality. It’s akin to Christians walking Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem during Easter, or the time at the Wailing Wall for the Jews and doing Hajj for Muslims.

One has to focus on the essence of each religious activity; there is devotion, beauty and wisdom in it for those who believe.  You can wish Happy Shivratri, Happy Maha Shivratri to your Hindu friends.

Nearly 9 million people have already taken a dip in the Holy Sangam, the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers on the auspicious occasion of Maha Shivratri, bringing the Maha Kumbh, the great gathering to a close on Sunday, March 10, 2013. Kumbh mela is an annual event but the Maha Kumbh is every 12 years.

Click the picture to see larger version

Interesting stats and photos, courtesy New York Timeshttp://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/03/10/magazine/look-india.html

The Sanatana society writes, “Shiva is the god of the yogis, self-controlled and celibate, while at the same time a lover of his spouse (shakti). Lord Shiva is the destroyer of the world, following Brahma the creator and Vishnu the preserver, after which Brahma again creates the world and so on. Shiva is responsible for change both in the form of death and destruction and in the positive sense of destroying the ego, the false identification with the form. This also includes the shedding of old habits and attachments. “

“All that has a beginning by necessity must have an end. In destruction, truly nothing is destroyed but the illusion of individuality. Thus the power of destruction associated with Lord Shiva has great purifying power, both on a more personal level when problems make us see reality more clearly, as on a more universal level. Destruction opens the path for a new creation of the universe, a new opportunity for the beauty and drama of universal illusion to unfold. As Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram or Truth, Goodness and Beauty, Shiva represents the most essential goodness.”

Shiva is a Hindu deity, one of the three most influential denominations in Hinduism. He is "the Destroyer" or "the Transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine.

About a decade ago, on my daily Radio show called Wisdom of Religion, all the beautiful religions,  Swami Nityananda my weekly guest described  the  Shiva Sahasranama (1000 names) in greater detail. Every aspect of nature can be broadly defined in 1000 different names and those names reflect the God qualities that one can acquire through mediation and destruction of ego within. 1000 is not a finite number, it is a metaphoric number, just as Muslims have 99 names of God to denote infinity.

Note: I have been focusing on the essence of each religious festival for over 20 years, we wrote in Asian News since 1993, then broadcasted on Asian News Radio through 2000 and since then, it has been published in forums, blogs, sites and news papers. If we all can learn to see the beauty of each faith, then we have transcended in to the realm of getting closer to God, which means in tune with the universe to function cohesively and effectively with the entire creation.

URL -http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2013/03/happy-mahashivratri-maha-kumbh-mela-2013.html

Happy Shivratri !

....... Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace,Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day atwww.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.

Sequestration 2013, a Political Mess, political pluralism

It’s a ransom - if you do that, we will do this. Neither Obama administration nor the Republicans budged from their positions to realign the cuts in expenditures and enhancement of revenues to balance the budget. 

We can survive this $85 billion cut, but is this how we deal with the national issues? 

Republicans are assuming that we are not going to make it in 2014, so what the heck, let’s do the thing that needs to be done any way and make Obama look bad. Our intention smells foul.

We have to balance the budget; we cannot spend more than we collect. Indeed, we had a balanced budget when President Clinton left. However President Bush, the macho man loaded with revenge seeking testosterone's had to lie to us to go to war and that is where our destruction began. His actions killed over 5000 of our soldiers and nearly a million Afghans and Iraqis – for what?  He piled up a reckless debt of $10 Trillion dollars. That was irresponsible, had he done what Obama did, to go get that one guy Bin-Laden; we would not be in this mess today. Cheney and Bush owe an apology to the nation, their karma is messed up, but they have messed us up. 

The blame must be placed squarely on the party leadership. The Republican Party programs its members to be sheepish; to shut up and listen to the boss. How many Republican were belligerent towards Bush?  We are freaking conformists in a free nation. We have become cowards and don’t have the balls to speak out against our own. It is time to change. I see hope in Chris Christie, John Huntsman, Colin Powell and many more that are speaking up, and add to that list, this little man from Dallas, Texas who will relentlessly pursue the case for sanity in our party.

Had we questioned President Bush and demanded the truth from him, we would have saved the nation, but that is behind,  right now,  we have to cut spending. Cannot continue with deficit financing of our state. 

President Obama needs to be aggressive in cutting spending; there is a lot of wasteful spending that needs to be cut. Let it begin with huge pay cuts for the elected representatives, not the ones who make less than $100,000 but any pay check above that. They can demonstrate to the nation that they mean business.

The Republicans on the other hand need to have some common sense, we cannot go cold turkey on budget cuts, and it has to be a gradual and balanced approach over a period of 6 years without hurting the economy. But cuts, we must make.

The good thing about Moderate Republicans is they care for their country more than their party and they will save the party and not the right wingers among us.  We need to have a simple (not the arrogant) majority in the house and Democrats to have the simple majority in the Senate. These guys need to fight and spend time on each bill – there shall be no slam dunk of any bill. Most of the evil decisions were made when all the three branches of government were of the same party.  As a moderate Republican I detest a monopoly of the party over our governance.
If we don’t change our stinking attitudes we will be slaughtered in 2014, all these Taliban’s, 22 of the Republican Senators and some 138 Republican Congress persons must go for voting against women’s equal rights act in the senate. What a shame! I expect more of us Republicans to speak out against these primates. 

URL- http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2013/03/sequestration-2013-republican-mess.html
....... Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.

A Jew calls for 850 Million Hindus to assert themselves

I am baffled by the audio tape link listed below. Normally, I ignore the guys who thrive on pitiching one Indian against the other. However,  since it came from an active Indian leader and has come many times in the last few days in the email.  I decided to listen and did not hear any facts to back up the rants of the speaker. 

Throughout our history, there have been men who have made their good by keeping other people in conflict. If you listen – he would want India to remain in a non-stop civil war. The man has nothing to lose but gain.

The right wing Hindus would love this kind of rhetoric, facts don't matter to the them, and the same goes with right wing Muslims who love similar rhetoric, and Christians and Jews are no different either.  

If we listen to this guy, the gullible among us would buy his hate pitch, and instantly start hating fellow Indians, and for some, their blood boils with a desire to kill every Muslim in India, particularly the Indians living in the United States. Please remember the extremists are no more than 1/10th of 1% of any group, be it Hindus or Muslims.

Imagine a scenario – where people would listen to this man, and go on a killing spree, but how many can you kill? Then Muslims will kill Hindus… is there an end to this Sunghursh (endless fight)? The Norway killer, the Wisconsin Killer had something in common, they cited reading Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer's hateful pieces about Muslims. Pamela's inciting posters may have been the reason for the death of a Hindu man in New York subway. I had warned about it onFox News twice. As Indians we have a responsibility to nail every one who instigates disturbance and disturbs the peace.

If you and I are willing to give up everything and go on the street with swords– and ready to kill each other, then we are something. Otherwise we are disgusting humans who want the ordinary Hindu cocks to fight with the ordinary Muslim cocks to bleed themselves to death. It is a game to some of us, other people's lives don’t mean a thing to us. But if this man expects you and me to fight, either he is delusional or we are stupid.

All of us have worked hard against anti-Semitism, racism, anti-GLBT, Islamophobia, anti-immigrations, women's rights, discrimination,  and we must continue to work hard against these individuals. 
This guy is a disgrace to Judaism, Israel and America. He is justifying in his own sick mind what the Israeli settlers are doing to the Palestinians; he thinks a majority should bulldoze the minorities. Does't this hypocrite expect the United States to treat him as an equal, and yet he advocates otherwise, it is this kind of ugly men that contribute to Antisemitism.  Are my fellow Indians dumb enough to believe that they as a Minority in the United States should be treated in the same fashion as they want the Muslim minority in India be treated? 

I appeal to the Jewish communities to denounce this man and keep their records clear,  that they do not approve of this. Why should  a Muslim man on the street not Hate Jews, if this Jew is inciting Hindus to hate Muslims? The guy is not an idiot, he just does not have morals or care for the future of Jews in the world, Mr. Madoff is for himself.  

I am sure some of the right wing Hindus are eager to write a big check to their savior, who laughs his ass off after collecting the monies. I urge you to spend your money in building relationships and causing lasting peace with your money, so all of us can live in peace. Please don't treat ordinary Hindus and Muslims as cocks who can kill each other. Let us not be his pawns.

As Indians we need to grow up, and not fall to those who want us to fight – they succeeded in splitting our nation, and keep us busy hating each other, they have done that in other parts of the world as well. Do we want to be screwed more?

Most of the Indian Hindus, Muslims, Sikh, Christians, Jain, Buddhs or others care less, but a few have made their business to spread hate. Don't brush this off, it is the build ups like these that explode into riots. 

Ask yourselves, what is your contribution towards making India, a better India to live? A better India is not seeing luxury cars on the roads, call centers or big homes, or industrial growth, a better India is where no Indian is afraid of the others, and if we have bad guys, we need to lock them up, with a clear understanding that their parents, siblings, kids, spouse or religion or not responsible for his actions.

I urge you to read Hyderabad blasts to appear in Huffington post this week at:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse

Mike Ghouse is committed to building cohesive societies where all of us can learn to live with each other without fear of the other.
...................

KARAYAM SADHAYAMI VA DEHAM PATYAMI Hindus  wake up and figght for your rights. This  is now or never. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JhJCHtyS60

...
Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel,India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive Americaand offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest onSean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly atHuffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal sitewww.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links