Belief in God?

Have I seen God ? Probably not . Or maybe I have, and I dont know it . Who or what is God anyway ? Why should I believe in something that I have not seen or felt or experienced ?

The answer , I believe , lies with our Gurus or spiritual teachers .

The ancient brilliant scholars , teachers , sages , Valmiki , Ved Vyasa , the Saptha(seven) Rishis , Badarayana , the ancient Law givers , Parasara , Yajnavalkya , etc they all felt , saw , and experienced the Divine and the sacred .

So did Jesus , Buddha , Mahavira etc .

So did the mystic poet- saints of the tamil region in south india - the Alvars and the Nayanmars .
So did the great teachers of the middle ages , Sankara , Ramanuja and Madhva .

And also Chaitanya , Ramananda , Vallabhacharya, Kabir , Jnaneshwar ,Shankara Deva ,Samarth Ramdas, Nimbarka , Goraknath , Guru Nanak etc .

And the great poet saints , Tulsidas ,Soordas , Mirabai , Jayadeva, Eknath, Tukaram , Thyagaraja , Purandara Dasa , Dikshitar , Shyama Sastri, and so on .

And the social reformers , Guru Ravidas , Narayana Guru , Basaveshwara, Dayananda Saraswati , etc

And in the 19th century , Shiridi Sai Baba , Ramakrishna Paramahamsa ,Swami Vivekananda ,Swami Narayan of Gujarat , etc
And more recently ,Paramahamsa Yogananda , Aurobindo ,"the Mother" , Ramana Maharishi , Swami Rama ,Maharishi Mahesh Yogi ,Prabhupada , Satya Sai Baba , Sri Sri Ravishankar , Mata Amritanandamayi etc

And so did many many others , who may have led quiet lives unknown to most except their chosen disciples .

If one reads even a few of their compositions , writings etc, or about their lives , we find that they were all great brilliant scholars, poets , philosophers and had the spark of divine genius . They all experienced God within and without .

If all of them have seen God , and felt the divine in themselves , then indeed God exists for me .

The seven basic principles

The Sanathana Dharma ,over hundreds of years, from 2000 BC to 800 AD, absorbed the entire population of the Indian Subcontinent into its fold , simply by accepting all their indiviudal customs , traditions , habits , beliefs etc as part of a greater religion . Thus india became a salad bowl of religious traditions with every denomination or community ( presently over 4000) having its unique identity within the greater frame work of Hinduism .Thus the Sanathana Dharma is a salad bowl and not a melting pot !! Nobody was forced to accept one particular system . However despite all their diversity , they are all broadly agreed on some fundamental principles .
These are
1. That God ( Brahman) exists , is eternal , and is one perfect universal power and being , but has many names and forms , and cannot be described ,but has to be experienced through spirituality ,
2. That the spiritual tradition embodied in the Shruti or Vedas is the ultimate authority for the Sanathana Dharma ( Hinduism ),
3. That the universe is eternal, infinite and cyclical , ( the wheel of time ); and that we ( individual souls )find ourselves repeatedly reborn in the toils of Samsara ( the worldly trials and tribulations , pitfalls of desire and sorrow, the cycle of birth and death ) ,due to our past Karma (or actions ),
4. That there is a triple path of Karma , Bhakti and Jnana ie (a. right action and duty , b . devotion ,
and c . knowledge and wisdom through reasoning ) which can lead us out of the coils of rebirth in Samsara ,and lead us to the perfection of God ,
5. That those who wish to be liberated and free , should cultivate the five cardinal virtues of purity ( sattva ), self control ( sama and dama ), detachment(vairagya ), truth (Satyam )and non violence (ahimsa) , in their various forms and become a Dharmatma , or a noble spiritual person ,
6. And further , the individual has to concentrate on his/her Ista Devata ( or form of God that appeals to him/her), (or meditate and contemplate the formless ), according to their Adhikara ( or moral and spiritual competence and understanding ) , and accquire the grace of God,or the infinite spirit ,
7. And that ultimate freedom , liberation, and true peace lies in becoming eternally free from the cycles of birth and death, and entering the world of the infinite , or Universal spirit or God ( Brahman) .

The five cardinal virtues

The Sanathana Dharma talks about five all important cardinal virtues that we have to cultivate in order to make spiritual progress . They are
1. Purity ( Sattvam ) of mind and body .
2. Self Control / discipline ( Sama / Dhama ) over ourselves .
3. Detachment ( Vairagyam ) over worldly issues .
4. Truth ( Satyam) in thought word and deed .
5. Non Violence ( Ahimsa ) towards all .

While it is not easy to cultivate all the cardinal virtues instantly , hinduism hopes that one should strive in the right direction .