I am leaving for India one week from right now. Many of you have helped to support me financially and for that I am very thankful. Many more of you have helped to support me spiritually and communally. It is a strange feeling to know that a week from now I am going to walk out of my door and not return until June.
I get asked all of the time, "Where are you going in India?" It may go to show part of my personality, (shoot first and ask questions later) but it took me a while to know exactly where myself. These kind of questions are particularly good know when, for instance, you are sitting across the table from your girlfriend's family. Well, look no further. I will be in Raxaul, located at the end of the black arrow in the East Champaran District in the state of Bihar. Raxaul is the gateway to Nepal and serves as the border city between these two incredible countries.
Bihar is one of the most populated states in India (3rd) and 85% of those people live in villages. In Raxaul, 85% of the inhabitants are Hindu and 12% are Muslim. Bihar served as the birthplace of Buddhism, where Siddartha Gautama (Buddha) gained Enlightenment while sitting under the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, Bihar. The history of how Hinduism developed out of and along side of Buddhism in India, not to mention Muslim invasions, is way to much to recount here, but Wikipedia has a lot of really cool information about it.
I have been trying to read and learn all I can about Hinduism in order to prepare for this upcoming trip. I read an excellent, well-written, autobiography called Death of A Guru that stories the life of a young Hindu boy who was destined to be a Yogi (meditation master) and who's father was worshiped as a god because of his achievement of a continual transcendental meditation. In the book Rabi chronicles his pursuit of perfection through meditation, ritual, and education yet eventually he becomes aware of his own sinfulness despite his greatest efforts. Through the persistance of a good friend, Rabi begins to see that this Jesus he had heard of was not an avatar (image of god) like his father had been, but was in fact the son of God, his earthly representation (a truth the Hindus understand more easily than us Westerners) and that he had lived the perfect life God required that no man is capable of. He actually went on to plant a movement in the 1960s and 70s in Europe to minister to drug users caught up in desiring through drugs the same transcendental experiences he had had on his own power. It is definitely a good read if you like biographies.
Throughout the book I was continually impressed with the persistance and dedication that Rabi and many other Hindus pay to their religion. I wish that we as Western believers could begin to understand what it means to sit in worship of the one, true God for an hour, much less a lifeless idol. It also impressed me even more so with our own inability to create perfection in ourselves. Rabi began to realize that he had born into the highest Hindu caste with the holiest family one could ask for and had been given every advantage, but he continued to wrestle with rage, jealousy, and hypocrisy. It is my prayer that anyone reading this would wrestle seriously with this truth and question what they believe is leading them to God. I think quite often Hinduism is respected around the world as a welcoming religion, but for Rabi he knew that he was doomed to repetitive reincarnation because he could not originate righteousness in himself. The truth of the Gospel is that Christ did it for us. 1 Peter 2 says that "he himself (Christ) bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and overseer of your souls."
