Morarji Desai on Hinduism

Morarji Desai, Congressman, Gandhian, Freedom fighter, advocate of prohibition, Parliamentarian, and a Prime Minister of India

Moraji on being a Hindu:

 I was born a Hindu and as I grew in Hindu surroundings, I was more and more attracted to the principles of Hindu religion. After studying other religions also, I found my faith in Hinduism becoming deeper. While I consider that all faiths teach the basic religion common to men, I derive greater satisfaction from the teachings of the Vedic religion which we today call Hinduism, whose foundations are in the Vedas and Upanishads. All other religions believe in conversion to their faith because they consider that there is no salvation for man until he follows that particular faith. It is the peculiarity of Hinduism that any person who wants to follow it , as he understands it, considers himself a Hindu without any formal initiation into it. ... Some people think that destiny makes one fatalist and therefore inactive or without any dynamism. This is in my view a misconception of destiny. Belief in destiny reminds a person all the while that he has himself to undergo the results of his actions and that he cannot blame anybody else for what he is experiencing - good or bad. It reminds him that he is free to do any act himself and form his own destiny- either of being born again and again or being free from the cycle of birth and rebirth by accepting a life of detachment.

Source: Illustrated Weekly of India

See Also:

• Biography of Morarji Desai
• Gandhi on Hinduism