Christianity to Hinduism- A Personal Journey | Mary Suresh Iyer | #Sangam Talks

[Music] good morning for those of you who joined from India and a good night actually for those of you who joined from the ironies of ironies is that this morning happens to be a Sunday morning in in India and my mind goes back to the Sundays many many years ago last 40 45 years and the picture that I'm sharing would be my mother and that would believe my two brothers struggling to drag us to the church and she had to be there by 9:30 so we all had to cooperate that would be one Sunday probably that would be the Sundays and that was the church that we would be trying to go children and I'm thinking about many Sundays like this a Sunday where all three of his children are lying on the bed sick puking throwing up my mother is tending to us and there are people coming and looking through the windows and just going off another Sunday would be where the church meeting is over and a lady is waiting for me to talk to her she's a personal book she happens to be my Sunday school teacher she wants to know what are all the sins I have done in the past week that would be another Sunday from days ago and another Sunday would be where I had to take an exam I was studying for his exam but that was a Sunday I had to be Church and I'm nervous I have to take an exam if I don't take that exam I'm going lose one full academic here but there was no way I could take an exam on a Sunday not with dad as a preacher so that would be another Sunday and another Sunday evening would be where my mother is lying motionless she's sick and she's fainted and I don't even know what's happening it's almost 9:30 in the night I'm running up and down and my neighbor happens to be a doctor so in desperation trying to find my doctor to do my two younger brothers are sleeping this would be another Sunday I'm a new bride I just got married I mean my parents in Los and I'm just walking up and down and my husband is asking me what happened what are you nervous for I said oh I need to go to church this is Sunday morning he said yeah there's a church down the street let's go there I'm saying no no no this is not the church I had to go to my church he's like what do you mean your church yeah there was my church and I had to go there that would be another Sunday and fast forward this is just five years ago it's another Sunday where my mother just had a knee surgery since immobile she's lying on the bed and my two sons one is 10 years old the other one is 6 years old or maybe even younger and it's 12:30 in the night and I had a moan I have a morning flight to take to go to Coimbatore to see my parents-in-law and I'm just my son is asking Oh what do we do mama is not well and who's going to take care of us if he leaves I said and that would be another Sunday what is striking in all of these Sunday's is that in all of these instances that I talked about my father is missing in the scene my father who took to Christianity and who was the reason why we were into this Christian fold is the one who is missing in action on all of these Sundays and from there I got to let me share this is a Sunday again this happens to be in 2018 just two years ago and this is the next Sunday this was just four months ago and now let me start my story as to how I got away from those Sunday's that I described to these Sundays where you see me completely differently and it's not an easy story to share because it's my personal story but this also has the story of my family my friends that probably won't like to be talked about in a public forum but the nature is my story is interconnected with the story of many that were part of my life part of my journey I apologize to those of you who are hearing me and if I had to put you in bad light it's not because I intentionally need doing it it's because as I tell the story of my life since you have happened to be part of my life your story comes out chip alright so how did I how did we get into this Christianity would be born Christians I don't know I was not born a Christian and my father was the one who got converted to Christianity when he was an engineering student in Hyderabad and I think he was he was going through a personal crisis where one of his friends committed a suicide and he was desperate looking for answers and he walked into this church and that's how he got into this church and we come from a very simple family my grandparents are simple foreign farmers in in in the northern part of Andhra Pradesh like closer to Vijay Barda and things like that but my father was the first-generation engineer who came out to hydramat to study so he was by himself in this big in the big city and obviously he was lonely and he was going through a lot of stuff and there is a recruiting method that these churches follow they come and to the to the hostels where they stay and like on the in the evenings and that's how that he got recruited and somehow my grandparents in the village heard about this this they kind of came to know that my father is I mean it's something was amiss and the village elders told him that oh if you go to the village a lot of people will catch her son and they might get him married off to some city girl and he will lose him forever so when he was in his third year they they they decided to conduct his marriage to the girl of their choice so that's how they got married so my mother got married into this family and she she I don't think she had any clue as to what she was getting into but she's a she's a woman I mean my parents were my mother was from a very simple family but very cultured she comes from a very small family and since my father was still studying in the college at the time if even though she couldn't move to Hyderabad at the time she lived in to my grandparents house in this small village and my mother comes from a very small family but my father's family is quite huge they have six brothers and so she just got dumped into this family but I don't think she ever complained about being part of this farm and she really loved the people even though her husband was away and he was coming once in a while she still found a home in my parents in in my grandparents house and I think the she learnt a lot of stuff from the village and she had a lot of stories to tell when I was growing up and my grandparents were somewhat of a rich farmers at the point when my parents were married they had upward of 20 acres of land and cattle they had cows and I mean it was a higher middle-class village family and I was born in 1974 almost three years after their marriage and in 1975 is when my mother moved to Hyderabad to stay with Mike to join my dad and it's just not that she came with me because my father got this good job in Hyderabad and my grandparents said take all your brothers there to study with you to get some kind of an education so my mother pretty much moved with her entire village so so my first memories of a family would be not just me my dad and my mother it would be just me my dad my brother my uncle's my aunts like we had about 20 people in a house that that's the first memories of what my family was and then after almost five years I had a younger brother and then one more so till about five till about I was six years old or seven years old we really didn't have I didn't have much memories of anything that is happening to the church we just got up in the we had a very Indian kind of life we I mean we were very grounded in our culture in some sense we used to go to church my mother Sunday morning probably was the only time where we all like a big gang went to church it was just a social thing but my father was very involved in the church but my mother was too busy she she had this big family to feed and she had my my parents s my fathers brothers sisters and all those things so so till about seven eight years old the impact of the church was not much and my mother since she moved to Hyderabad even though she was going to church but she was not one of those neo converts where you kind of get initiated you have to go pray and you have to do this I will do that she did none of those things so she really didn't have any large any solid background in Christianity per se I mean I can't even recollect seeing my mother reading a Bible and everything in that church was almost like in English but we were very grounded in in our cultural syllabus or we didn't even know what they were saying half the time and and my father was my parents were so grounded in Indian culture that they actually put me a little medium school when I when I first started school so it was like two different worlds nothing nothing nothing was common about what was happening in the church and what was happening in her house I mean to just give you some examples all of these people in the church were very fashionable people they all spoke English they all wore some western clothes and things like that but my mother would dresses very conservatively and it's it is a situation where she never accustomed to this this Christian world and there was really not much pressure to accustomed to the Christian world but once my my uncles and all moved out and we started coming back in just as five of us as family then the pressure started where we had to just get more close to the church we had to understand what has happened to the church we had to find the base of the church and we had to get used to the church and things like that and my vows with the church started then because my father he was not he somehow got promoted not from just being a churchgoer but now he is he said that he had something called God's call so what it meant was that he at some point he wanted to give a particular job and become a full-time preacher in a church so that's basically what he wanted to do so that meant that he was very busy he was suddenly recruited to become a big preacher so every Sunday they would send him to a different place so that's how for all my growing years my father was missing in action at home because he was busy building up a church in some other place and I knew that my my grandparents or my family was really not poor they were not for people by any any stretch of imagination but my father had a way of praying he always you know whenever he started praying to this day he makes the same prayer o God you saved us from this Richard family you saved us from this like trying to just put down his family consistently is what he did and we really did understand why my father III always because when we went to our village we were like little Queens we had we had a card we had this we had cattle we had a plenty but my father assumed a certain kind of narrative that he came from a very oppressed background and he would pray that he came from an oppressed background but God somehow saved him and that's how he got this position and things like that so even at the small age I kind of saw the discrepancy of what he was wanting to kind of establish and what I was seeing as as as the reality of what her background was and of course this church was slowly I started hearing stuff and they were like things I mean the jokes were always about bashing up Christian Hindus like these are people that worship idols and their hearts are like idols making fun of Brahmins their cuffs and making fun of the way they looked was like a normal thing it's like but somehow and I never I mean I could never relate to that I just I just went there because I had to go but I am really connected to that part of the church so I had a certain view of what the church was and I outside mature outside the church I knew what life was so there was always this conflict in me that something about what this church is making me believe is not true so I grew up but the thing was I could not talk much to my mother because my mother herself was clueless about what this church was and my father was too busy he didn't have time to initiate us into any church because he every day he Sunday he was gone and every evening he had to go and recruit people from the church from the college hostels so if I look back and think about it all the Christianity all the Christian stuff even though he was the one who got converted and brought us to this church all of the Christianity that I learned was what this Sunday School teachers for teaching or some preacher was teaching and so it was really not an inquiry where I took the Bible and started reading and things like that but slowly my grandparents slowly I saw that the distance between my parents and my grandparents were slowly dick it was widening because my father would kind of even he's not a harsh man but he would pick on them about not doing this not doing that if he had to go to their their their family functions like marriages and all he would dictate what kind of what what should be done there should not be any kind of Hindu symbolisms you should not put rangoli or you should not put Thoren hymns like the mango leaves so the marigold flower was Jasmine's so so if we had to go it had to be to his liking and to his liking was every kind of Hindu symbolism had to be gone and so my grandparents initially probably they they resisted it and there were like elders my father's older brothers younger brothers they there was a lot of friction because what he was trying to push them to while they didn't believe it was some that they were not comfortable with but I think they really didn't have a choice because in some sense he was in a position of power he had this big job in Hyderabad and he was a very very generous man like he would have people from all backgrounds come home so there is a so they could not afford to antagonize him for two reasons because he was he was genuinely helping them and of course he was in a position of power so he used that power pretty much to kind of wheel these people into getting used to come into the church and he used to bring like people the unemployed young boys from the village and put them in the they used to be what is called as iti I don't know if they still have in India there's a technical two-year courses that that you could do for a trade school and then you got a good job so he he slowly started building this group of people from from the village that he was responsible for educating and put them in job so with this church when we started was very small and it was like okay my father had the biggest group of people that he brought to this church so he was he was he was the blue-eyed boy of the church he was the foot soldier they called him the right-hand man of the Church of the pastor because whatever the pastor wanted him to do he would jump and do if they said that you need to go and the Sunday night you are to go and preach there he would just the drop of a hat he would just take a train and go and so he his his limelight in the church was he had he had a larger-than-life image in the church while my mother tried to kind of stay away she just kept her distance so the church kind of did not like to see that my mother was not too involved in the church so at that time the women in the church they all used to go and like every evening they were supposed to go and pray in the church but my mother was too busy with this big family so she didn't have time for this so they kind of antagonized her from the beginning so they said that oh it father's name is Barbara Barbara you have great zeal for God but you know why she doesn't seem to have the right spirit she's not she's not godly and so somehow that friction was always there in my family where my father was seen as a very passionate godly man but a wife who's not cooperating a wife who doesn't have what it takes to take off for my father to become become this big creature but nevertheless my my even though there was a friction outside at home they I didn't see lot of friction because my father really could not pressurize my mother to a lot of stuff because she was taking care of this huge family and her plate was full so he could not antagonize my mother as much as the church would have loved to so in that sense we had an outside struggle but inside the house we were okay so but anytime that this church would have big Enders they lived in Madras and one of them was traveling internationally so whenever this elders came we were we were taken as a family and my father would say or have God's call and I want to go to full-time ministry and then my mother would sit next to them and she would be crying and she would say oh I don't have faith for this I cannot even though my husband is saying all these things I don't have faith I mean that was the only thing she could say that was a lingual that she had to use so they would they would just pray and say that Oh God this I mean there were literally people pray on herself making it appear like she's a weakling and she needed to kind of step up and she's being a stumbling block in my father's way to take on this big church faster ship and things like that so but it just even that didn't matter a lot because domestically my father was working so whenever we went to church there was a friction but inside the house we were okay so but every time some church elder came we got this prominent position to go talk to them because my father had this God's call and he wants to go serve God full-time finally when I was in my 10th grade probably that's when they finally said yeah you keep saying that you have God's call so you need to come for training too to Chennai for a year or six months or whatever that is because we need to start training you to put you in a full-time ministry I just finished my 10th exams and I was observed I was a pretty good student and I I was on top of almost I I was first in school because I studied pretty hard and but my father there was a crucial time because after 10th grade you needed to go to 11th grade and it was a college experience but my father was gone he's not there and my mother who really didn't do didn't know much of how to do all these things were stuck with three of us at home and we were frequently falling ill and the church people would come and visit and say see your husband is gone for God's work and you always hindered him and that's why God is punishing you so why the while my mother is taking the burden of raising all three of his children with with a husband who was gone it still was not enough for for this church any any trouble that we had was because my father was trying to serve God and my mother was trying to pull him back and and at that point I think that's that's pretty much when I kind of started getting into tiff with the church I started becoming vocal because now I was I wanted to protect my mother my father was gone and he would just come once in three months for a day in his car and she is being taunted by this church and I had to step in at every point and I would pick up fights with the people in the church and I would say you cannot say this to my mother you cannot say that things to my family you and then they would just start preaching about our family in the church like they would say oh this brother has gone for ministry but his wife and his children are not cooperating we should uphold his brother in prayer that kind of stuff was going on and finally after one year they released him they said okay you can you can come back instead of asking him to resign his job I don't know for some reason they said that you can go and be in charge of a church it was it was a place called occupied or remote village in West Godavari district which is like 12 hours away in train so they said oh you're going to be in charge of the church because the person who was working in that church at that time he had some some allegations of sexual image behaving with with his congregation so they kicked him out of the church so my father had to go take over at that church which was still okay because it didn't disturb us he went to every Sunday came back so it didn't matter to us much but all of these things kind of financially drained the family because the church was not supporting any one of these things he's going for training for six months to 12 months we thought hey and his train charges everything that he was doing in order to build the church but not getting compensated for it that was that was a financial burden and of course there was an emotional burden because my mother was just broken with all of these things and she used to fall frequently ill and even when like she could be dying tonight on a Sunday and Saturday night but if he had to go to church he had to go to church is he would just dump all of us and he would just make a prayer oh I'm I'm going to seek your kingdom first and you know all things will be taken care of so I know that my children will be safe so even if there was a death in the family who would not stay back because his commitment to church was was was that high and then I moved on to to do to my undergrad so I was I had this great bitterness against church but I never had any place to share it I had some friends in school and my intermediate but these were not the kind of things that I could talk when I staff tur that when I joined undergrad do undergraduate it was a very good college called st. Francis College I that's where I met friend called Savita and I could start sharing about what is happening in the church and what are all the different difficulties we had and I could just till now I I'd really knew did not know who I was I always was this conflict-ridden person always fighting the church trying to fend for my mother and so I just really didn't know who I was as a person and only after getting in touch with her I just started to realize that there are different ways of looking at life and the different religious thoughts because whenever you lived in a Christian neighborhood sort of Christian thing you're so far away from anything that is non-christian because we were not supposed to have Hindu friends we cannot talk to Hindu friends we still managed to have some friends but not as as much as I would wanted to to kind of have a let out for what was happening in the church and so so those three years of my BS when I was really maybe a C would like the best years I just didn't care for the church enough I said they were doing what they were and I would just go as needed and not go if I didn't feel like going but my father kept going because he was gone every Sunday so there was really not that much pressure on us to to behave to monitor us so but finally my father the year that I finished my BSC he decided that he wanted to take a transfer he kept trying every year to move to that small village but every year he would try he would not get a transfer but he actually got a government transfer to move to that village and that just just that move to that village just at a time when academically we were supposed to be somewhere else I just finished my undergrad one of my younger brothers finished his first year intermediate the the youngest one was getting was just entered 10th grade and you know those were very crucial times academically but nothing mattered for my father he just packed us up and he said we're leaving and then just we left like like it didn't matter our relationships what was happening to us academically I don't even know if he even thought about that his thing was I wanted to go and work in the place full-time and I kept trying for it and it just didn't happen or whenever it happened he jumped on it and he took us there and that one year was like torture for me I just still know where I was what I just lost control of life I'm from from this vibrant college life I was put into this village and I protested I even though he went there to preach in that church and become the pastor of that church I refused to go I said I'm not coming to this church and but slowly after a year the only things during that time that kept me sane probably were the letters that Savitha used to write to me and I used to read a lot of books any book that I found I read so those were the things that that kept me sane so this was a year and something happened to my father's job in that place he his his transfer was a mistake and so they said you have to go back so he could not come back to Hyderabad because it was very competitive at that time so he had to come back to a place called kumbum so in even though he was waiting to get to this to village to become this full-time pastor somehow it didn't work out so he had to come back to Hyderabad he had to come back to this place called come home to start to after a year and that's when I went to kakatiya University to study my Master's and staying away after all of what had been through staying away in the hostel by myself in Warangal that was the best thing that happened to me because I just didn't have any interference from the church and my uncle's family lived there there was there was the same church there but I just there was no pressure on me and I just thought that yes life is back on track its I was going to study I was going to do well and I'm just going to get away from this church I knew that I had to get away from this church but I didn't know how and my father's younger brother was he was a professor in a Medical College there and he was very close to me he was he was a man who cared a lot for us and he knew even though he he also got initiated into the church but he knew where church ended and family started unlike my father for whom church family everything was kind of blended in so I was probably 22 years old and he would just come he would I mean I at that time people knew me there and they were like a lot of people coming and asking him okay your brother's daughter is here are they looking for any marriage proposals for her and so he would he never dare to ask my dad to see if if he would be interested to get me married off so he would go and talk to my mother they call her within him so are we going to get the girl married off my mom would go and taunt oh she is already 22 or 23 it's time to get married my father would be furious see but like what are you talking about how can she's just 23 what are you talking about about getting married off even if you are getting married off that is not something that we are going to decide in do the church gets to do it brother Joe is the one who is equal to decide this brother Joe happens to be the church elder that I hardly knew soul apparently he was supposed to fix my marriage but in any case I myself was not too keen about this marriage at I was I was studying and I wanted to go get a carrier so I was really not interested anything that that was happening I was not focused at all while this was happening and everything carrier wise I was I was doing well in my education and I was studying and I had I was looking forward to going and working and I had to go ahead and do a project work in Hyderabad at that time and I established back my connection with Sabitha because now I was close at home and I had freedom to travel back and forth and I was just she would she would get worried about it because she saw how our life was tossed with because of the church she would just keep telling me like everyone to come out of this church maybe I was like I don't know I'm not thinking about that she said oh what about you're mad and she would she would be more worried about my marriage than I was I said what are you what are you talking about marriage said I'm not I'm not getting married he designed soon so and suddenly one day she said why can't you think about this do you think you want to marry my brother I said what you want me to marry your brother are you out of your mind you know I am a Telugu Christian you know what my dad was and you people are Brahmins and your brother I mean he's the most talked up man I have seen you just out of your mind and she just laughed and she said I was just joking just you seem to be too caught up with this in any case so this were the kind of conversations I had but as fate would have it she I lost her to an accident she was 23 years old I was just about to finish my master's to move on to work in Hyderabad and her death did it for me because she was the only one who knew who was going through as a person in the and when she died it's like a part of me was gone I just didn't know who to look up to how to get out of this mess of this church and her loss was tremendous for me and fast forward not going into too many details eight months after within her passing I got married to her brother so probably what brought us together could have been the common loss and this had nothing to do with fighting the church or nothing it was just my personal turmoil that brought brought me closer to him and we got married without of course he did everything he came and talked to my parents and there was another talk that I gave a while ago and there was um these details are in the talk and probably will upload that in this link here but the church saw it as a big probably I was one of those people that despised the church they saw it that I was walking away from here from their control and I was it it was a war they took my marriage to non-christian or a Hindu as a war against the church and of course for them it was always my mother that they had to blame so the entire church in the relatives because by now my father had enough relatives whom he converted and made part of this church so they kind of taunted her to such an extent then the poor lady could not physically take it she became so sick and she developed an autoimmune disorder even though I got married and went off my heart was still with my family I just love them especially my mother items to me she's like she's almost like a daughter to me even though growth switched I had to protect her at any cost I knew what the church would do to her and her relatives even though they she'll help a lot of relatives I knew that the church the relatives eternal life so I would I would even though I got married and went away every month every week I would come running back home just just to be with her and at the same time she also lost her brother and once I and Suresh but together we kind of took control over of of my younger brothers trying to get them educated and and then we moved to the US and when I moved to the US my brothers moved with me and there was really not much interference from the church because we really didn't have anything to do with the church once I got married and moved out and my brothers also moved out my father was doing his own thing in the church so I thought okay I think we're just we were we are done with this church this this Christianity thing was was done I think we're past this but then when my brothers were getting married again we had the same nonsense because for my father not marrying from some girl from the church was as good as marrying a Hindu girl so for both my brother's marriages my father had had another round of wars because the church wanted to push the agenda but I was we were fighting it back saying that the boys were saying that no we don't want to marry anybody from the church but anyway both my brothers got married and they kind of moved away from the church and for I think the best part of of our family was once both my brothers got married and moved to the US and we were here and my parents would visit us regularly and they would take care of us and it just didn't look like Church was part of anything at all so it almost looks like they completely washed our hands of this church influence and like six months they were they would come and stay with me and but my father had a lot of reservations about how my house was because when he came in he could not handle any kind of Hindu symbolisms in my own house and I was very sensitive about that kind of kept the house careful to not give him discomfort or even for my mother I could not give them any discomfort so both my parents when they came here the house looked like a like a Christian house for all practical purposes it's not that we had any Christian rituals going on but they wasn't really knows Christian Hindu symbolism and Suresh was very easy only with this so so this was probably I think what we didn't realize this was that my father was still hooked on to the church and it was hard for him to let go when he visited here in 2014 probably that was he came to help us fits with my travel and with my work he wanted to go meet the church elder and he said I wanted to go with the church elderly fully in Michigan at that time and we don't know what happened the what conspired there so he went and met the church elder and then they went back and after three months they went back to India and once he went back to India he certainly decided one day that he wanted to the church has called him for full time ministry again like I had no clue to even how to handle this my mother is calling me over the phone and crying she's saying dad is not wanting to go to a full-time ministry again so someplace in Nalgonda or someplace he wants to go and I don't know what to do now and and then all the past of the church came back again it's again this woman need to be protected so what I thought was over was not over the nightmare was was still on but now I started taking the church head-on I just I wanted to find out because I left off about this church but I went ahead and dug in and I wanted to know their operations I did a lot of work trying to find out about the church I gathered that a lot of information there was a lot of mismanagement with funds and they were sexual abuse cases what else and what not I mean and I started this huge blog and a lot of people contributed to that blog and people used to write anonymously about this church and I started exposing it to such an extent that they figured that somebody told me that their income was cut to half because of what I did because people started walking away from the church after reading this blog like lakhs and lakhs of people were reading this blog and they had to put a stop to this somehow because how about how are they going to they had to establish a motive behind why I was doing so much against the church so again they called my father in and they got a confession out of him they asked him why is it that your daughter is so upset about this church and apparently my father told them yeah my daughter is my daughter and my son-in-law really upset because I was used to travel to us frequently to take care of the children we were like their servants now that we can't go and take care of the children my daughter and my son-in-law are upset and that's why they're doing all this and of course there was a good good excuse for them so now we were on all church like again we became the talk of the town for that church I was a Hindu terrorist I was an RSS agent I was what not my husband was the terrorist so they kind of went berserk on us and I said you know what all these years I didn't even think about what religion to follow what ways to follow I just my only motive was to keep my favorites comfortable and I have done it at the expense of not finding out the truth for myself nor allowing my children to take on a any spiritual path so while when this fight was going on with the church I I had to find out the truth for myself and I called the church elder and the lady told me you think that your dad is the reason you see so much conflict ensure in your family is because as the Bible is saying God Jesus came to this world to create war and not to give you peace and your father will be against father father against mother mother against daughter son against father this is very natural this this is what the true Christianity is so here is the Bible verse that kind of establishes that so this was the Bible verse that was thrown at my face saying that the reason you see so much confusion in your family is because your God your father is truly following God and this war that you see in your family is is what Jesus intended on your family because he is a true servant of God that's basically what I was I was told by the church in in any case all of these things that happened made me started to think like I've never really read the Bible for what it is I had to go back to the source because all of these confusing messages that I was getting even though I fought the church but I still had a doubt that the church was not really as bad as I thought it was it must have been probably I never really understood the role of God of Jesus or whatever it is so I started reading Bible one by one and yes the the pattern that I saw was any the entire confusion in my family and the alienation that we had from our roots from her culture from her heritage was by a design it was by design according to the Bible and why why is it that my father hated his own background what was it that that made him disown his old heritage and here is a Bible verse for those of you are able to see okay let me share the screen so this is what is called as ancestral sin so what was the sin of my ancestors that was passed on to us the sin of worshipping the idols so my father or anybody who becomes a Christian is now under the curse of what is called as generational sins generational sins are since that the person inherits from his forefathers and in case of an Indian the only sin the biggest sin was that your forefathers were Idol idol worshipers so that means you had to somehow disconnect from that heritage and you have this old that editage and you have to cry you have to kind of act like the life just started off with you and you had no roots whatsoever because if you were to talk anything have any kind of connection with you with your ancestors or your forefathers or anything like that it is it is as good as you still have connection with that with that devil or Satan and things like that so did this this alienation from family this alienation from culture this alienation from from where we came from was all by the design of of the church or it was not by the design of the church but it was actually driven by the Bible verses and it's not just that if you there are there are other kinds of sins like since that you're born with things that you do like everything so this image that you are born a sinner and you had to redeem yourself and in order for you to redeem yourself you have to give up your family you have to give up your connection with your past with your forefathers in heritage that you have this was all driven by what is written by in the Bible and there are many verses they would justify that I am NOT just go I'm not going to go into those details but the reason I share all of these things is we have we were a family that grew up together it's not that I mean some of you might come to a conclusion that I came from I mean I had a very very depressed life but no we were a very close-knit family my my I took care of my brothers like they were my own sons by-by brothers were with me for the most part through all of this journey but once I started speaking against Christianity itself they could not handle that they they quickly started cutting off relationships they had to walk away from from anything that had like they they they were cautious they started being cautious and I cannot really say that they walked away from us but this kind of breaking up of family into fragments even when there are gentle relationships you have like there are relationship between grandfather and grandchildren a relationship between nieces nephews uncles and aunts but all of these things did not matter because when you assume that Christian identity that to protect your identity as a Christian you could virtually walk away from any other relationship you had and I kept thinking about it and I said if India as a country is has people that wanted to convert people into Christianity remember they didn't have any relationship with the people that they wanted to convert their agenda was to have a Christian community so what is happening in the family what kind of conflict is happening there not cognizant of that they they don't even care it is an agenda agenda is for them to to make this kind to make this world pretty much a Christian world okay but if you if you look back on it and think about it like what is the purpose of making it a Christian world then the economics come in place my father may have worked for forty five years in a government job and every month ten percent of his income went to church many people have the misconception that a lot of money is coming from outside India to to promote evangelists evangelical activities most people are not aware that a lot of money is internally generated that money that is unaccounted for this particular church that my father that my family was part of they have properties all over India in all prime cities in in big places but they they never gave membership to a single person there is no proof even with all the association that my father had with this church my father or we cannot officially accomplish or establish a relationship with that church and how so that means all of the money that we gave to the charges is we have no clue where it went we have no claim on it and this there isn't no record that we gave this much money even though we know that every single one of us gave so much money so whenever a person like me walks out of this Christian fold they see it as a threat because I know me too many secrets I know that I know where the money is coming from what are the dark past that they have so they in a Christian world today I am I am an enigma they are a lot of people that know me as a Christian and now when they see me in a different light they're all praying like they're all wishing that according to their Bible philosophies I should have been perished long time ago because I chose to walk away from church and I chose to disobey God and the reason I chose this is because I was incapable of leaving leading a holy life right because Christianity is the only way you can leave lead a holy life so I walked away from that so there are people wishing that something happens to me and they're all waiting because if if their God is true there was really no way for me to have the kind of life I'm having so it is they cannot wrap their minds around the fact that I seem to be having a happy life and of course some of them people that are kinder probably they pray that at some point I get converted back and just the part of their gang to go to heaven but there are others that are just waiting to see my downfall at some point they want to see so that they can make an example of it right how do i establish that a person who walked away from from from christianity is doing it at the expense of destroying her own self and if nothing else happens if even if they don't see me suffer in this world i walked away from this great opportunity to become part of heaven heaven was just a few steps away but i chose to walk away from it so the christian world I mean right now whenever I upload my videos or when I put some information publicly unrelated people that I don't even know these people they're all coming to judge me some some of those comments are really crude some of them at a level of personal abuse because their God has to be true if their faith is true there is really no way that I can exist the way I'm existing so while some are praying that God brings me great banishment there are others that are praying that I get back on the track to to become a Christian again well that is going on I moved on with my own personal journey of trying to look for answers for my what is the reason for my existence where do I belong in this big scheme of things and a lot of people helped me in this path my my husband has been patient with me into to support me in this journey my brother-in-law and my parents in-law helped me a lot and I'm part of an organization called I heart they they generously accepted me and I I will be a miss if I don't mention dr. subra theurgy who is who is my mentor he's an doctor doctor main and these are the people that that gave me a new perspective I learn a lot of things from them these are the big brothers I needed when I was going through the rough times that I had gone through in the church but I'm glad that I found a home in in the hindu community that has been so generous with with generous and they've supported and i'm very active in facebook sharing my ideas sharing my views giving insights and i've never the kind of abuse that I faced in church even while I was trying to please them this was something that I cannot even mention because it hurts my self-respect we went to acknowledge those things I just give you a few examples my brother who lives in Chicago we used to visit him quite often and then he was part of a church I don't even know these people he because he was going to a church just out of respect for him holy Christmas morning I just went to the church a lady pulls me aside and she says hey I know I heard that you married a Hindu man and you grieved God so much God is going to bring you great punishment so I hope you know that you need to be thinking about that and praying I mean like random people who have love I have no connection with these people could come in for come and say such things to me I would happily go and take my children to church whenever I was in Hyderabad because my parents were going so I didn't have any hang-ups so I just went and then people would pick on my sons and like Oh your name is Reyes your name is me rich huh from become from being John and Peter you from having brothers whose names for John and Peter you have sons names Shreyas and neeraj what a fall I mean that is the kind of hatred that that that I was exposed to which was never the case with my with any any relationships that my my husband's family side or his friends in the in the Hindu community had but still we lived in a delusion that the Christian path is the only path that is going to take me to heaven and I was supposed to believe that I had to stay in this path so that my sons my husband also could join me in heaven and I always joke even in this world in for this 30 40 years itself I could not put up with you imagine being stuck in heaven with with all of you for eternity but that was it was an exciting it is an exciting journey and I learned a lot of stuff and I've made more enemies than friends but it was worth the journey and I think I'm going to stop here and if any of you have any questions I can take those I studied from Westley college second robber okay and we had three sections and one sectional was reserved for only Christians and I had many friend who used to follow many concept of Hindus I'm like putting Deepika on the forehead and many things they were and they were just putting the half name as christian half name as Hindu and I also got the offer for conversion but I did not do yes you want me here because this is his best we call it you might have heard that was the worst people in Secunderabad near paradise correct I knew that yes okay see there are certain Christian school Christian institutions that just changed the God but they kept all the Hindu traditions so that that Wesley's church that you call a CSI church that was one of them so you would not you would you would not even know that they were not Hindus because they followed a little like but this particular Church that my father was part of for us it was an evangelist in church so they fought the Hindu symbolism they had to completely destroy it we here yes sir man first of all it's been a great pleasure listening to you I follow you regularly regularly on Facebook I rarely log into Facebook and go to your face to see what is up thank you your journey has been like very inspirational thank you thank you got to you from Khurrana kunaal my question is for one Christian to come out of this thing is required so much of like say f-word everything but going into it is so easy and that I see like thousands of thousands are joining in so for every person the commode is such a monumental effort but the going is so easy so when it when this is the case is it kind of a lost cause to get people back is what you're saying it is very it is very hard it is extremely hard for people to come back come out of Christianity because there of what what happens is once you become a Christian you kind of cut off relationship with the external world so the world outside is alien to you you don't know how to relate and you not only that you start antagonizing every relationship that you had before this so even if you even if you have some trouble and you want to go back you don't know where to start off but at what point will you enter the mainstream society for my case it was easy because my husband but they were Hindu so I kind of knew where I belonged in the big scheme of things but that's a not that the fear of where do I get where do I get started back again is I think that is the biggest trouble mérida thank you so much this was this was one of my probably one of the first thoughts I've heard about you know what we call Guru Bob see really but want to congratulate you for your fight and also your personal sacrifice your husband your children I mean it's not a not easy journey for sure it's mentally draining I congratulate you for all that really I mean it's an observation plus I hope you can answer it in some detail well not in the little bit I'm understanding over a period of time you know I've read read books I mean starting from the Greeks and even the British ships when they came one of your comments you know when you go to the church you said that when you're younger they said that they would say oh the don't worship idols this that and also for some reason they keep on bringing the Brahmin community you know in the church what about those Brahmins of this the Brahmins or that you know it's it seems to be a very common theme right and so do you have any comment even Macaulay said that so many people have said that before keep this community away right so even you said that when you went to the church oh that is to happen I am just curious is there reason behind it for this particular abuse I'm thinking it's because they said those are the only ones that had a full understanding of what the religion entails and also the way of preserving it because others probably did not have a way of preserving it with with books and literature and things like it maybe they only had oral cultures and oral traditions but not much of the textual evidence of how to how to protect it so probably that's why they wanted to antagonize that community it was a very inspiring talk and thanks for sharing your story but I was keen to know how you you said that until 2014 we didn't really have anything any Hindu symbols in your house right because I love to see the we love to know more about how you started become a started practicing Hindu rituals and what was the motivation for that and how did he do that see the thing was there are two things to it right one is not having Hindu symbolisms doesn't mean that I didn't have any knowledge of Hinduism but it was even though I knew all the traditions to make a public of that was the trouble because if I made public of my Hindu identity that is going to alienate my parents from me so I mean I knew the serrations to have his idols and like have worship and the kids the boys always went to Temple but whenever they came in I I mean probably the the it's really not that I was not influenced by Hinduism at all until 2014 but publicly acknowledging that I'm now wanting to embrace this Hindu identity happen only after 2014 I have a question Mary ji so having being raised an entire background of sort of heating idol worship and all how do you deal with multiple juh now are you comfortable are you Gnostic the for me to probably it took me some time irrationally I knew that there was nothing wrong with this right that's the way you connect to divine divinity and all those things but there was a lurking fear for instance I mean it's kind of silly to even acknowledge this but if I'm going to a temple and I would say oh my god what happens if I if something happens to us and some accident might happen Godman I mean so there was this is this there is this idea of Christian God trying to watch you all the time trying to catch you doing something wrong so I'm it almost like I'm sneaky trying to get out of this Christian God and go to Hindu temple so something might happen to me right so there was a very rational fear but that fear was very real and it took me a lot of time to get after that you had a very good current of time I hope your interest me much more less than you're taking it that we can work to do and work among people but you might tell me what exactly drive these people to convert others to their me up I mean you were driving these people to convert them and keep them ended for me to see a Christian genuinely believes that if if you're not a Christian or if you don't come into this phone you are going to go to hell okay but this is better Lesley think about it like this okay the foot soldiers are the people that are inspired by this they are they're completely bought into this ideology but the people who actually make the agenda at all people they know that all of this is none of this is true they're doing it just for money but the ones that have got converted into it and they are trying to propagate Christianity there they believe with their whole being that their relatives are going to go to hell so and they feel this burden to save them from that the foot soldiers are of the bigger picture so that is prob what my husband and my brother-in-law and reading books and that's how I got introduced to it see another big thing for for me that was the big turning point of us not having the feminine DT that that is something that fascinated me in in Hinduism because in Christianity the demonizing of the women is is at a different level and it's very subtle but it's it's there the women are seen as I mean if like I said I narrated so much about my mother so my mother is that representation of the woman who is was the reason for the downfall of the man so I have seen that there is there is always this antagonizing of women that happened in many subtle ways and so so it extended so God who is a male figure according to Bible I had to just move on to same God in a feminine form and from there formless like that they should um médico Andy Bowne era you know I have a you know very quick question people who come out of Christianity or from our out of a particular church in particular they're seen as threat no doubt but will they not you know attack or will they not you know is there in no procedure like you know throwing fat why you know attack them do some harm to them in Christian see that doesn't happen as much what really happens is from my example at least if you see I came out of Christianity from this particular church but my parents were still part of that church right and they were there shamed endlessly but they don't have the courage to walk out of there the shaming is is like for instance they this my parents kept the relationship with me intact especially my mother but whenever they went to church they they kind of had to be apologetic about keeping up with me still and that pressured at some point you succumb to it because if you're too attached to your family you say okay that's okay let me go back to the church so there is there is more of an emotional pressure than the physical hurting the threat of physically hurting people they're more mind games played then physically threatening you know about people I my question is more related to what attracts people to Christianity at the time of conversion I mean not of times we see that there are elder orbits but one of the things which goes in my mind is that it is more than the lol you admit it is also the simplicity of the message of salvation that we just join and you have a road to heaven Lo and the things like that is that one thing which attracts people because the best message is very simple for people to understand and follow yeah it's it one is simplicity and generally if you see the the feeling of belonging to a group is is also very strong when you get converted into Christianity you you just get this feeling that you part of a bigger group and there is a group watching you there is if there is a group that is that you can count on and in that kind of stuff too so the moment you enter into a church it's like you it acts like everybody in the church has been waiting for you to show up right it's welcoming they would check on you they would feed you if you're hungry they would I mean it's a different level I don't think many of us even can match 10% of what they do what's the role of the maybe one or two more questions what's the role of the Hindu society in the caste system in integral to Christianity if you have any opinion on that these are questions coming from other people so on okay see whenever you talk about the caste system is the boogieman that Christianity has used for conversion all the time right like for instance what I said was my father always felt like the reason he got converted to Christianity because he was he was not he was not treated well by some caste that is above him and that's why he he had to find God somewhere else but in reality that is really not the case these are families that really never had any spiritual tradition to begin with and that's why it is so easy to convert them but while they make you believe that the because in because of their particular caste they could not get into temples that's why they went and started looking for of all times this is not one Christian hotel see who has gone through that journey to become a Christian it's not like he wanted to find God and he went to Temple in they denied him and that's why he went to challege that's where he found God no no person has gone looking for God and knocked on church and found God there they came they came knocking on his door and then of course once you big Christian to explain this there is there is a culture called giving testimony right there you have to tell why you you became a Christian and these stories get generated at that point very interesting what's your opinion on Jesus isn't he the one you're supposed to be following as a Christian okay so you have an opinion on Jesus and teachings I guess that's the question so if you talk if you talk about Jesus there are there are three things that if you if you want to accept Jesus as the God there are three things right you have to believe in virgin birth and you have he died because of whatever social reasons but he died for your sins and then you he raised again from the dead these are the three things these are scientifically not viable any probably dying on the cross and changing that that's a different thing but born of a virgin and then being risen from the dead these are this is just two thousand years ago this is not long ago right so these are the two things that that that are very hard to believe or are they're not rational in thinking those are not anything scientific but the best part is where Christians believe in these kinds of stories and fiction they are always trying to say that Hinduism is all about superstition but is believing that a child is born of a virgin not so prostitution so the personality of they may have been a historical figure called Germany I'm pretty sure they're I don't think I will deny that there is a person called Jesus ever existed in the history I don't think that is that is something that we cannot establish but all of these other stories of how we came about and all those things this noise so there is one probably last question as per bible the kingdom of god is meant for 144,000 Jews then why do you go after non-jews I don't know the theology but just put it out but that is the biggest thing right nowhere in the Bible if you look at the entire Bible right nowhere in the Bible you will see that this God is the God of the entire humanity or entire universe or anything this God is God of Israel and he says it several times even Jesus himself said that I came to save the lost in the Israelites and it is later st. Paul is the one who kind of extended this message so they all of these Christians today believe that they have now become and become the true chosen Israelites okay one last point why do so many Brahmins convert to Christianity [Music] probably it is like I said maybe it's because of a certain regimented way people follow especially if you're a Brahmin then you have a lot more rules than others so probably there are some people that are disgruntled with that and they are the ones that are that are moving away but do you think a lot of Brahmins I don't believe that there are a lot of brandings but enough and remember if a Brahmin can if anybody like from those bad converted they may have been the dumbest people in this in this wrong but they would be the smartest people when you enter that showers you get so much limelight you're the star okay various factors know most of them are feeling frustration such people who are feeling frustrated they're how can they get back to Hindi is what kind of strong will this would have what end up for driving first they must have well how do you advise them to get back to Hinduism see a lot of people that are frustrated with Christianity I don't think they're logically trying to convert into Hinduism it's they want to get out of Christianity that's fine but but here is another thing that I have seen people who walked away from Christianity are caught in a different kind of mess they they caught out of Christianity because it was too rigid too many rules and things like that so when they walk out of Christianity they actually embrace of care a life where there are no rules and the sudden freedom of no fear of God because still yesterday they were they were afraid that they will be thrown to hell but now when you walk away and deny that Christian path you're not afraid of hell or heaven anymore so you're just living what is very I don't want to say immoral life but it alludes to that extent right so coming out of Christianity is one thing but finding Hinduism as an alternative is a totally different thing and for that you have to have somebody who guides you a friend somebody has to guide you I don't think every everybody who walks out of Christianity is logically to come to has a logical path to walk into Hinduism

Channel: Sangam Talks

Views: 84,292

Keywords: Christianity into Sanatana Dharma, the journey of an ex- christian, ex- christian movement, ghar waapsi, role of church, comparative religions, christian conversion, project joshua, Project Thessalonica, Attack on Hindu traditions, missionary activities, religious conversions, female deity in hinduism

Id: r-fITuua3jY

Length: 81min 22sec (4882 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 24 2020