What is culture?

Dear Chitvish,

Great post on Culture...

In the end you split the culture into 2 parts spiritual culture and materialistic culture... what are they. Ar you referring to religion and the customs and traditions followed.

It is greatly said that the inner beauty of a person is judged by the refinement of the character of the person. It is absolutely true... But the brothers from the same family who follow the same tradition and customs, who follow the same culture does not have the same refinement of character... We can see only a very very few excetional cases... They have very different characters most of the times... Why is it so...

When you refer to Our culture is it Hindu culture or Indian Culture..... But in every culture there is good and bad.... Why should we strict to one culture.... why not we follow or accept all the good points in various culture ..... Or should we have to stick to one culture irrespective of its + & -...

Similarly I fully agree with you that we should not follow the customs and traditions without know the reason behind it. With the advancement of science which we didnt have long back, we should re look at things and evaluate each of our customs with our present day situations....

Sorry if I have asked stupid questions..........

Veda

 

I am a new Ilite. I happened to come across this thread only now. Thanks to Veda for posting a reply. I always read threads from New posts.

chitvish, I just wanted to ask you something. Our culture and religion should have been made more strict and compulsory. Look at Musims all over the world, they pray five times a week, they fast. I mean to say i feel there affinity towards GOD or i mean their devotion is compulsory and they follow it. Why they haven't made it strict in Hinduism. Is it the people who didnt follow or it is bcos of so many inter caste within the same religion with different way of doing things?

In this thread you were talking about culture. But here i have a doubt on the religion. I am always happy for being a hindu, but i always feel why iam not following it properly like i dont pray daily. May be they should have made it compulsory. But my mom is always busy in praying, going to temples, reading lot of slokas and other prayers. Even my dad used to pray everyday in the morning and goes to temple without fail.

Now iam worried, how to make my kid to follow our religion. She is out of the house by 7.15AM to the school and she is just 3 yrs old.

I feel you are the right person to whom i ask things that i need clarification and advise. I sincerely appreciate you for all your threads. You are amazing.

 

Thanks Chitra madam,

I have been doing what you said. I studied in Shankara School. So every friday we used to have bajans. So all this bajans come in handy now. Every night from the time she was born i used to sing for her bajans, rhymes,abcd. I only feel bad that i do it at night.But she likes it. I am not good at film songs.

She is 3 yrs old now. She knows Anjanya veera sloka and she tells few bajans.

I feel the same way you told. I dont go in front of god, go to temples but i alwats remember my favorite God Hanuman whenever iam in trouble and when iam happy i thank him.

Thanks to you to know that what iam doing is ok.

 

Dear Chitvish,

Thanks for patiently listening and explaining things.... I will go through those and come back to you fir further clarifications if any....

Thanks..

Veda

 

Hello chitvish,
That was a precise scenario you gave about culture.

Your words
Our culture is deep and beautiful. We must learn to admire and respect the same.

Yes.I would say that we must have a good understanding abt what really culture is!!!Many misunderstand culture for freedom which was rightly said as

Instead of mechanically following the customs, if we try to understand their significance we learn there is logic, science, social as well as spiritual significance in many of them.
and also


Yeah definitely it is possible to take into account,atleast the outer ring of culture which is "to follow the practical aspects"As rightly said,definitely culture cannot be taught,it has to raise within us.Culture is refinement in words,thought and action.I make it a point to stress on the first and the last.Only our words ,way of speaking,action,body language really speaks how cultured we are.Definitely it cannot be judged by the external appearance.

The inner beauty of a person cannot be judged by his or her external appearance or educational qualifications.

The above statement is very strong and two hundred percent right.As said let us not go into the depth of it but have a balance and control.

Thank you chitvish for making us learn some thing new.I have learned the new term "samskara".

Keep up.

 

Dear Chitvish Madam

Of late, I've been watching girls(both married & unmarried/young & old) attending wedding ceremonies and poojas with their hair let loose, Perhaps due to entry of western culture!
My humble request to them is to put a small clip atleast at the centre, like the Malayalees do after head bath!
I would like to remind that, in our culture we enter ONLY ONE PLACE with untied hair and it is to a house where a death has occured. Now-a-days even there we avoid doing that! Then why do that in a place where some holy rituals take place?

Even in cookery shows in almost all channels in the TV, I see women with untied hair, wearing synthetic sarees and other outfits without wearing an apron stand near the stove and demonstrate the recipes. I don't understand the logic behind it!

Will you please throw some light on this in your forum?