Religious Experiences in America

It is funny how language can be used to mean different things. Wikipedia defines “Saint” as a particularly holy person, recognized by fellow believers as someone who lived a divine life and who is in the Divine presence after death. The definition goes ahead to say “The term is used within Christianity, but English-language publications will sometimes use saint to describe a revered person from another religion. The word itself means “holy” and is derived from the Latin sanctus. The concept originates in early Greek Christian literature with the use of the word hagios (Greek άγιος meaning “holy” or “holy one”). I find it funny that Wikipedia has to say that “Other religions also recognize certain individuals as having particular holiness or enlightenment.”

Of course every religion on the face of the earth has its own saints, enlightened people, preachers, teachers etc. It depends on the religion and regional terminology how these learned preceptors are called. In Hinduism people with advanced spiritual and religious knowledge are known as Rishi, Swami;  of course the words such as saint, sage, ascetic etc in English mean the same or come close to mean the same.

I remember my friends who studied in Swami Vivekananda College referring to their college as St. Viveks to make it appear cool in front of their peers from christian colleges such as St. Josephs. Their rationale was that if you translate Swami to English it becomes Saint, and shortening the name of the indivdual they arrived at this cool name.

Anyway coming back to the original intention behind this post, I found this online resource on spirituality titled Saranaagathi which has tremendous amount of information about Hindu spirituality and religion. The site has links to numerous schools of thought, a wide array of philosophies, devotional literature, religious organisations etc.

But my favourite page on the blog is the one titled Saints and Sages. On this page the author defines who can be called a saint and attempts to give a brief description of some exemplary saints and sages. “Saints and Sages are messengers and representatives of God on earth. It is impossible to know God without the grace of saints and sages. It is only by grace of God that one gets the opportunity to meet them [Binu Hari Krupaa Milehi nahi santaa - Sri Ram Charit Manas]. Association with saints and sages is a very powerful inspiration for spiritual aspirants,” writes the author explaining who can be called a saint.

I will try to glean as much knowledge on a continuous basis from this blog.