By Vasu Murti

Reposted with permission. 

The pyramids are “basically expensive tombstones…” says Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Yes. That’s the way Sri Rupa dasi (Amy Smith) referred to the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal was built in India by Muslim ruler Shah Jahan as a memorial to his deceased wife.

It’s considered an exhibition of the emperor’s undying love for his departed wife.

But devout Hindus see it differently!

According to the Vedic (also known as Hindu) literatures, the soul or conscious self is different from the physical body, and transmigrates from body to body, throughout 8,400,000 different species of life.

Because the conscious self is different from the physical body, Vedic civilization was based on liberating the soul from the cycle of repeated birth and death.

Contemporary Hindu spiritual master Ravindra-svarupa dasa (Dr. William Deadwyler) explains:

“In that Vedic culture, everything was organized to further self-realization. Self-realization marks the ultimate…