{"id":3144,"date":"2015-05-15T06:15:48","date_gmt":"2015-05-15T06:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org?p=3141&preview_id=3141"},"modified":"2015-05-15T06:15:48","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T06:15:48","slug":"how-i-became-hindu-chakia-harris-hindu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=3144","title":{"rendered":"How I became Hindu-Chakia Harris | Hindu"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"chakia-harris\"<\/a>When I was a child I was raised in a very conservative Christian home. I would constantly hear of how Jesus would come and save me. I know all about the Bible and the teachings of Christianity because of my upbringing. I would have to go to church constantly.<\/div>\n

My mother had crucifixes in the home and she would buy us Christian literature and Bibles. I was not permitted to study any religion that was not Christianity. I was so sheltered that I didn\u2019t know the history of my family\u2019s faith. I had been brainwashed. Whenever I would get in trouble I would pray that Jesus would save me, but it never happened.<\/p>\n

I grew up very poor and living in a slum. My education was not placed in importance. I was even sent to a Christian day care center.<\/p>\n

As a child I had taught myself to read so I could comprehend what I was reading at an earlier age. I didn\u2019t care for religion itself and I just wanted to be normal.<\/p>\n

My mother would be beat me constantly and would use the Bible to justify doing so. Often she would leave me at home with my stepfather who was a Catholic. When I was six years old he molested me when my mother was not home. It continued for a few months. I was so terrified because I was scared no one would believe me. I told my mother, but despite what I told her she permitted my stepfather to continue living in the same house as us.<\/p>\n

As I grew I just developed a sense of individualism that my family did not like. Deep down inside I just wanted to run away. As I became a teenager I became an atheist. While at the same time pretending to be a Christian in front of my mother. Atheism wasn\u2019t working for me because I still believed that there was still a life force just watching over me. So one day I stumbled upon a copy of Malcom X\u2019s autobiography. I was so intrigued because I was never permitted to listen to other religions.<\/p>\n

After listening to this manifesto of hatred I had become inspired. I had began to hate Christianity more and more. So when I turned 17 I converted to Islam. My family found out after I had been converted for six months. I fasted during Ramadan and even prayed five times a day. I was so happy because I was no longer a Christian. After my mother found out that I had become a Muslim she tried to kill me. I was so terrified because I was so alone.<\/p>\n

My boyfriend did everything that he could to ensure my safety. So I fled and began living with my grandmother. She was also a Christian so she wanted me to return to the old faith. We constantly fought about this. She even tried to make me eat pork, but I still would not listen. She would take me to church every week and I hated it. However, I was also starting to move away from Islam. I listened to lectures and read the Hadith, but eventually I stopped praying and reading my Qur\u2019an.
\nThis was my freshmen year of college so I loved to read. I read the Ramayana and was in love with the Vedic culture and it\u2019s ideas. I saw how beautiful it really was. After my second semester of college I moved to Tampa with my boyfriend. This is when I truly learned that I did not belong in Islam. I went to the mosque and got treated horribly. They even tried to marry me to a Muslim man, but I refused. They also tried to force me to wear the burqa and the niqaab. I wantedd no part of this so I left the mosque. And deep down inside I had also left Islam.<\/p>\n

I started drinking alcohol and no longer reading the Qur\u2019an. I kept the Muslim identity, but had began practicing Dharma. I loved Buddha\u2019s teachings as well as the teachings of Krishna in the Gita. I was in love with Hinduism, but so afraid of abandoning Islam. I was scared and so confused. And six months later I realised that I had been running from my true self the whole time. I had always been a Hindu. Now I have accepting Shaktism and now embrace who I am.<\/p>\n

The Dharma had saved my life and now I am proud. I can proudly say that I belong to the Hindu community. I so glad that Brahma accepted me.<\/p>\n

This is how I became Hindu.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a child I was raised in a very conservative Christian home. I would constantly hear of how Jesus would come and save me. I know all about the Bible and the teachings of Christianity because of my upbringing. I would have to go to church constantly. My mother had crucifixes in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1150,1151],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}