HINDUISM

HINDUISM: IT IS AN OCEAN OF FAITHS THAT BLEND WITHOUT BORDERS
By Vijay Kapoor

The opening words of the LIFE World Library volume devoted to INDIA are “It is not easy for a Westerner - or even for many Easterners - to comprehend, much less appreciate, the sprawling elusive, exasperating, preposterous and wondrous country that is India. Few lands hold such a power to shock-and to enthrall.....Hinduism is the most confused, confusing and distinctive of all the world's religions... The Hindu tradition is baffling to most western
Theologians - attractive for its articulate philosophical theism and yet somehow repugnant for its astonishing, vivid, multi-armed and multi-headed gods.”
Hinduism is often confusing to Westerners because in the West religion implies a belief system revolving around a single figure identified as God or the Messenger of God. Invariably there are scriptures composed of statements or events in the life of such an anointed figure.
Hinduism is not a religion in the conventional sense since it is an ocean of faiths which blend without borders. There is no central ecclesiastical figure in Hinduism equivalent to a “Pope” or an “Ayatollah.” The Hindu scriptures, the Vedas (the wisdom scriptures of Hinduism-Rig, Sama, Yajur and Atharva,) are not the books that a lay person can read and understand.
However, all Hindus affirm the authority of Vedas as the source book of knowledge. To bring the spiritual contained in the four Vedas, the Vedic scholars have written hundreds of commentaries or sub-scriptures drawn out of the Vedas including the Bhagavad-Gita and the Upanishads. Due to the proliferation of sub-scriptures, Shankara (788-820 A.D.), one of the greatest exponents of Hinduism, stated categorically that any scriptural statement must stand the test of not being contradicted by reasoning or experience.

THE KEY HINDU TENET IS DIVERSITY:
Diversity is sanctified by the Vedic verses: “ekam sadvipraah bahudhaa vadanti"’ - (Rig-Veda 1.164.46) -“The sages call the ONE BEING [God] by different names.”
Again in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, verse 44 (Book II) reads "svaadhyaayaad istadevataa samprayogah,” meaning "By the study of spiritual books comes communion with one’s chosen deity.”
Diana Eck in her book Encountering God = a Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras says "Hindus have a notion of ‘chosen deity ' - ishtadevataa. The ‘chosen god' is that one a particular person has taken for special honor and devotion.... that in imagining and speaking of God, we human beings choose the idea of God that will ground our being. “The author writes in her book that she was startled to lean that Hindus ‘choose’ their ‘gods’ whereas in the Biblical traditions, it is God who chooses people! The ‘chosen’ deities to Hindus are used as functional mediums to perceive omnipotent, omniscient God just as icons are used by a computer user to access an invisible bard disk which empowers a computer. The colors and shapes of icons are dictated by a devotee’s own insight. However, many Hindus do not use any icon for worship as they do not feel a need for a figure to focus their minds on atman [the God within.] In the Bhagavad-Gita, Lord Krishna says that devotees may worship either with or without an aid of a deity. Both ways are equally valid.
Under the matrix of multitude is the concept of ONENESS and UNITY. Consider the following Hindu prayer:
0 Lord, forgive three sins that are due to my human limitations:
Thou art everywhere, but I worship you here;
Thou art without form, but I worship you in these forms;
Thou neediest no praise, yet I offer you these prayers and salutations.
Lord, forgive these three sins that are due to my human limitations.
Other important Hindu tenets are:
1. Spiritual sensitivity of ecology, ie purity of natural elements: earth, water, fire, air and space. These five elements are foundational in Hindu philosophy and form the basis for the practice of Yoga, Ayurveda, Kundalini and meditation. Ayurveda is the science of longevity founded on purity of elements within the human body. Kundalini is the science of breathing which stimulates energy centers within human body leading to the highest level of meditation called Samadhi. All Hindu rituals are conducted honoring elements. With the infusion of consciousness (the attribute of God), a conglomeration of elements manifest to give life to diverse forms to create this beautiful world.
2. Aham Brahma, you are thou, and several variations of this concept. Implicit in this concept is that by the very fact of being alive, we are permeated with consciousness, the attribute of God. To quote Joseph Campbell, “Heaven and hell are within us, and all the gods are within us. This is the great realization of the Upanishads of India in the ninth century B.C.”
3. Maya - connoting that the entire universe is a quantum of energy, the inherent attribute of which is change.
4. Karma - nothing in the world happens without cause.
RECOGNITION OF DIVERSITY:
Hinduism recognizes that the ultimate goal of life is self-sustaining happiness - ananda.
However, since people have different propensities, they need different ways to attain this state of bliss (Samadhi) i.e. the communion of atman (soul) with God. It prescribes five different paths, each oriented to an individual’s own predilections.
The five schools of Yoga are:
Jnana Yoga is the yoga of self-inquir. It is suitable of people who have the capacity to analyze personal spiritual seeking. Bkakti Yoga is for people who are inclined to be devotional.
Earwu Yoga is for people who find solace perfecting their job skills and who perform actions as selfless service without attachment to the fruits of action.
Raju Yoga is for people who can balance various propensities. It is an eight step discipline
Leading from ethical pursuits to meditation and Samadhi (communion of soul with God.)
Hatka Yoga is for physically oriented people such as athletes. It includes postures, breathing techniques and self-cleansing practices (kriyas)

THE ACID TEST OF BEING A HINDU:
The “acid test” of being a Hindu is to believe and practice that “Truth [God] is one, but calls it by different names.” A person can be a Hindu by accepting or ignoring any other tenets of Hinduism but he/she cannot be a Hindu claiming that his or her “chosen” faith is the only sacred path for everyone else Thus by its very definition, Hindu fundamentalism is a
Contradiction in terms.

ILLUSTRATING DIFFERENT PATHS:
Nothing demonstrates better the Hindu ethos of applauding diversity and reforms than to observe that the Arya Samajis (the Hindu sect to which I belong), who shun idol worship and make up 5% of the “idol” worshiping Hindu society, play a leading role in Hinduism. It is the genius of Hinduism that it can admire and absorb an opposing view point for its merits. Gautama, the Buddha, rejected Hindu scriptures, the Vedas and various Hindu rituals, but Hindus; instead of opposing him, absorbed his reforms and elected Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu (one of the three aspects of God in Hindu mythology). There is hardly a Hindu home which does not enshrine Lord Buddha at the same level as other Hindu deities even though avowed Buddhists may be indifferent to Hindu icons.
It is due to this belief system of honoring others’ preferences in matters of spirituality that throughout the recorded history of human civilization, Hindus have never attacked any other civilization for its being different. Hinduism demonstrates that honoring others’ modes of spiritual seeking bring peace on earth.