Hinduism, the world's oldest unorganized
religion, has more than a billion devout followers. I cannot claim to
be one of them. But it is the faith I am born in and the faith I best
identify with. In contrast to what many in the West believe, Hinduism
is not a religion of many gods. It is essentially a monotheistic religion:
God is one ("Brahman"), but God's manifestations and avatars are
many. Rama, Krishna and Ganesha are among the thousands of symbolic manifestations
that Hindus worship. Hinduism, as practiced by most Hindus, is based on Vedanta
-- a philosophical tradition based on the Upanishads, which are the spiritual
truths revealed by India's ancient sages.
Essentially, Vedanta teaches that every
human is potentially divine. Realizing this divinity is the object of life.
Vedanta also teaches that the truth is singular and universal, and accepts
all the religions of the world as valid paths to God. Vedanta reveres the
great prophets and sons of God. "God is one; the paths to God are many."
This makes Hinduism a highly evolved, tolerant religion with no evangelical
goals. Consequently, the term "religious missionary" is alien to
Hinduism. Hindu priests and other holy men traditionally live by collecting
alms or honoraria ("bhiksha" or "dakshina").
While Hinduism by outlook is a tolerant,
liberal faith, it also prescribes a fairly rigid caste system which most Hindus
interpret as deciding everyone's social status by birth. The caste system
was possibly a mechanism of social organization in the ancient days, but today
it attracts much criticizm because it has come to perpetuate social injustices.
Nevertheless, it holds most Hindus in thrall.
Hinduism has a flourishing and entertaining
mythology, vast scriptures and complex rituals. Hinduism has spawned several
other major religions of the East, including Buddhism and Jainism, and had
major influence on other religions such as Sikhism. The Buddha was born and
lived in India, and Hindus recognize him as an avatar of Vishnu, one of the
Trinity (the other two being Shiva and Brahma). In return, diverse later saints
like Christ, Zoroaster, Nanak, the Buddha and Prophet Mohammed have influenced
Hinduism's cultural and artistic manifestations, making it pan-religious in
perception. Its indigenous roots, however, remain strong.
Simply put, Hinduism is a lifestyle
where the individual soul strives to unite with the Supreme Spirit ('Brahman')
through deed and prayer. Brahman is attained through noble deeds and the
worship of any of a million-and-one gods. Many of the gods represent the natural
elements or are 'avatars' (manifestations) of mightier gods. Rituals such
as Puja are an integral part of Hindu worship. Yet, Hinduism is not so
much about idol-worship or rituals as it is about a tolerant lifestyle and a
'philosophical purity' of thought. The purest Hindus are the "sadhus"
and the "yogis", ascetics who have given up worldly ambitions and
material pleasures to focus on attaining Brahman through various penances.
Even otherwise, the typical Hindu relatively eschews material possessions, which
may explain why tackling poverty remains the Indian government's biggest
challenge!
Salvation is when the devotee is
liberated from the eternal cycle of birth and death to permanently unite with
Brahman. Hinduism has neither a concept of 'conversion' nor fastidious rules of
daily practice, making it a very liberal religion. Many Hindus keep
symbols of Christ, Nanak, Buddha or an invocation of Allah, in their worship
rooms. Tolerance and appreciation of foreign faiths and lifestyles is a
religious nature with Hindus. This may explain why invasions of Indian
territory, mass destruction of temples and forcible/induced conversions of
Hindus are a dominant portion of
Indian history. It may also explain why Hindus as a people are relatively
easy-going and inefficient!
I worship no particular god. But
I sort of instinctively relate with the teachings of the saints Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi, Sharada Devi, Gautam Buddha and
Shirdi Sai Baba. These saints were immortal devotees who led spiritual
revolutions and cognitive reawakenings in the Indian subcontinent.
Buddha's philosophy continues to flourish as a parallel oriental faith,
Buddhism.
NATIONALIST
AND CHAMPION OF INDIAN THOUGHT: This
poster of Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) first became famous after his historic address to the Parliament of Religions at Chicago, on September 11, 1893.
Vivekananda, founder of the Ramakrishna Order of monks, is a spiritual
anchor and an inspiration in nation-building, whose birthday, January 12, is
declared by India’s government as National Youth Day.
THE RESURRECTORS: Sri
Ramakrishna (center, 1836-1886), a god-realised sage whose immense spiritual
accomplishment initiated a major reawakening of Hinduism in India, and his
devoted consort Sharada Devi (1853-1920), the Holy Mother, whose life of purity
and service continues to be an inspiration to millions.
Hinduism's origins are mixed and
complex. It was not founded by one individual, but rather is the fusion of many
religious beliefs and philosophical schools. One strand can be traced to the
Vedas, the sacred literature written in the ancient Sanskrit language, between
1200 and 1000 BC, by the Aryan people. The Aryans (in Sanskrit arya means "noble"),
according to popular history, came to the Indian subcontinent from Central Asia.
They were Indo-European groups who trickled steadily into the subcontinent
between 1800 and 1200 BC, bringing with them a group of sacred hymns known as the
Vedas ("knowledge"). The Vedas were composed in the ancient Sanskrit
language in praise of deities who were often personifications of the elements.
Simultaneously, another strand of
Hinduism drew on the beliefs prevalent among groups of indigenous people in
India, especially their faith in the power of the Mother Goddess and in the
efficacy of fertility symbols. The three most popular deities of modern Hinduism
are Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma, closely followed by goddess Devi. Hindus
generally address their worship to one of these deities or their manifestations.
Western scholars believe that Hinduism
in its present-day form emerged at the start of the Christian era. The
presence of so many different gods is often puzzling to non-Hindus. Hindus
suggest that one may view the divine force as a diamond with innumerable facets;
each deity is one of these facets. One or another of the facets may have
particular significance and appeal to an individual. By acknowledging the power
of an individual facet, however, the believer does not deny the existence of
others. On the contrary, Hindus affirm the existence of many aspects of the
divine.
Hinduism could be called a religion of
opposites. Western religions tend to draw clear distinctions between good and
evil: good is of God while evil is of the Devil. Many Hindu deities, however,
embrace the light and the dark. They are the sum of all of existence: right and
wrong, masculine and feminine, sadness and happiness, creation and destruction,
disease and health. Each deity may have several manifestations, each one
representing a different side of the deity's personality. Hindus believe
in reincarnation, and some of the deities themselves have many incarnations. The
god Vishnu, for example, has had ten incarnations - and an eleventh one is due.
What is Puja?
Puja is the act of showing reverence to
a god or another aspect of the divine through invocations, prayers, songs, and
rituals. An essential part of puja for the devotee is making a spiritual
connection with the divine. Most often that contact is facilitated through an
object: an element of nature, a sculpture, a vessel, a painting or a print.
Puja literally means to
"worship", "adore", "honor" or "respect"
or "pay homage".
Puja is a Sanskrit word with in-built
meanings. The 'p' stands for 'paapa', meaning sins. The 'j'
stands for 'janma', meaning birth. With
the 'p', Puja removes accumulated sins, and with the 'j' it fulfills the purpose
of birth.
Hinduism believes that the Lord being
not accessible to our eyes, ears, nose, touch and beyond the ken of ordinary
(un-refined) intellect. The ancients devised a method of bringing Lord within
the realm of the senses. This
method is to worship Him (Her or It) in an object (photo, water, fire, precious
jewel, idol, etc) which you can touch, feel, smell, see, feel the taste of. Thus
all wandering senses are brought to a focus, by belief (faith) and by daily
practice.
It must be noted that the object or
icon used during Puja is NOT the deity itself. Rather, it is believed to be
filled with the deity's cosmic energy. It is a focal point for honoring and
communicating with the god. For the devout Hindu, the icon's artistic merit is
important, but is secondary to its spiritual content. The objects are created as
receptacles for spiritual energy that allow the devotee to experience direct
communication with his or her gods.
Unshakable faith and long practice
evokes and unfolds hitherto unknown dimensions in awareness, which are generally
not communicable in the normal way.
Remember the British king who sent his
friend Becket to sabotage the Church? Once Becket started working for the
Church, he was convinced and converted to their line of thinking and found that
the king's views were neither noble nor fair. Brenen,
writing in 'Power Play', says that Easterners are centuries ahead in the control
of mind and related topics. Puja is one way to inject noble thoughts into the
subconscious. Above all, Puja is a method to solving some of the eternal
mysteries of Hindu faith and life.
Meditation and Mantra-chanting
Long periods of meditation and
chanting of mantras is common practice during Indian prayer sessions. In
modern terms, pure awareness has come to mean quantum space, a silent empty
void that is the womb of all matter and energy. That is why Indian sages had
to devise the specific technique of 'meditation', in order to show the mind
its origin in the quantum depths.
A mantra is a very specific message inserted
into the nervous system through continuous, mellifluous verbal
repetition. The mantra's vibrations gradually lead the mind out of its
mundane thinking and into the silence that underlies 'thought' per se. Some
insist meditation is a spiritual practice, but others feel Nature created
mind, body and spirit as co-creators of our personal reality, as profound, in
fact, as the reality of God.
