Why Hinduism?: A General Hinduism discussion thread

I noticed this forum isn't incredibly active.

This thread is for your back story with this ancient belief system, questions, and specific stories for what Hinduism has done for you as a person.

AND GO!

 

To keep the discussion as general as possible, why not?

 

It helped me to expand my horizons.

For me, the interest led to the works of Sri Aurobindo. His ideas are not exactly orthodox Hinduism, and go beyond the cultural context in which they appeared.
It's more about the evolution of a new consciousness on earth than personal liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Although according to Aurobindo, that liberation would be intrinsic in the new consciousness and being.

The coming of the Kingdom.

 

I have a friend who is Hindu. I've attended several of their traditional cultural events, which I enjoyed very much. I have other friends who are into Yoga. My background knowledge of the Hindu core religion is rather basic. I find it to be the most complicated of all the old Eastern religions and philosophies. I keep making plans to explore it further, but I always end up spending the time on all the other Eastern options, for one reason or another.

 

Hinduism certainly is a complex thing. It isn't really one religion like Christianity or Islam, but a number of different sects or schools. Within its range it contains many differing levels, from quite primitive and basic, superstitious even, to some quite interesting philosophy and practices.
All Hindus say they accept the authority of the Vedas, but often that is about all they do have in common.

It's hard to know where to begin for someone wishing to familiarize themself with it. I think that its possible someone could start by looking at one strand, decide that isn't for them, and reject the whole thing. That's what happened to me. I went to visit the Hare Krishnas some years ago, got a quite negative impression and it wasn't until years later I looked into other areas of it all.

As I said in my previous post, I think in my case it helped to widen my horizons to some extent. But also it seems to me, and others may disagree, that it's not really possible for a western type person to become Hindu - whatever that might mean. For one thing, it's all bound up with Indian culture, which has many defects such as the caste system, and I think it is something you'd have to be born into. But there may be exceptions.

 

Yes I agree the Buddhists undoubtedly have more schools and texts than any other religion. Maybe because Buddhism spread far and wide beyond India, and absorbed other cultural influences as it spread.

I agree also that the 3 religions are similar in essence. There are some Hindu schools that don't really fit in, but if you think of Advaita (non- dualism) as the 'standard' Hinduism, they are quite congruent. And in other schools of Hinduism, there is some similarity with Christianity. Belief in a divine incarnation, reliance on the saving grace of this being, and so on.

 

I studied Hinduism and Buddhism due to them having actual systematic practices. During lots of hours spent in yogas and tantras of a couple types one needs some framework to make sense of it all, especially if one has visionary experiences. I think the religious side of the practice has to do with changing the hue and contrast on the meditation experience as far as action or wisdom. In the West we get all freaked out when things don't move fast, but in the East mostly things are okay even if you just leave them alone. Different wisdom traditions between East and West and East feels like something real to me, where West doesn't. I became card carrying Buddhist though just to choose sides in the war between religions for your soul and money. I love the religion which is known more for peace than the others just on basic principles.

 

Such a range cos it's an organic mass brought to 'India' with the Aryan peoples when they moved from central asia in antiquity and has been built up in various nonlinear ways since.


oh...and the real Golden Temple is in Amritsar, Punjab.

 

What Hinduism has done for me?

It has provided answers to all the questions in my mind so far, and still it continues.

It has taught me values, and has given reasons for every one of it.

It has shown me the depth and details ancient sages have left for us.

Now, what I like about Hinduism-

It encourages asking questions and debating. (Upanishad)

It does not have specific guidelines or rituals. It gives you complete freedom. You can choose your way.

Its the root of many isms, like Buddhism.

It teaches us to see god everywhere- even in stones.

And finally, Let us keep our minds open, think, debate, learn and grow together.

Any questions or doubts, Hinduism will provide all answers, as usual.

 

For the older friend I have who grew up in India, her religion is almost entirely about cultural things. I doubt if she could hold her own with you in a theological discussion of the different branches of Hinduism, nor would she want to, but she could talk for an hour about all the different festivals, dances, costumes, symbols, social traditions, foods, etc. As for what it all means, all I ever get from her is about the same two or three sentence summary of being a good person that you can get from almost anybody who was raised in any Eastern religion. She is also very accepting of other religious views.

I also work with a younger person who has a very different Hindu background. She grew up in America, but her parents met and married in the disputed Kashmir region, where the national and cultural border is less like a sharp political line than it is like the poorly defined edge of a raw sore. Her mother is Pakistani and her father is only half Indian, but they chose Hinduism for their new family because they saw it as the religion of peace, and Islam as the religion of violence. In Kashmir, you can choose your side, but the place doesn't have much of an economy. The young family was not well accepted in Pakistan because of their religion and not in India because of race, so they were fortunate to be able to find a way to get to the US, where they have done well.

The daughter is very secular. She thinks mostly from an Eastern viewpoint, but her knowledge of Hinduism is even more superficial than that of the older woman I described. It doesn't work so well for her to attend regional Hindu cultural events. People apparently look at her facial features and think, "Why is that Islamic girl here?" (Taking her word for it; she looks Indian enough to me!)

I think it is primarily the core of Eastern thinking that Westerners need so much. Where we get it from is not so important. We needed because there are so many flaws to the pressure-packed goal-oriented Western viewpoint that most of us are force-fed daily, from the cradle to the grave; so many ways that it makes us miserable, if we are slaves to it, and cannot separate our core identities from it.

It can be transformative just to fully comprehend that there is another completely different way to look at life, much like the way we grow to understand English better by learning the fundamentals of another language.

 

Interesting. I'm sure there are a lot of ex-pat Indians who are very similar.
Just a couple of comments. Hinduism isn't entirely a 'religion of peace' in my opinion. Although of course it doesn't have the image radical Islam has these days, it could be argued that there is some basis for 'holy war' in Hindu scriptures, especially the Bhagavad Gita.
The Gita is a dialogue on a battlefield between Sri Krishna, believed to be an incarnation of Vishnu, and his disciple Arjuna who doesn't want to fight.
Over the course of the conversation Krishna persuades Arjuna to fight, using much yoga philosophy to make the case that he should do so.
It has to be remembered in this context that the Gita is actually only a small part of the epic 'Mahabharata' (said to be the world's longest poem), and by the time you get that far into the story, it's pretty clear who the bad guys are, and why they are bad. But the Gita is usually presented as a stand alone work. It's the main scripture used by the Hare Krishnas for example, and probably the best known Hindu scripture.
My guess is that a huge number of western people have read the Gita, but very few know the Mahabharata.

I'm not aware of any historical instances where the Gita has been used to justify war on religious grounds. But I suppose it could be.

It's also a fact that in the Hindu/Muslim slaughter that followed independence and the partition of India, the Hindus were just as bad as the Muslims.

I think it's certainly good for people to look into other perspectives on reality and life, and Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism can all contribute to that. There are also some mainly defunct western traditions which seem to embody similar ways of thinking. Neo-platonism is one that springs to mind. Even one or two unorthodox Christian thinkers such as Eckhart, Origen and even William Blake.
However, the esoteric traditions of the west seem largely lost despite some attempts to revive them in modern times.

For my part, I found that after looking into eastern religions, I gained a much better insight into Christianity, or at least Christian mysticism. Not that it's made me into a Christian, but it's like what you say about language. Looking at other cultures and their beliefs may help us gain insight into our own.

 

That was just one family's perspective, of course.

 

It's a commonly held view. And I'm not saying in my post that it's a violent kind of religion. But there is a question in my mind.
Gandhi was very fond of the Bhagavad Gita - and obviously most people read it because it's a summary of Hindu belief of a certain kind. They are looking for spiritual gems.

I've inadvertently opened a can of worms here. This is a question that's come up before on this forum, and for me, elsewhere.

I guess all past human civilizations have engaged in warfare (there may be a few exceptions). As I said, the Gita is part of a larger mythological tale which is very complex, and ends up with a big war. The bad side are extremely bad, and it's a case where war becomes inevitable because of their actions.
So I suppose you could argue that in that situation, the duty of a warrior such as Arjuna is pictured to be, is to fight on the side of right. Like in the war against Hitler.

Trouble is, we can't take any more big wars in our modern world. So maybe we'd be better off with scriptures (if we have them at all) which don't promote it in any way under any circumstances.

As I say, there's a question in my mind about this issue.

But it's only theoretical or abstraction. Indian culture presents many problems, and by far the worst one is the caste system under which millions live in virtual slavery with no hope of ever bettering their lot. So then the question arises, if the philosophy is so great, why did people with those beliefs create that kind of society, and why can't they reform it?

 

It's not too hard to make the case that most Eastern religions and philosophies are actually too tolerant and accepting, therefore providing opportunities for bad social and political situations to persist much longer than they might have survived in the West.

Every point of view has its shortcomings. As we learn from Eastern thought, maybe they should be studying Western philosophy, for purposes of balance.

 

Vivekananda, a noted Hindu teacher of late 19th c. and one of the first to bring Hinduism to the west, said just that. The west should learn from Indian spirituality, India should go all out for social and economic development. He was very opposed to the caste system.

The trouble with the current economic development in India is that it concentrates wealth in the hands of only a few, and does nothing to reform the abuses which go on unabated.
Maybe in the future things will change. India could emerge as a major world power in the course of this century. Maybe the reformers will one day get rid of the caste system. But that's going to be difficult because this is ingrained in people, and goes back a long time.

14 million slaves in India according to the 2013 Global Slavery Index. http://www.dw.de/slavery-in-india-an-uncomfortable-truth/a-17182856

 

'How could we be happy killing our own kinsmen?'

It hinges on the idea of the self as illusion. The body an illusion. So if you kill in the divine consciousness, no one kills, no one is killed. That seems to be what Krishna says.

But I find it somehow dissatisfying. Mainly because I'm not sure the body is an illusion. Or the idea of a separate self.

Anyway, the idea of the secret teachings being kept secret in past times has some validity. I'm not sure though in the case of the Bhagavad Gita. Some date it to very ancient times, but probably it's a medieval production. How widely Mahabharata was known in past ages is something I don't know. Since it's a major work of Indian mythology, it may have been well known to the upper classes.

A side issue here is that for the reader of Mahabharata, by the time the war starts, you have very little sympathy for the Kurus, and the events of the war inspire a kind of complete contempt. So in a way, even by ordinary mental standards, you want Arjuna and his friends to win, and frankly to kill the whole lot of them. Such was the genius of the poets who composed MB.

 

The aryan race theory has been debunked by modern scholars.

Arya means a noble person, or a person of excellent culture and character. It does not have any racial connotation. Anyone can be an Arya provided he is of noble character and conduct, even if he is of ignoble descent. The example of Rishi Satyakama Jabala, the illegitimate son of a prostitute, is a glorious example.

The aryan race theory was created by european pseudo-scholars in the 19th century , who interpreted vedic allegories of light overcoming darkness as white invaders overcoming black inhabitants.

It is my opinion that the tremondous negative karma they created by distorting the universalist Aryan culture into a race related one, lead to the second world war and all the tremondous suffering and devastation that followed in its wake.

Anyone in the world, can be an Arya, and the only qualification needed for this would be an excellent character and conduct.

The present hindu people are a multi-racial people, mixed with almost all the races of the world.

And this is in tune with the teaching of the Upanishad i.e Vasudeiva Kudumbakam, -- The whole world is one family.