As I mentioned in my world view post, my father is Hindu and my mother is Christian. I recently decided to learn more about Hinduism. My mom sent some information to me and my brother via email. I also read the chapter on Hinduism in The World's Religions, watched the first two tapes of the Bill Moyers special "The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith", and read the Wikipedia entry on Hinduism. I won't try to describe all Hindu belief or practicce here. I'm certainly no expert based on this limited investigation. Rather, I'll just focus on the things that I've learned so far that were most meaningful or surprising to me. I suspect I will return to Hinduism again and incorporate many of its philosophies and practices into my world view. Hindus believe that the goals of spiritual life can be attained through any religion so long as the religion is practiced sincerely. So, even if I ultimately go down the Christian route, it doesn't mean I'd need to forego the insights and teaching of Hinduism (see this mission in India that my grandfather was a member of later in his life).One immediate misconception I had about Hinduism is that it's polytheist. This brief essay does an excellent job of distinguishing between Brahman (the unique Godhead of Hinduism who has no other and no second, "thou before whom all words recoil"), Iswara (the all powerful Almighty which is the subject of all religions), and other deities such as Kali. The logic chain is fascinating to me:
The difficulty with this concept [Brahman] is this; there is no subject-object relationship in this context, Brahman cannot be the object of cognition, since Brahman has no second. In fact nothing can be predicated about Brahman without delimiting the infiniteness of Braham. So Hindu Vedanta, with a mathematical precision, has postulated that the moment one wants to think of Brahman as an object of thought, one has already delimited Brahman and is only thinking of Iswara, , otherwise called saguna Brahman – Brahman with attributes. Iswara is the all powerful Almighty which is the subject of all religions. It has all the supreme qualities of Brahman – if Brahman could be said to have qualities or attributes – and, in addition, it could be the object of our thought process. By its very nature all names and forms suit it. The Vedic logic here is really very subtle, interesting and should be enjoyed as such. It has no name or form and therefore it could be called by any name and could be given any form. The concept of idol worship is the practical implementation of this unique logic of Hinduism. Hinduism has the daring to carry the rationale of this to its logical conclusion and hence it is we find a plethora of gods and goddesses in the Hindu framework.
To oversimplify, there is a single, infinite God (Brahman) but that God can manifest itself in a number of lesser, finite forms (Iswara and deities) that are easier for man for understand and relate to. These lesser forms, however, do not diminish or compete with "THAT" which "permeates everything in the world".
But what is Hinduism all about? Huston Smith says "if we were to take Hinduism as a whole - its vast literature, its complicated rituals, its sprawling folkways, its opulent art - and compress it into a single affirmation, we would find it saying: You can have what you want. This sounds promising, but it throws the problem back in our laps. For what do we want? It is easy to give a simple answer - not easy to give a good one. India has lived with this question for ages and has her answer waiting. People, she says, want four things." The first two (pleasure and success) form the Path of Desire and the second two (duty and liberation) form the Path of Renunciation (see excerpts from The World's Religions or this Web page for more detail).
I've been thinking a lot about the Path of Desire and the Path of Renunciation today. Specifically, I think I'm transitioning from one path to another. In some ways, I've been doing it my whole life but never realized it until now. It would explain a lot. I've always felt that I was meant to do something great in this life. Given our cultural stereotypes, I had always associated that material wealth and power (the second half of the Path of Desire). But it's really not that. It's about serving my fellow man, about making a difference in this world (whether that's the environment or something else). I might remain in the business world but it takes on a very different complexion when viewed through the lense of duty rather than success.
Our society (on a whole) is so focused on pleasure and success that you get sucked into it. I've wondered why I can't embrace it more fully. It's actually quite uncomfortable and alienating - especially here in Silicon Valley. But I've probably had multiple lifetimes to really enjoy (and suck dry) the Path of Desire. I've had my fill and now I find it wanting.
There's so much more to say about Hinduism, including the eternal within us (Atman-Brahman), the way to God through knowledge (Jnana yoga), karma, non-attachment, etc. More to come in subsequent posts.
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I was thinking more on my drive to work about why so many people are focused on the Path to Desire (pleasure and success). Here's one theory. Per the Wikipedia:
The 20th century saw the biggest increase in the world's population in human history. The following table shows estimates of when each billion milestone was met:
1 billion was reached in 1802.
2 billion was reached 125 years later in 1927.
3 billion was reached 34 years later in 1961.
4 billion was reached 13 years later in 1974.
5 billion was reached 13 years later in 1987.
6 billion was reached 12 years later in 1999.
These numbers show that the world's population has tripled in 72 years, and doubled in 38 years up to the year 1999.
Population growth has obvious implications for the environment and global warming. But let's look at it through a spiritual lense. If you have way more people being born than dying, you would end up with a net deficit of souls to reincarnate (even if you take into account other living things). In such of case, God would need to create a bunch of new souls and they would need to start at the beginning (pleasure), spend one or more lifetimes there, and they move on to success, etc. So it wouldn't be surprising that we'd have a lot of people focused on pleasure and success rather than duty and liberation.
Just a theory but makes sense to me.
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