Our latest speaker came to us to talk about Hinduism. It's my favorite of the topics we've had but my least favorite speaker. He's a retired police officer and was weird and slightly unpleasant and...glaring. Like at any minute one of us might pull out a machete.
Here are interesting things about Hinduism:
Hinduism is the 3rd largest religion in the world. It has a billionish followers around the world.
It has no single founder, and it's both monotheistic and polytheistic. This sounds silly but it works. They believe in one supreme power but then there are 33 MILLION incarnations of him/her/it. Gods and Goddesses come in many forms afterall.
The supreme being is called Parmatma, it is within all things, and beyond any human perception.
The incarnations of Parmatma can be present in anything, for example- forces of nature. Sun, wind, fire, rain, mountains, the Ganges river, the planet Saturn...all gods and goddesses.
The Ganges is a particularly spiritual place, as it's said that if water from the river is dropped in your mouth when you die that you will go straight to heaven. It is ideal if your body is burned on the banks of the river as it helps to purify your soul.
One thing I did like about Captain Grumpy is that he didn't totally make a distinction between faith and superstition; there is a different connotation for the words but essentially it's the same thing.
There are many holy scriptures, rather than just one. I think having one book would have undoubtedly split up the religion in to more parts. If there's more to reference you can stick with what you have and just reference the part you prefer I guess. My theory.
The 4 Vedas are the oldest known religious texts, they are full of hymns (for lack of a more relevant word), and I can't remember if it's in each one or if it's all together that there are 10,000 verses.
Karma is, of course, a big factor in Hinduism. They see the universe as constantly changing; it lives, dies, and is reborn, just as we are.
Karma means "actions" and will be the deciding factor in your reincarnation. Each new life is a chance to purify your soul. My least favorite thing about Hinduism is that they are really attached to the idea that we live in a world of sorrow, grief, and struggle. It's true, but there's kind of more to it than that. It's too simplified for my personal liking. But if it makes it easier to accept knowing that you will hopefully purify your soul then I guess it works. The belief that you are making up for past mistakes can make suffering more bearable. People understand it to be their fate and accept it rather than fighting against it. This has many pros and cons. They came up with this theory when they were trying to figure out the purpose of life. They decided that it couldn't just be to struggle through and then die, because that was too mundane, but that you were doing penance for past life wrongs.
After complete purification of the soul you achieve mokti (liberation) and mokshar (salvation). After you have achieved mokti there is no further rebirth and you live next door to God or something like that.
Dharma is the practice of good deeds and will help you reach mokshar. Personal hygiene is apparently significant, which seems ironic in a country that leaves me filthy every day. Giving charity is obviously good dharma; and going for pilgrimage is also important.
People who follow tha path of dharma, who are enlightened and teach others are gurus. The world is full of fake gurus. More irony.
An amusing thing he talked about was how many temples came to be. Someone will place an idol somewhere with a couple flowes, a candle, something shriney; then given the "superstitions" nature of Hindus other people will start leaving things around this idol. Eventually this is a regular spot and a temple is built. I want to try this at home and see if it takes. Due to this superstition, along with several other factors I'd think, people can be trained. There is a wall just outside Hauz Khas village, where I'm living, where people used to pee constantly. (There are no public toilets so people/men pee everywhere. I'll be talking about this later.)
Someone finally had the brilliant idea of putting up pictures of gods on the wall and now people no longer pee there.
Little bit o' history-
2000 BC the Vedic religion was brought here by the Aryans, and mostly involved worship.
800 BC is when we see sanskrit, upanishads (philosophical writings), and the religion becomes more meditative, with more focus on karma, the purpose of life, and more philosophical overall.
After that comes the Epic period, in which the Mahabarata and Ramayana were written.
Ramayana was first, it's about the journey of Ram (an incarnation of god), who was born a prince but ousted by his step-mother so her son could become king instead of him. So he goes off with his wife Sita and his brother, and they live in the forest for 13 years. All kinds of fun things happen; Sita gets kidnapped by a demon king and is rescued with the help of Hanuman the monkey king.
The Mahabharata is about Krishna's (also incarnation of god) battle against evil and many other things. Both are good, I'd recommend reading them. Get the revised versions...unless you are really in to looong epic stuff.
Modern day Hinduism is still essentially the same as it was. The core beliefs haven't changed in thousands of years. (Interesting factoid- Hindus used to eat beef. I can't remember the story now about how it changed but it's sort of a "fish on Friday" thing...as in it wasn't motivated by anything religious.)
A large amount of art, music, movies, etc is devoted to retelling the stories of Rama and Krishna. Krishna is a ladies man, he plays his flute and steals the clothes of girls bathing in the river, that sort of thing.
He talked a little bit about the Krishna Consciousness and Bakti (?) movement, neither of which are extremely interesting to me so I won't write more about them. But you can find them everywhere. They like singing and dancing...which is how I got the funny quote from the otherwise unfunny man: "Community singing...Hindus love that."
Terry asked about the mourning and rebirth process, which I was sort of wondering about myself so this is a summary of that:
In order for a soul to rest in peace the cremation has to be done very carefully, a wood pire is built, people chant, a priest is present, and the family will then go and give food to the poor so that the soul is happy.
There is a 13 day period of mourning where no cooked food is eaten, only fruits, breads, and vegetables. Modern Hindus shorten this to 3 days for practical purposes, not everyone can take 2 weeks off work when someone dies. At the end of this period there is a prayer meeting, and then the soul is free to move along to its next destination and life "goes back to normal" as he said.
It is believe that the soul sort of goes in to a transition plane of existence before moving on to it's next life but there's no definite answer to where/what that might be. Some believe that young souls will sometimes visit and be restless compared to when an old person dies but there's nothing official there. He suggests that it's just psychological because losing young people is more difficult than losing older people.
Here are interesting things about Hinduism:
Hinduism is the 3rd largest religion in the world. It has a billionish followers around the world.
It has no single founder, and it's both monotheistic and polytheistic. This sounds silly but it works. They believe in one supreme power but then there are 33 MILLION incarnations of him/her/it. Gods and Goddesses come in many forms afterall.
The supreme being is called Parmatma, it is within all things, and beyond any human perception.
The incarnations of Parmatma can be present in anything, for example- forces of nature. Sun, wind, fire, rain, mountains, the Ganges river, the planet Saturn...all gods and goddesses.
The Ganges is a particularly spiritual place, as it's said that if water from the river is dropped in your mouth when you die that you will go straight to heaven. It is ideal if your body is burned on the banks of the river as it helps to purify your soul.
One thing I did like about Captain Grumpy is that he didn't totally make a distinction between faith and superstition; there is a different connotation for the words but essentially it's the same thing.
There are many holy scriptures, rather than just one. I think having one book would have undoubtedly split up the religion in to more parts. If there's more to reference you can stick with what you have and just reference the part you prefer I guess. My theory.
The 4 Vedas are the oldest known religious texts, they are full of hymns (for lack of a more relevant word), and I can't remember if it's in each one or if it's all together that there are 10,000 verses.
Karma is, of course, a big factor in Hinduism. They see the universe as constantly changing; it lives, dies, and is reborn, just as we are.
Karma means "actions" and will be the deciding factor in your reincarnation. Each new life is a chance to purify your soul. My least favorite thing about Hinduism is that they are really attached to the idea that we live in a world of sorrow, grief, and struggle. It's true, but there's kind of more to it than that. It's too simplified for my personal liking. But if it makes it easier to accept knowing that you will hopefully purify your soul then I guess it works. The belief that you are making up for past mistakes can make suffering more bearable. People understand it to be their fate and accept it rather than fighting against it. This has many pros and cons. They came up with this theory when they were trying to figure out the purpose of life. They decided that it couldn't just be to struggle through and then die, because that was too mundane, but that you were doing penance for past life wrongs.
After complete purification of the soul you achieve mokti (liberation) and mokshar (salvation). After you have achieved mokti there is no further rebirth and you live next door to God or something like that.
Dharma is the practice of good deeds and will help you reach mokshar. Personal hygiene is apparently significant, which seems ironic in a country that leaves me filthy every day. Giving charity is obviously good dharma; and going for pilgrimage is also important.
People who follow tha path of dharma, who are enlightened and teach others are gurus. The world is full of fake gurus. More irony.
An amusing thing he talked about was how many temples came to be. Someone will place an idol somewhere with a couple flowes, a candle, something shriney; then given the "superstitions" nature of Hindus other people will start leaving things around this idol. Eventually this is a regular spot and a temple is built. I want to try this at home and see if it takes. Due to this superstition, along with several other factors I'd think, people can be trained. There is a wall just outside Hauz Khas village, where I'm living, where people used to pee constantly. (There are no public toilets so people/men pee everywhere. I'll be talking about this later.)
Someone finally had the brilliant idea of putting up pictures of gods on the wall and now people no longer pee there.
Little bit o' history-
2000 BC the Vedic religion was brought here by the Aryans, and mostly involved worship.
800 BC is when we see sanskrit, upanishads (philosophical writings), and the religion becomes more meditative, with more focus on karma, the purpose of life, and more philosophical overall.
After that comes the Epic period, in which the Mahabarata and Ramayana were written.
Ramayana was first, it's about the journey of Ram (an incarnation of god), who was born a prince but ousted by his step-mother so her son could become king instead of him. So he goes off with his wife Sita and his brother, and they live in the forest for 13 years. All kinds of fun things happen; Sita gets kidnapped by a demon king and is rescued with the help of Hanuman the monkey king.
The Mahabharata is about Krishna's (also incarnation of god) battle against evil and many other things. Both are good, I'd recommend reading them. Get the revised versions...unless you are really in to looong epic stuff.
Modern day Hinduism is still essentially the same as it was. The core beliefs haven't changed in thousands of years. (Interesting factoid- Hindus used to eat beef. I can't remember the story now about how it changed but it's sort of a "fish on Friday" thing...as in it wasn't motivated by anything religious.)
A large amount of art, music, movies, etc is devoted to retelling the stories of Rama and Krishna. Krishna is a ladies man, he plays his flute and steals the clothes of girls bathing in the river, that sort of thing.
He talked a little bit about the Krishna Consciousness and Bakti (?) movement, neither of which are extremely interesting to me so I won't write more about them. But you can find them everywhere. They like singing and dancing...which is how I got the funny quote from the otherwise unfunny man: "Community singing...Hindus love that."
Terry asked about the mourning and rebirth process, which I was sort of wondering about myself so this is a summary of that:
In order for a soul to rest in peace the cremation has to be done very carefully, a wood pire is built, people chant, a priest is present, and the family will then go and give food to the poor so that the soul is happy.
There is a 13 day period of mourning where no cooked food is eaten, only fruits, breads, and vegetables. Modern Hindus shorten this to 3 days for practical purposes, not everyone can take 2 weeks off work when someone dies. At the end of this period there is a prayer meeting, and then the soul is free to move along to its next destination and life "goes back to normal" as he said.
It is believe that the soul sort of goes in to a transition plane of existence before moving on to it's next life but there's no definite answer to where/what that might be. Some believe that young souls will sometimes visit and be restless compared to when an old person dies but there's nothing official there. He suggests that it's just psychological because losing young people is more difficult than losing older people.
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