Read more from the Being Truly Human March 2012 Newsletter
By Phiroz Mehta
Continued from part 1, part 2 and part 3
Private worship plays a much greater part than public worship in the lives of the 350 millions of Hindus to-day, as it always has done. The mode of worship is according to the sect. The family shrine is carefully tended every day by the devout Hindu — it is rare to meet a Hindu who is not devout — and the sacred household fire is kept burning. God is worshipped both as Father and as Mother. There are innumerable forms under which God is worshipped: as a member of the Divine Trinity, such as or Viṣṇu or Śiva; or as the Divine Mother, Kālī or Durgā; or as one of the Divine Consorts, Lakṣmī or Saraswatī or Pārvatī; or as an Incarnation of God, such as Rāma or Kṛṣṇa; or in some other of His many forms. An image or picture is used to represent the chosen form. Short prayers from the Vedic texts are recited, and a simple form of worship is carried out.
There are innumerable wayside shrines all over India for devotions by the passer-by. A small lamp, kept alight as far as possible, a garland of flowers, or some other votive objects may often be seen at such shrines. At dawn and after sunset, each a twilight period, a short prayer is offered, or one sits in quiet meditation. No images are then used. Here are a few examples of Hindu prayers:
The forms of worship in temples are highly developed rituals, too complex to be described here. The form of deity chosen for worship depends upon the nature of the worshipper. Does he feel towards God like a man to his Creator, or servant to master, or friend to friend, or child to parent, or parent to child, or lover to beloved? Again, does the worshipper mainly think of God as Father-Creator, or as Lover-Preserver, or as Destroyer-Regenerator? Such considerations give some idea of the remarkable extent to which Hinduism provides for the needs of its people. A very popular ritual is known as worship with five ingredients, which are:
To these five ingredients, a sixth is added, when required, namely, some food, signifying an actual realization of the worshipper’s unity with God. This consecrated food may be distributed and eaten, as is done in the observances of other religions, such as Zarathustrianism and Christianity.
We saw earlier that Varnāśrama Dharma, the socio-religious way of life, was Hinduism in practice. By carrying out your duties to your family and community, you fulfilled the law of loving your neighbour. If you were a doctor you healed the sick; if a teacher, you taught; if a merchant with wealth, you helped the needy; and so on in every walk of life. You were never supposed to refuse your services. If you were a doctor, you had to treat any sick man who came to you, whether he could pay or not, whether he was a friend or an enemy. If you refused to do your duty, you went against your own inmost nature as a doctor: you denied your dharma, and that was sin. Thus the teaching that you should always do your duty was in fact love in action, without sentimentality. Hindus being human beings like any other human beings, often fail to live up to the pure teachings. Fortunately, reformers constantly arise, and exert a powerful purifying influence.
If you succeeded in performing your duties, you not only loved your neighbour but you proved you also loved God, whatever your own ideas or beliefs about God might be. This leads us to consider one of the many unusual features of Hindu teaching. Hinduism concentrates very strongly on God living in each and every human being. God is constantly seeking himself in man. He is born again and again as a Great Teacher in this world in order to redeem man from ignorance and sin, and to teach man the path to ultimate union with Himself. The evil man is the man who prevents the spark of God inside himself from becoming a glowing light. The saint is the man who so loves the world and man and God, that God is seen in his thoughts and words and deeds.
Hinduism allows several meanings for the word God, out of consideration for the different powers of understanding of different people. We can see how sensible and kind this is by trying an experiment. Ask yourself the question: What do I mean by God? Then notice what sort of picture comes up in your mind… If you continue inquiring, you may soon begin to feel confused, worried, frightened… Do not be afraid. For the truth of God cannot be made untrue by our ignorance or fear or doubt or anything that we go through. At the same time, let us never forget that the Truth of God cannot be known without sincerely trying to know… Merely being told that God is this, that or the other, though a first step, does not make us really know… The Hindus understood that just as you can really know the taste of rice and curry only by eating rice and curry, even so you can really know the deep teachings of religion, especially the truth of God, only by living the religious life. This means living the good life… by developing morally and by purifying the mind. One of the most important aspects of mental purification is finding out our prejudices, preconceptions, and assumptions, and inquiring whether they have anything to do with truth and love and goodness. If they have not, then by getting rid of them we purify the mind. This purification is one of the greatest tasks in yoga.
Not all people have the opportunity or the capacity to develop very deep understanding… Between these extremes is a vast number who have a strong feeling for worshipping God, and a certain average intelligence for understanding the nature of God. To suit all types, Hinduism has an astonishingly rich variety of presentations of God: as a Person; as a Divine Being who is perfect in every way; as a Being who is beyond all qualities; as Male; as Female; as Male-Female; as an Impersonal or Supra-personal Being; as It; as Creator separate from His creation, that is, ourselves and the world, but related to it; as Creator of a creation which is part of Him; as wholly other than us and the world; as the only, absolute Reality, whilst we and the universe are an illusion, and so on, in great, indeed in bewildering, variety.
Whilst this caters for different levels of development, it makes it very difficult for the student who inquires, “What is the Hindu teaching about God?” Let us, therefore, look at some of the not-too-difficult teachings.
In Bombay harbour there is a very small island called Elephanta, which has a cave temple containing a huge, marvellous piece of sculpture called the Trimūrti, or Triple Image. It represents Īśvara, or God as the active, Personal God, named Nārāyaṇa, in His threefold form, the Hindu Trinity of Brahma-Viṣṇu, Śiva. Brahma, the Father of all men, in relation to spirit, represents Being or Truth; in relation to matter, his function is that of Creator, and he represents activity or motion.Viṣṇu, in relation to spirit, represents wisdom, love and the power of thought; in relation to matter, he is the Preserver and he represents harmony and rhythm. Śiva, in relation to spirit, represents bliss, the joy of creation, the peace that passes understanding, Nirvana; in relation to matter, his is the task of changing the old order by taking it to pieces (hence is called the Destroyer), transforming it and regenerating it into a new order. Śiva is thus the Destroyer-Regenerator.
The three aspects, Brahma-Viṣṇu Śiva, of the one supreme Being are thought of as male. The Hindus had observed that life is full of polarities: north-south, positive-negative, day-night, male-female. They also saw that the process of creation went on because there was this polarity, and that each pole was indispensable for the process. So they complemented each of the male aspects of the Deity with a female counterpart, who was the creative potency of the male, his śakti. Thus the śakti of Brahma, the Creator, is Saraswatī, goddess of learning and wisdom, and patroness of the fine arts. The śakti of Viṣṇu is Lakṣmī, also called Śrī, symbolizing worldly prosperity and good fortune. The śakti of Śiva, in his Destroyer aspect, is Durgā, and in his benign aspect, Umā or Pārvatī, symbolizing spirituality and purity. Since it is the passage of time which leads to decreptitude and destruction and death, Śiva, as Destroyer, is also known as Mahākāla or Total-time; the corresponding śakti, Kālī, is the ender of time itself, of the whole cosmos including the gods, and is thus the giver of Nirvana in eternity.
There are many such gods and goddesses spoken of in the Hindu scriptures, receiving worship from those whose needs and feelings incline them to worship particular gods or goddesses. Naturally one is inclined to say, somewhat hastily: “These Hindus are polytheistic”, or, “They know nothing of the one, true God”. To understand this rightly, notice how, in Christianity, the One God is spoken of as God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost; or it is said, “God is our refuge”, “God is love”, and so on. Now to each aspect, in which, so to say, the part of God is emphasized, the Hindus gave a special name. Hence so many names sprang into common use. Īśvara is about the nearest in meaning to the Christian word ‘God’, a personal and active Being. Viṣṇu is called Īśvara, various lesser beings are called devas, such as the gods of the Ṛg-veda. Indra, god of thunder; Varuṇa, of the sky; Agni, of fire; Soma, of immortality; and Brahmanaspati, of prayer. This last name is similar to the most sacred name in all Hinduism, namely, Brahman.
If we inquire into the origin of all separate things in the world, we talk of compounds and elements, then molecules and atoms, then protons and electrons, and so on, till we end up, nowadays, with energy. We know various forms of energy — electricity, heat etc. But energy itself? The wise scientist gives a friendly smile! Instead of energy, the Hindus used the world prakṛiti, meaning something like root-nature, out of which the whole universe came into being. What made prakṛiti become the universe? God, the Spirit, or Puruṣa. So, because of Puruṣa and prakṛiti, the whole universe, ourselves, devas, and whatever else there may be, all came into being.
The Hindus taught that universe succeeded universe; a constant out-going and returning followed by a rest, fancied as an out-breathing and in-breathing and a holding of the breath of God, repeated continuously. The Hindus asked: What is the origin of both Puruṣa and prakṛiti? They answered, Brahman. Of course, Brahman itself must remain indescribable, apart from saying that Brahman is the Absolute and Infinite and Eternal. It is impossible for our minds to form any clear idea of words like absolute, infinite, and eternal. If you are sensitive, the world Brahman may affect you in the same way as would the phrase Very God of Very God. If you care deeply enough to come closer to the truth of Brahman, then study the necessary amount only (or else, you will merely become a dull, over-learned scholar), and, most necessary, constantly practise meditation and yoga, or prayer and contemplative religious disciplines.
Continued in part 5 and part 6
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This article is a good one as it brings up some of the most important highlights of Hinduism — how it is not just a system to take one to heaven or some such wishes of the ego. T. C. Gopalakrishnan, 9th November 2011
This article is a good one as it brings up some of the most important highlights of Hinduism — how it is not just a system to take one to heaven or some such wishes of the ego.
T. C. Gopalakrishnan, 9th November 2011
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