Hinduism

Continued from part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5

The purpose of Man’s existence

The Hindus also taught that the purpose of our existence is that we should so purify and develop ourselves, fulfil all our duties and continuously worship God, that the Divine Spark in each of us, which started its mighty evolutionary journey darkly shrouded by our human ignorance and failings, will finally be superconsciously reunited in glorious triumph with God. But we are not exactly perfect at this moment, are we? And the process of purification is obviously long and slow, is it not? Therefore, one lifetime being too short, we need many lives before we can become united with God. During any particular life, we reap the good results of our good thinking, feeling, speaking, and doing in the past, and also the bad results of our bad thinking, feeling, speaking, and doing in the past. So, whilst there is suffering because of our wrong doing, there is always a chance for us because of our good doing. Step by step, striving for the good in thought and word and deed, we gradually overcome the evil. In this great task, we are constantly helped, not only by the great teachers and by those who are more advanced than ourselves, but also by God. For God, said the Hindu devotees and saints, comes speedily to us with giant strides in answer to every little step we take towards Him.

These doctrines of karma and rebirth helped people to feel that life was not unfair. “I myself must have done evil in the past to find myself in trouble now, and I myself must have done some good in the past to merit the good I enjoy now…” That is how the faithful Hindu feels. Thus, by affirming the justice of God and life, these doctrines give courage and comfort to sufferers, and encourage everyone to live the good life…

Yoga

In dealing with Hinduism, the world’s oldest and most comprehensive religion, within the limits of a single chapter, we can only look into a few of its main points. We must not, however, fail to notice one of its most interesting aspects, namely, yoga. Everyone knows the word yoga, but only a few really know what it is. Too many foolish statements have been made about it, such as “Yoga is sitting upon a board studded with sharp spikes”. It is true that you may see a strange person or two in India actually doing this; but sitting on sharp spikes is not a pleasant or even a mildly attractive pastime. It certainly is not yoga.

The word yoga means ‘joining’. You and God are joined, or, at-one-d. Yoga is the practical method by which your at-one-ment with God is realized. What is this practical method? It is a discipline of the body and of the mind. If you really love someone, you want to know him more and more perfectly, to help him, to serve him, and to make him happy. To do so, you get rid of all obstructions between him and yourself, such as your own selfishness, or your inattention to what he wants. Now you cannot get close to God unless you can pay attention to God. Think again of the experiments we tried earlier: inquiring what the word God means to you, and what the ‘I’ is. If you try to concentrate your mind on God, you will find that hardly a minute passes by before your mind has wandered off to something else. This something else will all too often concern your own little ego! Frequently, the body will distract you — a sneeze, a cough, or a dozen other things. The purpose, then, of yogic physical training is not to make you a prize athlete, but to give you the power to let the body remain perfectly quiet for a long time-even for hours — and not distract the mind. Such training, incidentally, can make the body wonderfully healthy and possessed of remarkable powers of endurance.

The mental discipline is decidedly the more important part. First, there must be moral perfection, and all the virtues must be developed. Without becoming free from sin, you cannot see God. Jesus taught the same: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” The moral development is the indispensable basis of all yoga. It is the first and most important step and the firm foundation for further progress. Further, we learn to get rid of all our own desires and ambitions, because they are obstructions to the divine will. When we are free of personal desires, then only can we see what is really the best thing to strive for in the particular situation. In other words, we advance to the stage of “Thy will, O Lord, not mine, be done”.

Next, we come to an extremely important aspect of intellectual purification. Have you noticed that when you make any judgment — that is good, or right, or mistaken, etc. — or when you decide upon something — “I should not associate with him”, “I should love to do that” etc. — there is always some assumption or preconception, some bias or prejudice of yours which underlies your judgment or decision? Now, as you grow morally and intellectually, you will find that every bias or prejudice is harmful to some neighbour or other and also to yourself; and that every preconception and assumption is a barrier to further discovery of the truth if you totally refuse to modify your assumption or preconception in the light of further knowledge. You must learn not to kill living faith by shutting it up within the concrete walls of rigid, unchanging, verbal expressions of truth. The letter kills the spirit. When the mind grasps the truth more clearly, change the verbal statement in order to express the truth more accurately.

How do you set about this task? By watchfulness. Experiment with this by spending a few minutes each day alone by yourself. Watch the feelings and thoughts, the desires and fantasies, as they naturally arise in your mind. As you watch them, you will find yourself attracted or repelled, and pronouncing judgement on them: good, wicked, exciting, dull, etc. Inquire why you pronounce judgement, and why you have this or that standard of judgement. You will find at first that this watchfulness is confusing, even terrifying; you will also find it stimulating, even gripping. If you persevere in this three-or-four-minute practice each day, it will reveal your inner nature to you: it will purify your whole being and take you nearer to freedom and truth; and if you are sincere enough, and sensible and strong enough, it will take you to the very heart of all religion, for it will lead you to the innermost spirit, God within you.

Briefly, and broadly speaking, that is the essential part of yoga. Since all people are not of one type only, there are four general classifications: for the active type there is karma yoga, or yoga by continuously performing good deeds in a spirit of detachment and dedication; for the devotional type there is bhakti yoga, or yoga through the adoration of God and the loving service of man - Hinduism insists that God is embodied in man; for the man of knowledge there is jñāna yoga, or yoga through wisdom and spiritual insight; and for that rare type of person who combines in himself love, wisdom, and action, there is raja yoga, the ‘kingly’ yoga. These groups are not rigidly separate, but combine together to a certain extent. A moment’s thought will show why they must combine: it is impossible, for example, to perform good actions without a proper share of wisdom and love.

Having laid firm foundations morally and intellectually, the task of developing attentiveness to God becomes easier. At least two important points must be remembered. You must be free of the lust for the personal attainment of union with the Divine, with Brahman. A man may storm the ramparts of heaven; but man is not the Lord of heaven! It is the Divine who bestows the bliss of union. Therefore not lust for the personal attainment of union, but the utter sacrifice of self to the Divine is necessary for the fulfilment of yoga. The other important point is that there should be no preconception of God, for then you will mistake your at-one-ment with your preconception, your own little picture (idol) of God, for union with the Real Divine.

This attentiveness to God culminates in superconsciousness when the flow of thought and feeling and all sense impressions is deliberately stopped. In this at-one-ment with the Divine, the goal of yoga and also of mysticism, man experiences spiritual and religious fulfilment here and now. Such fulfilled men, such perfected, holy ones, are founders of great religions. They are the great teachers. Such were some of the ṛṣis of the Vedas…; such were many of the great teachers of the Upaniṣads… Writers sadly mislead their readers when they refer to these great teachers merely as thinkers or philosophers or poets, and fail to point out that they were perfected, holy ones who had realized God.

The great Hindu teachers taught that after you had passed the stage of the beginner, you should not believe anything merely because any teacher, however great his authority, or any book, however sacred, had taught it. You had to test everything. Why? Have you not noticed that if you learn something parrot-fashion you really know very little about it? For example, if you merely memorize a fine passage from Milton or Shakespeare, you cannot explain it clearly to another person, because your own mind has not yet grasped all the richness of thought and feeling in those lines. But if you ask the right questions and make a thorough investigation… the inner meaning becomes clearer and you are enlightened. Why? Because the right questioning leads your mind to the truth. Hinduism, like Buddhism, is imbued with the scientific spirit. You must constantly test by experiment what you first hear from others, and win your convictions by actual experience. The truth is not in the dead letter of the printed word, but in your purified, living mind. And the pure, living mind is an energetic and growing, and not a stagnant or stultified, mind.

Love and sex

Hinduism strongly emphasizes the value of living in the world and bringing up a family. Afterwards, if you long to live the ascetic life, you may do so and observe the most perfec type of asceticism, as described in some of the 108 Upaniṣads. There is a widespread, mistaken idea that Hinduism regards sex as evil. The teaching is this: sex is a sacred, procreative function; husband and wife must always approach sexual love with the utmost reverence; every form of irreverent, lewd, sexual indulgence is evil; sex itself is perfectly natural, pure, and beautiful.

When should you put aside all sexual expression? When you have decided to live the anchorite’s life, and aspire to develop spiritually and wholly devote your life to God. Because of their extraordinary power to distract your attention, sexual expression and desire, and especially sexual fantasies and memories, are the most powerful hindrances to your attempts to experience the deeper states of consciousness in meditation or prayer, culminating in superconsciousness or union with God.

So the problem is simply this: if your whole interest is to experience union with God, then you must wholly put aside sexual desire and expression; otherwise, as a married man or woman, sexual love has its perfectly right and holy place in your life. Such is the simple truth.

One of the most valuable features of Hinduism is its inclusiveness. No one has the monopoly of the whole truth. All religions, say the Hindus, are paths to God. Again and again God appears on earth to teach and redeem mankind. The idea of a supreme and final revelation is not acceptable… The Hindus say that man has a long stretch yet ahead of him — several millions of years — and science is not in disagreement with such an estimate. So God will appear again and again in the future and give fresh revelation. None of the founders of the great religions expressly declared that a final revelation had been given and that God would not appear again elsewhere. Such a declaration is made by the teacher’s followers, ordinary men and women who are not so close to God as the founder himself.

In his divine incarnation as Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Lord taught:

Whenever there is decay of righteousness and there is exaltation of unrighteousness, then I Myself come forth.

For the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil-doers, for the sake of establishing righteousness, I am born from age to age.

To emphasize the fact that all religious paths lead in the end to God, the Lord taught:

Howsoever men approach Me, even so do I welcome them, for the path men take from every side is Mine.

Here, indeed, is hope for every person, not merely for a select few or ‘the converted’. All people in the whole world are the Chosen People, whoever they are, for God is the Father of all without exception. All people will reach God in the end, for the Hindus believe that after death the soul experiences heaven or purgatory or hell for a while, and then is born again to continue the pilgrimage to perfection and bliss, till it comes to rest in eternal God.

Comments

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, 9^th November 2011