Religion, page 7

Hinduism

The world’s third-largest religion and one of its oldest, sorted honestly: what is wise, what is questionable or story, and what has caused harm.

A person sitting in meditation on stone steps beside a wide river at dawn, with small floating oil lamps drifting on the water — Image to come: Breath-Images/ganges-dawn.png

Hinduism at a glance

India. Roots more than 3,000 years old. No single founder. About 1.2 billion followers.

Hinduism is less a single religion than a vast family of traditions that grew up in India over thousands of years. Hindus themselves often call it the Sanatana Dharma, “the eternal way.” It has no founder, no single holy book, and no central authority.

Its oldest scriptures are the Vedas, hymns composed more than 3,000 years ago. Later came the Upanishads, philosophical dialogues that explore the nature of the self, and the great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Tucked inside the Mahabharata is the most beloved Hindu scripture of all, the Bhagavad Gita, a conversation between the warrior Arjuna and the god Krishna on the eve of battle.

At its heart is one great idea: behind all the changing world lies one ultimate reality, Brahman, and the deepest self of every person, the Atman, is one with it. The goal of life is to realize this, and so to be freed from the cycle of rebirth.

Devotees of Vishnu

Worship God as Vishnu, the preserver, and his earthly forms, above all Krishna and Rama.

Devotees of Shiva

Worship God as Shiva, the great yogi, destroyer of illusion and lord of the cosmic dance.

Devotees of the Goddess

Worship the divine as the Mother, in forms such as Durga, Lakshmi, and Kali.

The philosophers

Followers of the Upanishads, such as the Advaita school, for whom all the gods point to the one reality beyond all names.

What is wise

Teachings that hold up, and that anyone, of any faith or none, can test in their own life.

The witness within

The Upanishads describe the deepest self as a silent witness that watches the body, feelings, and thoughts without being any of them. In one famous teaching, a father tells his son, “That thou art,” meaning that the son’s inmost self is one with all reality. This is very close to the observing Soul on our home page.

Yoga, the stilling of the mind

In the West, yoga usually means stretching. In its original meaning, it is a whole path to calm the mind. The ancient Yoga Sutras define yoga as the stilling of the mind’s restless movements, and lay out eight steps: ethical living, self-discipline, posture, breath, turning the senses inward, concentration, meditation, and absorption.

The science of the breath

Hindu teachers developed pranayama, the careful practice of breathing, over thousands of years. Slow, steady breathing calms the body’s alarm system, as our meditation page describes. No tradition has explored the deeper breath more thoroughly.

Action without clinging

The Bhagavad Gita teaches doing one’s duty wholeheartedly while letting go of the results, the same lesson the Stoics taught with the archer who aims well but cannot control the wind.

Four aims of life

Hinduism honors four aims: goodness and duty, prosperity, pleasure and love, and finally spiritual freedom. Wealth and enjoyment are not sins but proper parts of a full life, so long as goodness guides them. It is a wise balance, and much like the Middle Way.

Four stages of life

Life is pictured in four stages: the student, the householder raising a family, the elder who steps back from work to deepen the spirit, and finally the one who lets go of the world. It honors later life as a time for wisdom, not decline.

Nonviolence

Ahimsa, doing no harm to any living thing, is why many Hindus are vegetarian. Gandhi made it the heart of India’s peaceful struggle for independence, and Martin Luther King Jr. learned it from him.

Many names for one truth

The oldest Hindu scripture says that truth is one, but the wise call it by many names. At its best, Hinduism has been remarkably open to other paths.

“Let right deeds be thy motive, not the fruit which comes from them.”

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, translated by Edwin Arnold

The heart of it

The silent witness within, yoga to still the mind, the science of the breath, action without clinging, a balanced life, later years devoted to wisdom, nonviolence, and many names for one truth.

What is questionable or story

Beliefs held on faith, and stories best enjoyed as stories.

The many gods

Hinduism honors a great many gods and goddesses, from elephant-headed Ganesha to many-armed Durga. Many Hindus understand them as faces of the one reality, the way one person can be a parent, a friend, and a teacher. Read that way, they carry wisdom. Taken as separate beings who must be pleased with offerings, they are a matter of faith.

Karma and rebirth

As in Buddhism, the belief that souls are reborn again and again according to their deeds cannot be tested. Read as the truth that our actions shape who we become, it is wisdom.

The great epics

The Ramayana and the Mahabharata, with their heroes, demons, flying chariots, and monkey armies, are among the world’s greatest literature, full of wisdom, and best enjoyed as story.

Astrology and lucky days

Astrology still guides many Hindu marriages, business openings, and major decisions. As the Other Paths page notes, careful tests have found no evidence that it works.

Gurus and godmen

A true teacher can be a great blessing. But India has also seen many self-styled holy men who claim miraculous powers, some of them later exposed as frauds or convicted of serious crimes. Blind devotion to a guru is the Parent-and-Child pattern at its riskiest.

The heart of it

The many gods can be read as faces of one reality. Karma, rebirth, the epics, and astrology are faith and story. Gurus can guide, but blind devotion is risky.

What is harmful

Where Hindu teaching has been used to hurt people.

The caste system

For centuries, Hindu society ranked people by birth into castes, from priests at the top down to the “untouchables,” who were barred from temples, wells, and schools and given the dirtiest work. India outlawed untouchability in 1950, largely through the work of B. R. Ambedkar, who was himself born into an untouchable caste. In 1956, he left Hinduism for Buddhism, and hundreds of thousands of his followers converted with him. Caste discrimination persists today.

Women held back

The ancient law book of Manu declares that a woman is protected by her father in childhood, her husband in youth, and her sons in old age, and is never fit for independence. Widows were once burned on their husbands’ funeral pyres, a practice called sati, outlawed in 1829. Child marriage lingered long after, and the dowry custom, though illegal since 1961, still leads to the deaths of thousands of young wives in India every year.

Religious violence

In modern India, religious nationalism has fueled deadly violence between Hindus and Muslims, including riots in Gujarat in 2002 in which more than a thousand people were killed, most of them Muslims, and mob attacks on people accused of harming cows.

Exploiting superstition

Fraudulent healers and holy men prey on the poor and the sick. In 2013, the doctor Narendra Dabholkar, who campaigned against such exploitation, was shot dead.

Double-speak

Hinduism teaches that the same divine self lives in every being, yet it ranked some human beings as untouchable. It worships the divine as the Mother, in the great goddesses, yet its old law books declared women unfit for independence. And it gave the world the ideal of nonviolence, yet religious violence has been carried out in its name.

The other side of the ledger

Hindus themselves have led the fight against these harms. Ram Mohan Roy campaigned to end the burning of widows. Swami Vivekananda, speaking at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, called for respect among all faiths. Gandhi fought untouchability as well as British rule. And India’s constitution, shaped by Ambedkar, guarantees equality to every citizen. The harm lies not in the faith’s deepest teachings, but in ancient social rules treated as eternal.

The heart of it

Caste, the subordination of women, religious violence, and exploitation of superstition have done deep harm, often against Hinduism’s own teaching of one divine self in all. Hindu reformers have led the way in healing them.

Rows of small glowing clay oil lamps arranged on a doorstep and courtyard at dusk during a festival of lights — Image to come: Breath-Images/diwali-lamps.png

Being a friend of Hinduism

You do not need to share Hindu belief to be a friend of Hinduism. You can practice yoga as it was meant, as a path to a quiet mind, not only a stretch. You can learn a simple breathing practice, read the Bhagavad Gita as one of the world’s great books of wisdom, or join in chanting at a kirtan. You can light lamps with friends at Diwali, the festival of lights, when light is honored for overcoming darkness, or throw colored powder in the joyful spring festival of Holi. And you can greet someone with folded hands and the word namaste, often explained as “the divine in me honors the divine in you.”

The heart of it

Practice yoga as a path to stillness, learn from the breath, read the Gita, light lamps at Diwali, and honor the divine in others, whatever you believe.

Continue

The next page turns to Buddhism, which was born in the same India and shares many of Hinduism’s ideas, but set out on a path of its own: a clear, practical teaching about the mind and how to free it.