Understanding Hinduism

it's good to see you all again this afternoon I'm glad that you were able to come back today we're going to this happen we're going to be talking about understanding Hinduism I will tell you right up front that my purpose this afternoon is to cause all of your heads to explode because that's probably what's going to happen in many ways I've taught a lot on comparative religions the lectures that I've given are available online not just on our web site in from Mexico but also on YouTube and we have had by far more people watch the video on Hinduism than any other and I think it's because and many of them are Hindus I know because a lot of them have written to me most of them are very proving of it some of them have have questions about it but that's the nature of Hinduism as you're gonna find out in many ways when you talk about comparative religions it's a difficult place to start we have to start here because of course this is the part of the world we're in but anytime you talk about comparative religions you pretty much have to start with Hinduism because it is the oldest of the world religions and so you begin here but it's almost kind of a shame for several reasons that you'll pick up as we go along one of them is it is unbelievably complicated and there are many different ways of looking at it but we'll get into that tomorrow of course we are oh and you're going to get Cyril Astrid ISM is an extra added bonus today only we will talk about that because you'll have an opportunity to the csro Astrid tower of silence in the light if you choose that excursion not all of you will see that but if you choose that excursion and then after Mumbai we will have two lectures the following day of understanding other Indian religions Buddhism Jainism Sikhism all came out of Hinduism and out of this part of the world of Hinduism Buddhism began in India but that ended up mostly moving a further east you know Buddhism is not it it was pretty much overwhelmed by Hinduism in India itself and then in the afternoon we'll get into some of the historical stuff India's great empires the Mauryan Gupta and the Mughal Empire so we'll talk about some of the historical things that happen after all of this but a sort of preface for talking about Hinduism I want to first introduce the whole question of talking about world religions in terms of what is religion I'm sure we all think we have an idea of that but even that question sort of gets you into complications one of my favorite definitions for religion comes from the global philosophy of religion book and it is genuine genuine religion is fundamentally a search for meaning beyond materialism meaning beyond the physical world a world religion tradition is a set of symbols and rituals myths and stories concepts and truth claims which a historical community believes give ultimate meaning to life via the connection to a transcendent beyond the natural order transcendent means other than us beyond us so I think this is a good definition of what religion means other people might define religion as being any belief in or worship of a god or gods a belief in the supernatural the service or worship of God or the supernatural in some way but people differ in that a lot of the terms that we in the West use for religion are difficult to apply to allow the Eastern religions even even the the names of them did not come into use until quite a bit later there are three types of religions probably to break them down and this is my my own break down world religions which Hinduism falls in that category sure are those extents being still existing faiths which are historically transcultural and international they're not located in one spate one place they are international and by definition they are more significant in size the exception that would be Judaism which is certainly international transcultural in this has such such a massive effect of the world although they're only 14 million Jews alive in the world today so that's kind of an exception to to the usual definitions the second definition we would use are indigenous religions smaller cultural specific cultural specific culture specific or nature nation any reads to dark appear or nation specific religious groups this would be something that is isolated to a particular geographical area or culture so not transcultural not international and finally new religious movements those face that are recently developed meaning they may become world religions someday we don't know but there are new religions developing all the time when we talk about religious these are what would be considered the world religions the largest of them this is by size is Christianity at about 2.2 billion these numbers up here are in thousands of Islam is the second largest and about 1.6 billion Islam as many people know is the fastest growing of all the religions it's believed by 2025 it may actually be the largest Allah you will don't realize though that Islam is not primarily growing faster than any other faith because conversions but rather because the ISM the countries that claim Islam is the predominant religion tend to have the highest birth rates in the world and many of the for instance nations that are Christian or some of the other world religions have very low birth rates and so Islam is growing primarily comparison to the others by having more more children this is one of the issues in is real for instance one of the real challenges on the last cruise I didn't talk about history culture and conflict in the Middle East and I talked about the israel-palestine conflict one of the reasons that Israel will never be able to accept a two-state solution to the problem they have there is that would mean giving in a one-person one-vote well the non-jewish population Israel was was created to be a homeland for the Jewish people someplace that they could feel secure and right now there are more Muslims in the area of what we know is Israel and the Palestinian territories then there are Jews if there was one person one vote the Jewish homeland could be voted out of existence and so they're never going to do that and that's a population issue again Hinduism is the third largest religion of the world of running about 13% of the world's population at 1.1 billion these numbers are approximate it's not like they go around and say okay everybody who's a Hindu raise your hand and so we have an exact and they don't do this kind of analysis very often but then from there we go down to Buddhism Chinese traditional religions which includes Confucianism Taoism shamanism Sikhism which we will talk about later Judaism bhai Aslam and Jainism Jainism is also a very ancient religion that we'll get into Shinto the national religion of Japan etc in terms of just distribution the dark sort of brownish color there's two tones there are is Islam it's the lighter color is predominantly Shia this is Sunni well they would talk about Islam toward the end of our cruise and explain a lot about that if you don't understand it then of course we have Christian the this area here is really what we're talking about Hinduism it is India Nepal Bhutan a little bit but predominantly India and Nepal 80 more than 80% of the population of India which is the second most populous country in the planet are Hindus so we'll get into that this is a different way of looking at it in terms of data founding which are the oldest Hinduism is considered the oldest of the world's religions having begun about 4000 BC so that makes it six thousand years old there's a lot of belief that the fundamental writings of Islam are based upon oral traditions that go back much further some people propose even 10,000 BC as when the earliest of the Vedas the Rig Veda and some of the other documents that I'll explain that they were an oral tradition then later were written down and then it became formalized as a religion sometime around 4000 BC Judaism is second around 2000 BC Buddhism Chinese traditional now I mentioned that Jainism is very old it was only formulated in a formal in the fifth century BC but again it's based upon oral traditions that probably go back to 2,000 BC or earlier so it's a very old religion as well there's one thing about this that is quite unusual there's a period of time of only about a hundred years in the 5th 5th and 6th centuries BC when or of the major religious traditions of the world we're all founded in fact more than 4 because the Chinese traditional religions includes Confucius Taoism and shamanism but the Buddha Siddhartha Buddha that we'll talk about after go by the Confucius and Lao Tzu who is the founder of Chinese traditional and there are different ways to pronounce that I'm going usual understanding and they were all alive at that time Shinto as a faith and Jainism all formally were developed within a hundred years of each other this is such an important it's such a strange phenomena anthropologists don't really understand why it is that the world has so much religious energy in that 100 year period of time but there's a special name for it's called the axial age we might talk about that a little bit more when we talk about Buddhism one other thing I will mention you'll notice that I have BC and AD on here it's very common in especially in scholarly arenas right now that they have changed that BC and AD are the old way of identifying before Christ and anno domini mo Domini means the year of our Lord today in scholarly circles for sure they use BCE which means before the Common Era and seee the Common Era in order to take any reference to a specific religion Christianity or the birth of Christ out of it they can't just change the dating system because everybody's you know adapted to that but they have changed the the reference I stay with BC and AD because a lot of the stuffs confusing anyway and I don't wanna add one more confusing layer to it so I stake stick with BC and AD alright Hinduism the Hindu religion does not refer to itself as Hinduism in fact and I spoke to gentlemen about this right before we started the word Hindu is an is a term used by those outside of India particularly the Persians it's a reference to the people who live the other side of the Indus River and they they call that Hindustan the people who live there they call Hindus it was not a religious term originally and so it became a common parlance for the Hindu religion the dominant religion of the Indian people but again that's a western term in Hinduism itself they refer to it either as the sanatana-dharma the eternal way or eternal law you always have to be careful when you start interpreting other languages into English way law we have very different connotations it could be either one but it basically means that it is something beyond human origins it's also called the divide DK Dharma or the way or law of the Vedas the Vedas of the most ancient writings that exist or some levels ancient writings in the human experience probably in terms of religious writings they're among the very oldest possibly equalled by some of the Egyptian writing but it's very very old Hindu as I said I just said this right now I've got it on a slide it'd been amazing that it was the inhabitants were called Hindus their religion Hinduism the world-old oldest extant religion we have examples of very ancient religions that don't exist anymore sometime between 10000 BC and 2700 BC was the founding and it started orally how do you decide when a religion actually started was it when the first oral traditions were created when they were first written down when the last stuff that were written down when they had a formal structure it's very difficult to decide that but they stood dates that we generally get it now some people don't even think that Hinduism is a religion it does not meet many of the characteristics or criteria of other religions there is no single founder there are no prophets there are teachers Swami's and others that are teachers of the the Hinduism no single concept of beating no single theological system no single holy text no central religious authority in some ways people would argue it doesn't really fit the mold of any other religion that exists and even more than that Hinduism can is perceived as very different I told you that the videos that I have of lectures on Hinduism that I have online people have come to them and some people really love them and some people say you can completely missed it well I'm not offended by that because Hinduism is perceived so differently by different people that I would have expected that any tax that I take or any way I present it somebody's going to disagree it's it is variously perceived by people as monotheistic having only one God that is manifested in different ways polytheistic having multiple gods Petofi estate henotheism is when you have multiple gods but you choose to worship only one of them Pandya sic which says that all things are part of god that you know you add everything up together and that is God and in theistic which says that all things are God and then he's something more than them the Native American religions are an example of that they have you know the spirit of the mount and the spirit of the wolf and spirit of the river but then connecting all of those things are combined but above that the Great Spirit is even more it's all of those things plus that's been in theism or even atheism some people would insist that Hinduism is does not really believe in God but rather it is a way of life it is a philosophical approach to how we live our lives and so very very different interpretations are possible on all of this it's very difficult therefore to even define Hinduism there's a principle called the Ishta devata- LOM which says it literally means your chosen deity and it says that every person must find their own way their own deity to worship their own have their own philosophy which will bring them to the objectives of human life and so by very definition a major principle of Hinduism is that you know you can take a very different path even not believing in God by believing in the principles behind it behind Hinduism that would work for you there are a number of beliefs that are consistent among all people who who experience or who believe in the Hindu direction whatever their particulars are there is a belief in transmigration of the soul what we would call reincarnation that there's a it's called samsara then there is a cycle that every person goes through which is birth life death and rebirth and that there's a consistency of that throughout all human life there is a sense in which there there are many different manifestations of the one divine essence which is called Brahma all whether they believe those others are actually deities or just avatars the word avatar is it's not just a movie with bloopio avatar means an earthly manifestation of a deity what we might call an incarnation and some of the most popular of the deities in in Hinduism like Krishna and Rama are seen as avatars of Vishnu probably one of those popular senior gods if you will there's very much a sense amongst all adherents to Hinduism of karma that everything you do has consequences that there is a cause and effect that exists in the world and what you do will have consequences for you not only immediately but long-term and because of this idea of some Tsar that you're coming back then if you do evil now then then you may be reborn in a much worse situation than you are now that whatever you're suffering in this light or whatever blessings you have in this life are a result of either of your conduct in the past because of karma I had a friend once who I was teaching some of this stuff and he listened to it and said so this holds some sort of thing this is reincarnation this transmigration soul coming back you said it sounds to me like if you die and then you come back if you've been really good you get to come back as a person if you've been really bad you come back as a frog and if you've been really really really good you don't have to come back at all well that's actually pretty accurate all right that's that's fairly accurate in terms of the idea of transmigration of the soul there are paths of righteousness that can improve your destiny in that regard and then there is the principle that not having to come back at all from mulch ah moksha is what you have sufficiently disciplined yourself and met thee then the expectations have achieved the righteousness that you should have then you are not forced to be reborn because in both Hinduism and Buddhism especially you know this is one of the revelations of the Buddha we will talk about is that life is suffering and so the idea of not having to come back at all is a benefit that's moksha than to get out of the cycle of suffering which you have to achieve that you have to accomplish it one of the major principles I'll talk about in Hinduism is Dharma Dharma is very simply the the path that we have to follow and the the basic principle or philosophies of life we'll get into all right there are a number of different texts that Hinduism bases itself on they are called Shastras there's two primary group of Shastras that came over a period of time the first group is called Shruti or heard at literature I'm going to put all these up here heard literature work from ancient Hindu monks they came to an understanding of what at what life should be and they began to express these truths they were memorized passed on so these are the truths that we've heard the first major kind of it in the oldest writings in the new ISM are the Vedas in the Rig Veda especially there are four Vedas the Rig Veda the sama Veda the yatra Veda in the atharvaveda each of these are statements of wisdom and truth and the most ancient writings the Rig Veda is the beta of royal knowledge it's the most important it's the one that has hymns of praise to various deities I said this morning if you were here that Hinduism has approximately 330 million Indians now more than that the idea of many is that Brahman the great essence the absolute essence the absolute truth behind all that is alive that Brahman inhabits all beings and inhabits you and me and trees and frogs and everything else and so therefore anything that's alive is in some way a deity because it is inhabited by the divine essence the absolute truth and so some people would say that there are even more than 330 million deities nudism and this this leads to some of the principles in terms of actions that they they pursue in in hinduism within the vedas the sama veda in ayurveda are simply reorganizing pieces of the Rig Veda the oldest and most important of them's for use in various kinds of services and rituals and things like that the atharvaveda is actually a collection of various almost magical in cart of invitations it in fact is considered very dangerous the story is that women who have read it casually and not taking precautions if they were pregnant they had miscarriages because it involves various ways of blessing and cursing and whatnot and it's it's not very very often read the next level is the Upanishads the upon shots a lily tomlin one time in science Priscilla for intelligent life in the universe you ever seen that play yeah very funny Lily Tomlin's hilarious in that and there's a line in there said well you got just this morning I was reading in Upanishads which you don't usually hear people say that the Apollo shows are very ancient philosophical texts they deal with the meaning of life and how we achieve the high objectives in life but they really are philosophy some people focus on your punish us if they especially see Hinduism is moral philosophy than a religion so the apana shots are very ancient writings of philosophical wisdom we then have a second kinda Shruti or heard literature's first and then they shrieky or memorize or remembered these are epic stories these are poetry these are the great stories not so much teaching stuff as examples that you can learn from there is the Ramayana is a story about Rama one of the manifestations warding or avatars of Vishnu the Mahabharata is one of those popular righties it is the longest epic poem in the world of any kind and massive I mean that the Ramadan is seven volumes these are not light reading they're not something you go oh I'll take that on the cruise I'll knock that out a couple of days the Bhagavad Gita is one of the most important probably the most important writing to most people in the Hindu religion it is the one that gives guidance to life it was especially important for instance to the Mahatma Gandhi will have this big of me he's called it his spiritual dictionary because it is about self-sacrifice and the need for self-sacrifice in order to achieve what is necessary and good in the world and so much of his doctrine of self-sacrifice of passive resistance came from the things that he felt he learned from lack of Akita so these were some of the major reading and you'll notice that some of these like the bhagavad-gita is a section of the Mahabharata because most of this is too big for people are willing to read and besides for someone who's low income somebody's poor they probably wouldn't have access today but the priests Hindu priests will have memorized some or most or even all of this and the these texts will be available in Locust Hill Hindu shrines and temples so it is accessible to people but there are smaller versions of it that people really get injured in addition there are also sutras which are collections of aphorisms you know one-liners if you will in the form of manual or text the for instance the Kama Sutra I'm going to talk about common in a minute that is kama is one of the objectives of human life and it is the seeking of satisfaction and pleasure including sexual pleasure that Kama Sutra it's a lot of things it talks about the the perfect the ideal life you know you wake up in the morning and you greet the Sun and you arrange flowers and you enjoy the smell of them and you you know you meet your loved one and you talk to good friends and you pet your dog and you all these wonderful things that will give you a satisfying life including later meeting your loved one and at that point the Kama Sutra becomes a sex manual because the achieving of pleasure is one of thee is what kama means the cheating of personal didn't the satisfaction of personal desires including sexual pleasure so it's very popular in the West for some reason the Kama Sutra and there's also the principle of tantric sex which is part of its come out of Hinduism as well there then are the Puritans the ancient texts that eulogized the deities that speak in great flowing terms about the deities and then the yoga's the ritual sacrifice part of the Vedas to instruct people how they need to proceed with ritual worship of the various deities now I'm going to give you five principles for denominations eleven beliefs three Karma's four yoga's for purposes 10 disciples disciplines and four classes both your head is gonna explode I did not did not warn you this was going to be complicated and a partridge in a pear tree usually if you saw my last two lectures I use a lot of images on the screen I don't like to just stick words on the screen but in the case there's so much detail here the only way to get through 45 minutes or so is to put the principal's up and let you see them with your eyes as well as listen to me or you and I'm not unrealistic you're only going to get about 3% of this anyway but if later on when you're a Mumbai or Bangalore or anywhere else if you hear a term expression and it links back then I've done my job so that's why we're doing this I don't expect you to remember all this the five principles of Hinduism number one God exists now when we say that they're talking about God being the Brahman or they talk about the absolute oh I'll talk about ohm in a minute you've seen the movies where somebody's - they're not going home that's supposed to be an expression of Brahma the absolute reality and I'll show you the symbol for that a minute the the expression of Brahman the absolute essence who is God is in many forms especially the Trinity or tri Moorthy they call it an in Hindi of Brahma who is the god creator the Vishnu who is the preserver and Shiva the destroyer and I'll show you photographs of them in just a moment the second principle is that all human beings are divine as I said all people in fact all living things have present in them some aspect of the brahmana this essential truth or absolute reality that exists what they were called assume us this and in Latin so the idea is that God is in you this is where a lot of the sort of New Age religions and by the way they're not new there they're very old the idea that find that God that is in you comes really back to the ancient Hindu ideas that all of us have a divinity in us because all of us have inside us the presence of the Brahman the absolute reality who is divine then there is unity of existence through love the idea we have an obligation to love to do good and that we therefore in that way we are united with all other existing creatures the idea of religious harmony that there is no should be no conflict in this and then the knowledge of what are called the three genes ganja which is the sacred river the river Ganges is considered actually a deity within Hinduism and it is an expectation that every practicing Hindu will at one time or another in their life wash in the Ganges no matter where else they are in the world those who are close to it do that much more often but it is considered the sacred River and this has a lot to do with the purity idea their washing in the Ganges the second G is eita the sacred script that we just talked about the Shruti and to be able to go back and read the Vedas and the Upanishads are the focus your life on that and then the Gayatri which is the sacred mantra it can be the only the ancient writings give a number of different mantras which you might think of as prayers although they're usually sung and by the practicing of these pre-written prayers mantras you can achieve greater closeness with the divine the Hindu concept of deity as I mentioned several times already the Brahmin and don't confuse Brahmin and Brahma that's different Brahmin is the one the supreme absolute the unity of all reality the ultimate of all existence it is the source of all that is alive then we have the try more team or the basic Trinity of the three most important or powerful gods there is Brahma again don't confuse brahmana with Brahma Brahma is the creator god now sounds pretty powerful but if the major gods Brahma is actually one of the least powerful the the belief in Hinduism is that Brahma had to have a stronger God present in order for him to be able to his creation but then the second is Vishnu Vishnu who is often manifest who has has avatars of Krishna and Rama - the most popular avatar deities is the preserver Vishnu is considered by many perhaps more than any other deity as being the most important and most powerful I think it's fair to say that that from our perspective I believe that we need to look at Hinduism as a nano theistic religion which means you can believe that many gods exist that you choose to worship just one in the case of Vishnu those people who choose Vishnu is the one god they're especially going to focus on in worship because let's face it you can't focus on 330 million gods they follow a path called by an idea they ISM watch the Bey ISM that is a denomination if you will within Hinduism that focuses on the worship of Vishnu the third of the Trimurti or Trinity is Shiva the destroyer that sounds worse than it is because the idea is that something must die in order for something to be reborn so as the destroyer because they don't believe that when you die you really are gone they believe you're going to back unless your achieve moksha then Shiva is actually seen in this mint as a positive for the most part but Shiva is the one there's some negative sites Tichina some others like Kali and Goregaon two female goddesses who are avatars of Sheba that are pretty nasty creatures that you saw Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was last night if we show last night or this not tonight the whole thing we're there what's the Temple of Doom that's it where they're reaching into pulling out people's hearts those who are worshippers of colleague who is one of the manifestations or avatars of Shiva took kind of a dark turn there for a while and then we also have Shakti or Devi that is the divine mother those who by the way choose to worship Shiva primarily on if they did their denomination skull Shiva ease them those who worship Shakti the divine mother or Debbie she's sometimes called practice shot theism and then there are other gods Ganesha the all know Ganesha what's distinctive about Ganesha elephant head who wouldn't know that and that should the elephant head of God and most people don't notice the fact that when Ganesh is represented this elephant head of God is riding on a mouse whichever Novus a look at it next time and so Ganesha is the patron of writing and Arts and Sciences of intellectual pursuit Ganesha is the remover of barriers elephant right so and that's just one of the most beloved and favorite gods they're also Surya who is the chief solar deity they Hindus do worship the astronomy in terms of the Sun the moon etc Surya the solar God is a primary focus now there's smart ism is a denomination and they worship a collection of five gods including Ganesha Surya and others this is not Arabic I know people C doesn't think it's Arabic this is Sanskrit the ancient language that is the foundation for the Hindi the some other modern Indian languages and also the foundation language for Hinduism this is three characters put together and they form the ohm ohm which is the divine sound it represents the Brahma also one of the characters in here is the character for at my Atman is your personal soul my personal soul my inner being the the deepest source of what makes me me is my Atman it's my soul well the idea is that my soul or Ockman is part of and given to me by Brahma and so the character for the Atman is included in this sanskrit character which means the brahmana that's the divine that is in me you then have the three try morty Brahma the Creator looking in all directions at once you have Vishnu the protector who's always shown with a blue skin for instance and is holding various items in his forearms and then you have Shiva the destroyer Shiva always has a third eye and often has necklace of skulls and there are other characteristics as well but they are the Creator the protector and the destroyer of these three mission to the protector or preserver and Shiva the destroyer are the ones that are most often considered the most powerful Hindu beliefs and terminology I'm to give you a bunch of words now and I have to do this because it's the easiest way for me to talk about these important principles that exist you flip over here first is Dharma Dharma means that which supports the universe it's what is right what is the ultimate truth rightness balance it's the way that it ought to be that is Dharma and it is the dominant philosophical principle for what Hinduism is trying to accomplish karma interesting the you know Dharma you remember the 1990s comedy series Dharma and grey that was an interesting name but I can top it I had a friend of mine who's the daughter of Christian missionaries and they named their daughter karma karma are the accumulated sum of a person's good and bad deeds whatever you do has consequences karma is the plus or minus that you're making to your column in terms of your actions because it will come back then some saara is the continuing cycle of birth life and death and rebirth it is transmigration of the soul what we often would call reincarnation samsara the Atman as I said is your your spirit or true self of every person they have a true self that is not cannot be changed in any way it's who they are the avatar a deliberate descent of a deity to earth a manifestation of a deity in some other form on earth the a mantra a sacred other it's a sound or syllable word or group of words believed to have power they're not just noises it's believed that they have real power this is why you know reading some of the Vedic writings they believe can be dangerous because words have power you have to be prepared for it Yoga how many all have ever taken a yoga class right good it's a good thing but yoga in Hinduism is a path or practice of discipline for the mind body and spirit I'm going to give you the different kinds of yoga in just a minute just because you've been doing yoga class does not mean you became an into miss understandings pooja is worship or prayer directed to Brahma or his avatars bhakti is devotional practices especially the personal gods most Hindu families will have their own personal God they will choose one and they will set up a more feet it's called which is an icon or a an idol you might say to that particular deity that is their household God they they may recognize others Shiva Vishnu others and in fact they maybe want those one of those might be the one they choose but they will worship their own God in their own homes through the morphe and that's called bhakti diva's or angelic beings or lesser gods at which there are more than 330 million and then a insa is the Hindu principle of non-violence you all know about the fact that cows are allowed to wander the streets in the Indian cities in phenomenally Hindu cities the reason for that is because the cow represents the mother goddess but more than that most seriously practicing Hindus are lacto vegetarians because part of their belief the belief about himsa is not killing any living being because all beings have manifestation of Brahma the ultimate reality in them they are in some way divine so they do not kill cows and eat them a lot of lecto vegetarians will not eat anything that has had to be killed Jainism which came out of Hinduism which we'll talk about a few days is the ultimate expression of that in that a Jain practitioner a serious one will wear a face mask and carry a small broom and when they walk along this keeps them from inhaling any insects and killed and they brush the sidewalk in front of them so that they don't step on anything and kill it that's how far they carry and James series Jainism in himsa the non you know the non killing of a principle of non-violence there are three Karma's and four yoga's the first Karma is the accumulated sum of karma is the accumulated sum of good and bad deeds the first one is pre Jelena or current what you do today the active karma the plus and minus of your actions being done now the effects of which you will not know till later but those who run comes around okay you'll feel it later the second kind is called sanchita this is the accumulated karma from past lives that has followed you to the present one of the reasons that historically they have supported a caste system called the barniz in in the hindu beliefs is the belief is if you were born poor and as a servant then this is a result of something you did in the past if you were born wealthy or in you know too great good fortune then that's because of something positive you did in the past these are results of sanchita the past accumulation of karma based upon how you live your life and then there is the privada the fruit-bearing that's the part of the unalterable sanchita that has led to where you are today okay in other words that's the practical manifestation of the Sun Cheeta in your life so there are three kinds of Karma's all of which from either now or the past effect where you are now and will effect where you are in the future yoga our Hindu paths or practices of discipline they are how you can achieve greater righteousness in your life to achieve what Brahman desires of you there is karma yoga which is in doing what is right there is not a yoga which is the knowledge leading to awareness so acting right learning and becoming aware the third Raja Yoga is meditation to cultivate the mind and the fourth kind of yoga is bhakti yoga love towards God in worship bhakti is how you practice puja the worship of the deities now all of those may involve physical disciplines and exercises as well including twisting yourself in demand natural contortions sometimes but if you have had a yoga class you've not done any of this unless you really went to a you know a spiritual yoga master while you have done is hatha yoga a long time ago they created a purely secular version of yoga which is intended to help improve the body and the mind make one you know both more flexible healthier etc that's called hatha yoga it does not have any spiritual connotations it is entirely a physical discipline and a very healthy one all the research has demonstrated that but Yoga is one of the ways in which a Hindu person can gain righteousness that they're supposed to be achieving and then the four aims the Porter Chavez of Hinduism the doctrine of the fourfold end of life these are the goals we should have the hashtag Dharma the domestic religion that is for us we are called the the property unless there's somebody in the group that has chosen to be a renunciant Hindu monk you are profiting those who are living in the world we have four goals for our life according to Hinduism one dharma of righteousness right living we need to live right we need to be good secondly our top wealth and material prosperity unlike some religions Hinduism not only doesn't condemn gaining wealth and advocates one of the things are supposed to pursue to gain wealth and prosperity than to use it in the right way but to seek wealth third is Tama as we said Commons gratification of the senses pleasure sensuality particularly sexual and mental enjoyment this is encouraged you should pursue this fourth is moksha which is liberation from samsara and rebirth the supreme goal of humankind to get out of the samsara cycle of birth life death rebirth now those are the four goals for us for ordinary people the poverty if you are a mid-weight deep meaning someone who has renounced the world who is living as a Hindu month then there is only one goal for you and that is moksha the rest of it gaining wealth in gratification of the senses trying to live righteousness in some way all of those are not your problem they're not your goal your whole focus is to discipline yourself in a way that you can get out of samsara and gain moksha the release from having to be reborn ten disciplines Satya the truth always tell the truth I him suck non-violence against people and all other living creatures third the Brahma Tyria which is non adultery or in some cases celibacy it means you know to be sexually conservative in terms of your relationship with your spouse the ostia no stealing and even more no desire to possess something that is not rightfully yours oops the Buddha gotta which is non corruption to never do something that is dishonest or false but to be true the shout that Elana should say these first by are considered the five principles of morality within Hinduism for all people then we have shell-shocked cleaning this cleanliness some posh which is contentment to find satisfaction in your life the squatting gaya the reading of scriptures tapas which are not small Spanish bites of food it means austerity perseverance penance to be able to to have patience and stick with it it just made that word up the issue out of crime that which is regular prayers these are the ten disciplines of Hinduism which are advocated in in their holy writings now the hint of social classes most of you have heard about they are called bar nuts in Hinduism they are categories of life that it's believed that you are born into they are referred to in the Shastras the holy writings especially in the Bhagavad Gita and identifies that all people belong to one of four of these social classes there is serious disagreement as to whether or not the bhagavad-gita is saying that this is necessary inquire or simply observing this as as what is and who's been responsible for maintaining this the top category or class or Varna are the Brahmins pathetic teachers and priests the religious leaders second we have the Kshatriyas which are the warriors and kings the third mantra or Varna is the Vice yet farmers and merchants and the fourth are the Shu dress servants and laborers whether it was intended that way or not it historically typically has been interpreted that whichever class you were born into you're supposed to stay there and that the opportunities that you have in life are going to be strictly along the line of what partner you were born into that's what we know of is the caste system within these four there are hundreds of more sub levels the lowest levels of the drawers were called the untouchable so the reason is because typically they were given the work to do like touching dead bodies or you know skinning animals or cleaning toilets or things that were considered polluting remember cleanliness is very important the purification kinds of things because of that they were considered polluted and it could not be touched by anyone because that pollution would be carried on it so they were the lowest passed there has been much opposition to this over the years as you can imagine the British worked very hard to try to get rid of this as a caste system some people now historians Indian historians were looking back and saying that in many ways the British during your occupation of India encouraged this in some ways by the way they treated people though the kind of positions they gave them the jobs that people are assigned to but this is not illegal in terms of any enforcement of this although socially it is still practice especially in rural areas it is true that there has been a President of India who was from the Shu drug class now the president is mostly just a symbolic position the Prime Minister's the one who grunts the government's but still is pretty significant so that have made changes and they're still making changes but especially in the rural areas this is still very much a controlling social factor this is the largest temple it is in Delhi it's the Schwaben area the ashitaba dump I don't by the way couldn't tell I don't speak either Hindi or Sanskrit but this is the largest temple in the world these words are very hard to pronounce within a temple like this they have more thieves or icons statues of the various deities there may be any and even so special focus of a temple and it will have central place or the major deities maybe serve in the center and people have the ability to walk around the courtyard inside around these deities to provide offerings of food which which is a standard thing that they do in a home when people are a family is worshiping typically a good Hindu would wake up in the morning and bathe so that they're cleansed they would come to the more tea of their favorite God and they would first announce a bow they would announce who they are and welcome that the God is present in their home and then commit something in terms of here's why I'm here here's what I desire and then they would make an offering a food or drink and they would do prayers mantras to the God and then afterwards the family together and they would take the food and consume it it's not like they put the food down there and they leave it in scope why isn't he eating that you know so they then consume the food or you can go to a temple that have a priest do that for you and then the priest will share in the food as well so this is the basic faith of Islam didn't give other than take or in his law of Hinduism anybody who's Islamic would have been offended by that this is Hinduism I'm going to spend just a few more minutes talking briefly about Zoroastrianism and then I'll take some questions so our Western ISM this is the only slide I have there is again a very ancient religion it came out of Iran or Persia when in the 8th century and following the hundreds of following so the the Islamic forces from Saudi Arabia came over and invaded Persia and they persecuted the sural Astrium if and they many of them most of them in fact fled further to the east into India there they became known as parsy's which said before is the Hindi word for Persian the Zoroastrian religion while very ancient it's basically is that there is one BA a lot of people think it's monotheistic I think it's dualistic but there is a primary deity who is called a and a Mazda which means the wise Lord a hoarder Mazda and in fact this this fate is sometimes called Mazda yeah ISM after after the name of their primary deity there is a secondary being that exists who is called Ahriman there are other names for them as well so you have the Creator God who is the source of all good who is called a bordo Mazda you have the evil spirit in fact one of the names for our Imam actually means the the angry spirit whereas the other means for a looter Mazda are the benevolent spirit those two are seen as having been in conflict with one another sort of fighting tooth and nail for control of the universe since the beginning of creation this is why I think it's more dualistic they would say that more Mazda with in Zoroastrianism that Ahura Mazda is all-powerful but not all I'm nipa tenth I haven't quite figured out what the difference is but that's what they say and that's why he hasn't been able to defeat a demon yet eventually they believe that he will overthrow ar-rahman and that all things will be very bright in creation there is a major focus and it's represented here and here in fire and water those are two powerful system symbols they are believed to be the primary pieces of creation that fire is the thing from which you gain all knowledge and so most of the temples the Zoroastrian or Parsi temples are seen as temples of fire and they will have a fire altar even in people's homes if there's over a screen ISM they will have a fire altar now today any source of light is consumed legitimate fire representation so even a light wall they will fire is always present in Zoroastrian worship they believe that fire came out of water that water was created first and that it is the source and so anytime you go to a Zoroastrian or Parsi temple you will see fire and water represented as major elements or things there there is a lot in Zoroastrianism that that focuses similarly on righteous conduct righteous act that human beings are given a right of choice we have a free will we are responsible to do right things to do good things and if we almost like karma if we do good good will return to us if we do evil that evil will occur to us they have there's three statements this this is a the primary symbol for Zoroastrianism this is a place actually still in Iran this big stone you'll notice that this is the same symbol here and see the birds overhead the idea of order versus chaos is how they see the difference between a whoreo mazda and automata it's light and dark it's its order and chaos because of that a major feature like some other religions but even more so in Zoroastrianism is is the idea of purification that you cannot allow yourself to be polluted and so it's a long process by which you then get cleansed again and they believe that dead bodies I think I mentioned before dead bodies are a promise or some pollution as our bodily fluids and you know read some of the laws of Leviticus they get into some of the same things which but enduro astron ISM and this is we practiced in India now when a person dies they are cleansed but then they are put at the top of what's called a tower of silence and allowed to be eaten by birds their body their flesh is cleansed by birds then their bones are cremated and in cases where because of law or whatever they're not allowed to do that then they will either cremate the body and put the ashes or they can't cremate them the body inside a lime mortar sealed gray so that there will be no leakage into the soil because that's considered a pollution of the soil from the dead body so they're very particular about that but towers of silence when they're still allowed to be used the bodies of the Dead will be put there to be and their flesh to be consumed by birds and then they will deal with the bodies they owns later on that is not legal in many places now for the very strange reason that the use of antibiotics in people and in animals has almost killed off all of the various carrion birds in these parts of the world and you know antibiotics and various other chemicals that we have our bodies are killing the birds and so in many places they're not allowed to put the bodies out anymore because of that there aren't enough birthday to consume all the flesh anyway there are three principles conduct in Zoroastrianism bhumata Pookie oughtta move our stuff which means good thoughts good words good deeds that's the direction they also other major statements of their beliefs are there is only one path and that is the path of truth there is never justification for lying or deceit before anything else it was must always be true and then third do the right thing because it is the right thing to do and then all beneficial rewards to come will come to you also that's sort of the karmic effect as I was talking do what's right because it's right not because you're going to get rewarded for it even if you're going to get punished for it you do the right thing this is very much part of their belief system and the belief is that eventually hota Mazda will overcome a demon that he will destroy all of the chaos and institute order and those who have been obedient and following him have been righteous in their lives will be resurrected to live with him the belief is that life is only a temporary State anyway so this is these are the basic beliefs you know you have in the symbols of fire this is this is a symbol of a guardian spirit because they do believe in angels and demons and guardian spirits in addition to the Creator Laura Mazda and the sort of demonic power of a demon and again you'll see these symbols of the fire pin as well very quick introduction of Zoroastrianism when you go if you go on these spiritual legacy to the tower of silence I don't know if it won't buy they still are allowed to put out you know the dead bodies to be consumed by virtue or not we will not be allowed to go in to the zoroastrian temple or tower silence because we are not members but you'll at least have a chance to see it from the outside and probably you will see the symbol because it is usually on any any Zoroastrian Center temple Tower of silence

Channel: LakesideInstitute

Views: 145,380

Rating: 4.7253027 out of 5

Keywords: Windstar, Ross Arnold, Hinduism, World Religions, Comparative Religions

Id: 27OtioEc0hM

Length: 55min 47sec (3347 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 31 2017