By contributing writer Gautama Mehta, originally published at KidSpirit Online
Growing up in a Hindu family in New York, I've always been taught that I should try my best, but understand that after I've done what I personally can, I should leave the rest to God.
Well, not specifically God, but whatever factors there are beyond my control. There is, in my religion, the concept of dharma, or duty: each person has his or her own righteous path to follow, and at different times in your life, your dharma could be being a good student, or parent, or hard worker, and so on.
Hindus are taught to have humility. Ancient Hindu artists were never supposed to sign their names on their work, and temple artists, when creating statues of gods, are always supposed to leave a deliberate imperfection to show that they cannot really represent God.
It's a religion that decries affectation. It doesn't presume to be the one and only "true" faith: there is no conversion ceremony. All the Hinduism I have grown up with, has taught me to be free of misconceptions about my personal importance, my own status when viewed against all the other billions in the world. I don't know how "Hindu" this is, but my mother has always told me that the religion teaches only to do one's best, and not worry about the outcome. I don't know what it means for an idea like this to be "Hindu," as opposed to just a cultural notion that, in my limited experience, follows the faith wherever it goes. Hinduism is like that: Gandhi's ideals are considered just as Hindu as age-old scriptural doctrines.
In my family (and many others) when a baby turns one, we shave off its hair as a sacrifice to God for the beautiful baby, and also to protect against vanity or conceit. That's the beauty of traditions like these: we can interpret and re-interpret, internalize and re-internalize, to fit with our culture and ethics. The root, of course, is Hinduism, but Hinduism is evolving, is changing. It's an intensely personal religion. There is no Hindu Church or centralized authority. Hinduism can mean incredibly right-wing fundamentalists who use it as an excuse for violence, or it can mean my mother, a self-proclaimed atheist who is one of the most devout Hindus I know.
But there's a contradiction. Culturally, Hindus (or Indians in general) have a lot of pressure to do well, to succeed. Especially immigrant families like mine here in America, which are the ones I know best. In general, immigrant cultures tend to value achievement, because of how hard it is for them to make it in a foreign country where they are poor and discriminated against. Indians in America have done well, though. I see us in Ivy League schools and computer software, in spelling bees and politics. And we're still stereotyped as the culture that pressures its children into doing better than all the American kids, coaching the kids after school in trigonometry and computer science, and if a kid isn't valedictorian in every subject then he's beaten. Obviously, this is an exaggeration, but the philosophy is still there -- the intense competition, the praise given for having one's name everywhere. In India, kids have an incredibly strict education system, learning everything at a much more advanced rate than I am here in New York, and students are strictly ranked in every aspect. There's a rigorous Hindu caste system only now falling apart, and still very much present in India's villages. My mother, a Brahmin (on the top of the ladder) talks about how growing up in India, she was told that she was superior to everyone else, and though she hates it, she still feels that inside her today. Harsh competition is encouraged from an early age in most Indians. So why the discrepancy between the religion and the culture?
Perhaps the discrimination Indians felt everywhere they went instilled in them the sense of having to be the best, and nurtured in them the insecurity that causes the egotism that is so warned against by Hinduism. My father's family, for example, has spent the last four generations moving across the globe in search of business, everywhere from a rural village in India to Kenya to Calcutta. When my dad was 14, he moved from Bombay to Queens, N.Y., and he describes the move as one of the most influential moments in his life. When he got here, he experienced flagrant racism at his local Catholic high school, in which he was the only minority student, and this has shaped the way he thinks and acts today. But in spite of all the hardships they've faced Indian immigrants like my father have kept religion with them, trusting it to guide them, preserving its traditions as best they can. For him, the Bhagavad Gita, probably the religion's most important text, is the one book he would want on a desert island. But he didn't discover it through his parents. He found it in an undergraduate course on Hinduism at NYU.
In this way, his Hinduism is like mine: Growing up, he knew the Hinduism that his grandparents told stories about, the Hinduism of gods and demons and many-headed animals. But the other side of Hinduism, its philosophy, is something too personal to tell kids on your lap stories about. I know Hindu mythology partly from my Ammamma (mother's mother) telling me stories as a kid, and partly from Amar Chitra Katha, a popular Indian comic book series illustrating myths and scripture. But to try and understand the reasons for the inconsistencies I've seen in my community, I decided I actually had to read the stuff.
I read through the Bhagavad Gita, expecting to find an archaic, illegible piece of scripture that would make no sense to me. But instead I found lines that illustrated perfectly ideals that still make perfect sense, many centuries later.
Let me give a bit of background on the Gita, as the book is commonly known. It's a chapter in the epic poem Mahabharata, which is about an ancient war between two sets of brothers. The Gita, Wikipedia tells me, was written between the 5th and 2nd centuries B.C. It's 700 verses long.
The story of the Gita is a conversation between Arjuna, a good-guy on one side of the war riding a chariot into battle, and Krishna, his charioteer who's also a god. Arjuna feels guilty about having to kill his cousins who are fighting on the other side, and he expresses these doubts to Krishna, sitting down in the chariot, letting his bow and arrow slip out of his hand. The result is an intense, beautiful dialogue about life, death and reincarnation. But the part that interested me most was when Krishna talked about ego, and "selfless service."
His initial answer to Arjuna's questions is that it is his dharma to kill his cousins. It wouldn't be immoral to kill them, because it is a part of the cycle of life and death that exists for everyone. "For a warrior, nothing is higher than a war against evil," Krishna counsels. And anyway, even when a body dies, he says, its soul, or Self, lives on, living forever in future and past, in an eternal cycle of karma and reincarnation until it is finally released from karma by defeating ego and materialism and sin. "You were never born; you will never die," he explains.
The ultimate object of this cycle is to become immortal and "be united with the Lord." The way to do this is to "renounce all selfish desires and break away from the ego-cage of 'I,' 'me,' and 'mine.'" In another place, he says, "Deluded by identification with the ego, a person thinks, 'I am the doer.'"
Another theme Krishna stresses is work. "You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work... The ignorant work for their own profit, Arjuna; the wise work for the world." This, more than anything else, clashes for me with the stress my culture places on rewards and achievement.
When I read all this, I was fascinated by it. It resonated so truly with all the lessons I had been taught were Hinduism. All the principles I was taught came right out of its philosophy. The humility asked for by Krishna is simultaneously present and absent in his followers.
I don't think that the sense of pride only comes from immigrant cultures like mine. I think it's present in India too. There is constant religious violence between Hindus and Muslims, another example of the frenzied, insecure need to uphold whatever you have. India, as many Indians will readily brag, was once a huge world power, one of the most advanced cultures on the planet, the discoverer of zero, the creator of our numeral system, the inventor of chess. I have heard these facts so many times I know them and a million others by heart, all talking about "how __ India is," how India is "the most __ nation in the world."
But India was colonized by the British, and wherever its people went, they were put down. They were weaker, poorer and darker than everyone else, and that had to leave a mark on them. I don't know if I'm enough of a historian to attribute it to whatever they must have faced, but it's easy to imagine how all those factors could contribute to a collective need for self-esteem, that could have resulted in what I experience today.
When he wrote this, Gautama Mehta was 15 years old and on the KidSpirit Editorial Board. His article is reprinted with the permission of KidSpirit Magazine and can be found here. Gautama Mehta lives in Brooklyn, NY, and is into writing, music, art, math and social justice.
Follow KidSpirit on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kidspiritonline
Humility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Humility - a virtue needed for every seeker - Forum for Hindu ...
Why is humility a mandatory attribute for ... - Uniting Hindus globally!
nature being earth?
you must understand everything as it relates to you and your spirit
and come to terms with all your spirit was in the past
(or, as I see it, without agreeing with it...as your spirit is right now, but in different places)
and is now
and essentially
quietly
back yourself out of the door of world
sweeping the path in front of you
(which is really behind you)
clear of your imprint.
as you go?
Exit stage left.
that,
as God's people spread out onto the globe...
spiritual leaders or spiritual overseers
followed them
under God..
and each
took a different approach
with their group...
their religion...
under God...
Could the Hindu approach
be much like the Christian approach
but with more overseeing...
(I see many similarities in how we were both taught to
do our best and not worry about the outcome..
we were also taught to excel...
but when the word "compete"
was used in my house,
I was reminded, in my thoughts,
that competing was the surest
way to become hated and
noticable..and the hated and
noticed may reach the top
but they do not always
reach it without all of the
fights...which keep them from
getting all of the pieces of information
in the quiet, unassuming places..
I am taken by the belief
that the mind is still part of nature...
that there is no free will...
that what you bring to your body and your life is coming from PAST lives?
that you will have been saved when your karma becomes zero..
zeros out...all of your positive and negative actions
cancel each other...
if you a
Western concept of liberty as a political system: e.g. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". It's a very broad framework. It does not go into the minutia or stipulate what it is that would make you happy etc.. Does it mean, that you can bring in a rigid system of communism or fascism ideology under that framework of "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? Obviously not since those political ideologies would violate the basic framework of liberty in the political context. However, you can still have socialism as normative values within the frame work of "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
Now apply the same concept when it comes to Hindu religion vs a vis other religions. There is no set ideology that Hindus should adhere to, to be a Hindu.. Hinduism is freedom of spiritual quest for an individual as long as the framework is not violated. if you insist that your belief or ideology is the only true one and the rest are false or that every other faith except yours is in violation, then you are violating the basic freedom of spiritual quest and most Hindus would not accept that as being Hindu.
Process of scientific quest: Scientists and the process of scientific quest is about the pursuit of that never reaching wall of absolute knowledge. Its the pursuit and not necessarily about finding all the answers there is to know. They constantly keep pushing that wall of ignorance a little further and the constant debate to fine tune. Yet, you would find some individuals (Creationists) who would use this as a weakness to deride scientists and what they do for they claim their Green Goblin up in the heavens has created it all.
In Hinduism, its not about a set of revealed set of truth given to 1 or 2 individual that has adjudicated all questions and that subsequent generation would just have to accept this "adjudicated revealed truth" into perpetuity and that they would be punished if they challenge these "truths" (Its really hearsay packaged as Truths). Instead, Hindu beliefs are really musings of individuals over 4000 years. Its intuitive perceptions of seers while introspecting and meditating deeply without guarantees to what they say is the absolute truth (They are opinions). Its devoid of compulsion by way of intrinsic threats for one to follow and believe what they sayy. These musings still continue and will never end just like scientific musings are a never ending pursuit.
Context 2:
Another illustration is how western liberal ideology is pilloried by some conservative societies of the world by pointing out to the worst in western civilization as an excuse for they not adopting a free society. e.g. They often point to pornography in the west as failure of a free society "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". They conveniently do not realize that westerners do not necessarily celebrate pornography instead consider that a price they have to pay for living in a free society.
Let me apply that to Hinduism. Because there are no rigid rules nor any Institution to enforce any in a "libertarian" faith called Hinduism, naturally you would find some odd and strange practices within Hinduism including some bizarre Tantric rituals. Missionaries and religious supremacists and leftists like Wendy often highlight these sects/practices to point to the failure of Hinduism just like countries that have a tyrannical political system who point to pornography as the central tenet of free society to rationalize the supremacy of their tyrannical ideology/belief system. Most Hindus would tolerate these bizarre tantric practices (within the context of a law and order) but not necessarily celebrate them as Hindu rituals/customs.
It is explained in What is Hinduism By Navaratna Rajaram http://folks.co.in/blog/2012/03/16/understanding-hinduism/
Summary - Hinduism is anadi (beginning-less) and a-paurusheya (without human founder)
The basis of Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma is the quest for cosmic truth, just as the quest for physical truth is the domain of science. The earliest record of this quest is the Rigveda. Its scripture is the record of ancient sages who by whatever means tried to learn the truth about the universe, in relation to Man’s place in the cosmos. They saw nature — including all living and non-living things — as part of the same cosmic equation. This search has no historical beginning. This is not to say that the Rigveda always existed as a literary work. It means that we cannot point to a particular time or person in history and say: “Before this man spoke, the Rigveda did not exist.” On the other hand, we can say this about Christianity and Islam, because they are historical religions.
http://folks.co.in/blog/2009/11/21/paganism-and-the-idea-of-sacred/?dhiti=1
..Dahyabhai Patel
Then the graphic nature when it came to cremating my Father, perhaps it's because I lived in a mollycoddled society, there was nothing to cushion the blow. But I resign to the fact that it was my Father's wish given he was devout. But I don't think it's a strictly Hindu trait, from my experience, many of my friends from all religions & backgrounds have had their moment of dislike from their own experience in their faith. On the flipside, comes pluses, the same amount of people have come out and have glowed in their experiences with faith. Me, my favourite plus was meditation, I was able to beef it up (oops) with my love of music and I find it great when combatting depression. So as the great man himself said, "it's swings & roundabouts". That great man could be of your own choosing
But people not doing anything about it is. Karma influences not the predicament of the world, but one's propensity to react to it.
People confuse "karma" by coupling it with ideas borrowed from "free-will". Actually, karma negates free-will.
In Indian philosophy, the mind is still part of "prakriti" (i.e, nature). There is no capacity for free judgement : the states of mind are influenced by its previous states, including - it is claimed, those from previous lives. Hindu idea of salvation is when one's karma becomes "zero". That is, all positive and negative karma should be exhausted. Then the "purusha" (or the observing self) frees itself from nature : body, mind and ego.
Where and in which conditions a jiva is born depends on its "past karma." The jiva has, however, the free-will to decide how he is going to react to the events that will occur in his life -- will he suffer at every turn, or will he use the obstacles to strengthen himself spiritually.
Hinduism has no concept of salvation. We have moksha, Liberation. You cannot work your way to Liberation. The only way to Liberation is jnanam (Knowledge). However, there are impure vasanas (mental impressions) in our minds that prevent us from assimilating that Knowledge. We can work in the spirit of karma yoga (and bhakti yoga) to eliminate those vasana and purify our minds, which will allow us to assimilate Knowledge.
That being said, let us be very clear: According to Advaita Vedanta, only Knowledge leads to Liberation, nothing else.
Hare Krishna.
Can anyone please explain how an atheist, which means disbelief in Gods and the supernatural can become a devout Hindu, which I presume means to carry out the religious rituals of the Hindu faith??
The other common saying is that Hinduism is a way of Life and not a religion. Again puzzling as there are many Gods in the faith?? Perhaps it should be said to be a religious way of Life, but arent most religions just that??
Technically, we, Hindus, call our religion Sanatana Dharma ("Eternal Dharma"), or Vaidika Dharma ("Vedic Dharma), or even Arya Dharma ("Noble Dharma").
A Hindu is he (or she) who believes that the Vedas are the final authority in all issues regarding dharma and Brahman (God). Now, you can be religious, agnostic, atheist etc and still be a Hindu, if you accept the Vedas as the final authority.
Whether you are a theist (religious) or non-theist (atheist, agnostic etc) depends on how you percieve Brahman. The Vedas teach that Brahman, ultimately, is "impersonal" (nirguna). However, percieved through the fog of maya, Brahman appears to be a Personal God, Isvara. Both ways of looking at Brahman are correct and acceptable according to Hinduism. Hence, you can be a theist and a non-theist and still be a Hindu. (As long as you accept the final authority of the Vedas).
Hope this helped.
Hare Krishna :)
That was good info on the origin of the term "Hindu". Thanks.
So what I could conclude is that an atheist Hindu would practice the traditional and social customs and give a miss to the spiritual and religious part of it.
Again as an atheist Hindu one would possibly accept the Vedas as the final authority on all issues except the religious and Brahman (God in the conventional sense). Correct?
The concept of Brahman as a Personal God or impersonal would still manifest as God, correct?
>"I didnt' know whether you are Indian or not, until now. Your comment gave me doubt, so thanks for the clarification."
LOL! No worries. :-)
I made that Monty Python comment below, because it appeared apposite in this context, given the pathological propensity found among certain Indians (not necessarily you) to blame any and all of India's ills on a "foreign hand", in this case the British.
In the balance of consideration, in my opinion, we lost significant material wealth to the British (just some things) that can easily be recouped through industry and hard work (just look at Japan and Germany, and how they rebuilt their even worse economies after WW2).
But we managed to gain a great deal from the British as well: IDEAS, VALUES, PRINCIPLES, LAWS, STRUCTURE, AND THOUGHTS. All of which are very much in evidence in India today (however imperfectly), and which I feel, serve our nation and its territorial integrity and sense of unity within our collective national consciousness rather well.
We came out of colonization about even, is my sense - or consolation, if you prefer. :-)
I think Shopenhauer had it right: "We, on the contrary, now send to the Brahmans English clergymen and evangelical linen-weavers, in order out of sympathy to put them right, and to point out to them that they are created out of nothing, and that they ought to be grateful and pleased about it. But it is just the same as if we fired a bullet at a cliff. In India our religions will never at any time take root; the ancient wisdom of the human race will not be supplanted by the events in Galilee. On the contrary, Indian wisdom flows back to Europe, and will produce a fundamental change in our knowledge and thought."
How can an Indian like me be "racist" towards other Indians? :-)
I merely stated a fact. The British, though by no means perfect during their years of colonization over India, let us Hindus be, did not interfere with our private religious beliefs, and in a sense, even provided us our sense of "Indianness" that was lacking till then.
Bear in mind what we now take for granted as India is little more than a collection of some 30 odd linguistic and ethnic groups, most of which were under different kingdoms and constantly at war with one another, even under the Mughals.
This had been going on for several thousand years, barring a few exceptions like the Mauryas, the Guptas, and later, Harsha. The South was constantly at strife with the Cholas, Pandyas, Cheras, Chalukyas, and on and on.
It was the British who established proper rule of law, administration, roads, taxation, the civil services, health, education, ABOLISHED SATI, banned Child Marriages, gave us a sense of our PROPER, academic, archeologically based history, and much else besides.
Were the British saints? No.
Did they plunder India for economic reasons? Yes, as did all other empires during the time and before, including Indian empires.
So why this knee-jerk reaction against the Brits, and this desire to decouple them from our 5000 year history? :-)
JEF
Wrt to the British, prior to colonization India accounted for 25% of world GDP before the colonial era, and which was destroyed to 3% by the end of the colonial era. So despite what you have mentioned, there was a wholesale destruction of local industry, making India a source of natural resources rather than industry. Even salt was supposed to be imported, along with textlies rather than being allowed to be made in India. The British in their misguidedness even sought to destroy the teaching of Ayurveda, in preference to modern Western medicine. So there were severe problems caused by both the Muslims and the Christian British.
Understand, regardless of your place of domicile, that you are inheritors to one of the most advanced and sublime spiritual systems in the world! It belongs to you as birthright - NONE can dispossess you of it!
Understand that nothing anyone else can say against you or your worthy faith can detract nor diminish an ounce from it!
Understand that those who seek to drag you down and your mighty faith along with them on foreign shores speak out of the frustration, cynicism, diminution, and the conflict they experience with their own imperfectly understood (not imperfect) faith.
Understand that your faith is perfect, since it was perfected by the might Rishis and Sages of yore who had Direct Access to the Divine and communed with IT and transmitted the Teaching without contamination. A word, or even hum from them could lay mountain ranges to waste.
Understand that NOTHING anyone unacquainted with your Noble Faith says against it can detract one whit from it.
Be secure in the protection afforded by the Sastras, the Sruti, the Smriti, and your Ishwara. This is my WORD.
To this, Noble Hindus, I say:
1) If the Hindu were to ask to himself upon reading this scripture, the Gita: "Why is it located within a war, a conflict, and fraternal spite?"; "Why is Krishna admonishing Arjuna towards violence, when in fact He views All as contained within Him?"; "Why does Krishna locate his peaceful, sublime, plenary, other-worldly philosophy within the context of a very violent, brutish, 'this-worldly' war?"; "Is there such a thing as a Just War?" - Such questions would gladden me, Noble Hindus!
2) If the sincere seeker were to posit: "Why, despite all appeals to non-violence Hinduism makes, are ALL the Hindu Gods, Rama, Krishna, Siva, Vishnu, Indra, Durga, Subrahmanya, all portrayed as having slain and vanquished a foe?"; "How does this leitmotif of violence in Hinduism resolve to the modern NON-VIOLENCE Hindus follow?" - Such questions would gladden me, Noble Hindus!
3) Were the seeker to remonstrate: "The scriptures posit a Soul, yet I feel none. I feel there is no God. I sense there is no Soul. I comprehend there is no End. Is there a Truth?" - Such questions would gladden me beyond measure , Noble Hindus!
The scope and substance of Hinduism is vast and immeasurable beyond belief, O Noble Hindus. Such is my experience.
It is also true that some of the "core" aspects of what it means to be a Hindu some 60 years after Indian Independence, appear to be addressed in the Gita, especially given Gandhi's love for the text. The author quotes with profit the admonition many of us, including I myself, received growing up in a religious Hindu household (especially under a religiously inclined Hindu mother) to "perform your duties and action, but leave the fruits and results to God, or a Higher Power - in the Gita's case, Krishna the Divine Person, viz "karmayeva'dhikaraste ma phaleshu kadacana" etc.
However, it is also my fear that this easy, and somewhat inherited and "microwaveable insta-packed" message of the Gita - or even messages, given the Sankhya, Yoga, Vedanta, and Bhakti influences found therein - provides Indians a certain spiritual smugness and self-satisfaction, in addition to preventing them from truly expanding and enhancing their understanding of the "Hindu" view of