GEMS FROM THE
VISION AND PRACTICE
BEACH 10: HINDUISM FOR THE
NEXT GENERATION
Wave 3: Basics of Hindu Religious Worship
Hinduism
is probably the most ancient religion alive today. We do not even know what it
was known as in those ancient times. Actually we are talking about prehistoric
times when we refer to the origins of Hinduism. The one thing we know for
certain is that what the Hindus consider as their most sacred literature today,
viz., the vedas,
go back to those times. They have come down to us almost in the same form as
they were then. This is one of the first mysteries that a
student learns about Hinduism.
The
Vedas,
collectively constitute the scriptural authority for Hinduism. The language of
the vedas
is Sanskrit. In fact they were never written down by anybody. They
came down from generation to generation by just word of mouth.
They are recited and studied in a characteristically unique way with specific
intonations and accents so that there could be no interpolation or deletion of
the text by any one any time. (For more on this click here ).
The
text has been preserved in the same form for as long as, probably five thousand
years. The earliest time when they were put to writing was the early nineteenth
century when western scholars brought out the printed version of the vedas directly
from the recitations given by experts.
There
are actually four such vedas.
The smallest of them is about three to four times as big as the New Testament.
These vedas
constitute the oldest piece of recorded human experiences
on earth. They talk about God, about Nature, about man, morality, the Ultimate
Reality of life, what happens after death, the fight that goes on in one’s
mental make-up between good and evil, rituals to propitiate gods of the
heavens, man’s duties to the gods of the cosmos, and so on. Finally, they
contain long beautiful poems of praise of the Divine as well as several records
of spiritual experiences by great thinkers called Rishis
in ancient times. This last part is known by the special name
of Upanishads. These are the most treasured
philosophical treatises, discussions and discourses on fundamental matters of
life and death, mind and soul, bondage and freedom. They analyze what is transient
and ephemeral, what is permanent, what is the final truth and what is the
purpose of life. Throughout, the one message that the Upanishads are never
tired of repeating is: Man is essentially divine. (For more on Upanishads, click here)
During
the period of the vedas
as well as in later periods of Hinduism the one basic concept that has been
universally accepted is the transmigratory
career of man’s soul. In other words man’s soul travels from
body to body in its journey of evolution. The central core of Hindu teaching is
contained in this. Though man is basically divine, the divine
is clothed in material external coverings and is camouflaged by the cloud of
dirt accumulated by the mind. Mind clings to the soul in a subtle
way throughout its transmigratory career. Mind is a
nebulous thing which keeps on accumulating impressions, memories and habits of
thinking. These constitute the vAsanAs of the mind or of the person to whom it clings for
the moment.
The
word ‘vAsanA’
means smell. These vAsanAs
are the ones which give the individual his mental personality even before his
upbringing in this life starts having an impact on him. It is something over
which you have no control, because it belongs to your past. This past
determines your level of (spiritual) evolution as of now and also your
tendencies for human behaviour. If they are bad, you
have to contend with them and fight them. This is the meaning of karma theory.
As far as the future is
concerned you are totally free to create new vAsanAs for yourself. But if you
are going to be carried away by the already existing vAsanAs in your system and they
happen to carry you into undesirable avenues, it is nobody’s fault except
yourself. In this sense you are the architect of your fate. But in the sense that your tendencies are born
with you and you have had no control with them when you were born, - as for
instance, you did not choose your parents or your sex -- to that extent you are
ruled by your fate. But again in the sense that even that fate of yours is a
consequence of your own doing in your previous lives, no other force, earthly
or heavenly, is to be blamed for that ‘fate’ except the previous manifestations
of yourself.
Another way of saying this is: The past controls and
monitors you. The future is in your hands.
In
man’s journey to perfection, the ultimate aim is to shed off all these vAsanAs of the
mind, so that the mind, in its pristine, unloaded crystalline purity may
reflect the presence of Divinity, which the Vedas
assure us, is there in every one of us. For this upward path to perfection, in
addition to emphasizing certain basic virtues like humility, self-control and
truth, like all other religions, Hinduism emphasizes two more,
namely, non-violence and detachment. Onto Next
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