Author: admin | Page 15 | Sri Deva Sthanam

March 2, 2014 by admin

God in Hinduism

As surprising as it may seem, Hinduism has no one word “God” as English does. Instead, it has many words that each describe a certain understanding of God. This is something like in many Eskimo (Inuit) languages there is no one word for snow, instead there are many words, each describing snow in its various varieties, as wet, dry, iced, melting, slushy, and so many other forms that people who do not live with snow cannot imagine. In a similar way, Hinduism is rich in theology and so there are many words for God. Yet, if we needed to suggest a fast equivalent probably the word Bhagavan might be the easiest equivalent to God in English.

There is a famous verse from the Bhagavat Purana, (1.2.11) a popular devotional text, that gives a good understanding of how “God” is generally understood in Hindu terms. The text begins by saying that God is beyond human understanding, No words or human conceptions can even begin to touch God, none the less, humans have three basic and limited ways in which they try to conceive of God. These three ways are as brahman, as paramatma and as bhagavan. Brahman is God as raw energy, as force. It is an impersonal understanding of Divinity. Paramatma is God as indwelling spirit, a kind of generic presence that exits within all things. Bhagavan is God in personal terms, as Krishna, Rama, Shiva, Lakshmi, Durga and the myriad of other Gods and Goddess. In this way, as impersonal force, as indwelling spirit and as transcendent personality, human beings conceive of the Divine. According to the Bhagavat Purana such understandings are universal categories of divine “seeing” and we suggest that they are expressed in one form or another within all religions.

Here are a few basic “God terms” that are commonly used within Hinduism:

Om–God as Divine Sound
Bhagavan–God as Supreme Personality,
Isha–God as Supreme Lord
Purusha–God as Supreme Man
Atman-Supreme Soul
Brahman–God as impersonal force or energy
Sat–Supreme Permanence
Cit–Supreme Consciousness
Ananda–Supreme Bliss
Satya–Supreme Truth
Mahesha–the Great Lord
Tat–That
Tattva–Absolute Truth
Purnam–The Whole
Eka–the One

Indeed Sanskrit has many many such words to describe God. These are at least some of the more common ones that most people may hear.

Divinity as one Desires

There is one more concept of Divinity that is worthy of note. This is the concept of ishta devata, or one’s personal way of perceiving Divinity. Ishta means ” desired” and devata means “divinity,” and so ishta devata can be roughly translated as, “Divinity as one desires.” If you recall the term adhikara, which meant that each person is at a unique place in spiritual evolution and therefore has “rights” to a certain level of spiritual awareness, in a similar way, God, being limitless, can be approached in an infinite number of ways according to the adhikara of the individual. Each individual has the right, therefore, to conceive of and worship God according to his or her unique position and pychology. How this plays-out in practice is most interesting. Some people, for example, will want to worship God in a very personal and direct way and so they will focus on the worship of a specific personal form of God; perhaps as Rama or Krishna. Even within this personal approach of worsphip some people will want to worship only Krishna in one of His childhood forms, as baby Krishna (Gopala) or as the young Butter Thief (Makhan Chora). There is a huge number of devotional texts devoted to Krishna as the Butter Thief. Others may prefer to see their personal God as Shiva, Ganesha or in female form as Devi. Others, however, may consider the worship of a personal God to be limiting and prefer to approach Divinity in more abstract terms, as brahman or paramatma, for example. Consequently, there is room for huge differences between individuals according to the principle of ishta devata, and from a Hindu perspective of Divinity, there is no conflict.

March 2, 2014 by admin

Non Harming: Ahimsa

There is a chilling reflection on the nature of life in the Bhagavata Purana: “Those who are devoid of hands are prey for those with hands; those devoid of legs are prey for those with legs. The weak are the life of the strong, for the rule holds: one living being is food for another.” Against this back drop of harsh reality, there is the principle of ahimsa, which Hinduism upholds as one of its highest ideals. The word ahimsa is derived from the Sanskrit root hims, meaning to strike. Himsa is injury or harm. A-himsa is the opposite of this, non harming or nonviolence.

Ahimsa manifests in various ways. Mahatma Gandhi used ahimsa as a powerful weapon against the British to drive them out of India and to achieve independence. Even Martin Luther King junior, after a trip to India, adopted nonviolence as the hallmark of his civil rights movement in America. Ahimsa is the basis for the vegetarianism within Hinduism and many Hindus even though they may not be vegetarian will not enter a temple or perform puja wearing leather. The principle of ahimsa can directly by derived from the concept of the modes of matter (three gunas) It arises from the mode of goodness, (sattva guna). Ahimsa is also tied into the principle to karma. Treat the universe in a less harmful way and the universe will treat you accordingly. Many followers of ahimsa apply the principle of non harming well beyond just being vegetarian or not wearing leather, but also to not even thinking or speaking in a harmful manner. The Jain religion, which is a sister tradition to Hinduism, in particular, has made ahimsa the very cornerstone of its faith. Mahavira is the founder of Jainism and one of the greatest teachers of ahimsa.

It is interesting to note that in the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna evokes the principle of ahimsa to avoid fighting a terrible war that he knew would destroy the world as he knew it, and yet, Krishna, as God, wanted Arjuna to rise above ahmisa and extolled him to adopt an even higher principle, yoga, and fight the war as a yogi. In the end Arjuna accepted Krishna’s position and fought a devastating war where, according to the Mahabharata, millions of people were killed. Mahatma Gandhi, on the other hand, regularly studied the Gita and held it in highest esteem. The relationship between ahimsa and the Bhagavad Gita is a fascinating study in contradiction and has been a great problem for Hinduism from the earliest of times.

March 2, 2014 by admin

Hindu Astrology, Its Foundations

hindu-gods Astrology is a vast subject that cannot possibly be covered in this primer. However, it is possible to give a basic understanding of the theory behind astrology as it is understood in Hinduism.

In the West, with the onset of modern science and the centralized control of the Churches, astrology became divorced from both the developing sciences, particularly astronomy, and the religious traditions. All this occurred about 500 years ago. Descartes was an astrologer and so were Copernicus and Galileo. Today you cannot find a department of Astrology in any university in the West. This has tended to be the case in other religions as well, but not so in Hinduism. In fact, I have met many Western educated and highly placed Hindus who still hold a deep faith in astrology and who regularly visit astrologers for advice on important issues. Therefore, astrology is still an important requirement for a Hindu priest. Not a day goes by without members coming to a priest for information on muhurta, birth names, and other kinds of astrological advice. Nava Graha puja is one of the most popular pujas performed by a Hindu priest. Therefore, it is worth while to have a general understanding of Hindu astrology.

Western and Hindu Astrology

Hindu astrology, also called Vedic Astrology is not calculated in the same way as Western astrology. In the West most people know their astrological sign and they may even check their horoscope in the newspapers, if only for “entertainment purposes.” But if you think you are an Aries, a Taurus or a Gemini in Western astrology, this is not the case with Hindu astrology. Western astrology is tropical and Hindu astrology is sidereal. This means Western astrology is based on the orientation of the Earth to the sun, whereas Hindu astrology is based on the position of the stars relative to the earth. This is why it is called sidereal. The word sidereal means “with respect to the stars.” Understanding this difference is technical and not a matter that needs to be explained here, suffice to say, that the starting point of Western astrology is not the same as the starting point of Hindu astrology. This does not mean that one form is better than the other, it just means they are different and so you cannot compare one with the other. If you are an Aries in Western astrology, in Hindu astrology you may not be the same.

The Workings of Astrology

Astrology works at two levels, one practical and the other symbolic. We already see how various celestial bodies exert unseen forces on terrestrial life and thereby influence the way we act. The best and most obvious example is the influence of the sun and moon on the tides. This is the effect of gravity. Science also shows that a planet, even as far a way as Jupiter, has a considerable gravitational influence, not only on the earth, but throughout the whole solar system. We can also see how the solar wind and storms affect the weather, satellite communications and electrical power grids on earth. Similarly, science shows the existence of unseen cosmic rays and minute particles that constantly bombard the earth from great distances, which even have an effect on genetic mutation. The effect of gravity, solar winds and storms, and particle bombardment indeed determines the way we act on our planet. So may legitimately ask, if these forces can affect terrestrial life, why can the other planets also not affect our lives? Just because science has not measured the influence of Mars and Venus and Saturn on the lives of human beings does not mean that such influences are not there. Cosmic particle bombardment has only recently been measured, and had someone suggested such bombardments 50 years ago it would have been dismissed as foolish by the same science that now informs us about it. Yet virtually all ancient cultures have noted the influence of the sun and the moon and the planets on the affairs of terrestrial life. They tell us that these bodies do exert subtle influences on life that in turn affects the way we think and act. Current science does not recognize and so does not measure these influences yet it is not unreasonable to guess that in the future as science deepens its understanding of the universe, it may come to reexamine the workings of astrology on this practical level.

But this is just one way to understand astrology. Hinduism also speaks of the workings of astrology through the power of symbols because it sees a relationship between the part and the whole, between the microcosm and the macrocosm, or in other words, between the inside and the outside. Consequently, by reading the “signs” of the outside world, the universe, one can achieve an understanding of the workings of the inside world, the individual. There is a famous verse in the Upanishads, (om purnam adah purnam idam, IU Invocation, BU 5.1) that describes how the whole and its parts are related to each other in such a way that the whole exists in each part and each part exists in the whole. Thus everything is related! So by understanding the whole one can understand the parts. Perhaps a way to think of how this is possible is through an understanding of DNA. Within a single strand of hair, a tiny part of the body, can be found all the information to construct the whole body. The part contains the whole. In Hinduism this relationship between the whole and its parts is accepted as a subtle, but real relationship, and one that has had profound effects on Hindu culture, not only philosophically and theologically, but also practically in terms of astrology and even Hindu architecture.

Krishna-eating-dirt The famous story of Krishna’s Mother Yashoda, who gazes into her son’s mouth and sees the universe, illustrates this idea. Once you begin thinking that the whole is embedded within every part of this creation you can see a relationship between the outer world and the inner world, between the microcosm and the macrocosm. This means that by measuring the outer world, one can grasp an understanding of the inner world. But even more importantly, by influencing the outer world one can influence the inner world. Thus we have the foundations of Hindu astrology. Astrology is a measurement of the outer world that allows an understanding of the inner world. The astrological chart is a snapshot, not only of the universe at a certain time and place, but also a snapshot of the inner life of an individual at a certain time and place. In other words, the planets we see in the heavens have a corresponding set of “planets” within. There is a Mars above us and a Mars within us. Read the meaning of the Mars on the outside and you get an understanding of the Mars within. Align yourself to the Jupiter without and you align yourself to the Jupiter within. This is the understanding behind Hindu astrology.

March 2, 2014 by admin

Liberation: Moksha/Mukti/Nirvana

In Hinduism the present life is considered to be the result of many lifetimes of past desires, actions and the results of those actions. The results of these previous actions are unfolding at every moment. Some actions are mature and bearing fruit at the present moment, other actions are laying as “seed” waiting to mature at a future time. All that we have done in the past creates who we are in the present and all that we do in the present is creating who we will be in the future. In this way, there is great cycle of desire, action and reaction that drives the wheel of life, and as a result, all beings are forced to remain within this world in order to experience the fruit of their desires and actions. Sometimes these fruits are called papa and punya. Desire and action are said to be the source of reincarnation. Beings continue to “rotate” through endless lifetimes in this physical world. Sometimes the being is in heaven (nice places), sometimes in the middle regions (medium places) and sometimes in hellish realms. This rotation through endless lifetimes is the process of reincarnation called samsara in Sanskrit. The ultimate goal of life in Hinduism is to break this cycle of reincarnation, to escape samsara. Breaking this cycle is done through the process of yoga, and freedom or liberation from the cycle of rebirth is called moksha or mukti.

A slightly different version of moksha is nirvana. Literally the word nivana means “extinguishing” and in this case it means extinguishing one’s material existence. Sometimes one’s desire which leads to action and reaction is compared to a flame. “The blazing fire of material life,” is an expression sometimes heard. Extinguish or “put out” one’s material existence and one has achieved liberation. This is nirvana. The word nirvana is used more in Buddhism than in Hinduism.