Hinduism Characteristics Essay

The following nine facts, though not exhaustive, offer a simplex summary of Hindu religiousity or about Hinduism.1 Hindus intrust in a one, exclusively-pervasive commanding Being who is both immanent and transcendent, both Creator and Unmanifest Reality. 2 Hindus believe in the divinity of the quaternsome Vedas, the worlds most ancient scripture, and venerate the Agamas as equally revealed. These primordial hymns ar paragons word and the bedrock of Sanatana Dharma, the eternal religion. 3 Hindus believe that the conception undergoes endless cycles of creation, preservation and dissolution. 4 Hindus believe in karma, the law of have got and effect by which each individual creates his let deal by his thoughts, words and deeds. 5 Hindus believe that the sense reincarnates, evolving done many births until all karmas have been resolved, and moksha, ignition from the cycle of rebirth, is attained. Not a single soul will be deprived of this destiny.6 Hindus believe that bo de beings exist in unseen worlds and that temple worship, rituals, sacraments and personal devotionals create a communion with these devas (divine beings) and idol. 7 Hindus believe that an enlightened master, or satguru, is essential to complete the Transcendent arrogant, as atomic number 18 personal discipline, levelheaded conduct, purification, pilgrimage, self-inquiry, meditation and surrender in deity. 8 Hindus believe that all life is sacred, to be love and revered, and thus practice ahimsa, noninjury, in thought, word and deed. 9 Hindus believe that no religion teaches the merely way to buyback above all others, but that all genuine paths are facets of Gods Light, deserving border and understanding.GOD AND LORDS IN HINDUISMGod is a one being, yet we understand Him in three perfections Absolute Reality, Pure Consciousness and Primal Soul. As Absolute Reality, God is unmanifest, unchanging and transcendent, the Self God, timeless, formless and spaceless. As Pure Consci ousness, God is the manifest primal substance, pure divine love and light flowing through all form, existing eitherwhere in time and space as infinite intelligence and power. God is all and in all, great beyond our conception, a sacred mystery that washbowl be know in direct communion.Hindus believe in one Supreme Being. In the Hindu pantheon there are said to be three hundred and thirty-three million Lords(divine beings). The plurality of Lords are perceived as divine creations of that one Being. So, Hinduism has one supreme God, but it has an extensive hierarchy of Lords. Hinduism views existence as smooth of three worlds. The First World is the physical reality the Second World is the subtle stellar or mental plane of existence in which the devas, angels and spirits live and the Third World is the spiritual universe of the Mahadevas, great shining beings, our Hindu Lords. Hinduism is the harmonious bleeding together of these three worlds.Hinduism is a family of four master (prenominal) denominations Saivism, Shaktism, Vaishnavism, Smartism under a divine hierarchy of Mahadevas. These intelligent beings have evolved through eons of time and are up to(p) to help mankind without themselves having to live in a physical body. These great Mahadevas, with their multitudes of angelic devas, live and work constantly and tirelessly for the people of our religion, protecting and guiding them, opening new doors and closing unused ones. synagogue WORSHIP IN HINDUISMIt is in the Hindu temple that the three worlds meet and devotees invoke the Lords of our religion. The temple is make as a palace in which these Lords live. It is the home of the God and Lords, a sacred place unalike every other place on the world. The Hindu must associate himself with these divine beings in a very sensitive way when he approaches the temple. Though the devotee uncommonly has the psychical vision of the Deity, he is mindful of the Gods divine presence. As he approaches the sanct um sanctorum, the Hindu is full aware that an intelligent being, greater and to a greater extent(prenominal) evolved than himself, is there. This Lord is intently aware of him, safeguarding him, fully knowing his inmost thought, fully capable of coping with any situation the devotee may mentally lay at his sanctified Feet. It is important that we approach the Deity in this way conscious and confident that our needs are know in the inner spiritual worlds.The physical re benefactionation of the God, be it a stone or alloy image other sacred form, simply marks the place that the Lord will manifest in or hover over in his etheric body. It can be conceived as an antenna to receive the divine rays of the Lord or as the material body in or through which the Lord manifests in this First World. When we perform puja, a religious ritual, we are attracting the attention of the devas and Mahadevas in the inner worlds.That is the purpose of a puja it is a form of communication. To enhance thi s communication we establish an altar in the temple or in the home. This becomes charged or magnetized through our devotional thoughts and feelings which radiate out and affect the surrounding environment. You can feel the presence of these divine beings, and this radiation from them is known as shakti. It is a communication more factual than the communication of language that you put through each day.Finally, it must be clearly understood that God and the Lords are not a psychological product of the Hindu religious mind. They are further older than the universe and are the fountainheads of its galactic energies, shining stars and sunlit planets. They are loving overseers and custodians of the cosmos, earth and mankind. The Hindu cosmological terrain envelopes all of humanity.HINDU HOLY BOOKThe Veda is the Hindu holy book. The four books of the VedasRig, Yajur, Sama and Atharvainclude over 100,000 verses. The knowledge imparted by the Vedas ranges from earthy devotion to high phi losophy. Their words and wisdom permeate Hindu thought, ritual and meditation.The Vedas are the final scriptural authority for Hindus. Their oldest portions are said by some to date back as far as 6,000 bce, orally transmitted for most of history and written down in Sanskrit in the blend in few millennia, making them the worlds longest and most ancient scripture. The Vedas open a rare window into ancient Indian society, proclaiming lifes sacredness and the way to oneness with God.For untold centuries unto today, the Vedas have remained the sustaining compress and authoritative doctrine, guiding followers in ways of worship, profession and enlightenment. The Vedas are the meditative and philosophical localise for millions of monks and a billion seekers. Their stanzas are chanted from memory by priests and laymen daily as liturgy in temple worship and domestic ritual. All Hindus wholeheartedly accept the Vedas, yet each draws selectively, interprets freely and amplifies abundantl y. everyplace time, this tolerant allegiance has woven the varied tapestry of Indian Hindu Dharma. Each of the four Vedas has four sections Samhitas (hymn collections), Brahmanas (priestly manuals), Aranyakas (forest treatises) and Upanishads (enlightened dis programs).The Samhitas and Brahmanas affirm that God is immanent and transcendent and prescribe ritual worship, mantra and devotional hymns to establish communication with the spiritual worlds. The hymns are invocations to the One Divine and to the Divinities of nature, such as the Sun, the Rain, the Wind, the Fire and the Dawn as well as prayers for matrimony, progeny, prosperity, concord, protection, domestic rites and more. The Aranyakas and Upanishads outline the souls evolutionary journey, provide yogic philosophical training and advise realization of mans oneness with God as the destiny of all souls. Today, the Vedas are produce in Sanskrit, English, French, German and other languages. But it is the popular, metaphysic al Upanishads that have been most amply and ably translated.KARMA AND rebirth IN HINDUISMKarmaKarma literally means deed or act, but more broadly describes the principle of cause and effect. Simply stated, karma is the law of go through and reaction which governs consciousness. In physics-the study of energy and matter-Sir Isaac Newton postulated that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Push against a wall. Its material is molecularly pushing back with a ram down exactly equal to yours. In metaphysics, karma is the law that states that every mental, emotional and physical act, no matter how insignificant, is intercommunicate out into the psychic mind substance and until nowtually returns to the individual with equal impact.The akashic memory in our higher(prenominal) chakras faithfully records the souls impressions during its series of earthly lives, and in the astral/mental worlds in-between earth existences. Ancient yogis, in psychically studying the time line of cause/effect, assigned three categories to karma. The firstly is sanchita, the sum total of past karma yet to be resolved. The second category is prarabdha, that portion of sanchita karma being experienced in the present life. Kriyamana, the third type, is karma you are presently creating. However, it must be understood that your past prejudicious karma can be altered into a smoother, easier state through the loving, heart-chakra nature, through dharma and sadhana. That is the key of karmic wisdom. Live sacredly well and you will create positive karma for the future and soften negative karma of the past.Truths and Myths About KarmaKarma operates not only individually, but also in ever-enlarging circles of group karma where we participate in the sum karma of multiple souls. This includes family, community, nation, race and religion, even planetary group karma. So if we, individually or collectively, unconditionally love and give, we will be loved and given to. The individ uals or groups who act soulfully or maliciously toward us are the vehicle of our own karmic creation. The people who manifest your karma are also living through past karma and simultaneously creating future karma. For example, if their karmic posture did not include miserliness, they would not be involved in your karma of selfishness. Another person may comport some generosity toward you, fulfilling the gifting karma of your past experience. Imagine how intricately interconnected all the cycles of karma are for our planets life forms.ReincarnationThe soul functions with complete continuity in its astral/mental bodies. It is with these sensitive vehicles that we experience dream or astral worlds during sleep every night. The astral world is equally as square and beautiful, as varied and comprehensive as the earth dimension-if not much more so. Spiritual growth, psychic development, guidance in matters of governance and commerce, artistic cultivation, inventions and discoveries of medicine, science and technology all continue by astral people who are in-between earthly lives. Many of the Veda hymns entreat the assistance of devas advanced astral or mental people. Yet, also in the grey, lower regions of this vast, invisible dimension exist astral people whose present pursuits are base, selfish, even sadistic. Where the person goes in the astral plane at sleep or goal is dependent upon his earthly pursuits and the quality of his mind.Because certain seed karmas can only be resolved in earth consciousness and because the souls initial realizations of Absolute Reality are only achieved in a physical body, our soul joyously enters other biological body. At the right time, it is reborn into a flesh body that will best fulfill its karmic pattern. In this process, the current astral body-which is a double of the last physical form-is sluffed off as a lifeless shell that in due course disintegrates, and a new astral body develops as the new physical body grows.This entering into another body is called reincarnation re-occupying the flesh. During our thousands of earth lives, a remarkable variety of life patterns are experienced. We exist as male and female, often switching back and forth from life to life as the nature becomes more harmonized into a person exhibiting both feminine nurturing and masculine intrepidness. We come to earth as princesses and presidents, as paupers and pirates, as tribals and scientists, as murderers and healers, as atheists and, ultimately, God-Realized sages. We take bodies of every race and live the many religions, faiths and philosophies as the soul gains more knowledge and evolutionary experience.Therefore, the Hindu knows that the belief in a single life on earth, followed by eternal joy or pain is utterly wrong and causes great anxiety, confusion and fear. Hindus know that all souls reincarnate, take one body and then another, evolving through experience over long periods of time. equivalent the caterpillars metamorphosis into the butterfly, death doesnt end our existence but frees us to trail an even greater development.DharmaDharma yields Heavens honor and Earths wealth. What is there then that is more fruitful for a man? There is nothing more rewarding than dharma, nor anything more ruinous than its neglect.When God created the universe, He endowed it with order, with the laws to govern creation. Dharma is Gods divine law prevailing on every level of existence, from the sustaining cosmic order to religious and moral laws which bind us in harmony with that order. link up to the soul, dharma is the mode of conduct most conducive to spiritual advancement, the right and righteous path. It is piety and ethical practice, duty and ob ligation. When we follow dharma, we are in conformity with the Truth that inheres and instructs the universe, and we naturally abide in parsimony to God. Adharma is opposition to divine law. Dharma is to the individual what its normal development is to a se edthe orderly fulfillment of an entire nature and destiny.SIGNIFICANCE OF HINDUISMHinduism is unique among the worlds religions. I boldly proclaim it the oldest religion in the world. To begin with, it is mankinds oldest spiritual declaration, the very fountainhead of faith on the planet. Hinduisms decrepit age has seasoned it to maturity. It is the only religion, to my knowledge, which is not founded in a single historic event or prophet, but which itself proceeds recorded history.Hinduism has been called the cradle of spirituality, and the mother of all religions, partially because it has influenced virtually every study religion and partly because it can absorb all other religions, honor and embraces their scriptures, their saints, and their philosophy. This is possible because Hinduism looks compassionately on all genuine spiritual effort and knows unmistakably that all souls are evolving toward union with the Divine, and all are destined, without exception, to achieve spirit ual enlightenment and liberation in this or a future life. Please visit, if you gaze to seek further