Quest for Enlightenment

While Hinduism understands that God is beyond the grasp of human thought, it also acknowledges God’s tremendous power over our human minds and lives. As the quest for the enlightenment is the quest to become one with God, Hinduism strives to bring humankind to oneness with divinity.

Hindu philosophy gives great importance to the soul or spirit which it distinguishes from the mind as well as from the body. Hinduism equates the spirit with God. Chapter thirteen of the Bhagavad Gita explains that the spirit cannot be described, that it cannot act, that it is always pure and endless as the sun and the sky. God is considered the greatest spirit Thus, to Hindus, finding our soul is akin to finding infinity within us. It equates to achieving perfection which can only be attained by a highly evolved soul, a soul that over many lifetimes has superseded the limitations of humanness.

This excerpt is from On Hinduism, by Irina Gajjar. To purchase the book, visit our Amazon link.

Self

I am made of earth, water, fire, air,
ether, mind, reason, and the self.
These eight things are one side of Me.
The other, higher side of Me
is what makes the whole world exist
And is called the “life principle.”

(Gita 7:4, 5)

 

The self when it pertains to the body or to the material aspect of God means ego. It differs from the Self with a capital letter which means the sense of being. The Self is the life principle or the essence of life. It is God unmanifest. It is the spirit that sparks the eternal soul of living beings. It resides within our temporal minds and bodies but it is not of the mind or body.

The concept of reincarnation underpins the Vedic belief that the eternal soul attains salvation by merging into God. A spark of God’s marvel illuminates the soul which is confidence to the cycle of birth and death until it dissolves into God. When that occurs, the soul’s spark becomes one with the flame that is God and the soul experiences total bliss.

This excerpt is from On Hinduism by Irina Gajjar. To purchase the book, visit our Amazon Link.

Knowledge

According to the Bhagavad Gita, we can reach God by loving God, by acting with purity in doing our duty, and by learning the truth. Knowledge is a boat that takes us across the ocean of ignorance to God. Knowledge is the fire that burns our karma. It is the sword that cuts out doubt. Knowing the truth releases the bond that binds our soul to the material world and frees us from the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth:

But I quickly rescue
from birth and death
whoever loves only Me
and does everything for Me only
and worships Me all the time

(Gita 12:6)

This excerpt is from On Hinduism by Irina Gajjar. To purchase the book, visit our Amazon link.

The Saraswati River

Early in the twenty-first century India witnessed an event that some viewed as miraculous: the resurgence of rivers in the desert. Hindu writings make many references to a river that flowed in a region that has been arid for millennia. The Rig Veda honors Saraswati as the River, the Mother, and the Goddess. At the time of the Mahabharata, it was already known that the Saraswati river had dried up in the desert. Gradually, Saraswati, the flowing woman who materialized from Brahma’s head, evolved into the goddess of knowledge, music, and the arts.

On January 26, 2001, an earthquake that measured 7.6 on the Richter scale wrought havoc in India. Its epicenter was in the State of Gujarat, but the quakes were felt as far as one thousand miles away. Immediately afterward, a number of rivers sprung forth. One of these rivers began to flow in the arid, salty, and barren thirty thousand square kilometer expanse known as the Rann of Kutch. It measured over one hundred kilometers in length and over eighty meters in width.

Some scientists concluded that the new rivers could be part of the once sacred Saraswati river network that had until then existed only in legends. Others believe that the Indus Valley Civilization—that had endured for one thousand five hundred years—was coming back.

The new rivers that were born from the earthquake may not flow above the ground forever. Their waters may not always remain sweet. Yet the resurrection of the rivers has given credence to legends that puzzled many for thousands of years.

This excerpt is from On Hinduism by Irina Gajjar. To purchase the book, visit our Amazon Link.

 

The Self

The self when it pertains to the body or to the material aspect of God means ego. It differs from the Self with a capital letter which means the sense of being. The Self is the life principle or the essence of life. It is God unmanifest. It is the spirit that sparks the eternal soul of living beings. It resides within our temporal minds and bodies but it is not of the mind or body.

The concept of reincarnation underpins the Vedic belief that the eternal soul attains salvation by merging into God. A spark of God’s marvel illuminates the soul which is confidence to the cycle of birth and death until it dissolves into God. When that occurs, the soul’s spark becomes one with the flame that is God and the soul experiences total bliss.

This excerpt is from On Hinduism by Irina Gajjar. To purchase the book, visit our Amazon Link.

Ganesh/Ganpati

The following excerpt is from On Hinduism by Irina Gajjar.

Several legends explain how Ganesh/Ganpati got an elephant’s head. The most popular one tells that his mother Parvati created him out of the sandalwood paste on her body and of the river Ganges. Then she told him to guard her bathroom while she bathed.

Lord Shiva, Parvati’s husband, had been away and when he returned he did not recognize his son and was angry at Ganesh for keeping him away from his wife. As a result, Shiva struck off Ganesh’s head.

Parvati became devastated. To comfort her, Shiva promised to restore Ganesh to life. He told his attendants to bring him the head of any sleeping being they found who was facing north. In a while, the attendants returned with an elephant head which Lord Shiva affixed to Ganesh.

Parvati was not consoled. She told Shiva that no one would respect her son with a big elephant head on his shoulders. So Lord Shiva promised that all worshippers would forever pray to Ganpati before praying to God and would invoke Ganpati’s blessings before beginning any important undertaking in life.

In this manner, Ganpati became the leader of the people, the lord of success, the remover of obstacles, and the destroyer of evil. He is honored in most Hindu homes and establishments and people celebrate him every year in a big ten-day-long festival held in August or September. True to Shiva’s word, Ganpati has become a part of every Hindu’s life.

 

Mythology

 

Hindu mythology is rich in color and drama. It is described as smriti in contrast with sacred texts that are considered shruti.  While the Vedas and the Gita are shruti or words heard from God, myths and legends are smriti or recollections. Smriti consists of stories about gods, demons, strange creatures, and about great heroes who combat evildoers.

The grand epics, The Mahabharata authored by Vyasa and The Ramayana authored by Valmiki are the crown jewels of Hindu tales. These stories have galvanized audiences over centuries. The tales were told by traveling storytellers, repeated from generation to generation, and were made into television series that were watched throughout India on Sunday mornings for years. The Gita is inserted into the Mahabharata at the onset of the Great Mahabharata War. It is preached by Lord Krishna to Arjun who feels despondent because he believes that killing is a sin. Krishna explains to Arjun that he must fulfill his destiny by carrying out actions that were set into motion by events beyond his control and convinces him that it is his duty to fight for his honor.

Stories relating to the ten avatars of Lord Vishnu, the Preserver, are among the most intriguing of Hindu myths. The order of Lord Vishnu’s incarnations parallels the sequence of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Vishnu first appears a as fish, then as a tortoise or reptile, then as a boar, and then as a man-lion symbolizing the emergency of humans from the animal kingdom. His further appearances occur in the stone age, the iron age, and then in a society ruled by kings. His last two appearances are as Lord Krishna and as Lord Buddha. However, Krishna is predicted to descend to earth again in his tenth and final incarnation as Kalki, the phenomenal savior who will amaze the world and deliver it from evil and darkness.

Curious events occurred in India that bring her legends to modern day life. Perhaps the most striking happened when throughout the world statues of Ganpati, the beloved god with the elephant head, began drinking offerings of milk. Early on September 21, 1995, a teaspoon of milk symbolically placed at Ganpati’s trunk disappeared. The news spread and by mid morning reports of milk drinking statues abounded. The World Hindu Council declared this happening to be a miracle. It lasted for several days and then it stopped as abruptly as it had started.

Then on January 26, 2001, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter shook Gujarat and surrounding regions in India. The quake brought about the surfacing of the Saraswati River in the dry desert known as Raan of Kutch. This river is honored in Hindu scripture as the mother and the goddess of knowledge, music, and the arts.

So, we have seen the past coming to life and bringing both questions and answers into the panorama of Hindu philosophy and belief.

See Chapter 5, Myths and Legends in On Hinduism by Irina Gajjar

Yoga: Paths to God

 

The word Yoga embraces a big idea. In Sanskrit, it means union and its import is broad. In English translation, Yoga is generally defined as a spiritual or ascetic discipline that uses techniques of body and breath control. The purpose of Yoga is liberation and the joining of the spirit to God. God is described by Merriam Webster as “the supreme spirit” or “the universal soul.”  In my book On Hinduism, I defined yoga as “A term that means a discipline used to refer to specific paths leading to enlightenment; also, one of the six Darshanas, or schools of philosophy.”

A Yogi is a person who practices Yoga. The Gita praises Yogis as follows:

The Yogi whose mind is concentrating on

God

does not shake.

He is steady

like a candle in a room where there is no wind.

The Yogi’s mind does not move away from

truth.

To become a Yogi

you have to practice being calm.

You have to practice not fidgeting

and concentrating on God.

And the Yogi who is perfectly calm

is pure and free of sin.

He is one with God

and perfectly happy.

(Gita 6:21,22,23,24,25,26,27)

 

Yoga is divided into various types. The Yogi described above is engaged in Raja Yoga, or Yoga of the mind. Other forms of Yoga which also promote balance that leads to enhanced consciousness include Hatha Yoga or Yoga of the body, Mantra Yoga or Yoga of chanting, and Vinyasa Yoga which coordinates breathing with movement.

Additionally, Yoga is the name of one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu Philosophy known as Darshanas (world views). These schools -Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Purva Mimasa, and Uttar Mimasa now known as Vedanta- are the foundation of Hindu thought. They all engage in analysis and interpretation of the Vedas, sacred Hindu texts. These schools consider the existence and nature of God or the Universal Soul and grapple with the issue of whether the Universal Soul is distinguishable from the human soul.

The Yoga Darshana was founded by the famous grammarian Patanjali. It is associated with meditation and it considers life’s goal to be liberation. Liberation consists of freedom from life’s cycle of birth and death through unification with God, the ultimate reality.

Swami Vivekananda, the founder of the Vedanta Society, introduced Hindu philosophy to the United States in 1893 when he presented his lecture “Sisters and Brothers of America” to the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago. Since then, Yoga and other Hindu beliefs and practices have become increasingly understood and incorporated into American and Western life.

See On Hinduism and The Gita, A New Translation of Hindu Sacred Scripture, by Irene N. Gajjar.

 

 

Perspectives of Believers and Atheists

Thoughtful believers and atheists have more in common than meets the eye. While their views are opposite, they ponder the same mysteries and after evaluating the limited information at humanity’s disposal, they come to different conclusions. Since they cannot prove or disprove their assumptions, both believers and disbelievers live their lives according to different hypotheses. However, the process of considering questions like their origins and matters like creation, virtue, happiness, unhappiness, and destiny is generally an elevating one. Thus, these two groups of people think similar thoughts.

While believers have faith in God, they do not necessarily agree upon the details that describe God and the soul. On the other hand, while atheists purportedly do not believe in God, they often are able to describe the God whose existence they deny. Their non-God is the source of strife among peoples and of hypocrisy among worshippers. Atheists do not fear burning in hell, but they care as much as believers about doing good and being good.

In an introduction to my book, On Hinduism, Ravi Heugle writes a commentary entitled A Skeptic’s Perspective. Along with many scientists, Ravi questions the existence of God who is not only everything but is beyond everything and hence belongs to the supernatural world. Instead, Ravi believes in the reality of perception and experience that is measurable in the physical world. He acknowledges that the supernatural cannot be denied, but considers the soul, another matter entirely. He writes:

 

The soul will render itself superfluous to any consistent

description of a life form. In describing a watch, if we

understand all the mechanisms and principles of operation,

no additional concept or idea is necessary to explain its

purpose, function, or state.

I find it strange that those who take the reality of the mind as a given do not accept the reality of the soul. I see these two parts of us as linked aspects of our being. Our mind processes thoughts whereas our soul processes consciousness. Most believers think that the soul is a spark of God. Skeptics and atheists dispute this view. Yet no one can explain the nature of divinity. Some claim to know the essence of God whereas others doubt the truth of this knowledge.

Regardless, we pursue our own paths. If believers and atheists respect one another and view one another with kindness, we will be equally uplifted.

See A Skeptic’s Perspective in On Hinduism, by Irina Gajjar

 

 

 

Handshakes, Namaste or Elbow Bumps

 

 

 

Handshakes and the gesture accompanying the greeting Namaste have been around for centuries. The earliest discovered depiction of shaking hands is probably an Assyrian relief of King Shalmaneser from the ninth century B.C.E. It is said that the custom of shaking hands began as a way of confirming the absence of weapons and it is perhaps the most used formal way that people recognize one another. Besides handshaking, people in different societies bow, nod, pat one another on the back, and kiss cheeks.

In Indian and associated cultures, the prevailing greeting is the joining of palms next to the heart accompanied by the Sanskrit word Namaste which translates as “I bow to you.” However, the meaning of Namaste is deeper. It recognizes a divinity in the person to whom the greeting is extended. The Sanskrit language is at least 5000 years old so this greeting has existed for ages.

The gesture used with Namaste is similar to the gesture used in prayer. It has been adopted by performers in greeting and thanking their audiences. It is a natural showing of reverence and warmth to persons we are acknowledging.

On the other hand, elbow bumps devised as a sanitary covid-proof greeting are strange. They will not survive. I personally have resisted shaking hands, struggling not to offend those who extend their palms. Like the TV personality Mr. Monk, I have used wipes after people shook my hand.

Notwithstanding my reluctance to shake hands, I find performing contorted and absurd elbow bumps awkward and not to my liking. Isn’t joining palms in the spirit of Namaste much better? It is uplifting and moving. Perhaps it will supersede a gesture originally intended to prove we will not attack those to whom we are saying hello or goodbye.