Jesus among other religions – Hinduism Sunday, January 14, 2007 – Rev. David Tinney Text: Galatians 6: 6-10 Theme: Hinduism has probably contributed more to our vocabulary than to our theology because there are so many differences between our two religions. This morning’s sermon is the second in the sermon series on comparative religions and is the first in which we will actually study and discuss one of the major world faiths. Without a doubt the religion we will study today has contributed more to our vocabulary than it has to our Christian theology. Where would we be without words like: karma, diva, transcendental meditation, yoga, mantra, nirvana, guru, hare Krishna, and let me not forget “sacred cow.” Hinduism is one of the oldest of all religions dating back 4000 years before the birth of Christ. It is also one of the most diverse. Some have referred to Hinduism as a huge umbrella covering hundreds if not thousands of different cults and traditions that has organically and geographically evolved over six thousand years. It is one of the most colorful and symbolic religions with paintings and statues of multi-faced, multi-armed gods and grand temples that soar into the sky. It is a religion that defies classification because it has no founder, no prophetic source, no uniform creed, no particular doctrine, dogma or religious practice that is essential to it. It has no institutional structure and no specific scriptural source that is authoritative.1 Hinduism is one of the most tolerant and inclusive faiths and because there is no central authority and no one authoritative text it seems that nearly everything is tolerated. For instance it seems that the majority of Hindus believe in one God but they don’t all believe in the same name or purpose, and there are many who believe in various manifestations of that god. Some Hindus believe in hundreds of gods while some don’t believe in any. Some Hindus respect life, especially sacred cows, and would never kill or harm them, while other Hindus sacrifice animals in worship and then would roast them out in front of the temple and have a feast. Hinduism cannot be understood if it is separated from its roots in India. The name Hindu came from Persian word for “Indian” which was given in about 1200 AD when Muslims wanted to distinguish their faith from the faith of the natives.2 It is often considered more of a culture than a creed.3 It is a system tied to cultural traditions, history, social practices, and the geography of “Mother India.” There are some Hindus who say that even the shape of the country with the great triangle, surrounded on two sides with water, and crowned at the top with the Himalayan Mountains looks like a mother.4 It is estimated that there are approximately 837 million Hindus in the world making it the third largest religion.5 The bulk of Hindus live in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka but 1.1 million live in the United States.6 It is deeply mystic, highly ritualistic, and inextricably tied to the culture. Above all it is a religion that believes salvation or escape comes from discovering eternal truth. Theoretically one cannot convert into Hinduism you must be born into it. There are many who think that Hinduism is polytheistic and by some accounts there are as many as 330 million gods and goddesses7 but they are actually more henotheistic which means all the gods and goddesses are manifestations of one true God in this case Brahman. This one true God is above all things but also IN ALL THINGS. This God is unknowable, beyond personality, holding all wisdom, and the ultimate reality. In Hinduism our souls are not a separate entities but part of God. This shared soul is known as “atman” which is something within us that we never lose until we reach nirvana. I will talk more about that later. Hindus believe that since Brahman is impossible to understand and shoehorn into humanly devised words or concepts then humankind is left with a terrible choice. Either we keep quiet about God and don’t explore him/her or we indulge in creative expressions to explore and understand the divine.8 Hindus took the latter option and went crazy. They created statues, symbols, paintings, and images of gods and goddesses trying to grasp the fullness of the one divine truth. If someone were to ask Hindus why would they depict god as having a dozen arms, or a face with three eyes, or snakes coming out of their mouths, the Hindus would respond, “Why not?” As long as you are going to image God why not have fun. God is beyond human definition and form so why not depict him or her as clearly non human.9 When criticized by faiths that prohibit making and worshipping any image of God they usually respond that Christians, Jews, and Muslims have made the Bible, Torah, or the Quran into an idol and we worship them. So what texts do Hindus turn to as authoritative? The answer is there is not one single document, like the Bible, Torah, or Quran, but many and each holds different weight for different groups. The oldest texts are known as the Veda and there are four of them and Hindus believe they came directly from the gods. They existed as oral traditions until 1000 BC when they were written down. These texts were more like the Psalms and did not contain rules or laws. In about 800 BC the Vedas were interpreted by teachers who were concerned about their practices and wisdom being corrupted by neighboring Buddhists and Jainists. This time of reinterpretation became known as the Upanishads and lasted until 100AD. Upanishads literally meant “to sit down near” and in this case students were to sit down near teachers and learn that which was heard from the divine.10 The best known of these writings was the Mahabharata, which was a book of poetry. It contained 100,000 couplets and is still the longest poem in human history.11 Within this book is a story called the Bhagavad-Gita which has become the most popular of all Hindu texts and is found in nearly every Hindu home. In the story Lord Krishna, one of the incarnations of the gods is on the battlefield with Arjuna (a representation of humankind) and the latter asks the meaning of life.12 Krishna is one of the favorite incarnations and was the objects of worship for the groups of Hindus we see at the airport from time to time singing “Hare Krishna.” The most important text however is probably The Laws of Manu, which is 2,685 verses dealing with religion, law, customs, and politics and is the most quoted source book in Hindu ethics.13 It was probably written around the birth of Christ. It is this source that created the rules of class system and described major concepts like atman, dharma, karma, samsara, bhakti, and moksha. Even though I probably mispronounced each of those terms I would like to try to describe them and tell how they interrelate. In Hinduism humankind is not marred by sin as in Christianity, but it is marred by ignorance. There is a bit of God in each person called atman and this essence of God longs to be united with the divine. But there is a barrier. We do not understand the divine or the reality around us and therefore we do bad things. To reach our spiritual destiny we need to gain knowledge and understanding and we do this by choosing one of four paths. Before I tell you about these four paths let me give you the big picture. Hindus believe that every person started at the lowest level of the evolutionary chain and worked their way up to humanity and eventually farther. Every living being has this atman or presence of God within them and they can never lose it. So when something dies the atman is placed back into something else either at the same or different level of life. This cycle of living and dying is called samsara. So we move up the chain until we become human and when we enter humanity we come in at the lowest of all levels or the “untouchables” – the lowest caste in society. If believers do their duty or dharma properly and build up enough good karma they move to the next level which is out of the untouchable category to the three levels of being “twice born.” The only escape out of the cycle of samsara is through moksha which literally means release. In order to break samsara, or the cycle of birth and rebirth, human beings must gradually purify all actions of ego-centeredness and seek to live out their dharma completely. When moksha comes the atman or essence of God is released and joins with the vastness of God. This is known as nirvana and in this state nothing is left of the individual and we become part of the vastness of God as if we were a drop of water added to an ocean.14 At the heart of Hinduism is the belief in reincarnation or the transmigration of the soul. Life is an infinite continuum punctuated by episodes of embodiment. Death is therefore not the opposite of life but the opposite of birth. One can only escape this cycle of birth and death by liberating the soul and freeing oneself from all attachments.15 Now that I have described the big picture let me go back and fill in some details. There are two important concepts you need to understand. One is the dharma and the other karma and they are very related to each other. Dharma is described in many ways throughout the literature that I have been reading. It is the cosmic or moral law that holds everything together. There is a general dharma that applies to all people which would include injunctions to perform meritorious acts, to go on pilgrimages, to worship Brahmans, and to not injure, lie to, defame others. This moral rule applies to all people. But there is also relative dharma, which is a set of rules relative to your status or caste in life. This regulates who you touch, what you eat, who you can marry, even where you can live. No one can move out of their social position in their lifetime.16 But while you are in your work at trying to build as many good deeds as possible so that you can move up to the next level. This accumulation of good deeds is called karma. Every action produces a positive or negative result and at the end of life a person is judged by whether or not they have more good karma than bad. If the person has done well their soul or atman is reincarnated into the next higher level. If they do poorly they are sent down one or more levels until they learn. When we talk about karma we think of it in terms of “what goes around comes around” or to use the text of this morning, “whatever you reap you will sow.” But karma is far more powerful in Hinduism and has great consequences if a person does not act properly. There are four paths or yogas that Hindus can use in order to gain knowledge and they vary according to the personality of the believer. There is a different path for those who are reflective, emotional/experiential, physical (where you have the yoga exercises), and those who like to serve others. Meditational yogas combine physical movements, meditation, mantras, and breathing techniques to dismantle bad habits, reduce distractions, and build connections with a higher power to tap into divine knowledge. Prayer or meditation in Hinduism is not meant to get closer to God, or not intercede for others, or not to look for guidance but it is ultimately a way to escape life. The God or Brahman in Hinduism is impersonal. He is there to impart knowledge but never relationship. Therein lies one of the biggest differences between Hinduism and Christianity. We believe that God is an intimate being and is always wooing us and trying to establish a relationship. God is not aloof but very present. In Hinduism spiritual journey is not about intimacy or transformation but about learning and escape. In Christian theology our human condition is distorted by sin and we are saved by grace and by grace alone. We believe that we are sinful because we fall short of what God wants us to do and be. To steal the words of Paul in Romans 7, “I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but do the very thing I hate.”17 The answer to our human condition does not lie in gaining more knowledge, it lies in being set free from our slavery to sin and that only comes through Jesus. We need grace not more knowledge. In Ephesians Paul writes, “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is a gift from God – not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”18 In Hinduism believers are saved from a lengthy cycle of birth and rebirth through the accumulation of positive karma that comes from deeds and actions. In Christianity we would say that “the perfect, holy, and righteous God became flesh and lived among us, and then bore upon the cross all the bad karma of the human race. God paid the price for our bad karma. Then God credited Christ’s righteousness – all his good karma – into our account. Our task is to respond, to accept this act on our behalf and begin a new life.”19 Our new life can begin now rather than waiting for the next embodiment or reincarnation. Our relationship with our Creator can be intimate right now. But there is something even greater. I believe that when you and I die our souls don’t get recycled or reach nirvana and disappear into the vastness of God. I believe that you and I are brought into the presence of God where we can bask in our Creator’s love. Our two faiths differ in many ways but our Hindu sisters and brothers can teach us a lot about tolerance of others, about prayer and meditation, about removing distractions from our lives, treating creation with respect and reverence, and trying to not injure others. Studies like this should not be used to prove one religion right and another wrong, but to look at other ways of seeing our relationship with our Creator and appreciating our beliefs and understanding the beliefs of others so we can be more tolerant. 1 Simon Weightman, “Hinduism” in “Handbook of Living Religions” Penguin Reference, 1998, p. 261 2 Raymond Hammer, “The Eternal Teaching – Hinduism” in “Eerdman’s Handbook to The World Religions” Eerdman’s Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI. p170. 3 Ibid 4 Hammer, 171 5 From data published by the 2004 Encyclopedia Britiannica Book of the Year 6 1999 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches put out by the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. 7 Adam Hamilton, “Christianity and World Religions,” Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN. 2005, p8 8 John Renard, “The Handy Religion Answer Book,” Visible Ink, Detroit, MI, 2002, p. 257-8. 9 Renard, 259 10 Hammer, 179 11 Hamilton, 37 12 Hamilton, 38 13 Hammer, 190 14 Hamilton, 46 15 Weightman, 264 16 Weightman, 280 17 Romans 7.14-15 18 Ephesians 2.8-9 19 Hamilton, 45 --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ Hinduism Page 1