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The Unitarian Universalist Society of Fairhaven, Massachusetts "Hinduism, a Way of Life" Rev. Ann C. Fox February 3, 2002 |
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This is the second sermon in the world religion series. Unitarian Universalists believe that the more we learn about the culture and religions of others, the more we can "stand in their shoes" enough to understand their perspective. Perhaps it is naïve of us, but we hope that this will help to bring greater understanding and peace into the world. There are six sources that inspire the Unitarian Universalist religious journey. The third source is Wisdom from the World's traditions that inspire us in our ethical and spiritual life. In our World Religions class, we are using the book The World's Religions by Huston Smith. The book begins with Hinduism, setting the stage for a broad religious worldview with which the western world is generally unfamiliar. Huston Smith believes that Hinduism is the most expansive of all the religions. I have been to India four times. The first time was for two months in 1972. This was three years after my marriage to an Indian. We were happy to take many things from the United States to delight the children. We took wonderful plastic, life-like frogs, birds, and lizards. Now, one must live very differently in a third world country. My new family lived in the city of Bombay, on the West Coast of India. My mother-in-law, Ba, got up at 4:30 every morning to fill up large vats of water before the water pressure got too low in Bombay. The day after I arrived in Bombay, I was washing my hands at the small sink in the kitchen when I noticed a stream of ants on the stone wall. One of the rubber lizards was stuck on the wall next to this marching army. All of a sudden, the lizard's long tongue came out and swept up a lot of ants. I screamed. Bapuji, my father-in-law came running. When I was finally able to tell him what happened instead of just pointing, he laughed. Then began the first of the many lessons Bapuji was happy to teach me. He said, "All things have a purpose. These lizards are very clean creatures and they clean up the ants for us." He told me about the Hindu concept of ahimsa , non-violence. He said that the whole middle section of India was vegetarian because they believed that they should not harm any creatures because all living things have a purpose. If people do harm to others, even animals, they believe they harm their own soul's progress because this is the law of karma, the law of cause and effect. For the lizard to eat the ants is a natural process. Bapuji believes he has lived many lifetimes and the benefits he enjoys in this lifetime are due to the good things he did in previous lifetimes. Because he is living an exemplary life now, in his next lifetime, he expects he will be born to a family where he can continue to progress spiritually, getting better and better in his behavior until he does no harm. Finally he hopes he will live in a state of knowledge of God when he will cycle off and no longer have to come back because he will have finally got it right! This law of karma is a basic concept in Hinduism and the cycle of lives is reincarnation. We assume that we only have one shot at life. We often hear people pronounce philosophically, "Life is too short to..." and then complete the sentence to fit the situation. If you were certain that you had many more lives to live, would you live differently? Would you understand differently the terrible things that go on in the world? Would a belief in multiple lifetimes affect your attitude towards death? You may have heard of the man who went to a lawyer to make a will. He said, "I really wanted to make my own will but I didn't know how to do it. You see, I want to leave my money to whoever I'll be in my next life!" If bad things happen to good people, Hindus will say that it is because of things done in a previous life and they should do the best they can with their current circumstances. The doctrine of reincarnation explains the terrible things that occur. It's an expanded meaning of the saying, "what you sow, you reap." For Hindus, the goal of life is to free, or to liberate, ourselves from being caught in the wheel of life and death, called samsara, because of ignorance. The way to liberation from samsara is to improve ourselves in this life in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. Hinduism and its offshoots, like Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, are the only religions with the belief in reincarnation. However, some ancient Greeks, like Plato, believed in multiple lifetimes but it is possible that the idea came from contact with India. The term Hindu comes from the River Sindhu (the Indus). The Persians referred to India as the land beyond the Sindhu. So Sindhu or Hindu is really a geographic term used to describe a people. The ancient Hindu religion actually began almost five thousand years ago in the Indus valley. It was an agricultural society with knowledge of indoor plumbing and irrigation. Excavations uncovered evidence of trade with Mesopotamia and very early Egypt. Hundreds of statues of goddesses were found as well as figures in yoga positions, indicating a possible practice of meditation. This ancient settlement covered a vast area from present day Pakistan down to southern Gujarat, just north of Bombay. A thousand years later, about 1500 BCE, Aryans, a tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed nomadic people migrated down from the steppes of central Asia bringing a pantheon of male gods and their language, Sanskrit, now known as an Indo-European language that shares a large vocabulary similar to many European languages. The small, dark indigenous people absorbed the Aryans with their culture, language, and religion just as they would all other invaders in history. Hinduism is a product of many races and cultures. If an idea was compelling, even from its own offshoots like Jainism and Buddhism, it was absorbed it into Hinduism. We cannot separate the culture from the religion that developed creatively for five thousand years. That is why Hindus say, "It's not so much a religion as a way of life." Hindus acknowledge four stages of life, codified in their scripture. The first is the dutiful student. The second is the householder whose duty is to raise a family and help the community. These two stages are called the Path of Desire where the person can indulge him- or herself in the sensual pleasures of life as long as it doesn't harm another person. Hindus know that some people will never get beyond these stages in this lifetime, but they assume many will ask the question, "Is this all there is?" They attempt to answer Is this all there is? by embarking upon the Path of Renunciation, which is that of the third and fourth stages. The third stage is that of the retiree who begins to study scripture and acquires a spiritual practice. And this is the stage that my Bapuji and Ba were in. These life stages blend somewhat since the whole society knows what to expect. For example, children will learn how to do prayers and festival rituals. Bapuji does the daily prayers (puja) for blessings for the family. When he was a householder and went to work every day, it is likely that Ba did these prayers. Now that Bapuji is retired, he spends his days studying scripture and I saw that Ba went next door to the Temple on some afternoons and sat in a circle with the priest and listened to scripture and philosophy and sometimes she participated in the discussion for I saw her gesturing with her arms to make a point, just as she does in family discussions. Now Ba and Bapuji did not move on to the fourth stage of life, which is that of the Sanyassin, or monk or nun. This stage is when a person gives up all his worldly goods, leaves home and family and friends and wanders the country teaching and being fed and cared for by those who want to listen. He or she may remain alone or an ashram (a monastery-like organization) will grow around him or her. The concept of the monastery came from ancient India. The sanyassin becomes one who neither hates nor loves and returns to every day life only to help for no reason other than to do it. A Canadian Unitarian minister Rev. Fred Cappuchino and his wife, Bonnie, established and support orphanages in India and Nepal called Child Haven, with the financial help of UU congregations in Canada and the United States. Fred told me of a Holy Man who cared for three children who were orphaned. After three years, the man brought the children to Child Haven, so that their needs could be better met. The children did not want to leave him but were persuaded to do so in the hopes that they could care for him when he was very old. The Holy Man cared for the children because that was what needed to be done. There is no organized religion in Hinduism. Everyone mixes and matches and does his or her own thing religiously. Mahatma Gandhi combined many practices of both Hinduism and Jainism and he studied Christianity. There are many scriptures but one is not more authoritative than another. The earliest scriptures are the Vedas and the Upanishads. They were written down over a 1,000 year period, beginning about 1200 BCE to 200 CE in Sanskrit. Sanskrit means polished or perfected. What is wonderful about Hinduism is the acceptance of two major views of God, revealed in their scriptures. There is the transpersonal God they call Braham that we read about in the responsive reading. This is God who made all things from himself and invests all things with his own being. They believe that human beings have a Self with a capital "S," and that is the part of Brahman called Atman that connects the human person with Brahman. This is the connection we focused on in our prayer when we brought our attention to the Crown Chakkra and Heart Chakkra. When it is known, or focused upon, this connection helps to draw the person back to the source of their being and all being. However, this transpersonal God is too abstract for most people and so they worship aspects of him embodied in many gods and goddesses so that Hinduism appears polytheistic but is actually only Brahman made personal. Hindus expect that god reincarnates to help people and they expect that advanced human beings are there to help them. And so there are hundreds of acknowledged saintly men and women at all times in India. They believe they need a living teacher to help them in their spiritual practice in their final years and so they will seek out someone who suits them. All religions are distorted or corrupt in some way. Hinduism is distorted in its caste system. There were originally four castes as described in scripture. First is the Brahmin or priestly caste. Next is the Kshatriya or warrior/ruler/administrator type. Third is the Vaishya or artisan or business class. Fourth is the Shudra or servant/laborer class. These are the four designated by scripture. The purpose was to encourage people to do the work to which they were most suited. However, priestly parents didn't want their children to be laborers and so they made the castes hereditary and they used reincarnation to explain this away. This is not supported in scripture. But then scripture holds the ideals to reach for. There are more than 3,000 castes in India today, including the one at the bottom, the Dalits, or untouchables, which has no place in scripture. Indians really do try to be as good as possible. Most people just do what they can. They really do try to find a living teacher to help them in their later years. You can hardly go anywhere in India without seeing photos or statues of gods or goddesses or living teachers hang from taxi windows or shop fronts and incense fills the air. On the front cover is Lord Krishna, an incarnation of God on earth. In his arm is a picture of a famous fifteenth century woman mystic and poet, the beautiful Mirabai. She wrote a poem of a poor, uneducated tribal woman who broke all purity rules in her desire to give her Lord only the sweetest fruit by tasting it herself first. These songs are still sung today. Mirabai wrote: Ram took that fruit - that touched, spoiled fruit - For he knew that it stood for her love, And Ram knows no high, no low. This was a woman who loved the taste of love, You are the Lord who cares for the fallen; Rescue whoever loves as she did!" (Runzo, 216) Hindus describe four religious paths for different personality types. I believe our different religions in the west fall into these types. I believe we are practicing what Hindus would call a modified path of Raja and Jnana Yogas to which intellectual people are drawn. I am deeply thankful for the Unitarian Universalist religion that is willing to expand its understanding of the religion of others and also thankful for Hinduism, the religion that says, "All paths lead to Brahman." May we be in solidarity and sympathy with the people of India as they struggle with human rights as we also have done. And may we appreciate some of their spirituality from which we can learn. |
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