HINDUISM-A Hard Nut to Crack INTRODUCTION To understand ancient Indian spiritual culture is HINDUISM not simply a matter of scholarship. To achieve a A Hard Nut to Crack correct understanding, it essential to enter into a Deep Understanding Not tradition of practices and disciplines and to study Accessible by Scholarship Only under the guidance of a self-realized spiritual teacher. In other words, those with realization of Requires Hearing from this knowledge can impart it to those willing to Self-Realized Spiritual Masters follow certain standards in their life. I have been and Practicing fortunate to be studying like this for close to 30 Vedic Knowledge years.1 HINDUISM TOLERANT & RESPECTFUL OF OTHER RELIGIONS The most outstanding characteristic of Hinduism HINDUISM IS TOLERANT & is the readiness to respect and accept all the gen- RESPECTFUL OF OTHER uine and compatible religious and spiritual paths GENUINE RELIGIONS within its fold. My first spiritual master told us Genuine Religions are that, if someone is a Christian or a Muslim, he characterized by: should be encouraged to be a good Christian or 1. TRUTHFULNESS Muslim. 4. COMPASSION 2. CLEANLINESS Those groups who pledge allegiance to leaders 3. AUSTERITY and traditions that do not follow or value the four universal principles of religion: Truthfulness, Compassion, Cleanliness & Austerity, cannot be considered genuine reli- gions, even if in their ranks there are sincere people who individually follow the these principles out of common sense and decency. I was brought up as a strict Catholic in the eastern United States. I had close association with priests my whole childhood. But somehow I did not get clarity on some basic spiritual concepts that I now hold near and dear to my heart. I will share some of this with you today. Also, after taking up my present spiritual practices, my appreciation and understanding of Jesus has increased. I have lived and studied in India off and on for over 7 years. 1 The Jesuits have a technique they use in the missionary field. To learn some- thing completely foreign to them, They will ‘suspend their own beliefs’, for the time being, in order to grasp it. I would like you to try the same in this class. Whatever your belief system is at present, suspend it for the next hour or so and see if you can understand this presentation. THE STORY OF NIXON There was a British pilot in WWII, named Nixon, that was shot down behind enemy lines. His cockpit jammed, so he had to ride the plane down until it crashed. On the way down, he said a prayer, that, if he survived the crash, he would dedicate himself to God 24 hours a day. He woke up in a French hospital as the somehow were able to get him out of the wreckage. After healing his broken body, he returned to England and, true to his word, began to visit different religious clergy there telling them he wanted to dedicate himself 24 hours a day to God. An Anglican Bishop told Nixon that they didn’t have such a program in England, but he heard that there was such a program in India. Nixon was an educated man. He went to India to Benares and became a pro- fessor at the University there. In a short time, he became very impressed with the wife of one of the other professors there who answered his spiritual inquiries eloquently. She was a vaisnavi, a devotee of Lord Vishnu. He took initiation from her and accepted her as his spiritual preceptor. In time, he became aware of a vow he could take to renounce the world and dedicate himself 24 hours a day o God. He approached his spiritual teacher for the mantra for initiation into the renounced order. This lady told Nixon to come the next day. She spoke to her husband and they agreed for her to take a vow of renunciation and she receive the san- nyas mantra. She gave Nixon this sannyas mantra on the next day and he became a barefoot wandering holyman in India. 2 THE ANCIENT WORLD When we talk about India, we are talking about ANCIENT WORLD the ancient world. All the major world religions World Religions come from trace their roots to the ancient world, from the the East & the Ancient World middle east to India. Christianity, Judaism and MIDDLE EAST-Christianity, Islam from the Middle East, Hinduism and Judaism & Islam Buddhism from India. Western Europe is the Old World and America is the New World. INDIA-Hinduism & Buddhism VEDAS-5,000 YEAR OLD SCRIPTURES Most of my presentation today will be based THE VEDAS-THE OLDEST on the 5,000 year old scriptures of India SCRIPTURES IN THE WORLD upon which the ancient spiritual culture of written down 5,000 years ago India is founded.. Veda is a Sanskrit word Based on ANCIENT that means knowledge. ORAL TRADITION written down because of present The vedas come from an even more ancient IRON AGE of Quarrel & Hypocrisy oral tradition in India From time immemori- al, knowledge was passed from spiritual VEDA means KNOWLEDGE master to disciple. In previous ages it was sufficient for a disciple to hear once from his spiritual master and he would remember it for the whole lifetime. I represent one of the four recognized dis- ciplic successions in India. This line is called the Brahma Madhva Gaudiya Sampradaya. About 5,000 years ago, the 4th and most polluted age, the Iron Age began. This industrialized age is characterized by quarrel and hypocrisy. Lives and memories are short, people VEDIC LITERATURES are misguided and unlucky, and most everyone is compiled by Veda Vyas, disturbed by something or other. Due to the unfortu- an incarnation of Vishnu nate qualities of this age, this oral tradition of knowledge needed to be written down. This knowl- 4 Original Vedas edge with it’s many branches was first organized RG VEDA into 4 sections, the Rg, Sama, Yajur and Atharva SAMA VEDA vedas. The author who compiled this knowledge in YAJUR VEDA written form was an empowered incarnation of ATHARVA VEDA Vishnu, named Veda Vyas. First, I would like to take a few minutes show you some of the obstacles in the way of understanding this ancient spiritual culture. 3 MODERN INDIAN CULTURE IS DAMAGED & COVERED Large parts of northern India have been dam- MAIN OBSTACLES TO aged and covered in the last 1000 years by UNDERSTANDING HINDUISM invaders, so today there is confusion about vedic “HINDU” not a vedic term culture even in India itself. The very word ‘Hindu’ originated about 1000 years ago as a mis- INDIA damaged & covered pronunciation by invaders of the word ‘Sindhu’, Misinformation & Confusion which was the name of a sacred river and valley Our Western Orientation where some ancient Indian people once lived. The Material indentity with body mispronunciation was “Indus.” While this word has some meaning in Persian, it is not Sanskrit. This word ‘Hindu’ is not found in the vedas. The Muslims began their conquest of northern India around the 13th Century and ruled parts of northern India for about 5 centuries. During this time, they killed many brahmins, destroyed many ancient temples, raised whole cities to the ground and generally tried to bury the ancient history of India. The British overcame the Muslims in the mid 1700s and ruled northern India for another 200 years, The term ‘Hindu’ was popularized during the British rule of India, to differentiate the Indians from the Muslims who were fighting at the time, some say, with the help of the British policy of ‘Divide and conquer.’ MISINFORMATION & PROPAGANDA In the 1800s, a few Englishmen, who wanted to clear their conscience of wrongdoing, admitted in writing that the British government paid them and other men in the East India Company to re-write the history of India. The motivation? The British could not tolerate a civilization more ancient or greater than their own. The more recent American Indologists have followed the British indologists’ modernization and distortion of Indian history. You’ll find a lot of this kind of dis-information which originated in the British era in India in scholarly books and on the internet . HINDUISM HINDUISM IS ACTUALLY SANATAN DHARMA would be more easily Many spiritually cultured Indians and Saints in understood as: India generally agree that the vedic spiritual culture 1. SANATAN DHARMA of India would be better served to be known as 2. VEDIC DHARMA Sanatan Dharma rather than ‘Hinduism’. We will 3. BHAGAWAT DHARMA 4 4. VAISNAVISM still use the term Hinduism because of it’s wide acceptance, although you should be aware that it confuses the distinct and varied beliefs in India which can better be understood under the broad conception of Sanatan Dharma. Before I explain what ‘Sanatan Dharma is, I would like to ask you all a ques- tion. In the late 60’s, my first spiritual master asked an auditorium filled with students and faculty at MIT, “Can anyone tell me what the difference is between a living person and a dead person? Would anyone here like to try answer that? Don’t feel bad if you don’t get it. Not even the faculty at MIT got it, but that was 30 years ago. ................ OUR OWN EDUCATION & CONDITIONING The simple answer is Consciousness. It is no mistake that the MIT scientists missed this point, because consciousness was not included in their empiric approach to understanding this world and the elements in it. And growing up in the west and being educated here, many of us have been conditioned to think like the scientists.