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Five Unique Questions on Hinduism
Continuation of Q & A Presentation. 2008 Scott Road Kandaswami Temple, Kuala Lumpur, Hindu Youth Camp.
The Participants of the 2008 Hindu Youth Camp
organized by Scott Road Kandaswami Temple, Kuala Lumpur.
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What is Bhakti Yoga? Bhakti is can be translated as devotion. It also encompasses love, dedication, affection and admiration. Yoga is the practice of uniting our awareness with God within ourselves. Put these two words together as Bhakti Yoga and it means 'the path of union with God through devotion.'
In Hinduism you will hear teachers teaching of four yogas through which a person can develop their relationship with God. These four yogas are Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga and Jnana Yoga (Jnana is actually pronounced Nyaana). Lets get a deeper understanding of these four paths:
Karma Yoga: Karma Yoga is the the path of seeking God through action or service. This path entails doing good deeds such as serving humanity, doing one's duty to family and community, abiding by the laws of the land, speaking for justice and so forth. Helping the less fortunate and the poor is one of the most fulfilling activities of Karma Yoga. Karma Yoga works on the principle of allowing oneself to become a tool of God's benevolence. For when we give without thought of reward or personal gain, we become in tune with God's nature. This attuning to God's nature expands our consciousness into the bliss of God's Being. This is how we can achieve oneness of awareness with God through service. Another activity that is an important part of Karma Yoga is the maintenance of temples. A Karma Yogi is enjoined to help clean temples, help prepare for festivals and other activities in a temple.
Bhakti Yoga: Bhakti yoga as described earlier is the path of seeking God through devotion. Bhakti yoga activities include Karma Yoga. Bhakti Yoga envisions a deeper yearning for closeness to God compared to Karma Yoga. This path is likened to the love between a child for his or her parents. In this path the child learns to perform deeds that he or she believes will pleasure God. These deeds include singing devotional hymns, learning to do puja and other ceremonies, attending and observing festivals. Temple and home worship is of central importance in Bhakti Yoga. In Bhakti Yoga one has the desire to attend the temple, do pujas, be part of temple festivals and sing. The Bhakti Yogi is a willing participant and performer in all these activities and he or she derives much fulfillment and joy from them. In Bhakti Yoga one learns to surrender willingly, one's ego at God's feet. This is the stage where perfecting ones weaknesses in nature such as controlling anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, fanatical pride becomes a crucial part of one's goals. It marks the beginning spiritual transformation. In this path the Bhakti Yogi enjoys God's boundless love through worship ceremonies. There is much appreciation for God, going to temple is a joyful activity and worshipping (expressing devotion to God) is second nature to him or her.
Raja Yoga: This is the path of the Kingly Yoga. No! It is not about becoming a King in the ordinary sense. Instead it is about becoming a King in the spiritual sense. In Raja Yoga which is also known as Ashtanga Yoga, one begins to work very diligently to be the spiritual master of oneself. One becomes interested in doing meditation to achieve the most intimate level of relationship with God, which is samadhi. Samadhi occurs when our awareness unites with Gods Presence within the core of our soul. This is a very blissful and most fulfilling experience of life that one can achieve while living on Earth. A Raja Yogi continues doing Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga, though to a lesser degree. The entrance of a seeker of God into Raja Yoga is marked by his or her desire for a guru. The guru will guide the disciple in the intricate and sometimes arduous practice of Raja Yoga until the disciple is well established in God Realization (Samadhi) and achieves enlightenment. When the seeker reaches this stage of Raja Yoga, he or she now becomes a teacher of spirituality to the world and enters the final stage of the development of his or her relationship with God, which is through Jnana Yoga.
Jnana Yoga: The Jnana Yogi is a spiritual king. Jnana Yogis can be recognized by their humility. They are masters of them self. Fearless, all loving, more interested in others welfare than themself, benevolent, unencumbered by anger, hatered or jealousy. A Jnana Yogi makes the ultimate sacrifice in the maturing of the individuals relationship with God. For to be a Jnana Yogi one willingly sacrifices ones personal ego. The Jnana Yogi has no regard for his or her personal life. As a human being the Jnana Yogi becomes the perfect tool for God shine through to touch devotees through a human form. This is why the saints and sages of Hinduism are highly revered. They are not revered for their individual personality or even so much for the genius of their teachings. Rather it is because they have become a perfect receptacle for God's blessings to channel through, as the Jnana Yogis is devoid of personal cravings and ambitions except to continue life in the service of God and humanity. The Jnana Yogi derives his or her contentment and bliss of living not from any material source, rather, it comes from the unbroken awareness of Oneness with God. The feeling of the bliss of God's Presence within them is second nature to them. They don't even need to do meditation to feel the bliss of Samadhi because it is a most normal experience in their consciousness.
Who created Hinduism and wrote the Vedas? The Truths of Hinduism were revealed to man directly by God. Before the word Hinduism was coined to organize the traditions and teachings of the Vedas as a religion, Hinduism was loosely called Sanatana Dharma. Sanatana Dharma is actually not the name of a religion as much as it is a statement of faith that is related to a way of life. I know, this is a little complicated. Let me explain further. Sanatana Dharma means Eternal Truths. The Eternal Truths refer to a set of philosophical truths that were revealed directly from God to Rishis in their meditation. This happened thousands of years ago and still happens today when gurus and saints meditate to get new directions from God.
I am giving this longer explanation instead of just saying that Hinduism was created by God, because that is factually wrong. Hinduism is actually a recent label given to a family of individual religious sects called Saivism, Shaktism, Vaishnavism and Smartism. God revealed these four individual religions to countless prophets of these religions. The common link between these four religions is that they are all based on Sanatana Dharma. Many non-Hindu scholars, not understanding this fact, wrongly claim that Hinduism is a religion invented by man. They differentiate Hinduism from Judaism, Christianity and Islam claiming that these are the only religions revealed by God. The school history text books in Malaysia also propagate this wrong fact. This is a misconception. In fact the truth is, God revealed Sanatana Dharma to the Rishis who then wrote these truths down as the Vedas in exactly the same way He revealed the other religions in their prophets.
The Vedas were written by many rishis (hundreds possibly even thousands) who were meditating on God. Some of the rishis are named in the Vedas, though many are anonymous. Therefore there is no one person who can claim to have writen the Vedas. In fact the Vedas were written down much later after they were revealed. For thousands of years they were passed on through an oral tradition. The Vedas are a class of Scripture in Hinduism known as shruti. Shruti means 'that which is heard'. It refers to the process of revelation by God to the rishis who 'heard' God speak the Truths of Life to them in their deep meditations. Shruti Hindu scriptures include the Agamas, Bhagavad Gita, Tirumantiram and many others.
The other class of Scriptures in Hinduism are called the Smritti. Smritti means 'that which is remembered'. These scriptures are mainly stories that were created by gurus and rishis to teach Sanatana Dharma to the populace. Many of the Puranas, which contain stories such as how Ganesha got his elephant head are smritti. Though, not all Puranas are invented stories, many are biographies of saints that contain shruti scripture.
Is it a must to follow the rules of the religion to the letter? Hinduism is a religion that doesn't have hard and fast rules. Instead Hinduism promotes recommendations for living life that are guidelines. The reason we have guidelines instead of rules is because rules have to change based on situation. If we are stuck with one rule that cannot apply in a situation, then the rule will have to be broken or rewritten. Guidelines on the otherhand are more flexible.
This use of guidelines is derived from the way the law of karma works. Karma delivers the consequences of our actions based mainly on the intention behind the action. For instance, let us take not hurting another person. Hindu guidelines recommend the use of ahimsa or nonviolence as a cardinal code of living. However, sometimes the use of violence is condoned and it does not create a bad karma even if another person is hurt. Such as, in the case of somebody protecting themselves or another in their care from a violent situation. In this case even if the defender hurts the offender, there is no bad karma nor good karma accrued by the defender. His intention was to protect, and if the intention is sincere than no bad karma is created. However if you hurt another person out of hate, malice or vengence then the full force of the negative karma will be accrued because the intention was evil.
You all probably know all this already. I believe your question is more directed to lesser issues such as elders or priest saying things like you must go to the temple on Fridays. You must wake up early and pray to God. There are many 'must' and 'must nots' like these. Some of these are good advice while others like you cannot wear black to the temple, or you must not keep an image of Lord Shiva in your house have no basis in Hindu philosophical truths or in the guidelines of living. Such rules are mere superstition and they can be duly ignored. Certainly no harm will come to anybody if you do not follow them to the letter. However, you should endevour to follow the rules of living that your parents and community set out for you as they were created for character development or with your safety in mind. These are rules such as coming back home before a certain time or cleaning up your room.
The greatest book of guidelines amongst all the Hindu scriptures is the Tirukkural. This book was written by by the Tamil Sage Tiruvalluvar about 2000 years ago and it is still totally relevant. In his book, Tiruvalluvar identifies 133 attitudes, habits, traits and positions in life in 133 chapters and writes 10 verses about each of them. The verses either praise or abhor the subject of the chapter.
The chapters range from:
Praising God, The importance of Rain, Hospitality, Gratitude, Charity, Deceptive Conduct, Avoidance of Anger to Advice for Kings and Ministers to Matters of Love.
The Tirukkural is available in most Indian based or Hindu based book stores. English translations are also widely available. It can also be read online at the following websites:
This link contains 108 chapters of the Tirukkural. The reamining 25 chapters that have to do with the Matters of Love is not included. It has the best english translation of the Tirukkural.
The complete Tirukkural with all 133 chapters can be read online in at this link:
This site also has the kural translated in many other languages of India and the rest of the world.
When you read the Tirukkural you will realise that these guidelines are derived from Hindu philosophy or Sanatana Dharma. You will also realise that it is based on common sense and not superstition. So if you want to find out if a rule is a superstition or not, just consult the Tirukkural. If there is basis for that rule in the Tirukkural than it is valid.
Talking to God, does it help? Yes talking to God helps a lot. Actually prayer can be defined as talking to God. While we can have conversations with each other, our conversations with God are prayers. It is good to cultivate closeness to God by talking to Him (or Her). He certainly listens and, He is a great listener. Sometimes, in our lives, we encounters situations where we can only reveal things to or talk to God. In such times if a person doesn't even have God to talk to (simply because of lack of faith or practice), they will feel very depressed, deserted and lonely.
When you go to temple, instead of seeing if you can hook up with any of your friends or relatives who might be visiting the temple the same time, look at God as your best friend and have a chat with Him. There is a meditation practice (it is actually a practice to learn to feel the presence of God when you go to the temple) that you can use to enhance your conversation with God. Click here on this link "Learning to Feel Paramatma's Presence in the Temple" to learn this technique. When you do this practice you will have a very soul satisfying visit to the temple. The inner conversation is done in step 7 when you offer your prayerful requests. Do this practice every time you go to the temple and you will see a gradual spiritual transformation in yourself.
There are conversations that God doesn't entertain. The main rule is when you are praying, you must follow the guidelines of ahimsa. That is your prayer cannot have any element of hate, harm or hurtfulness toward yourself or others. Prayers driven by malice is not heard by God. It is in fact ignored. So keep your prayers pure and well intentioned.
If we adopt a few religions in doing various activities, is it wrong? No it is not wrong. Hinduism believes in the truth of all religions and it does not restrict people of other faiths in adopting Hindu practices neither does it legislate against Hindus in adopting practices that they feel an affinity to, even if it is of another faith. Studying scriptures of other religions and drawing wisdom from them are also acceptable practices.
My parmaguru (guru's guru) Satguru Yogaswami was a staunch Saivite. On occasions he quoted from the Bible and Buddhist teachings. My guru, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami for a time received guidance from a Theosophist teacher, a Christian man who was a buddhist monk and a Musliim mystic before he found his ultimate guru, Satguru Yogaswami.
If you went to some of the major religious festivals in India you would see a diversity of people from different religions following the festivals. For instance the Tiruvembavai festival, Navaratri (Dusheera), Ram Jeyanthi is celebrated across the board not only by Hindus. Devotees of other religions are also swept up by the wave of devotion. Equally if you went to the Annai Velankanni Church in Nagapattinam, during the Saint Ann's feast you will observe that it is a festival that is celebrated by Hindus, Christians and Muslims alike.
Sometimes though, your parents may not agree with some of your adoptions. If this is the case it is best for you to follow the guidance of your parents until later in life when you can make your own decisions. Hinduism is really a very personal religions. Though all the sects and sub-sects of Hinduism do have specific codes of conduct, they are not restrictive, or at least they are not supposed to be restrictive. My usual quip "as many Hindus as there are in the world, there are as many versions of Hinduism" as each devotee endeavours to find their way back to God.
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