Hinduism
When the U.S. Senate invited a Hindu leader (Rajan Zed) to open a 2007
session with a prayer, David Barton objected, saying: “In Hindu [sic], you
have not one God, but many, many, many, many, many gods. And certainly that
was never in the minds of those who did the Constitution, did the
Declaration when they talked about Creator.”
Hinduism and Buddhism are closely related: like Judaism and Christianity.
Hinduism predates Buddhism by at least 2,500 years, and has no known
historical founder.
Animal rights advocate Lewis Regenstein describes Hinduism as:
"...more than just a creed: it is a total culture, a way of life based on
the belief in the unity of all creation. Hindus, like Buddhists, see
humankind not as an entity separate from animals, but rather as an integral
part of the universe that includes all living creatures. Although Hinduism
is well known for considering cows to be holy, in Hindu doctrine, all living
creatures, including insects, plants and trees, are thought to enjoy a
kinship with one another and to be worthy of respect and life."
According to Nine Beliefs of Hinduism, a tract published by the Himalayan
Academy of San Francisco: "Hindus believe that all life is sacred, to be
loved and revered, and therefore practice ahimsa or nonviolence."
Contemporary Hindu spiritual masters have taught us that if one wishes to
eat cow’s flesh (or the flesh of any other animal for that matter), one
should wait until the animal dies of natural causes, rather than take the
life of a fellow creature. This indicates that we are vegetarian first and
foremost out of nonviolence toward and compassion for animals, rather than
because we follow “dietary laws.”
The Hindu practice of nonviolence is connected to a belief in reincarnation:
the repeated re-embodiment of souls in different species of life. The karma
generated in one's present life determines whether one enjoys a higher or
suffers a lower existence in the next life. Karma is the moral and physical
law of cause and effect by which each individual creates one's own future
destiny.
Hinduism teaches that there are 8,400,000 species of life, beginning with
the microbes, rising through the fish, plants, insects, reptiles, birds, and
animals to the humans and gods. According to their desires, living entities
perpetually take birth in these species. These transmigrations are directed
by the mind propelling the soul to newer and newer bodies. All souls are
evolving and progressing towards reunion with God. Human life affords one
the opportunity to escape the cycle of repeated birth and death and return
to the spiritual world from where we fell.
According to the Hindu scriptures, ours is one of many innumerable
universes, and all are being repeatedly created and destroyed over vast
periods of time lasting billions of years. Carl Sagan noted that while the
Christians were thinking of the world being merely thousands of years old,
the Mayans were thinking in terms of millions, and the Hindus in terms of
billions.
John Plott has done elaborate studies comparing Christianity and
Vaishnavaism (the worship of Lord Vishnu), particularly the teachings and
theology of Ramanuja to St. Bonaventura. Geoffrey Parrinder wrote The
Significance of the Bhagavad-gita for Christian Theology and William
Blanchard entitled his Ph.D dissertation: "An Examination of the Relation of
the New Testament to the Bhagavad-gita."
Dr. Klaus Klostermaier says, "if you look long and hard enough, you can find
points of similarity all the way through; and you can even reconcile many of
the obvious differences that the two religions have come to engender."
Dr. Klaus Klostermaier has published numerous academic articles and books,
including his own personal story, Hindu and Christian in Vrindaban. He
points out "that Vaishnavaism, like Christianity, is a living religion with
millions of adherents. It is numerically the largest segment of modern
Hinduism, with a history going back thousands of years. So we are not
talking about some small sect (or cult) but, rather, mainstream Hinduism.
"The first point to understand," says Dr. Klostermaier, "is that
Vaishnavaism is as pervasive in India as Christianity is in the Western
countries. It represents traditional Hinduism and claims to contain all that
is genuinely Hindu. So Vishnu worship, or later, the worship of Krishna, is
something very much akin to the worship of God or, later, Jesus, in the
Judeo-Christian tradition."
The Vedic scriptures teach that one is saved and freed from all sins when he
or she becomes the disciple of a divine master. The guru, or spiritual
master, is worshiped as an intermediary between God and man, and willingly
suffers for the sins of his or her disciples. In his commentary on the
Srimad Bhagavatam (9.9.5), our spiritual master, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada explains: "...the spiritual master, after accepting a disciple,
must take charge of that disciple's past sinful activities and...suffer--if
not fully, then partially--for the sinful acts of the disciple."
In a letter to his disciples Satsvarupa and Uddhava dated July 27, 1970,
Srila Prabhupada wrote, "the spiritual master...has got the responsibility
of absorbing the sinful reaction of his disciple's life. This is a great
responsibility of the spiritual master...To accept disciples means to take
up the responsibility of absorbing the sinful reaction of life of the
disciple."
Srila Prabhupada similarly wrote to another disciple,"Regarding your
question about sufferings of master, you can simply ponder over Lord
Christ's crucification." (Letter to Rebatinandan dasa, 12/31/72)
Similarly, in his 1983 essay "A Jewish Encounter with the Bhagavad-gita,"
Harold Kasimow discusses ideas "which seem totally incompatible with the
Jewish tradition. The most striking example is the doctrine of incarnation,
a concept which is as central to the Gita as it is to Christianity.
According to the Gita, Krishna is an incarnation (avatar), or appearance of
God in human form.
"A study of the Jewish response to the Christian doctrine of incarnation
shows that Jews, and I may add, Muslims have not been able to reconcile this
idea with their own scriptural notion of God."
We believe God is one, but that He expands Himself into other Supreme
Beings, yet still remains one. This is similar to the Trinitarian conception
of God in Christianity--a plural Godhead. On our altars, we worship not just
the images of the different incarnations and expansions of God, but also
saints in our lineage, sacred rivers, mountains and plants. We chant mantras
(divine sounds) like the names of God, on beads of prayer, similar to a
rosary.
Dr. Guy Beck's Ph.D. thesis, Sonic Theology: Hinduism and the Soteriological
Function of Sacred Sound examines the doctrine that the Word or divine
sounds can have a "salvific" effect. Examining the Vaishnava practice of
chanting God's names upon beads of prayer, he observes:
"...a work from the sixth century A.D., entitled the Jayakhya-Samhita,
contains...many early references to the practice of japa.
"It says that there are three considerations in doing japa
repetitions--employing the rosary (the akshamala), saying the words aloud
(vachika) or repeating them in a low voice (upamshu). There are quite a few
details in this text, garnered from early sources, and so a case can be made
for a pre-Islamic, and even pre-Christian, use of beads or rosary in the
Vaishnava tradition."
Because the Roman Catholics did not begin using rosary or japa beads until
the era of St. Dominic, or the 12th century, Dr. Beck concludes, "the
Vaishnavas were chanting japa from very early on."
Jesus began his ministry by teaching the multitudes not to "give what is
sacred to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine." (Matthew 7:6) Dogs,
like swine, were considered foul and unclean by the Hebrew people.
(Deuteronomy 23:18; I Samuel 24:14; II Kings 8:13; Psalm 22:16,20; Matthew
7:6; Luke 16:21; Revelations 22:15) These words were used by the children of
Israel to describe the neighboring heathen populations.
When sending his disciples out to preach, Jesus instructed them not to go to
the gentiles, but to "go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
(Matthew 10:5-6) When a Canaanite woman asked Jesus to heal her daughter, he
replied, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel...It is
not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." (Matthew
15:22-28)
Jesus regarded the gentiles as "dogs." His gospel was intended for the
Jewish people. Even the apostle Paul admits that the gospel was first
intended for the Jews, and that the Jews have every advantage over the
gentiles in this regard. (Romans 1:16, 3:1-2)
Unlike Jesus, we use half a dozen different animal words to describe
sinners--dogs, hogs, crows, camels, asses, etc.--and with reincarnation in
mind. This is quite different from the Judaic use of the word, although St.
Peter compares sinners to irrational brute beasts. (II Peter 2:12)
"What extracts from the Vedas I have read fall on me like the light of a
higher and purer stratum," wrote Henry David Thoreau in his Journal. "The
religion and philosophy of the Hebrews are those of a wilder and ruder
tribe, wanting the civility and intellectual refinements and civility of
Vedic culture."
Thoreau also compared Bhagavad-gita, or "The Lord's Song," with the New
Testament. He concluded: "The New Testament is remarkable for its pure
morality, the best of the Vedic Scripture for its pure intellectuality. The
reader is nowhere raised into and sustained in a bigger, purer or rarer
region of thought than in the Bhagavad-gita. The Gita's 'sanity and
sublimity' have impressed the minds even of soldiers and merchants."
In chapter 16 of Walden, Thoreau exclaimed: "In the morning I bathe my
intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita,
since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed and in comparison
with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial."
"I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-gita," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson
on Hinduism's most sacred text. "It was the first of books; it was as if an
empire spake to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene,
consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and
climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions that exercise
us."
This is India's gift to the world.
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