Hinduism Thought Questions
1. Hinduism is the least dogmatic and most diverse of all the world religions. “In the absence of some entity with the authority to transform one specific version of what Hinduism ought to be into what Hinduism actually is, Hinduism is what Hindus do and think, and what Hindus do and think is almost everything.” Has this lack of a single authoritative cosmology had a positive or negative impact on the tradition?
2. The Vedas aim is to create and sustain social and cosmic order. It begins by attacking the problem of disorder…”family, community and cosmos are forever collapsing into disarray.” The Priests turn to the Gods through ritual to call for order out of chaos. How have you used ritual in your life to keep chaos at bay?
3. “Hindus who run neck-and-neck with Unitarians and Jews when it comes to such markers of success as levels of higher education and per-capita income. Hindus run 40% of the high-tech firms in California’s Silicon Valley”. Why do you think this is the case?
4. Prothero states that “Hinduism’s controversial system of caste may have its origins in Vedic sacrifice”. This primeval sacrifice set society in order. Its mouth became the priestly caste, its arms the warriors, its thighs the merchants, and its feet the servants. Many contemporaries want to say the caste system is cultural, not religious. What do you think? Do you think we have a caste system (or something comparable) in the U.S.? If so, does it stem from religion, culture or something else?
5. The Upanishads introduced the concept of Karma, the universal principal of cause and effect. Our actions, both good and bad, come back to us in the future, helping us to learn from life’s lessons and become better people. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam human beings are rewarded and punished for their good and bad deeds by a good and just God. In Hinduism, however, consequences follow from actions without any supernatural intervention. Therefore, evil action produce punishments and good actions produce rewards. How may these two different schools of thought impact your 1) behavior and 2) world view?
6. “More than one out of four Americans and Europeans believes that the soul takes on another body after death. But for Westerners reincarnation is usually seen as a reward rather than a punishment. Hindus, however, have classically seen reincarnation as a problem rather than an opportunity: the world is a vale of tears, and whatever happiness we might cobble together here is transitory and impermanent”. If we had “proof” of reincarnation, in which camp would you fall? Why?
7. “…yoga in its original sense means “to yoke” one thing to another…self and reality, the self and divinity, the self and immortality.” “The secret knowledge that gurus whispered….how to use body and breath to transport yourself from ignorance to wisdom, from illusion to reality…from samsara to moksha.” “Yoga is now a popular pastime in the West, employed by millions for such thiswordly aims as stress reduction and weight loss.” What are we missing/gaining by this Western interpretation?
8. “The Bhagavad Gita has functioned like something of a Hindu New Testament – Hindu holy book par excellence.” The Gita lays out a third path to moksha….the bhakti yoga of love and grace (the devotional religion of popular Hinduism). It is now possible to achieve the religious goal of moksha by other power rather than self-effort, by entrusting the fruits of your action to the grace of God. How has both self-effort and grace (unmerited assistance) worked in your life? Can you share an example?
9. Atman (self or soul) and Brahman (the essence of divinity) are one and the same. To know this is to achieve moksha. “But it is not enough to believe in the Atman-Brahman equivalence. You must experience it. Ritual cannot get you to moksha, neither will yoga or philosophy or good works or scriptural study.” It must be experienced. Share with us a time where experiencing something, not just believing or intellectually knowing, made all the difference in the world for you. How is believing and experiencing different?
10. As Hinduism developed, ordinary people, women and lower-caste men, wanted to reach moksha. They wanted it in this lifetime, and they did not want to give up families and friends, sex and success to get it. So Hinduism moved in a more popular direction referred to today as the discipline of devotion. Devotional Hinduism emphasizes their tradition’s narrative dimension over its doctrinal and experiential dimensions. This quest for spiritual liberation is expressed in songs, poems, dramas, and dance, and embodied in heartfelt worship of one’s chosen deity. What songs, poems, dramas, stories, or dances have spiritually inspired you? How? Why?
10/14/14