Hinduism 101

[MachineWashCold]

Recently I've become more and more curious about the Hindu religion, and I'm realizing that I hardly know anything about it.

What exactly is Hinduism?

I guess I'm looking for something similar to a Hindu version of the Christian Nicene creed which would basically define the beliefe system of Hinduism.

[zenzero]

FriendMAchineWashCold,
Hindu religion is not a religion.
Religion means a WAY a defined PATH by following which one can achive salvation or nirvana or samadhi [whatever you call it]
Hinduism is called the SANATANA DHARMA.
SANATAN which means that which has no begining or end. It is just a WAY of Life.
The way any individual leads his life, is also a WAY which is covered in the Sanatana DHARMA.
There was no name in fact for it. It was Alexander that he did not know what to call people living in India but since he crossed the river Sindhu to reach this place he called them HINDUS as the could not pronounce SINDHUS.
Hinduism is as vast as all the WAYS ever mentioned by anyone, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and many more stems from this Dharma.
Love & rgds

[MachineWashCold]

Ah. Apparently I'm more of a noob than I thought.

Is there no way to explain Hindu philosophy 'in a nutshell?'

[zenzero]

Friend NachineWashCold,
The nut and the shell are the same and ONE andd still two differnt things.
Thats Sanatan Dharma in a nutshell.
Love & rgds

[MachineWashCold]

I think my question is what do you as a Hindu believe in regards to the 'supernatural.' My question is more about the god/gods of Hinduism, the worship practices, belief in afterlife etc.

[zenzero]

FriendMachineWashCold,
It is understood what you mean.
You have just arrived. Take rest.
By and by if your intests remain, you will get all your questions answered here.
The jouney can be done HERE-NOW or many lives; all depends on your interests.
Love & rgds

[MachineWashCold]

=) thanks for your replies, at any rate.

lets keep the thread going though, anyone's response is appreciated!

[Seyorni]

You're being cryptic, Zenzero. That's not going to help Machinewash.

Hinduism, or Sanatana Dharma, as some fashionable Hindus prefer to call it, is not a homogenous religion like Islam or Judaism. There is no founder, there is no official doctrine, there is no real clergy. It's not a "religion" at all, in the commonly understood Western sense.

It can be described as a culture, a philosophical outlook or a world-view. One writer describes it as a psychotherapeutic modality. I think this is as close to a definition as you're likely to get.
Personally, I like the definition of a Hindu as: "anyone who doesn't object to being called a Hindu."
To complicate matters further, the general public, practitioners of Popular Hinduism, are often completely ignorant of Philosophical Hinduism.

Hinduism began, as did most "religions," as a whole culture. The religious part could not be teased out of the lifestyle. the term "Hindu" originally simply referred to the people and culture found East of the (H)indus river by Alexander or someone.

Popular Hinduism is probably too diverse to be described succinctly, but there are certain features of Hindu philosophy that are generally associated with the religion:

Brahman. Brahman is Conscious Reality; the Conscious Universe. It's Pure Awareness. It's featureless and beyond time.

Maya. "Illusion" in Sanskrit (the liturgical language of Hinduism), refers to the limited perception of those in the lower states of consciousness.
We believe we are dreaming the world. Our conscious, '3rd state" reality is a tiny, warped, time-bound sliver of Objective Reality (Brahman). From our subjective wiewpoint, Reality can be best apprehended through Relativity and Quantum theory.

Evolution of the soul or of awareness. An individual 'begins' as a dimly aware entity, a spark of Brahman, as it were, and progresses, often through numerous incarnations, to a state of Super, or Cosmic consciousness. At which point it has arrived at its original starting point and merges with the Universal Consciousness.

Levels of consciousness. Hindu philosophy is all about levels of consciousness. We currently experience three: Deep sleep, REM or dreaming sleep, and waking-state. Waking-state, however, is not considered fully consciousness as is assumed in the Western religions. It's another sleep stage; another dream state. The goal of Hinduism is not the 'salvation' of Christianity, but to wake up through several further, "higher" states of consciousness.

Yoga. From a sanskrit word for "yoke" is any practice designed to further the soul's expansion into the aforementioned Superconscious Psychosis; to yoke it with Brahman. There are several recognized systems of Yoga, but any practice designed to assist your achievement of Oneness with the Universe is a yoga.

Of course, Hinduism is a crazy-quilt of wild and crazy beliefs and practices [it's madness, I tell you -- MADNESS! ]. No single feature can be said to apply universally, but I hope the above gives some idea of the general essence of what most people mean when they use the term.

[MachineWashCold]

Thank you for your post, seyorni. Very informative =)

I assume that since Hindus believe in the constant evolution of the soul that reincarnation is a universal belief in Hinduism?

And can one ever 'wake up' completely? If so, what happens to a soul once it wakes up?

[Seyorni]

Originally Posted by MachineWashCold

Thank you for your post, seyorni. Very informative =)

I assume that since Hindus believe in the constant evolution of the soul that reincarnation is a universal belief in Hinduism?

It's pretty well ensconsed, to be sure, but if you want to get into serious Hindu metaphysics you'd have to discount the element of time, which, (as any 1st year Physics major could tell you) is illusory. That means all these "lives" exist simultaneously and eternally, like episodes in a film.
The word "constant" also becomes problematic, obviously.

And can one ever 'wake up' completely? If so, what happens to a soul once it wakes up?

Yes. That's the whole point.
There are several systems proposing a number of different post waking-state levels of awareness. The one I'm most familiar with posits seven, more or less distinct, levels of consciousness.
In third-state consciousness we perceive only three geometric dimensions, and experience a fourth, dimly, as a steady, 'creeping foreward' awareness of successsive "fames" of one's life-film."

To wake to seventh-state is to experience a subjective consciousness congruent with Objective, 11 dimentional Reality.
At this stage of Enlightenment one IS Brahman. One experiences past, present and future simultaneously, as a seamless Gestalt. That is, one exists in and experiences all places and times completely and simultaneously. Likewise, one experiences all the lives of every living thing that exists, existed, or ever will exist, in their entirety, (no creeping along, frame by frame), simultaneously.
In seventh-state, one is unaware of time, individuality, 'qualities' or diversity. There is only an eternal, timeless, spaceless, all-encompassing Consciousness.

Seventh-state is way beyond the Abrahamic concept of "God."