Part One: What is your story related to the word “religion?” For this section, f

Part One: What is your story related to the word “religion?”
For this section, feel free to answer one or all of these questions related to your past, present and future relationship with religion, spirituality, or a secular worldview.
1. Were you raised in a religious family or household? What religious, spiritual, or secular/atheist perspectives influenced you as you were growing up? This could be from family members, extended family, friends, community members, or just general cultural perspectives.
2. Do you have any experiences surrounding religion or the idea of religion that stick out to you as having an impact on your attitude towards religion in general or a particular religion?
3. Have you or members of your family ever gone through a major change in the way they see religion? This could be a conversion from one religion to another, a conversion away from religion altogether, or a conversion to religion when it previously wasn’t a part of your life or your family’s life.
4. What do you think your relationship to religion will be like in the future?
5. What questions have you had or do you currently have about religion in general or a particular religion?
Part Two: Sivananda and Prothero Readings Response
This week you read the “Introduction” to God Is Not One by Stephen Prothero as well as “Unity of Religions” by Swami Sivananda, a Hindu yogi.
These two authors make very different claims concerning the relationship between the religions of the world. Prothero emphasizes that the major religions of the world are very different from each other, and that those differences matter. According to Prothero, therefore, we should learn about the specifics of each religious tradition so that we can be respectful of those differences.
Swami Sivananda, however, believes that when we do study the world religions in-depth, we will see that they are simply different paths to the same destination. Sivananda claims that while there are differences in the details and names they give to the ultimate reality – God, Jesus, Allah, Nirvana, etc. – the religions of the world are the same in their essentials.
Which argument do you agree with more? I know that we haven’t studied the religions in-depth yet, so you may change your mind by the end of the course! But do you think that you will find the religions of the world to be very different from each other, or do you think that they will be very similar?
Your journal should be at least 500 words long and include two direct quotations from the readings (along with the page number). There are no right or wrong answers for this assignment. You will be graded on the completeness of your journal and whether you followed the assignment instructions.
Hi, everyone, so we are going to get started on Hinduism, Hinduism is going to be our first religious tradition that we look at in this course, and that’s because, of course, it is the oldest of the traditions that we’re studying. We’re going to go somewhat in chronological order throughout the semester. But really, it’s our course is going to be divided up into Eastern religions and Western or monotheistic religious traditions. So we’re starting with Hinduism because it is incredibly ancient. It’s one of the oldest religious traditions that is still practiced in the world. That’s still a lived religion. Right? People still practice it. People are still Hindu. So there are other older religious traditions, but not many that are still sort of thriving alive and vibrant like Hinduism is. So we’re going to start with just a little bit of an introduction to the religious tradition of Hinduism. So I have an image here that we’ll talk a little bit about, and then I have a quote. So for each of the religious traditions, I start with a quote from one of the sacred texts of that religious tradition. That’s sort of a good jumping off point to sort of have a little taste, a little intro into what this tradition is all about, what sort of maybe one of its central teachings or theological principles is something like that. So for Hinduism, I chose this quote here, the quote that you can see on the screen, it says, The truth is one, though it is known by many names. This is a quote from the most sacred text of Hinduism, which is known as the Vedas. Hinduism has many different sacred texts, but the Vedas are really the they are the oldest, the most ancient sacred text and really the most theologically important sacred text. And if you think about this quote, right, what do you think this quote might mean? The truth is one, though it is known by many names, this is really a central teaching in the religious tradition of Hinduism. There is an affirmation of truth, right? There is one higher reality. There is one higher purpose. There is one higher truth that really permeates the entire world, the entire universe. But it’s known by many names. So there’s not just one name for truth. There’s not just one path towards truth in this religious tradition. So one thing to keep in mind as we start learning about Hinduism is that Hinduism is a religious tradition that manages to sort of balance both unity and diversity. So there is a unity of truth, right? The truth is, one, there is one sort of central reality, central purpose, central meaning to existence. But there is a diversity of understandings of that truth. That truth is called many names. It’s understood in many different fashions. It’s sought after in many different ways. So this this balancing of unity and diversity, which is something that that Hinduism does very well. It’s one of the strengths of Hinduism, as we’ll see, you know, as we go through the course, different religious traditions have things that they do very well and things that they struggle with as well. So Hinduism really, really does a great job of as as Houston Smith, who’s a famous writer, a scholar of religion, said Hinduism is great at recognizing that people are different, but not everyone is the same. People have different interests. They have different passions. They have different strengths and weaknesses. And Hinduism is sort of tolerant and flexible enough to accommodate that. So as we’ll see in Hinduism, there are many different ways to do Hinduism. There are many different ways to be a good Hindu. There are many different ways to understand Hinduism. There is not one central, you know, one central anything in Hinduism. There’s no central authority, there’s no central leader. There’s no single central text. All of that in Hinduism. There are many right there. There are lots of different ways to do Hinduism, to believe in Hinduism, to be a Hindu. So there’s this emphasis on diversity or the acceptance of diversity is very strong within Hinduism. The truth is one, though, it is known by many names. Right? So this unity and diversity is kept in balance. Hinduism is an incredibly diverse religious tradition. Many people probably know or have heard that Hinduism is polytheistic. A lot of times my students don’t have that much background in Hinduism, but one thing that they maybe they’ve heard before or they think they understand from from learning about it, reading about it beforehand is that there are many different gods, right. That it’s a polytheistic religious tradition. And you can see looking at this image. Right. This is an image that a lot of people would automatically associate with Hinduism. Oh, yes, there’s lots of different gods and goddesses. And yes, that is true of Hinduism. There are many different gods and goddesses within Hinduism. And actually, well, we’ll talk about over the course of this unit, there is an official number for how many gods and goddesses there are in Hinduism. And that official number is three hundred and thirty million. So there’s lots of them, right? Lots of different gods and goddesses and people within Hinduism. They worship different gods, different goddesses. They are devoted to to a wide variety of gods and goddesses. So there is an acceptance of diversity. There’s not one, you know, one specific God or goddess that you have to worship or have to be devoted to. And there’s not only one way to worship a God or goddess, right? There’s many ways to show your love and devotion to a particular God or goddess. So Hinduism is really this very tolerant, this very flexible religious tradition. And because of that, a lot of times scholars don’t like to even call it by a single name. They like to say that it’s more of a collection of religious traditions or religious practices and beliefs that that all sort of loosely fall under this term, Hinduism, to try to kind of keep keep some of that put together as we go through this. Right. We’re going to look at, of course, some of the most mainstream beliefs and practices among Hindus, although Hinduism varies greatly. Right. There are lots of different types of Hinduism. So we’re going to look at some of the more mainstream beliefs. We’ll talk about different areas where Hindus disagree, have different styles, different practices, according to different traditions. But as we move forward. Right. Is important to keep this balance in mind that that Hinduism excels at, which is that Hinduism affirms that there is one truth, there is one reality, but it’s known by many names. So different Hindus have different ways of understanding that truth. They call that truth by different names and they strive to understand that truth in different ways. OK. So I hope you are now interested and excited to learn about Hinduism. So the next thing we’ll talk about is the historical overview, the history of the Hindu tradition.All right, so today we’re going to talk about the history of Hinduism, focusing on really the origins of Hinduism, where and when in the world did this religious tradition start? So if you remember from the previous lecture, the introduction to Hinduism, Hinduism is an incredibly ancient religion. It’s one of the most ancient religions in the world and it’s the most ancient of the ones that we study in this course. So its origins, right. What we know about sort of how Hinduism started is a little bit more murkier because a little bit less precise than all the other religious traditions that we’re going to study. Right. And it’s simply because Hinduism is so incredibly ancient and it doesn’t have like a single founder or as we’ll see, a single text. So to talk about the history, the origins of Hinduism, we’re going to look at the civilizations that went into the making of this religious traditions. We’re going to kind of talk about sort of the broad historical trends and civilizations that we believe went into the making of this religious tradition. So so that’s what we’re going to start talking about in terms of the historical overview of Hinduism. So the first thing there’s more to start with this one first. So really, Hinduism starts in the Indus Valley civilization. So most of you might know already that Hinduism is the religion of India. It is the indigenous religion of India. Most most Indians today are Hindu, although definitely not all Indians are very religiously diverse country. But Hinduism did originate in India, or we would more precisely say the Indian subcontinent. That would include today the modern nation state of India as well as Pakistan because of those two used to be, you know, used to be one country. So that entire geographical region. Right. The the Indian subcontinent. So what we know about the origins of Hinduism, we we start with the oldest civilization that we know of in the Indian subcontinent, which is the Indus Valley civilization. So the Indus Valley civilization is an incredibly ancient civilization that we don’t know a lot about that existed in India as far back as 2500 BCE. Again, we don’t know too many specifics about this culture, about the civilization. We really the most that we know about them comes from the uncovering of two different cities. One is named Harakah and one is called Mahendradatta. One is in the the country of India today. One is just over the border in Pakistan. And the image right below me is actually of I believe this one is of Harrap. So it’s these ancient archaeological sites that were uncovered really only in the early 20th century that showed how advanced this civilization was. It’s known as the Indus Valley civilization. And that really just means right. This is the indigenous civilization of the Indian subcontinent. But the people themselves, the culture themselves are known as the dosis. And I have that all. I’ll just put a couple of the bullet points up here. So the indigenous people of the Indian subcontinent are known as the dosis with the Dawson people. And these are the people who created this Indus Valley civilization. If you look at the picture below me, right. You might be able to see this archaeological site that it looks like kind of like there’s a grid pattern there. And that’s because these cities, they were actually cities with thousands of people living in them and they had city planning. They had, you know, houses that were built on grids. They had, you know, sewage sort of, you know, water coming in and out of the city. So it was a very advanced civilization. It was incredibly advanced civilization for the time. And they, of course, did have a religious tradition. They there have been found these like these figurines kind of these small clay dolls that look similar to some of the Hindu gods and goddesses that are worshipped today. So, you know, historians, archaeologists assume that this was somehow a part of their religious tradition. So they did have a religious tradition that seemed to focus on these God and goddess like figures. And they also had a written language. They have found, you know, these stone tablets that have kind of a hieroglyphic style, a pictographic style writing on them. But no one’s been able to translate that that written language yet because it’s so ancient, it’s been lost to history. It’s not a contemporary language that anyone speaks or understands. So the. Those are a bit of a mystery, and, you know, historians and archaeologists hope to learn more about this civilization, more about this culture, but all we really know about them is that it was this very advanced civilization. They have these large cities on the earth, very large for that time and place. And they had a written language and they had a religious tradition that most likely was polytheistic. Right. Meaning that they worship many different gods because of these these figurines, these small figurines that have been found. So that’s kind of the first element or ingredient of what later becomes Hinduism is this ancient indigenous culture and people of the Indian subcontinent. The next step in this this sort of progress, this process are the arrival of a people called the Aryans. So most of you have probably heard this word before. You’ve heard people talk about the Aryans or Aryan people. And unfortunately, most likely the context that you’ve heard it in has something to do with Hitler, with Nazis, with white supremacists, with white nationalists. Right. All types of horrible ideologies and, you know, ideas like that. So what’s important to know is that there really were a historical people that archaeologists call the Aryans. But what modern day either Nazis or white supremacist white nationalists, whoever those folks are. Right. What they think about this term and what they’ve sort of changed this term to mean really has no historical or archaeological connection with the real Aryans, with the actual people that are known as the Aryans. And we’ll go we can go a little into that. History is kind of a complicated history. We’ll just say that. So the Aryans archaeologists believe that these these people called the Aryans or the areas they came from somewhere in Central Asia, somewhere probably near to modern day Iran or Afghanistan, somewhere in that region of the world, and then eventually migrated south, migrated down into the Indian subcontinent and ended up sort of, you know, merging and mingling with the Dorson culture to create a new culture. The reason that that term became sort of the twisted, strange, false idea that it is today in terms of white supremacy and white nationalism and things like that, of course, goes back to Hitler. It goes back to Nazi ideology. Basically, some fragments with Aryan symbols on them were found by archaeologists in some parts of Europe. There was an original theory that the Aryans had conquered the Dorson people and that they then they had come and conquered the early European people, Germans for some reason. Hitler, for some reason decided that they were the ancestors of the Aryans so that they were the ancestors of this conquering people. And that’s how the idea kind of got twisted and changed. But as you can see, it really has no historical or archaeological connection to the real actual Aryan people who were from Central Asia and migrated south down into the Indian subcontinent. So important to separate that term from the sort of falsehood that it’s become to the the actual historical archaeological evidence for this this group of people. We don’t know that much about the Aryans other than that they probably live somewhere north of India and then they probably migrated down into India. We know that there was this other people that came from farther north because of the language that they brought with them. They did bring a different written language with them. That language is called Sanskrit. So you can see it down here. One of the next bullet points, it’s a written language called Sanskrit. And Sanskrit is the it’s an Indo-European language, meaning that it has linguistic similarities to both some European languages as well as languages of the Indian subcontinent. So we know that it came from a people that lived closer to where European languages were spoken. Right. So it’s it’s a people that came from somewhere north, somewhere farther west, and then came down into the Indian subcontinent. And whoever the Aryans were, they made their way down. They started to intermix to intermingle with the Dorson people and the language that they brought with them. The Sanskrit language does end up becoming the same. Language of Hinduism, so the Aryan people definitely had a strong influence on the religious beliefs, the religious practices of the Indus Valley civilization of that Dorson culture. So the idea is really that when we look at the origin of Hinduism, we want to look at the merging of these two different people, the merging of these two different cultures. Right. We have this indigenous Dorson culture and then we have this Aryan culture. And again, as you can tell, this is all kind of historical theory and speculation. We don’t have a lot of concrete knowledge about these people, but there are some theories that the Dorson people, as I mentioned, the dossing people were likely polytheistic. They worship many different gods because of the figurines that had been found in Harapan Dodaro. And there are theories that the Aryans were monotheistic. They worshipped one God, one supreme God. And that’s because of theories that the Aryans that actually some of the Aryans ended up migrating farther west and became the ancestors or became Zoroastrians, which is another ancient monotheistic religion. And that’s something if you want to know more about, you can take my scripture class where we talk about Zoroastrianism. But anyways, there are theories that the Aryans were more of a monotheistic culture. So when these two cultures start to intermix right, when they start to share ideas, share beliefs, share religious practices, that that merging gives rise to the early forms of Hinduism, that that’s a way that we can understand really this balance, this flexibility that exists within Hinduism, that on the one hand, Hinduism affirms this unity, this oneness of God, oneness of truth, oneness of reality, and on the other hand, is still very flexible and accepting of diversity, diversity of ideas, diversity of gods and goddesses, diversity of practices. And that maybe that can be explained because of this merging, this intermingling between the Dorson people and the Aryan people. But really, it’s still sort of lies in the realm of historical theory, archaeological theory. But that’s all we can say is kind of the origins of Hinduism in terms of a specific date. Right. As you can tell. Right. This is very ancient cultures. This is more sort of looking at long term progress of how Hinduism gave rise or how these the situation gave rise to Hinduism. But in terms of like a specific starting date for Hinduism, a lot of people look to the Vedas. So that’s my next large bullet point here. The Vedas, the Vedas are the most ancient and most sacred text of Hinduism. Hinduism has multiple sacred texts. There is no there’s not a single Bible or Koran or Torah. Right. Not like some of our later religious traditions. Hinduism has many different sacred texts. Hinduism doesn’t really have one of anything has many of most things, including sacred texts or scriptures. But the Vedas are the most ancient and definitely the most the most sacred. The Vedas, though, should be noted, the Beatles aren’t a single text, right? It’s not like you can just buy the Vedas and sit down and read the Vedas. The Beatles are really a collection of texts. If you were to put them all into book form, it would be probably about 100 hundred books with a couple hundred pages each in them. So it’s still an incredibly large collection of texts, of stories, of hymns. But the Vedas are a good starting point for when. When can we say that Hinduism started? Hinduism started, as far as we know. Right. We sort of date it to the oldest copies that we have of the Vedas and some of the oldest Veda’s copies of the Beta’s data, about 1500 BCE. So if we wanted to give Hinduism a starting point, we could say that Hinduism started around fifteen hundred B.C. But of course, Hinduism is most likely much, much older than that. Right. By the time sacred texts get written down, they’ve usually been passed down orally for hundreds of years. Right. People have told, you know, their their children, their grandchildren, the stories, the prayers, the hymns, the songs that eventually get written down into sacred scriptures. So, of course, Hinduism is much, much older than that. But in terms of a firm specific date, we can say that that Hinduism, in its official sense, started around 1500 BCE with the publication of the Vedas. And the Beatles, as I mentioned, are the oldest and they’re the most sacred text of Hinduism. Hindus are very different, as we mentioned in the last lecture. There are many different ways to be Hindu, there are many different gods and goddesses that Hindus worship, but the videos are sort of seen as a unifying factor. If you believe that the Vedas are sacred, if you see the Vedas as a sacred text, then you are Hindu. You are a part of this family, this collection of beliefs and religious practices. The Vedas were written in Sanskrit and as you mentioned, this is the language that the Aryans brought with them. It’s an Indo-European language and it is the sacred language of Hinduism. Sanskrit is no longer a spoken language. It’s a language that that people learn in order to to read the Vedas and other Hindu sacred texts. But it’s no longer like a live spoken religion, sorry, the spoken language. And then the the next bullet point that I have here is the Upanishads. The Upanishads are the next sort of layer of sacred texts. As I mentioned, invader’s are very old. They they focus a lot on different gods and goddesses, different rituals that were practiced for for many hundreds of years in Hinduism. But the Vedas themselves are actually not that popular anymore. It’s kind of a strange contradiction for people in other religious traditions where the sacred text is very important. There’s only one sacred text and everybody kind of reads it. The Vedas, although they are the oldest and they are the most sacred text within Hinduism, they are the least read. They are not easy reads. They contain rituals, they contain hymns. Sometimes they contain phrases to gods that are not necessarily worshipped anymore. So they’re a very important ancient layer of Hinduism and a sacred layer of Hinduism, but they’re not actually that popular among Hindus. Today, many more Hindus read another sacred text called the Upanishads. The punishments were written about a thousand years after the Beatles, or they were written down at least about a thousand years after the Vedas and the Upanishads are much more philosophical in nature. They take the form of conversations, usually between a father and son or a teacher and student, where the father or the teacher tries to teach a philosophical lesson, a lesson to teach sort of the essence, the core meaning of Hinduism. So Hinduism has this sort of ritualistic and devotional aspect to it, but it also has a strong philosophical aspect to it. And we’re going to talk in the next lecture a lot more about sort of what are the main philosophical ideas of Hinduism and how one is supposed to go about trying to understand those philosophical ideas. So that’s what the Upanishads are all about. So just important to know those two different sacred texts, the Vedas and the Upanishads. And then the last thing that I have down here is just sort of how many Hindus there are in the world today. So Hinduism is an incredibly large religious tradition. It’s the third most populous religious tradition in the world. Christianity is the most popular religion in the world. Islam is second and then Hinduism is third. So there’s about somewhere between nine hundred million and a billion Hindus in the world. Although Hinduism did start in the Indian subcontinent, Hinduism now, of course, is a global religion, right? It’s one of our world religions. Hindus live in every single continent around the world. Right. Hinduism has been exported to many, many different parts of the world, all different parts of the world. So it is a global religion. It is a thriving religion today. And I think that you will enjoy learning more about the beliefs and ideas of Hinduism, which is what we’re going to do next.All right, so the next thing we’re going to talk about with Hinduism are the myths of origins and for the myths of origins. We’re going to be talking about how Hinduism views the origin of the world, the origin of the universe of all that is, as well as the origin of humankind. So those are the two things that we’re going to talk about in this lecture. So I put the first there we go, the first bullet point up there. So the very first thing that we need to talk about when we start talking about what Hinduism is and what its beliefs are, is the concept, the idea of Brahman, OK, Brahman or all. I’ll say it, you know, in my non great, not great accent, just Brahman is that of Brahman or Brahman. So Brahman, I will start by saying, is God in Hinduism capital G God Brahman is if we can you know, we’re going to start by using this term and then we’re going to kind of take it apart. But Brahman is God, Brahman is the capital G God, the high supreme God in Hinduism. In a way, Brahman is the origin of everything. Brahman is the origin of Hinduism. Brahman is the origin of the universe itself, of everything that we see. And as we will see as we get further and talking about what Hinduism is, we will see Brahman is also the goal. Brahman is the ending point of Hinduism. So in Hinduism, everything begins and ends with Brahman or Brahman. So Brahman. As I said, we can start by saying, is God the capital G hi God in Hinduism? But when we use that term, it’s important to ask ourselves what we mean when we say, God, you know, what are we talking about when we say that is God, he or she is God? It’s a question that we don’t really ask ourselves enough, right. How do you define that term? What is God? What do you mean by the word God? And it’s important for us to think about that term and think about what that term means. Because when we say that Brahman is God, it means certain things, but it also doesn’t mean certain things. So if you are more familiar with a Judeo-Christian tradition, sort of Judeo Christian or monotheistic background. Right. If you when you think of the word God, you are more familiar with the concepts of God from Judaism, Christianity or Islam, then you need to understand that your idea of God is different from Brahma. The Hindu idea of Brahman is different from the monotheistic or Abrahamic idea of God. Right. And what are some of the differences? Well, first of all, Brahman is not is not. You could never draw a picture of Brahman. Rahmon does not have a form, does not have any type of, you know, similarity to the human body connection, physical connection to humans. You could never depict Brahman. You could never draw a picture of Brahman. There are in Hinduism. There are lots of images of the gods and goddesses. The picture right underneath me is a picture of the God, Vishnu. So you can draw all of the many, many different gods and goddesses in Hinduism, but you can’t draw Broman, right? Roman has no physical form, has no depiction, you know. No, no physical reality. In that sense, Brahman is is thought of as more of a presence and energy or a force. Brahman is not in a particular location. Right. You can’t like point. So there’s Brahman, Brahman is is viewed as being everywhere. Right. That there is nowhere that you can look. That is not Rahmon. Rahmon is is also oftentimes called ultimate reality, hyperreality the divine ground of all being. If you think back to our first lecture, that quote that we have that said, the truth is, one, that truth is Brahman. Brahman is one Brahman. Is everything right. So Brahman is God, but it’s not a God you can depict. It’s not a God that sort of has a, you know, a physical form or anything like that. Brahman is also not a he or she in in some other religious traditions. Some are more or less comfortable calling God typically a right, calling out a father or or a he rabon. You cannot use gender pronouns. Rahman is not you know, is not a man or a woman is not a he or she. And really Hindus say that Rahman is beyond all human categories. Right. Everything that you that you say to compare Brahman to something from our world is not appropriate because Brahman is beyond all that is beyond all sort of human categories and. Labels and terms and things like that, so Brahman is more of this this force, this energy, the spirit that pervades the entire universe and Bahaman is is the source of the entire universe. Hindus believe that that everything that we see, everything in the natural world sort of emanated out from Brahman Brahman Rahman. Is this sort of eternal divine source that that I want to use the term create. But it’s not really the best term that sort of emanates out arises out of Brownjohn. So our entire universe comes from Brockmann. Our entire universe is sort of saturated, permeated with the spirit of Brahman, the spirit of God. And Hindus believe that the goal of Hinduism is actually to return to Brahma and to return to God. So hopefully by now you’re really confused. You have no idea what Rahmon is. And that’s a good thing. That’s the way Hindus also think of Brahman. You can see the quote that I have here. This is a quote from one of the Upanishads, and it says that Brahman is what cannot be spoken with words. So ultimately, Brahman can never be perfectly described with words. We can try to understand who Brahman is or what Brahman is. We can we can use words to try to describe it. But ultimately, it’s beyond all words. And these are some of the words I have down underneath the quotes, some of the words that that Hindus use, that Brahman is the one or spirit or ultimate reality. And sometimes Hindus also use that word God. But usually it’s something more along these lines. Higher, higher reality, ultimate reality, divine ground of all being the one spirit, ultimate spirit, something like that. So the the goal really, we could say at its core, the goal of Hinduism is to understand and experience Rama, to understand the one the true nature of reality that permeates everything in the universe. OK, and hopefully that’s confusing. Hopefully it also makes a little bit of sense and we’ll continue talking about Brahman. But the idea is that it is a confusing concept, right? Because we cannot perfectly describe Brahman with words. I we we use we can use all these words like God, like Spirit, you know, any any type of God that you can think of. Right. And any way you think of God, everything that you say about God is not quite right. Right. Because there’s always that gap. There’s always that difference between that which is human and that which is God, that which is finite and that which is infinite right there. They’re never aligned with each other. There’s always that gap between them. So we as human beings, we as finite beings, we can try our best to describe God or to describe Brahman. But it’s always doomed to fail because the only thing that we have to describe God or to describe Brahman are our words are human words. Right. And the idea in Hinduism and in all religions really is that, of course, God came first and human words came much, much later. So every word that we use is finite. Every word that we use, we fill that word with meaning from our own world. When I think of the word good, when I think of the word perfect, when I think of the word love, I know what those words mean. But I know what they mean because I know what they’ve meant in this world right in my life. And that’s not going to be the same as what what God is. Right. The love of this world is different from the love of God. The perfection of this world is different from the perfection of God. So there’s sort of a metaphor that’s oftentimes used in Hinduism that using words to describe Brahman is like pointing your arrow at the moon. When you trying to shoot an arrow towards the moon, you it may look like it’s going to hit right. You may say, OK, it’s right, it’s lined up. But of course, it’s so far that there’s no way that your arrow is ever going to actually pierce the moon. And that’s what words about God are also like, right? It seems like it’s hitting the mark. It seems like it’s doing a good job, but it’s never going to quite do that. It’s never going to quite accurately or perfectly describe what God or what Brahman actually is. So Romit is supposed to be confusing, but Hindus are supposed to move towards understanding. You have to use words because that’s one of the most powerful tools that we have. But ultimately, we’ll see that. Understanding Brahman comes down to experiencing Rahmon, right, experience that experience without words, that experience beyond words. And this will make more sense as we go along, as we talk about sort of different understandings of Rahmon and how to come to understand and what are the ways? What are the different paths that Hindus travel along to to come to that understanding or experience? Another way that Brahman is oftentimes described as soft chit and Ananda. These are the next bullet point that I have down here. And so these are the things these are aspects of existence that we have in finite form. And Brahman is an infinite form. So ASOT means existence or being right. Living shit is consciousness or wisdom. Right. That which we know and Ananda is joy. These are all things that we have in limited measure. Right? We have been for existence in limited measure. We don’t live forever. We don’t exist forever. Right. We live in this world. We die when we die. There’s a limit to it. Right. Our existence has limitations. Shit, I know it sounds like I’m saying swear word, but I’m really not our our consciousness, our wisdom. We know certain things. We definitely don’t know everything. Right. Our wisdom, our consciousness is limited in this world. Ananda, our joy. We are joyful sometimes, but we’re definitely not joyful all the time. There is a limit on how much joy, how much happiness we have. So all of these things we have in limited measure Brahman is all of these things in infinite, unlimited measure. So that’s why why that’s why Hindus want to better understand experience and as we’ll see, ultimately return to the infinite Broman to the infinity of Gruman to have all of these things in infinite measure as well. Right. We all want infinite existence, right. We want there to be some type of existence after our limited existence here on Earth. Shit. We want greater understanding, greater wisdom. We want to know things that we don’t know. And Ananda, we all want joy without measure. We all want continuous, unlimited joy. So this is this is what Broman is. This is the goal of Hinduism. And we’ll talk a lot more about how Hindus conceive of understand and work towards understanding and experiencing Brahman. OK, so that’s our beginning of that. And if it’s confusing, that’s good. That’s a good place to be. OK, so the next thing that we’re going to talk about in terms of myths, of origins, in terms of where everything comes from, is shocked. Shocked is just sort of sum up the definition of it first and say that is shock to you. And understanding is the force of creation. It’s the sort of the force or medium of creation. So sort of the the you could say the origin story in Hinduism is that Brahman has always existed. Brahman simply is Brahman. Is existence unlimited existence itself in terms of our universe, our universe sort of emanates out from Brahman it I don’t know a better term to use because the term creation is is a little bit too limited. Right. Because our universe is sort of simply a manifestation of Brahma. It emanates out from Brahman so that it’s not separate from Brahman. But when our universe began, what it emanated out from Brahman, then the individual gods and goddesses were created. It’s the individual gods and goddesses who actually did the work of creating our world, of sort of creating our our our world and populating it with all the living things that that reside in our world. So Hindus believe that that act of creation as our world was created, Shakti was the main ingredient. Shakti is this force or medium or inspiration of creation. So every time something is created, Shakti is there, Shakti is present. And so different Hindus have ideas about, you know, how to make sure that shocked is president, how to increase Shakti. You know, when something is starting, when you want to create something, it’s a shock to you. Is this very important element or ingredient in everything that’s created? It was present at the beginning of the world when our world was created. And it’s present every time something is created within our world. And whereas Brahman doesn’t have a gender, I said, you know, you can’t call Rahmon like a Hiroshi because Barahona’s beyond all human categories, Shakti does have a gender shocked. He’s always just a. Associated with the specific gender, which you might be able to guess which gender it is, right, because it is the force of creation. So Shakti is always feminine. So Shakti is the the force or power of creation. And it’s specifically it’s the feminine force or power of creation. And that’s, of course, because female bodies have the the capability of creating life. Right. Women can become pregnant. They can have babies. They can nurse their babies. So creation, right? Not necessarily always creativity, but creation is always associated with specifically the female gender. Creativity can be either. But creation is is usually specifically feminine. And that’s what Shakti is. And Shakti, some Hindus think of Shakti as sort of this sort of philosophical concept, this more of this energy. But Shakti is also a goddess. So there is a specific goddess named Shakti. And you can look up her her image, you can get a figurine of her, a picture of her. So there is a female goddess named Shakti, and it’s important to know this, how this works for Hindu gods and goddesses, every single Hindu god or goddess. And as we mentioned in an earlier lecture, that there are many of them. There are many, many different Hindu gods and goddesses. Officially, there’s three hundred and thirty million. But we’ll talk about what that number really means. But there’s tons of different Hindu gods and goddesses. And each one of those gods and goddesses has a form like they they have an image. They have a certain way that they look. And they oftentimes have certain ways that they’re depicted, certain items, certain number of arms or legs. And, you know, they have this you know, they’re usually wearing this or they’re usually seen with a peacock or a flute or something like that. And they have whole stories. They have stories, mythology about where they came from, what they do in their lifetime, you know, what their personalities are. And they also have certain areas of power. They have certain things that they are sort of the god or goddess of. If you’re familiar with Catholic saints, it’s it’s very similar to to Catholic Orthodox saints. So each God or goddess has sort of this arena of power, what they you know, what they are in control of. And oftentimes people think of that. They can think of it more if they prefer, they can think of it more as the philosophical concept or if they connect more with the image of the deity, the image of the God or goddess, then they have that form as well. So all Hindu gods and goddesses sort of have this this dual nature, right, that there is a goddess Shakti. But really, she represents this sort of force or energy of creation and Hindus. Right. As we said before, there’s there’s a lot of diversity of thought. There’s a lot of flexibility in Hinduism. So whichever way speaks to you, more is fine. If you like to think of Shakti more as this sort of force or energy in the world, then then that’s fine. Or if you like to think of Shakti as an individual goddess with a certain, you know, a certain face, a certain look, a certain body, then the not Shakti is there for you as well. So Hinduism has this this this strong flexibility and tolerance for different ways of understanding that truth of ways, of understanding the higher reality. OK, so that’s a little bit about shock to you. She’s an important concept as well to understand, because everything that is here came here through the force of shock to each shocked you had to be present for its creation. Then the very last thing that we’re going to talk about is Manu. And this refers to the story about the beginning of humankind, the beginning of mankind in Hinduism. And it’s a really interesting story because it’s one that might sound familiar to you. So Hinduism, we’ve we’ve kind of started by talking about more philosophical concepts in Hinduism, the idea of Brahman, what Brahma Rahmon is, how to achieve or understand experience Brahman. But Hinduism also is rich in mythology. There are all these different gods and goddesses and they all have very complex stories about things that they’ve done in their life. They’re sort of their triumphs and their failures and their origins and things that happen to them. So Hinduism has has so many good stories, a part of it as well. And the story of Manu is a part of this sort of rich, you know, repertoire of mythology. And it’s the stories they said. It’s the story of the first human being, although he’s not technically the first human being. But we’ll see why why he’s called that. So, Munu, the story of Manu starts, of course, with this individual named Manu. So a very, very long time ago, there was a man named Manu said he wasn’t the first human being, but he was sort of one of the first human beings, one of the first creation. Right, the universe emanates out from Rahmon through the force, the medium of Shakti, everything in the world is created, the world is created and humans, animals, plants, everything is created. So Munu is one of these first human beings. And according to the story, he’s a really good guy. Monu is he’s kind. He’s hard working. He’s honest. He he’s devout. He you know, he loves the gods. He worships the gods. He has a family. He has a wife. He has children. So he’s just just an all around good guy. And so one day Munu is he’s down at the river, he’s gone down to the river, he’s washing some dishes or something, and a fish swims up to him. A very small fish swims up to him. And it’s mythology so the fish can talk, but the fish swims up to Manu and he says, Please, sir, please, I’m so small. All the other fish in the river are trying to eat me. Please protect me. Please take me home with you. And if you do this favor for me, if you save my life today, I promise that one day I’ll return the favor and I’ll save your life as well. In Manou, remember, he’s a good guy, Sumana says. Of course, of course. And he takes the fish and he takes the fish out of the river and he puts him in a bowl. You know, one of the dishes that he’s he’s come there to wash and he puts him in the bowl, takes him home back to his house, his family. They feed Manu sorry. They feed and they feed the fish. The fish has a name. His name is Mastella. And so Masti gets bigger and bigger and bigger. He stays with the family for a while. He’s taken care of by the family. And every time he gets bigger right, Manu has to move him to a different ball like a bigger and bigger ball. Well, finally, one day, Mascia has grown so big that he can’t fit in any of the bowls in their house anymore. So Manu comes to Mascia and he says, you know, look, I, you know, I saved you. We took care of you, we fed you. But, you know, you’re getting so big we can’t keep you in the house anymore. And I think, you know, you’re big enough to to fend for your own back at the river. You know, I think you’ll be safe from now on. And Mascia says, you know, you’re right. I’m ready to go back. Thank you so much for for protecting me, for taking care of me. And it you saved my life. And now it’s time for me to save yours. Right? I promised you that I would save your life as well. And so Mascia is not just a fish. It turns out that Mascia is actually a God. The image below me is actually a picture of Mostue, the fish and the the image of the person or the God coming out of him is Vishnu, because Mascia is actually an avatar of the God Vishnu. And that’s what that picture sort of depicting there, that that mostue is actually in reality, this God, Vishnu. And we’ll talk a lot more about Bishnu. But Vishnu loves humanity and always wants to save them, wants to help them when they when they are in need. So Mascia is actually a God. And he says, I happen to know that the other gods are very disappointed in humanity. They think that these humans, they’re not good, they’re selfish, they’re mean. They’re you know, they didn’t create them. Right. Something is wrong. So they’re actually planning to kill everyone. They’re going to kill all the human beings and they’re going to kill everyone by sending a flood. They’re going to flood the earth, kill everyone and start over again. I make a new a new race of human beings. So he you know, he tells Monu this and he says, you know, but you are a good guy. I want to protect you and your family. So I you know, I think you should build a boat. I build a very large boat that can hold you and your family. And then I will take the boat up to a high mountain once the rains start. You know, he says you can you know, you can tie the boat to me. Remember, he’s a big fish by now. So I will you know, I will pull you up this mountain. You can stay there and wait out the floods, wait for the rains to recede, and then you can come back and you could of start humanity over again. So this is what happens. Manu builds a boat. He brings his entire family into the boat. They’re able to stay safe during the floods as the entire earth is flooded and everyone else is killed. And then they get to, you know, they get to come back and restart humanity. So that’s why he’s he’s sort of, in a sense, kind of like the ancestor of all people, the first human being, even though he’s not technically the first human being, but he and his family restart humanity. So this is the story of monium instead. It’s a really interesting story because it may sound very familiar to you. It may be a story that you’ve heard before. And that’s because it’s very similar to the biblical story of Noah and the flood. Right. Also in the Koran as well, the Koran. Story or the biblical story of Noah and the flood, right, Manu and Noah are very similar characters. The sort of the main points of the story are nearly identical. And that’s because the flood story is what is called a universal myth or archetypal myth. It’s one of theirs. There’s several different stories like this, but it’s a story that is found all over the world. Many different cultures in many parts of the world have a story of sort of a primordial flood, that there was this intense flood that wiped out most of humanity. And there’s usually one person or one family or one group of people who were saved because of their goodness. Right. Because they were actually good people. And so God or the gods spared them from the flood. So it’s a really interesting story just to know that this you know, this story exists all over the world in many different cultural forms. And there’s different theories about why these stories exist. Why are there there are these similar stories around the world. You know, some people think it’s because of cultural contact. Some people think it’s because there really was a flood a very long time ago. And different cultures around the world have remembered it in their mythology, in their stories. We don’t really know. We don’t really know what the the explanation is. We just know that it’s a very it’s a very fascinating common aspect of humanity to have some of these these stories that line up so well with each other. OK, so that’s all for four myths of origins. So I wanted to talk about the origin of everything Brahman, which we’ll talk much more about Shakti, this this force of creation, energy of creation and the origin of humankind. The story of Manu. All right. So next, we’ll talk about some other aspects of life in Hinduism.All right, so we’ve talked a little bit about the myths of origins, the idea of where everything came from within Hinduism, and today we’re going to look at the historical myths. And really for this, what we’re going to talk about in this lecture is the overall worldview of how life, how individual lives work in Hinduism. So the first term that we’re going to talk about for Hinduism is some Saura. The word, some soror and some soror is basically the reality in which we live. So according to Hindus and as we’ll see actually also also according to Buddhists, we live in some soror. All of us are living in some soror. Right now. It’s the world around us. And if you look at the image just that’s just right below me here. This is a visual depiction of some soror. So you can see that it’s a circle and it’s actually a wheel. So it’s a wheel that, like, spins around and around. So this is some soror. And really what some soror is, is it is the cycle of life, death and rebirth. So according to Hindus and Buddhists as well. But we’ll talk about that when we get to Buddhism. We exist in this cycle of life, death and rebirth, what’s otherwise known as reincarnation. And many of you may have already known that Hindus as well as Buddhists believe in reincarnation. So they believe that we live a life, we die, and then we are reborn. Right. So that’s why it’s this wheel. It’s like this cycle, right? Life, death, rebirth, life, death, rebirth. So that’s what some sorrow is, right? So we live we exist in some sorrow. We are on this wheel. We are on this wheel this cycle. We are living our lives right now. At some point in the future, we will die and then we will be reborn. We will come back into some sorrow or really we just we don’t leave some sorrow. Right. We die and were born in some other type of form, which will we’ll talk about in a minute. So it’s this constant wheelwright, this constant cycle. This is what some sorrow is. And for some pride, they might say, well, that’s great. That sounds like immortality. So I don’t have to worry about death. I don’t have to worry about dying, because as soon as I die, I’m going to be reborn into this world. I’m going to come back maybe in some type of different form, but I get to come back in this world. But it’s important to know that four Eastern religions, this is not a blessing. It’s not immortality. It’s actually a curse. This is a bad thing. We’re not just in some or on this wheel. We’re actually stuck in this cycle. We’re trapped in some soror life, death, rebirth, life, death, rebirth. It just goes on and on and on. So the goal of Hinduism is actually to get out of samsara. It is to exit some sorry get off of this wheel. In one sense, one very basic sense, you could say to die and not have to come back to not have to come back, to not have to live your life again in some sorrow or live a life again in some sorrow. And that that might sound strange. That might sound surprising, but it’s important to know how Hindus as well as Buddhists view some how they understand some samsara and really Buddhist belief. Sorry, Hindus and Buddhists believe that every single lifetime spent in some soror, whether it’s a human lifetime or an animal lifetime. Right. Because we’ll talk more about this. But you could come back as an animal. Every single one of those lifetimes is actually marked by more suffering than joy. Every single life that you spend in some soror has ultimately more suffering than it does Joy. And that might sound kind of pessimistic. That might sound sad or depressing, but it means it means something very specific within within Hinduism. And so we can think about, well, you know, but I have lots of happy times in my life, right. I have lots of joy. I have lots of love in my life. How can they say that? Right. How can they say that every single lifetime is marked by more suffering than joy. And you have to sort of analyze what they mean by suffering all the different ways that we as as human beings in this lifetime or possibly animals in another lifetime, all the ways in which we suffer in some sorrow. So they would include within that. Right. Probably what you would automatically think of as suffering. Right. The hard times that you go through in life. The times that you you know, you fail a class or you break up with this significant other, you get into a fight with the friend, you lose your job, you have financial struggles. All of those are forms of suffering. Right? They we all go through hard times in life. We all go through times, you know, that are not fun, that are really difficult, are really challenging. And we’ve all lived through those times and guaranteed we’re all going to live through more of those times. Right. Life only guarantees that there is going to always be more, you know, more tough times, more challenging times. You’re never completely clear of that, right? You can never sort of say like, well, that was hard, but, you know, definitely smooth sailing from here on out. Right. We know that that’s not possible. So all of that is included in it. But there’s also sort of a more basic level of suffering that that Hindoo specifically mean when they say that every single lifetime in samsara, no matter what. Right. No matter how wealthy you are, no matter how smart you are, no matter how good looking you are, it doesn’t matter how lucky you may be. Your life is still ultimately marked by more suffering than joy because of the fact that every living thing in samsara gets old, most likely is going to get sick and will die. Right. That is the very basic level of suffering that they’re talking about. And we can think about this. You know, we are human beings. We can think about how this plays out in every single human life, right? We all age. We all have to age, whatever sort of level you are at on that process, whatever stage you are at in that process, aging is is not the most fun part of being a human being. Right. Aging is serious. Right. You start to age. You know, you know, you are you’re kind of always aging, but. Right. You start to get a little bit older and things don’t work as well. Right. You get into your 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and you lose abilities. Right. You lose physical abilities. You lose mental abilities. You can’t do what you always used to do. And it’s not something fun for us to think about. But that’s why it’s suffering. Right. And that’s why it’s it’s an important thing to think about. Right. For all of us if we are lucky enough to live to old age. Right. We we think of these elderly people like, wow, they lived to be 90, 100 years old. That’s awesome, right? Yes. Yes. That is lucky. That is a blessing. But it comes with a lot of a lot of hardships, of course. Right. If you’re lucky enough to live to old age, there are some very serious and not fun aspects of aging. Right. You’re not going to always be able to do that. The same things physically that you can do, even to the point where you can’t physically take care of yourself. Right. You can’t maybe go to the bathroom on your own. You can’t wash your own body. These are again, these are not fun things for us to think about. But this is a part of aging. This is why aging is a form of suffering, according to Hindu’s. So we’re all going to get old. Most of us are going to get sick at some point. Right. We’re going to go through an illness or an injury, and if we’re lucky enough to survive it, we still have to go through it. And of course, all of us are going to die. Right. We know that that is a fact. That is a assurity. Right. Every single one of us is going to die and we have to live with that. Right. We have to live with that knowledge, that understanding to know that that could happen at any time. And we don’t know when it’s going to happen. So these are all serious and 100 percent guaranteed aspects of life. Right. And it’s hard enough to think about those things for ourselves. Right. It’s hard to think about my own aging, my own sickness, my own illness, my own death. Those are hard things for for us as humans to think about. It’s even harder when we think about the fact that that’s going to happen also to every single person that you love. Right. Every single person that you love, that you care for is also going to get old, is also going to get sick, is also going to die. Not to be very, very depressing, but this is the reason why Hindus say samsara is not where we want to be. It’s not where we want to stay, because every single lifetime spent in samsara, no matter what I get, no matter how rich you are, no matter how smart you are, no matter how good looking you are, you’re going to get old. You’re most likely going to get sick and you’re going to die. And that’s going to happen to every single person you love. So hopefully that. That makes a little bit more sense about why, you know, Hindu’s would say, right, that that ultimately every single lifetime in some soror is marked marked by more suffering than joy. Right. So we want out we want out of some sorrow. We don’t want to have to keep coming back and going through this. Right. Not just once, but again and again and again. You don’t have to just get old once. You have to do it again and again and again. You don’t have to die just once. You have to die again and again and again. And you have to watch that happen to everyone you love in all of these lifetimes. Right. So samsara is a it is. It is where we live. It is the reality in which we live, according to Hindus and Buddhists. But it’s not where we want to be. It’s not where we want to stay. We actually want to get out of some Samarra because Hindus would say there is something so much better outside of some sorrow. OK, so now that I’ve depressed everybody enough, well, we’ll talk about some other aspects of this and eventually how to get out of Samarra. OK, so another important term that goes along with Samarra is your Ottman and Ottman is basically the Sanskrit word for soul. Remember, from previous lecture, Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism. So all of the the oldest, most sacred texts are written in Sanskrit. So that’s why we’re looking at these terms. Some Sahara’s in Sanskrit artman that word. Ortman is also in Sanskrit. So is Sanskrit for soul. OK, so according to Hindus, each of us has an hoppman. We each have a soul. It is the core of ourselves. It is our essence. It is our true self. And it’s what goes with us lifetime after lifetime. Right. We are stuck in some. We are trapped on this wheel. We live, we die, get reborn, live, die, reborn, live, die, reborn, and really everything about our lifetime. Everything about everything external can change. Right. I could be male in one lifetime. I could be female. I could be transgender. I could be a human. I could be an animal. I could live in California. I could live in Poland. I could live in Guatemala. Right. I can have many different types of lifetimes, many different forms. But no matter what, my ottman stays the same. My soul is the the core, the essence of who I am. Everything else about my life can change in my different lifetimes, my different reincarnations and some sorrow. But my Ottman always stays with me, right? My Ortman always stays, remains as my core, my true self. So Ortman is right, is important to know. That’s what goes with us lifetime after lifetime. So there is some sort of stability in these different lifetimes, these different reincarnations. And and I mentioned this already, but. Right. Animals are a part of this as well. So I can be reborn as a human, but I can also be reborn as an animal. So that’s important to know because it’s important to understand. Hindus believe that animals also have souls right there just in an animal lifetime when they’re an animal, but they have the same core, the same soul that a human being has. So that’s why most Hindus do follow a vegetarian diet. It doesn’t mean every single Hindu follows that vegetarian diet, doesn’t mean every Hindu is perfect about following a vegetarian diet. But for the most part, that is a basic ethical teaching in Hinduism is to avoid eating meat because animals, Hindus believe that animals have souls as well. OK, so the next thing, the next terminal, actually, I’m going to put both of these these terms up here is the word Maya, Maya and Maya in Sanskrit translates to something like an illusion or ignorance. So it’s it’s something that we see that we believe is real when it’s really not. It’s really just an illusion. And Hindus actually say that the reason the reason that we’re stuck in some Saura is because of our Maya. Right? We are we are stuck here. We are sort of doomed or curse to come back again and again and again because of our ignorance, because of our illusion. And our illusion is that we think of samsara as real and therefore we want the things of some soror. We we are wanting beings. We want things. We need things. We crave things. So as long as we crave some soror, as long as we crave the things of this world we want or desire the things of this world, we will get the things of this world. We will be reborn into this world. So. Houston Smith, who I’ve talked about before, is a famous writer about religion, used to say that the basic teaching of Hinduism is that you get what you want, whatever it is that you want, you will get as long as you want this world. As long as you want some samsara, you will be reborn into some soror. But eventually, somewhere along your path, your spiritual path, which we’ll talk more about, you will come to realize that some samsara is just an illusion and you will not want anything in this world because you will realize that it’s just an illusion and all you will want is to get out of some sorrow is something beyond some sorrow, which if you remember from our last our last lecture, the the true nature of reality in Hinduism is Rathmann. Right? So we can, you know, who is the the capital g God or high God? We said so, you know, very basically you could say in Hinduism, as long as you desire this world, you will get this world, you will continue to be reborn in this world when you come to see that this world is just an illusion, this world is not real and can never satisfy you fully, you will be ready to start sort of, I guess you could say, transitioning out of some soror. Once you realize that Rahman is your true reality, God is your true reality, you will stop wanting the things of this world. You will overcome your desire for the things of this world. And all you will want is Brahma. All you will want is God. Then that’s when you will. And we’ll talk more about specifically how to achieve this. You can reach a point where you will