Hinduism is a major religion
Meaning of name; body of water, Indus River
Date founded: around 4,000 to 2,500 BC
Place founded: India
Founder: None, not known
Adherents: About 1.2 billion. Size rank: 3rd
Main locations: India
Major divisions: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism
Sacred texts: Vedas, Upanishads, Smriti, Tantras
Original language: Sanskrit, ancient liturgical language of India
Spiritual leader: Gurus (teachers), Swamis (monks/masters), or Acharyas (preceptors), Priest.
Place of ritual: Temples, altars, and shrines (home and public)
Theism: Varies: Polytheistic (many gods and pantheistic (all is god).
Ultimate reality: None. To become one with the world, goal escape the past, and be one with god-nature
Human nature: Man is good. Temporary physical body and mind, soul, soul cycle of rebirth-reincarnation.
Purpose of life: To escape the cycle of rebirth. Cows are worshipped.
Afterlife: Rebirth always comes back to earth in a new body
How to live: Ritual duty, to reduce karma. Karma is not cause and effect; it is always your fault. If someone ran a red light and hit you, it is because you did something to deserve it.
Holidays:" Lights, Spring Colors, 9 night-mother god, Lord Shiva day, Lord Krishna day, brothers and sisters day, Lord Ganesha day, and Saraswati god.
Creation: gods, sweat and blood
Jesus: one of many gurus
Salvation: Reduce karman, in each life.
Hinduism started in India. Hinduism has developed over about 4,000 years and has no single founder or creed; rather, it consists of a vast variety of beliefs and practices. Organization is minimal and hierarchy nonexistent. In its diversity, it is both pantheistic and polytheistic idol worship. Hinduism has approximately 1.2 billion followers worldwide, making it the third-largest religion. Roughly 95% of Hindus live in India.
BELIEFS AND PRACTICES
Caste System
The ideal way of life is the "duties of one's class". The ancient texts suggest four great classes; priests; warriors and rulers; merchants and farmers; peasants and laborers. A fifth class, the untouchables, includes those who handle unclean objects. Each is expected to play the distinct roles he has.
Stages of Life
The classical works also outline four ideal stages of life, each with its own duties. studentship, householdership, forest dwelling, when one gives up attachment to all worldly things. Moral codes: honesty, courage, service, faith, self-control, purity, and nonviolence.
These ideal classes encompass males only. The position of women in Hinduism has always been ambiguous; they are, on the one hand, venerated as a symbol of the divine, on the other, treated as inferior beings. Women were traditionally expected to serve their husbands and to have no independent interests.
Reincarnation-Transmigration of souls, or samsara, the passage of a soul from body to body as determined by one's actions, or KARMA. The karma theory specifies that one's life, and experiences are determined by one's previous acts. Liberation is release from this cycle of rebirth. It is typically to be achieved by working off those karmic acts, also by following practices like: yoga, vegetarianism
PHILOSOPHY
Basic principles; metaphysics and epistemology, analysis of logic; ritual--the Vedic sacrifice, relationship between the self (Atman) and ultimate reality (Brahman) as the critical aspect of any path to liberation.
HINDU DEITIES
The two gods within Hinduism are Vaishnavism, the cult of VISHNU, and Shaivism, the cult of SHIVA. Hindu belief holds that the universe is populated by a multitude of gods. These gods share features of the Godhead but behave and act much as humans do. Similar to the ancient Greeks gods. So with animal and half animal gods. Sacred Cow is the greatest Reincarnation - power. Jesus is just a guru.
FORMS OF WORSHIP
Hindu worship takes many forms. Vedic sacrifices were conducted in any open place properly consecrated. Typical Hindu daily worship includes a stop at several shrines, a visit to a temple, and home worship. A Hindu may be devoted to several gods: the image of one god, frequently a family deity, is commonly installed in a small shrine in the home; a second god, worshipped at a nearby temple, may be the divinity to which the person's caste is committed; and still another may be the god-his guru (teacher). Because everything is god in a Hindu's eyes, almost anything may be considered worthy of devotion; rivers, animals, cowpens and holy men.
LITERATURE
The Vedas were hymns of the ARYANS,
Although the Vedas continue to be spoken of as the final authority in Hinduism, other texts of equal importance exist: CODE OF MANU, of class; Kamasastras of Vatsyayana are handbooks of pleasure, Another source of Hindu lore is the Puranas, collections of fables, legends and myths.
Recent changes in classical Hinduism are the end to: a widow's suicide at her husband's funeral; and lowering caste distinctions.
Hindu Creation Story
Hinduism, which has millions of followers in India and around the world today, is one of the world's oldest religions. For well over 3,000 years, it has been accumulating the sacred stories and heroic epics that make up the mythology of Hinduism. Nothing in this complex and colorful mythology is fixed and firm. Pulsing with creation, destruction, love, and war, it shifts and changes. Most myths occur in several different versions, and many characters have multiple roles, identities, and histories. This seeming confusion reflects the richness of a mythology that has expanded and taken on new meanings over the centuries.
In Hindu philosophy, the existence of the universe is governed by the Trimurti of Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Sustainer) and Shiva (the Destroyer). The sequence of Avatars of Vishnu- the Dasavatara (Sanskrit: Dasa—ten, Avatara—incarnation) is generally accepted by most Hindus today as correlating well with Darwin's theory of evolution, the first Avatar generating from the environment of water.
Hindus thus do not see much conflict between creation and evolution. An additional reason for this could also be the Hindu concept of cyclic time, such as yugas, or days of Brahma in approximately 4.3 billion year cycles (unlike the concept of linear time in many other religions). In fact, time is represented as Kaala Chakra — the Wheel of Time.
In Hinduism, nature and all of God's creations are manifestations of Him. He is within and without his creations, pervading the entire universe and also observing it externally. Hence all animals and humans have a divine element in them that is covered by the ignorance and illusions of material or profane existence.
There are several creation stories in Hinduism. Hinduism believes there are times when the universe takes form and times when it dissolves back into nothing. The in-between times are known as the days and nights of Brahma, who is the Hindu god of creation.
What is striking in all this, of course, is that none of these stories actually say how the universe began. There is no sense of things being created out of nothing, the stuff of the universe only happening to be reused and recycled periodically, like in a giant ecofriendly enterprise. In a sense, of course, this is a natural outcome of the Hindu vi
#A quoted:
In the beginning all was undifferentiated and in perfect harmony and Vishnu lay relaxed on his serpent, Sheshnag. As Vishnu opened his eyes, creation began. A lotus flower emerged from his navel and birthed the god of creation, Brahma. Brahma proceeded to create the universe in the form of a golden egg, called the Hiranyagarbha, which means “the golden womb.”
#1
Creation is the result of the sacrifice of Purusha (Man), the primeval being, who had “a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet” was sacrificed, the clarified butter that resulted was made into the beasts which inhabit the earth. This same sacrifice produced the gods, Indra (the menacing king of gods), Agni (Fire), Vayu (Wind), as well as the Sun and the Moon. From his navel the atmosphere was born; his head produced the heaven; his feet produced the earth; his ear the sky. The four varnas were born too: the mouth was the brahman (priest); the arms the kshatriya (warrior); the thigh the vaishya (general populace); the feet the shudra (servant).
Primeval incest is the other method by which creation takes place in the Rig Veda, and this idea recurs throughout Hinduism. Later mythology claims Manu, the first man, gave birth to the human race through the act of incest; Manu himself is also born of incest that the creator indulges in. By the time we come to the texts known as the Puranas (dates between 300 and 1500 AD), the story of creation becomes more complex: the creator of the universe was the god Brahma, who came from the primeval waters, and was swayambhu (self-existent). Brahma transformed himself into a giant boar (varaha) to bring forth the earth from the depths of these waters. The first man, Manu, was born directly of Brahma. Manu was a hermaphrodite, and created two sons and three daughters from his female half.
#2
Before time began there was no heaven, no earth and no space between. A vast dark ocean washed upon the shores of nothingness and licked the edges of night. A giant cobra floated on the waters. Asleep within its endless coils lay the Lord Vishnu. He was watched over by the mighty serpent. Everything was so peaceful and silent that Vishnu slept undisturbed by dreams or motion.
_______
New Age Movement
See New Age Pages for more info.
Hinduism, Buddhism and Zen in a America pantheistic package. New age is a term popularized in the mid-1980s to describe a "human potential movement."
Reincarnation only into Humans not animals - plants.
No scared books, no moral code. No need for a Holy God. New age blames the ills of the world on Christianity
Everything is god, thru self awareness, “Look with in” one discovers the potential godhood thus truth and wisdom. Meditate for enlightenment. Nature worship, “Be in one with nature and the universe is bliss.
Much Science Fiction is based on New Age thought.
Much UFOs fascination is based on New Age and demonic influence.
Astrology states the stars-universe sets fates.
Yoga a way to self awareness “Look with in”.
Out-of-body experience with the help of spirit guides-channelers to past lives, the dead and extraterrestrials. Occult disciplines, unorthodox psychotherapeutic techniques and pseudoscientific applications of the "healing powers" of crystals and pyramids called holistic health are other marks of New Age.
Jainism
Jainism is an ancient Indian religion focused on non-violence (ahimsa), self-control, and liberation of the soul (moksha) from the cycle of rebirth by purifying karma. The core belief centers on the soul’s potential for perfection, with ultimate goals of omniscience and salvation achieved through the three jewels: right faith, knowledge, and conduct. Key practices include strict vegetarianism, including avoiding root vegetables, and profound respect for all life