Hinduism

As one religious scholar notes, "Hinduism is not strictly a religion. It is based on the practice of Dharma, the code of life". Personally, Hinduism offers greater meaning to existence than conventional religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Hinduism represents a quest for knowledge and awareness that is non-separatist and universal. The worldview encompassed by Hindu Dharma is universal because it allows for different individuals at different levels of spiritual growth to approach the same goal, (Ultimate Reality or Brahman). Embracing the enormous diversity in the universe on all levels, Hindu Dharma is universal at every level of belief and spiritual development, as opposed to religions that are only universal in certain aspects of belief or spirituality. As Pandit argues, "A religion is universal if its appeal is not restricted to any particular segment of humanity, religious group, nation, race, class, country or age. All religions have universal aspects, but all aspects of Hindu Dharma are universal".

Another reason Hindu Dharma appeals to my perspective of life is because of its interconnectivity. In Hinduism, the individual is viewed as spirit or soul (atman) contained in the physical body. Hindus view individual separation as an illusion and all life as one enormous entity. Every soul (atman) is connected to every other living thing. All things are living and interconnected so individual separation is

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n the four sacred Vedas, and in the six kinds of knowledge that help to know, to sing, and to use the Vedas: definition and grammar, pronunciation and poetry, ritual and the signs of heaven. But the highest wisdom is that which leads to the Eternal." In essence, the "lower truths" or forms of wisdom thus defined as related to the rational, material work and to man's way of knowing this world via his senses and his intellect. The unconditioned Brahman is, according to Swami Nikhilananda "free from the limiting adjuncts of space, time and causation....The east and the other directions do not exist for it - no athwart, no beneath, no above. The supreme Brahman is not to be fixed; it is unlimited, unborn, not to be reasoned about, not to he conceived." In other words, this Eternal truth cannot be "understood," "identified," or "known" by means of reason. Via the Om, a holy symbol of Brahman, man can experience non-duality. Experienced as silence, the attributeless Brahman is "not that which is conscious of the external (objective) world, nor that which is conscious of the internal (subjective) world, nor that which is conscious of both, nor that which is a mass of sentiency, nor that which is simple consciousness, nor that wh

Category: Philosophy - H