Hinduism - As I Understand

As the title of the blog rightly says, this article is about Hinduism as I personally understand it after reading few religious books and browsing the internet about this religion. My journey on this religious quest started while reading the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi titled ‘My Experiments with Truth’. In his book, Gandhi remarks ‘When disappointment stares me in the face and all alone I see not one ray of light, I go back to the Bhagavad-Gita. I find a verse here and a verse there, and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming tragedies -- and my life has been full of external tragedies -- and if they have left no visible or indelible scar on me, I owe it all to the teaching of Bhagavad-Gita’. If a man of his stature makes such a significant comment on Bhagavad-Gita, it must be truly great and I then decided that it would be the next book I would read.

I bought a book titled ‘Bhagavad Gita’ by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, 2^nd President of India. I read the book from cover to cover with a lot of patience and an open mind to assimilate as much information as I could understand. But I was not satisfied. I did not understand much. Most importantly, I could not get the answer to my first question ‘What is Hinduism?’. Because of this, I was not able to appreciate the timeless wisdom of the Gita

It dawned on me then that I should blog (share) the knowledge I have gained through my reading and analysis in the form of questions and answers rather than in prose form about Hinduism which is already available in the books and also in the internet. Some of the questions are very fundamental and as followers of Hinduism, we must know the answers to them to appreciate its greatness.


In my blogs to come, I will answer the following questions

1.       What is Hinduism?

2.       What is “Brahman”? How is this God different from Lord Vishnu, Lord Siva and the other Gods?

3.       It is impossible for me to leave this material world to become a sage or a sanyāsi and seek ‘True Happiness’. Are there other ways to reach my destiny?

4.       Holy Bible is to Christianity, Holy Quran is to Islam but what religious texts are for Hinduism?

5.       Who gave us these religious texts?

6.       What are Veda and Vedanta?

7.       Are Vedas relevant today?

8.       Hinduism is called the mother of all religions. What makes it so special?

What is Hinduism?

My misconceptions of Hinduism were 

(a) A religion where primary Gods are Brahma, Vishnu, Siva 

(b) There are other Gods like Rama, Krishna, Ganesha, etc protecting people when evil pervades in the world

(c) Vedas and other sacred texts only preach wisdom like tell the truth, respect elders, follow customs

(d) Believe in God to remove sorrow and go to heaven after death

However, all my misconceptions were blown away after reading and understanding some of the religious texts

Hinduism is a religion based on “Sanātana Dharma”. It means all of the following

- ‘Eternal Law’

- ‘Laws that existed in the past, existing in the present and that will exist in the future’

- ‘Laws without beginning or end in time’

The principle objective of Hinduism is to attain ‘True Happiness’. Note the word ‘True’ here. Happiness is a result of satisfaction of our sensual desires. Some day-to-day examples are

- Eating delicacies – an act of pleasing the desire of the mouth

- Watching films - an act of pleasing the desire of eyes and ears

- Use of perfumes - an act of pleasing the desire of nose (self and others)

- Spa treatments - an act of pleasing the desire of skin

To satisfy these desires of the sense organs, we need money and our whole life is spent in search for money to find the happiness that is not true. All happiness we are in search today and every day is untrue, unreal, illusion or termed as “māya” in the religious texts

‘True Happiness’, that which is everlasting, can only be achieved through unification of the self (soul) with the Supreme Being or Universal Self (God) - this is the essence of Hinduism or “Sanātana Dharma”. This is the most difficult point to understand and also to explain.

‘Self’ is nothing but the soul within each one of us or the “ātma”. ‘Universal Self’ is the “paramātma” or “Brahman”. This “Brahman” is the Supreme Being or the Transcendental God. I will have to caution the reader here as to not to confuse “Brahman” with “Brahmin”. The former is the term for God used in the sacred texts while the latter is the caste or “varna” a person belongs to.

Soul gives the very life to our mortal body and makes us ‘exist’. Soul is present not only in humans but also in every creation of God, be it animate (plants, animals, etc) or inanimate (rock, water, etc). Only the degree varies. In humans, the soul is highly personified but in inanimate objects, it is least personified. But the truth is that every object in this universe has a soul. And this soul is a ‘manifestation’ (not part of) of the Universal Soul. This implies that God is present in each of us. This is what “mahāvaakyas” or ‘Great Sayings’ in the Upanishads tell us

Chandogya Upanishad:                 “tat tvam asi”                - ‘You are it’

Mandukya Upanishad:                   “ayam ātma brahma”  - ‘The Self (Atman) is Brahman’

Aitareya Upanishad:                      “prajnanam brahma”  - ‘Consciousness is Brahman’

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:         “aham brahmāsmi”     - ‘I am Brahman’

To achieve the ‘True Happiness’ we must reflect within ourselves by directing our consciousness towards this hidden soul. This is beautifully termed as “Satchitānanda” where “sat” means ‘Existence’, “chit” means ‘Consciousness’ and “ānanda” means ‘Pure Bliss’ or ‘True Happiness’.

One who has achieved this ‘True Happiness’ is said to be a liberated soul or is said to have achieved “moksha” or destiny

The great sages from time immemorial have performed “tapas” or severe penances to discover this message buried in the timeless expanse of this universe and passed it along for millennia through Guru-Shishya tradition and we have it today in the form of Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, etc. As this process of attaining “moksha” is not easy (grossly understated here), the great sages have given the sacred texts that explain to us as to what needs to be done to achieve one’s destiny. The most widely known breathing exercise, the Yoga, is one of the several techniques that helps to improve concentration and train the consciousness to seek the soul in the journey to find “paramānanda”

Thanks for reading this far. Happy to stand corrected if the information is not right. Leave your comments without fail in this case