What is the definition of Hinduism?

What is Hinduism? What is its definition? This is a question, which is being increasingly asked both in West and East, both from Westerners and from the Easterners. India is no longer the land of snake charmers, it has some real ideas, which can often answer what Science, or Western Philosophy is unable to.

In two words we can say that it is Sanatana Dharma. But then what is Sanatana Dharma? Definitions confine and limit, this being their primary utility, but dharma cannot be limited. It is limitless. So there can be no exhaustive definition of dharma or Hinduism. We can only give some examples and make surmises about its true nature (not the definition).

Definitions are the property of a closed system, or a law, which is applicable in the material world, and that only to a certain extent, with many constraints. However there are no constraints in Dharma. It was, it is and it will be.

Sanatana Dharma states that the Ultimate Truth is beyond any human language, so it is not possible to express it and write it in words. That’s why there is no “God’s” book in Hinduism. The carrier of such a society, which strives towards this ultimate truth, is Sanatana Dharma.

But in the Dvaita we have to limit it in order to give a criterion for the followers. Sanatana Dharma is a mechanism which breeds a society in which the quest for knowing the Ultimate Truth is encouraged and facilitated. This tradition is generally taken forward by Guru-Shishya Parampara. According to dharma the life of manushya is divided into four periods; Brahmacharya, Grihistha, Vanaprastha and Sanyas. A person practices celibacy until he gets married, and meanwhile learns about the Shastras and a dharmic living according to them. Then he marries and lives the worldly life, enjoying all its pleasures, as permitted by a dharmic living. In the middle age he winds up his worldly affairs and turns inward, in the search of truth. Then after this cleansing period, he takes full Sanyas, and tries to know the Ultimate Truth.

This is the life style of a Hindu living according to Sanatana Dharma. Hinduism doesn’t hate any worldly pleasures. It has provisions to fulfill all worldly desires, hence the four Purusharthas; Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha. Instead of self-mortification, which is prevalent in Christian Monasticism, it doesn’t inculcate in its followers a hatred of the body. It doesn’t divide the body from the soul. It considers the body as the tool for self-realization. So it hasn’t got to be hated, but to be cared for and cleansed of impurities. By impurities it means impurities acquired by the heart and the mind and not by the body.

One basic defining principle of Sanatana Dharma or Hinduism is the karmic cycle and the fact of reincarnation. Sanatana Dharma states that we all are manifestations of the one single reality, which is the Ultimate Consciousness, the Para Brahma, the Universal Consciousness. It is just because this Universal Consciousness, the Goddess Chiti has forgotten herself in its many myriad physical forms, that there is this illusion of separate existence of individuals. We think that the awareness which we feel is this body, and do deeds by having an ‘aham bhav’, a sense of action. Due to this, certain patterns get fixed on this ‘aham bhav’ and this becomes our accumulated ego, which is born again and again. Until we realize that the individual existence is an illusion and that there is only one in this Universe, we keep revolving in this cycle of rebirth.

Dhyana is a tool to get out of this cycle and realize our True Self.

So Sanatana Dharma says that a tradition which leads its followers inwards to the quest of the Ultimate Truth is a dharmic tradition, and one which leads him to the outward quest of worldly desires is an adharmic tradition.

Reincarnation in Hinduism

Reincarnation is one of the most basic features and distinguishing characteristics of Hinduism along with Buddhism, Jainism and Taoism. The whole concept of meditation or Yoga is based on rebirth or reincarnation. The aim of Yoga is to know the true nature of one’s Self, which is the Universal Consciousness. This body has forgotten its true nature and has disillusioned itself into thinking that it is in reality the physical frame by which others refer it. It has been born millions of times into many frames, including animals and even plants. This very realization makes one realize that this body is nothing but an illusion.

Hinduism divides the ‘levels of consciousness’, ‘chetana ke star’. According to it Universal Consciousness has a consciousness level of sixteen, the highest degree (In fact, the Indian monetary system of solah aane, is derived from this hundred percent completeness of the figure of sixteen in the Universal Consciousness). The avatars then have different levels. Shri Rama was said to contain twelve degree of consciousness as he was Maryadapurshottam, but Krishna was said to have all sixteen levels. The ordinary king then has the level of eight and the ordinary man has a level of four. The animals then are given the level three, insects two and plants one. A soul is first born into these lower consciousness levels and then progresses to higher ones and finally comes to the human level. But the progression up to here is spontaneous and is not in the control of the creatures itself. But human has the unique capability to manipulate its destiny. He can either continue the ascension towards Self-Realization through meditation or Yoga or he can degrade himself by adharmic deeds and go down in the lower births of animals and insects. This is where the concept of Hell comes. Hell is nothing but the temporary payback of one’s deeds. And Heaven is the place, which comes between the path of a Yogi. Heaven is a place of ‘Bhoga’, or physical pleasure. A man’s good deeds are cashed on there in the forms of physical pleasures. It is in fact a nullification of one’s good deeds. The king of Swarga, ‘Indra’ is not a single permanent deity, but it is a post, in fact. A man who has done severe penances and done many good deeds, but hasn’t chosen the path of Self-Realization but that of heavenly pleasures gets that Swarga. His deeds are then paid back to him there and after the completion of his term he returns back to earthly lives in order to be engaged in the endless cycle of birth and death again. Draupadi, the character of Mahabharata was said to have been the Indrani of five Indras. That’s why she got the fate of being the wife of five Pandavas.

Thus the concept of Heaven and Hell in Hinduism is entirely different and almost opposite than that of Islam and Christianity. Neither of them is permanent as is the feature of Islamic and Christian ones. Hindu Hell is just the temporary place where a person who has done bad deeds, realizes his mistakes and is finally given the chance of recovering. Heaven is also a temporary place where one’s good deeds are cashed on and neutralized. But in a very peculiar way Hindu Hell is better for a person than Heaven. In Hell he can realize his follies and avoid them in future births. But in Heaven he gets his good deeds destroyed and returns to the mortal frames. In fact in Hindu philosophy Hell can be a more beneficial place than Heaven.

Hindu Hell is not Eternal Damnation like the Islamic and Christian Hell, nor Heaven is the place for eternal physical pleasure. Hindu philosophy recognizes that a limited body frame can only have limited pleasures, however much and more in number and intensity they be. It does not portray a Heaven filled with houris serving the faithful eternally. A mortal body cannot have either Eternal pains or Eternal pleasures. Neither it has reserved Eternal fire of Hell for anybody as it recognizes the Oneness of Beings or Being; it recognizes that eventually every single animate or inanimate being or thing is the part of Universal Consciousness, so it cannot be eternally damned. The bad deeds of any person are considered as just temporary illusions of the part of Supreme Consciousness. Thus where in Islam and Christianity all non-believers are damned to the eternal fire of hell, in Hinduism Muslims and Christians are not differentiated from Hindus.

Most importantly Heaven is the ultimate destination for a Muslim or a Christian, but for a Hindu it is just an aberration, a nuisance between the path to Self-realization. This alone demonstrates the difference between the philosophy of Vedanta and that of Monotheism. While in Monotheistic creeds the ultimate achievement is intense and unlimited physical pleasure, in Hinduism ultimate achievement is the freedom from all such pleasures and the very desire of them.

Also Hindu Hell and Heaven are based on the person’s karma, or deeds. They are not decided by their social, political or ideological creed like Islam and Christianity where it is decided by their being Muslims or Christians or not.

But, yes some recent publications and cults in India have propagated a Christianity like Hell in India. But it is just a misunderstanding and corruption of Hindu philosophy. Particularly after the success of Krishna Consciousness (who have adopted Krishna in much a similar way as Christ), this concept of Hell has gained ground. But all the same it is a corruption and it has never been a part of Hinduism.

About Reincarnation, it no longer needs a proof. Even in Western world, it has found many objective scientific researches who have experienced, researched and published the proofs of reincarnation. Most recent and famous of them are Dr. Brian Weiss, who through is seminal study, “Many Lives, Many Masters” has established reincarnation into the minds of 42% Americans. Dr. Ian Stevenson, Dr. K.S Rawat, are many others who are specialists of past-life regression therapy and are publishing their theories widely. I would suggest you to read their works.