The two most
important differences between Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma) and other religions
are: 1. Openness to varying world-views. 2. No organizational structure and
hierarchy.
Looking for
some general statements about Hinduism, I came across a few gems in a talk
given by Swami Ranganathananda and published in 1999 by Advaita Ashrama (5
Delhi Entally Road, Kolkata 700 014)
First, what
is meant by “culture”? It means “…. The
total accumulation of material objects, ideas, symbols, beliefs, sentiments,
values and social forms which are passed on from one generation to another in
any given society”. (The source for this is The future for traditional Cultures
by K.A.Nilakanta Sastry UNESCO Chronicle
May 1959)
The word “culture”
includes both material and mental. Once a society is self-sufficient in food
and prosperous in a material sense and is free from external and internal
threats, it can spend its resources to mental pursuits. That is when arts, literature
and science and innovation flourish. This is all also the time when a culture (nation) tends
to start pushing its boundaries and start wars.
Ancient Greece
started pursuing the position of man as part of nature and as a member of a
society. The world is seeing the fruits of the remarkable insights and
wisdom of these pursuits which focused on understanding the world we live in.
India and the Indian culture did
not choose this path. Instead, it started a remarkable inward journey. We are
yet to reap the benefits of its wisdom and foresight.
One sloka
(stanza) in Katha Upanishad (4:1) summarizes the direction. It says that the
Primordial Source (the IT or Brahman) created the sense organs and the mind
with a major defect – a tendency to look outward. Therefore, man perceives
outside things, not the Self within. Wise men turn their senses and the mind
inwards and realize the Self.
The
spiritual lessons which such direction gave are summarized by Swami
Ranganathananda as follows: “The ultimate reality of man and the universe is
spiritual through and through, It is One and non-dual, It can be realized by
man, this realization is the goal of human life, this goal can be reached
through different paths….. these constitute the fundamental ideas which have
inspired Indian life; these have provided a spiritual base and a spiritual
direction to Indian culture and shaped the destiny of the Indian people”.
Rigidity and
exclusiveness are not in the province of the Indian culture. As Bertrand
Russell pointed out when rigid cultures meet each other, they behave like billiard
balls with hard collision as the only possible mutual relationship. Instead the
Vedas teach tolerance for multiple views and multiple paths. Ekam satyam, vipra bahudha vadanthi (Truth is One; people call It by different
names) is the Magna Carta of Vedic teaching according to Swami Vivekananda.
S.
Radhakrishnan said in his book on Eastern religions and Western thought that “Toleration
is the homage which the finite mind pays to the inexhaustibility of the
Infinite.”
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