Explaining Hinduism to a foreigner

writer: Vibhu Pandey

How I should have explained Hinduism to Philippe

The snooker table was occupied by four nationalities at the time. A teenager from Morocco, pierced everywhere, friends left for home, he didn’t. A couple from Uruguay. Despite weed being legal there, they were the most enthusiastic and great company overall. Philippe, this guy from Italy had a sluggish personality but a curious pair of eyes. He knew what he said, what others said, but he made it look like it didn’t bother him. It seemed as if nothing bothered him. And I, a solo traveller from India.

This was my first night in Amsterdam.

Waiting by the table for our turns in between those slow snooker games, we casually exchanged experiences. Philippe mentioned that although he was baptized, he considered himself free from religious bounds. His voice backed by a confidence of reason. He knew about Osho from a Netflix series and was particularly interested in India. With a queer glance at me, he asked: “You mind enlightening me about Hinduism?”.

Although my religion wasn’t my entire personality, it made a large chunk of that. I realized at that moment that I never actually gave a thought about this. I felt exposed. I blabbered something absurd about cows, about cremation…

That question stuck ever since. Essentially, the following hypothetical conversation is an articulation of one of those countless shower thoughts where we overthink how we should have responded in a situation when in reality we were absolutely destroyed.

In its earnest, I did peruse a little about Hinduism. By this dialogue piece I do intend for a little awareness without compromising its innocent authenticity. I didn’t frame the questions based on my limited knowledge but attempted to do it the right way, even failing miserably if I couldn’t find a convincing response.

Philippe: What does religion mean to you?

Me: To me, it’s like a feeling imbibed within us.

Philippe: That sounds plain dumb.

Me: It’s a little complicated to explain actually.

Philippe: I understand that religion is one of those vexed topics on which many scholars still have contradictory understanding. Feel free to complicate things to the best of your capacity.

Me: The closest understanding with which I identify is inspired by MacMillan that almost all cultures have a depth dimension towards some form of ultimate supremacy.

Philippe: Wait! let that sink in… continue.

Me: Now, as people’s behaviour is influenced by this depth dimension in a culture, it constitutes what we empirically recognize as a religion. When people of a culture organize their life around the depth dimension of this evolved experience, it takes the shape of religion as we know today. This evolved experience is influenced a lot by the enveloping culture.

Philippe: That was some mouthful. Okay… in a nutshell, do you imply that religion is an ever-evolving framework?

Me: I wish! But unfortunately, the major religions aren’t.

Philippe: Will you mind elaborating?

Me: Initially, this “organization of life” was adhered to and followed by people of that culture scrupulously. It was maybe the best organization for the community at that time as it was moulded based on “their recent experiences”.

Philippe: Looks like it worked, the villagers seem happy. chuckles

Me: I imagine they were, but religion was bootstrapped with evolved experience as one of its crucial parameters, it should have been dynamic and adaptive by definition.

Philippe: I see! The practices weren’t analyzed or questioned thereafter?

Me: Sort of. Over time, these best practices of the organization which should have been adaptive became the standard norms. As generations passed, these norms took the shape of fixed protocols for that culture which every member was expected to follow.

Philippe: So, do you want to imply that the participant members became mere followers?

Me: Unfortunately yes, and the religion which was supposedly ever-evolving was modified only after it was late enough to make the life of some followers horrible. In worst cases, protocols weren’t amended even when they unfolded to be inhumane with time.

Philippe: That is an awful truth actually, do you think it is religion-specific ?

Me: To a certain extent, the scope of amendments was very much specific to religion. Some religions were and still are just a little too stringent with their protocols, like the Abrahamic religions.

Some religions like Hinduism became too big to change. The amendment with decentralized authority in addition to monumental faith had become a humongous challenge.

Philippe: Gotcha! If it’s linked to evolution, you got any idea about the timeline of major religions?

Me: The oldest was Hinduism with most scholars agreeing around 2000 BC followed by Buddhism 6 BC, it has many parallel beliefs with Hinduism. Christianity 1 AD, Christianity became so popular it even defines the timeline in the modern era. Followed by the latest major religion Islam. It was preached by the prophet Muhammad in 6th AD.

Philippe: Islam looks like a relatively recent religion. If Islam teachings were preached by Muhammad, what religion was he born into? whispers I’ve heard Jesus was born a Jew.

Me: Shhhhhh… We don’t talk about that here.

Philippe: What Shhhhhh….??

Me: Who am I kidding?

As per Karen Armstrong, a religious scholar who studied Muhammad a lot, we don’t know practically anything about prophet Muhammad until his revelation. Only after he became a major political leader and people around him realized it is ‘that’ point in history, his life was recorded in detail. That was merely the last 10 years of his life.

Philippe: He seems like a man of influence.

Me: In its true sense! He inspired the world’s fastest-growing religion and is regarded as the greatest of all prophets by Muslims. The Islamic bible, Quran is considered his most important miracle. As we talk, the most common given name on this planet is Muhammad.

Philippe: Hinduism also got its version of the Bible?

Me: Hinduism got no particular rulebook, only reference books per se. Some consider the Vedas as supernatural but mostly because of its resilience, the Vedic way aged gracefully over the span of 4000 years.

Philippe: And I thought Gita is “the” most holy book you guys got?

Me: Actually there are a lot of Gitas in Hindu mythology. Vyadha Gita, Ram Gita… but the one that is generally referred to as “Gita” is Bhagavad Gita as it had a pivotal role in the Hinduism timeline. Also, it’s definitely not a rulebook because its interpretation is more like- to each their own.

Philippe: Shall I assume there is no particular guidance for wrong-doing and right-doing as in monotheistic mythologies?

Me: Yup. Hinduism is not obsessed with objective truth. It celebrates the fluidity of subjective truth. In quantitative truth, everyone sees a slice(bhag) of the truth, one who sees all the slices is bhag-vana or god.

Philippe: Oh sure! I agree you guys are not monotheistic because you got something like 33 crore gods?

Me: Uhhh… That’s a misconception, we can’t blame anyone as the meanings for the same word is very much contextual in Sanskrit. The word koti in “trayastrimsati koti” does not mean the number ‘thirty-three crore’. Here koti means ‘supreme’, pre-eminent, excellent, that is, the 33 ‘supreme’ divinities.

Philippe: Cool! Let’s not dwell more on that. Please tell me you are cute enough to believe in reincarnation.

Me: You would have heard the buzzword “Karma”. It’s trending in the western world recently. It roughly translates to “my actions on my circumstances will be responsible for my circumstances”. It’s a vicious cycle.

Philippe: Yeah, I like that concept actually. It extrapolates the psychological concept of internal locus of control.

Me: In Hindu mythology, the self is responsible for all the happenings. Reincarnation viewed with Karma provides an explanation of why some are born privileged but others aren’t. It just doesn’t pass on the explanation to God’s will.

Philippe: Its fascinating to see that way! So how is the state information of karma maintained between rebirth and redeaths?

Me: The immortal resident in body is termed as dehi or soul. Visualized in Gita- we wear these fresh souls at the time of birth and discard them at the time of death. The karma cycle breaks only with Mukti (or salvation).

Philippe: When do you think a soul charms life into a mortal body? Is it during birth? During fertilization? Please don’t say I have got a million little souls inside me!

Me: You should have ended that sentence with “Checkmate”. That’s a valid question though. To answer I will say that most Hindus believe that personhood begins with the reincarnation that happens at conception.

Philippe: Then abortion will be a sin, I guess?

Me: Again, since there is no definite rulebook, neither abortion nor using surplus blastocyst to save an embryo is against religion.

Philippe: Sounds pragmatic! Talking about practicality, how Hindus react to a non-believer?

Me: In modern times, even if you observe two Hindus all the time, you can’t really tell by the actions if he is an astik (believer) or otherwise. You have to ask. That is the reason many people refer to Hinduism as not a religion but a natural way of life.

Philippe: How do you differentiate? Are all Hindu born Hindu?

Me: Initially, those who stood by the chronicles narrated by “Vyasa” were called astikas or believers. These chronicles included the popular epics of Ramayan and Mahabharat. The nastikas who denied these were later termed as non-believers. However, the nastikas aren’t judged by most so they don’t mind being called a Hindu.

Philippe: Did Ramayan or Mahabharat actually happen?

Me: The funny part is it doesn’t even matter. Most of the people, be it Astikas or Nastikas spend their limited time and energy of spiritual exploration in establishing or otherwise if it “really” happened. What matters is how these epics can inspire and improvise our behavior in multiple domains.

Philippe: What theme these epics are based on?

Me: Although triggered by worldly circumstances, these epics touch almost every aspect of human life be it philosophy, theology, ethics, history, architecture, domestic science, politics, myths, legends, humour, romance, war. The thing I like the most about these epics is that they present even the greatest of legends with their humane flaws.

Philippe: This is exactly how I would describe Game of Thrones. So these epics assume the crux of Hinduism?

Me: Although these are great chronicles, Hinduism is much more than that.

Philippe: You have my attention.

Me: There are two extreme approaches by which we feel content when assimilating a concept. When you know that nobody knows how it works or when you are able to understand something from the first principle and know exactly how it works. Some religions allow only the former approach while Hinduism allows both.

Philippe: And how does Hinduism manage these extremes?

Me: The Bhakti approach in Hinduism signifies the former, it is preached using the local languages so that the message reaches the masses. The modern approach is just emerging where followers have started to question the understanding of Hinduism.

Philippe: Followers asking question! It looks like someone’s religion is in threat.

Me: I wonder no better thing could happen to a religion than followers asking the right questions. As told before, evolved experiences have always been a crucial parameter for a religion.

Philippe: Tell me about this analytical approach to Hinduism?

Me: I have always been a fan of derivation by the first principle, beside a geeky pleasure it reveals many unforeseen ideas associated with the concept. There are different levels of abstraction of these concepts. These phases transcends faintly into one another.

Philippe: To be candid, I never had a way with abstract concepts.

Me: They indeed are tricky, so the gist is presented in decreasing order of comprehension difficulty. The oldest scriptures Vedas are considered as the kernel of Hinduism. Upanishads are speculations of these Vedas. Puranas are the storytelling ways to convey these compiled ideas. These are further simplified to Bhakti chores for the mass reach.

Philippe: Some layers would only be understood by the Hindu scholars, “curators of the Hinduism” I guess.

Me: You are not wrong. But some have taken the role of self-appointed sentries. Their goal is to defend Hinduism but with a quest to establish objective supremacy for a religion that has always appreciated the idea of fluid truth. Despite their countless good deeds, they have harmed the idea of Hinduism.

The pursuit of subjective truth like the interpretation of an abstract idea leads to the sam-vaad or discussion, but the quest for objective truth like the idea of supremacy is all-consuming and leads to unnecessary arguments or vi-vaad. Regardless of the rationale, though Hinduism is widely celebrated, Hindutva has become a rather adulterated term.

Philippe: Why don’t you do something for the awareness?

Me: Maybe I will.