Posted by:
Happy Hare Krishna
(
)
Date: April 13, 2014 09:47AM
The story continues :-) PART 2 -
I explored, to varying degrees, various other other faiths - including: various sects of mainstream Christianity (Catholic and Protestant), Islam, Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform), various sects of Hinduism, select sects of Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Wicca, and the Baha'i Faith. Of these, I was initially most familiar with Hinduism - having family from India who actively practised the faith - but eventually I learnt a great deal from my research and personal study about other faiths. Some of these, I examined with serious interest, while others, I explored just with some curiosity. At this point, I was aware of, but did not look seriously into, and was most definitely not seriously considering, the Hare Krishna faith.
To make a very, very long story short, while there were certain aspects of these faiths that I found interesting, for many of these faiths/sects I eventually ran into concerns about beliefs that prevented me from fully accepting them. But there was one faith/sect that I kept coming back to, for a variety of reasons - including what I saw as a rather logical world view that fit in nicely with scientific teachings (and that embraced science rather than fighting against it), teachings that answered questions and filled in philosophical gaps/holes that I found in other faiths, historical evidences that seemed to confirm certain stories accepted by this faith, and scriptures with confirmed ancient dating that had an astounding accuracy at making certain future predictions as well as in explaining accurately in detail certain things (such as the development of the child in the womb in stages) that early believers would have no way of knowing about without the modern advances of science and technology that we now have available to us, along with certain personal experiences that I had in this faith/sect. That faith/sect was Vaishnava Hinduism.
But my spiritual journey did not end there, and that is because I discovered a rather interesting - and to me, as a truth-seeker, rather concerning - fact about Hinduism.
Hinduism as a whole, as it stands now, is a giant, huge mess. There is a fairly wide diversity of theologies and philosophies even within what would be considered as "mainstream" Hinduism, with heterodox beliefs spanning an even wider diversity of beliefs. There are some shared basic principles, such as a belief in one God, and the doctrines of karma (basically, you earn your future, based on your actions in the past and present) and reincarnation until salvation - both of which are meant to be teaching tools, to gradually enable us to learn to choose the right and to become, with time, worthy of salvation - which practically all Hindus accept. But even such basic doctrines as exactly Who is believed to be that one God, what is actually meant by salvation, and the nature of the spirit soul as well as its relationship with God - despite scriptures being unequivocally clear in what they say about such matters - can differ widely amongst sects of the faith. Even the followers of Hinduism themselves, in practice, might not completely understand what they believe or how to explain their beliefs, and there is a lot of confusion within as well as outside of the faith about it. Consequently there is a lot of misinformation - some produced by outsiders, others made by even people within the faith - about what the Vedic scriptures actually teach.
There are a number of reasons for why this is the case, but ultimately the main reason boils down to either not reading, or not properly understanding, what is written in the Vedic scriptures. That is caused by a variety of factors, including socio-cultural reasons, perceptions that simply learning whatever gurus (spiritual teachers) teach is sufficient (and there are gurus/spiritual teachers of Hinduism who say all kinds of things!), and limited access to the scriptures for the masses (a terrible mistake) for a great number of years. The unfortunate consequence is that people did not really know what they believed, and came up with a bunch of different ideas to fill in the gaps in their knowledge - and then, when greater access to the scriptures DID finally come around, they did quite a bit of "interpretation" to keep faith in their beliefs.
It might help to explain one of the major differences in what Hindus actually believe, to illustrate my point.
There are two main philosophical schools of Hinduism: personalism and impersonalism. Personalists believe in a personal God. They accept the existence of an impersonal form of God, but they believe that God is ultimately and originally personal. They also believe that the world is real, although experiences within it may be temporary, and that individual spirit souls (we) are never one with God but are eternally His devotees. Illusion arises from our separation from God, and disappears by our truly reconnecting with Him. Impersonalists, on the other hand, believe that God is ultimately impersonal. Pure impersonalism also teaches that the world is not real but an illusion, and that all spirit souls (we) are actually God, but because WE are in illusion (don't ask me how it's possible for an all-powerful, all-knowing God to be in illusion - as I don't know and I don't believe in it) we don't know it, and we will learn it when we get out of illusion. Impersonalism is intrinsically linked to early Indian Buddhist beliefs. Impersonalism, incidentally, has also been a heavy early influence to a great number of Western religious movements.
Impersonalist ideals have, for a variety of reasons, been gaining popularity in India as well as in the West. The trouble is, impersonalism is NOT what the Vedic scriptures actually teach. So they have to twist around the words of the scriptures (in what the Founder-Acarya of ISKCON, Srila Prabhupada, likes to call "word jugglery"), devise their own interpretations, dismiss what is written as merely "figurative", or discard the scriptures entirely, to come up with a method of reasoning to justify their beliefs. The same is true of theological schools - Vaishnavism, or belief that Vishnu or Krishna (same personality, different names/forms) is God, with other divine personalities in Hindu theology (called devas/devis, also translated as demigods) being devotees and servants of the Lord, is clearly evidenced by the writings of scripture, but those of other theological sects in Hinduism have similarly come up with ways to rationalize their respective beliefs.
As an example: there is a scripture verse in which the Lord (Krishna) tells His devotee, who had been confused about what to do in his life and who didn't feel capable of taking up other forms of spiritual practice, to simply "Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me." As Krishna is the speaker, it's pretty clear that He is telling His devotee to surrender unto Him. But a number of impersonalists have twisted this verse around to claim that by "unto Me", Krishna is not actually referring to Himself, but to the Lord within the heart - and from the impersonalist point of view, since we are all really actually God, we learn to accept this, and we should surrender unto OURSELVES, instead of to Him. Absolutely crazy in my opinion, but this is actually how this verse is translated in a number of impersonalist renditions of scriptures - including the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most widely translated books. It's hugely important to have a good translation when you engage in serious study of the Bhagavad Gita (and other scriptures).
So, I could see the problem very clearly, I understood the differences between the different major philosophical and theological sects of Hinduism, and I knew why they came about. But that alone didn't help me, as a truth-seeker, to understand WHICH faith tradition was right to follow - that is, which beliefs the Vedic scriptures actually teaches. To find that out, I had to engage in much deeper study, correct past mistaken beliefs, and take a leap of faith that would eventually lead me to my current spiritual path - and to also help me to understand why myself and others take the spiritual paths in which they choose to believe.
[End of Part 2 - Part 3 Coming Soon]