INTRO TO HINDUISM: Part 1, Basic principles

Hinduism is one of the oldest religions in the world and is followed by 1 billion Hindus worldwide. Hinduism is not a monolithic tradition, there isn’t one Hindu opinion on things and there is no single spiritual authority to define matters for the faith.   There are several different denominations, the four largest being: Vaishnavism, Saivism, Shaktism and Smartism. Further, there are numberless schools of thought or sampradayas, expressed in tens of thousands of guru lineages or paramparas. Each is typically independent and self-contained in its authority.

The Basic Principles of Hinduism:

• Karma: Karma literally means deed or act and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction, which governs all life. Karma is the natural law of the mind, just as gravity is a law of matter. Karma is not fate, for man acts with free will, creating his own destiny. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and the concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future.
• Reincarnation: A natural process of birth, death and rebirth. At death, we drop off the physical body and continue evolving in the inner worlds in our subtle bodies, until we again enter into birth. Through the ages, reincarnation has been the great consoling element within Hinduism, eliminating the fear of death. The actions set in motion in previous lives form the tendencies and conditions for the next.
• All Pervasive Divinity: As a family of faiths, Hinduism upholds a wide array of perspectives on the Divine, yet all worship the One, All Pervasive Supreme Being, hailed in the Upanishads.
• Dharma: Dharma is God’s Divine Law, prevailing on every level of existence, from the sustaining cosmic order to religious and moral laws which bind us in harmony with that order in relation to the soul, dharma is a mode of conduct most conducive to spiritual advancement, the right and the righteous path.
• Hindu Scriptures: The holiest and most revered Hindu scriptures are the Vedas and Agamas, revealed by God to illumined sages centuries and millennia ago. The most widely known part of the Vedas are the Upanishads which form the more general philosophical foundations of the faith. The era of secondary scripture of which are the Itihasas, specifically the Ramayana and Mahabharata and the Puranas. The ever-popular Bhagavad Gita is a small portion of the Mahabharata.

Source: Hinduism Today, www.hinduismtoday.com