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Frequently Asked Questions
1. What's the point of using idols to pray to God?
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Sometimes it is easier to pray to God if you can picture Him/Her. For instance, if you close your eyes, it is easier to meditate. That doesn't mean that if you open your eyes, God won't be generous at you. Therefore, the idols are used as a way to pray to God. Very few if any Hindus pray to the idols but to the God. Idols symbolize the diety of worship and some idols are presicely created with specifications to hold a piece of the particular god's soul.
2. So are all Hindus vegetarians?
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Hinduism is a very flexible religion, compared to other faiths. Although vegetarianism is encouraged it is not required. People with certain careers are permitted to eat meat as they need meat to build up their strength. Soldiers and police officers for example are free to eat meat as they need its strength. Priests are required to be vegetarians (with the exception of Hindu priests in Indonesia) to maintain their purity. The argument Hinduism has for vegetarianism is that when one eats an animal he/she absorbs the energies of that animal. Often the animal is extremely frightened when entering the slaughtering house, and we absorb those energies. Also it is advised that we treat all animals with respect and cherish life.
3. How can you have many Gods if you believe in only one?
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It is true that Hinduism has a large pantheon, but the fact is that each of the gods are simply a manifestation of Brahman the supreme God, and therefore all the Gods of the Hindu pantheon are one and the same. The many gods of the Hindu pantheon serve as metaphorical meanings to the nature of the supreme Brahman and the path to reach him.
The fundemental belief behind Brahman is illustrated with the Sanskrit word Satchitananda. Sat means truth, chit means all pervading, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. Ananda means that god is bliss. That one Brahman is in every space, within us, infact he is us ourselves!
4. Why does Krishna ask Arjuna to kill his relatives?
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When Sri Krishna tells Arjuna to kill he is actually talking about the metaphorical struggle between good and evil within us. Sri Krishna tells Arjuna to kill the vices within us to become enlightened. Within us our vices: kama, krodha, moha, lobha, mada and matsarya or desire, anger, delusion, greed, lazyness, and envy respectively in English, are what prevent us from realizing our true divinity.
Also Krishna tells Arjuna that we are bound by duty. As a warrior, Arjuna's duty was to act as God's instrument to fight and kill the evil doers on the Kaurava side. In Hinduism a soldier is bound by duty to fight to uphold his values, traditions or people. Likewise Arjuna had to fight to prevent evil from ruling the kingdom that was rightfully his brother's.
5. Is Hinduism based only in India or that only Indians can be Hindus?
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Anyone and Everyone is a Hindu. Hinduism is all-encompassing and non-exclusive. As a Hindu, one is not restricted to practicing only Hinduism alone, as a Hindu is allowed to practice other religions. Although Hinduism is primarily based in India it is also practiced all over Indonesia, and was the official religion of the Khmer and Champa Empires of Cambodia and Vietnam respectively. Many westerners adopted Hindu beliefs also, including John Lennon, Henry David Thereau, and Anne Bessant. Hinduism is for everyone.
6. Isn't Hinduism too patriarchal for modern times? Aren't women always portrayed as feeble in Hinduism?
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Hinduism has always held women in high esteem. In fact one of the worst sins in Hinduism is called "stri hatya" or killing a women. The mother is considered the most important being in Hinduism. We believe that after a lifetime of serving the father, one freed has repayed the father's gererocity, but it is never possible to repay the mother. The sacrifice of the mother can never be repayed in one lifetime. As Shankaracharaya said, "kuputra jayeta, kumata na bhavati" there are bad sons, but there is never a bad mother.
One of the vows the man and women make during marriage is that they will be lifelong friends, the women is not forced to obey the husband. Unfortunately Indian culture doesn't always work according to the Hindu doctrine.
Hinduism never portrays women as weak. Parvati, wife of Shiv in ancient mythology, burned herself after Shiv when her father King Daksha didn't approve or invite him to a party. Suti practise (virtuous wife) started to evolve around the 6th century when wives ended their life when widowed. After some time a few Hindu societies even started to encourage it and pressure widows. In the past couple centuries it reached its peak and sharp decline after Hindu revivalists and bans. In Vedic philosophy, suicide is sinful if done in a cowardly manner. Men and women are completely equal. Sita resisted the power demon ravana, and herslf lifted the mighty bow of Shiva wihich few men could do. Also Savitri followed Yama, the god of death to revive her dead husband, which she did successfully.
7. Do I go to hell, or get reincarnated into a worm if I'm not a Hindu?
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Hinduism is very open. Hinduism itself is so diverse, so historically Hindus have been tollerant of the many other sects existing in Hinduism. Hindu civilization has been relatively open to other faiths and beliefs, therefore Hindus have no such exclusivist belief that only Hindus will get reincarnated into something good, and everyone else will suffer perpetually.
8. Why is there a caste system? Doesn't it promote in equality?
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The caste system was created not based on hereditary but on actual duty. The caste system itself was nothing more than a way to divide labor based on the individual's ability. Unfortunately, this system was abused by the brahmins and kshatriyas to ensure that their progeny would maintain the same caste.
The division was functional, and each individual was expected to do the kind of service for which he was best equipped according to his guna and karma, or his moral, spiritual, and intellectual endowments as determined by his previous births and actions.
9. Do Hindus worship cows? why are cows so sacred to Hindus?
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Hindus don't particularly worship cows. However, they're regarded as sacred and at times holy because they're a major means of dairy, field plowing, fire burning, ayurvedic remedies, etc. In Hindu society a live cow is far more valuable than one month of meat. This is a reason that among many Hindus, beef is as nasty as cooked human flesh.
10. Is meditation the only way to attain moksha?
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In the most sacred text of the Hindus, the Bhagawad Gita, there are a number of different Yogas to attain moksha. Yoga simply means union in Sanskrit and although it has become a form of physical fitness in the west today, it is a method to clear one's mind of impurities and bring one closer to a state of moksha. The most important forms of yoga outlined are Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Gyana Yoga.
Karma Yoga is the practice of work. One does work but one does not necessarily become obsessed with the fruits of one's actions. One must work for the benefit of all and offer all work to the divine. Mst must offer all services to all regardless of circumstances seeing the universal divinity in all beings.
Bhakti yoga is the practice of devotion. Whether it is by the way of dance, music or other devotional forms, these are all bhakti yoga. The importance in this yoga is not necessarily the idea of the act of doing the act of devotion but rather the idea of nama smarana or remembering the lord.
Gyana Yoga or the yoga of knowledge is described by Sri Krishna as the fastest but hardest forms of reaching the divine. Gyana Yoga is to a large part meditating, and renouncing oneself from desires. The ideal here is to go inward and find the divinity within. Buddhism and Jainism, both offshoot religions from Hinduism are based on this practice. |
