Ali Ataie – Hinduism in a Nutshell The Basics of World Religions (Part 7)
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AI: Transcript ©
Tonight,
we're going to discuss
the basics,
theological basics of the religion of Hinduism
in.
So
we covered the Islamic tradition.
We've covered
Judaism,
Christianity.
So there's 2 weeks of this class left,
tonight and next week. So Hinduism
and Buddhism next week, inshallah ta'ala.
Again, we are, live here on,
Tuesday night. This is September 1, 2020.
If you're watching live,
if you have questions, you can go ahead
and
type them into the
chat box.
Okay.
So Hinduism,
the term Hinduism
is a neologism.
It was probably invented by the British
or
British orientalists.
It comes from the Greek word Indus, like
the Indus Valley.
So the ancient Sanskrit
name
of the religion is
which means something like,
the eternal
way,
or the eternal duty, something like that.
Now,
there's different schools of thought in Hinduism,
different philosophies.
Right? Probably the most common
or popular philosophy is called Vedanta philosophy.
And Vedanta philosophy
espouses
3 propositions.
Okay. So number 1,
1st and foremost,
our real nature is divine.
Right.
And you're gonna see how Hinduism
is quite different than the,
the Abrahamic religious tradition.
So that's the first proposition. Our nature, our
real nature is divine. Our collective soul
is God.
Right? Is Brahmin.
Brahmin is the term in Sanskrit that I'm
going to use interchangeably
with god.
So we are all god.
Right? That's the first proposition.
Number 2, the aim or telos of our
lives.
Right? The goal of our lives is to
realize
this divinity
within us.
Come to this realization,
this actualization,
right, this
if you will, to take a Arabic term,
this realization that we are divine.
Right?
So not everyone not everyone realizes,
in fact most people don't realize, that they're
actually God, that they're Brahmin.
So that realization
in Sanskrit is called Moksha.
Moksha,
which has been translated various ways.
Transcendental,
liberation,
self actualization.
We'll get to this term,
Insha'Allah. But that's the second proposition of Vedanta
philosophy.
The third is that all major religions are
essentially in agreement.
Right? So,
Hinduism is a perennialist
philosophy.
All major world religions
are
essentially in agreement,
because the goal of all of the major
religions is the same. So Hinduism is looking
at the,
not necessarily at the method.
Right? So,
the method is important, and some methods are
better than others. And we'll talk about that
inshallah.
But it's because of this what's what Aldous
Huxley
called a highest common factor.
Right? That these religions, these major religions, Christianity,
Judaism, Islam,
Hinduism, Buddhism,
that they share this highest common factor and
that is the unitive
mystical experience with god. So mystical union with
god. So any major religion that preaches
mystical union with God as its goal in
this life
is a true religion according
to Vedanta philosophy.
Now, in Hinduism, there are 2 major theological
approaches.
And this might surprise some people,
but there are 2 major approaches.
The first major approach and by the way,
both of these are considered to be correct.
Right? I mean, Hindus consider Judaism to be
a correct religion.
So within their own tradition,
there are two ways of attaining this self
actualization,
what they call Moksha.
The first way is called Nirguna
Brahminism,
n I r g u n a, Nirguna
Brahminism. It's also called transpersonalism,
god transcendent.
Right? So what what I mean by god
transcendent is god is not represented
by anything physical.
Not that god isn't imminent. Not that god
isn't
close or.
He is imminent,
but he's just not represented.
Right?
And the champion of transpersonalism
was a Hindu sage
named Adi Shankara,
very famous
Shankara.
He died in the 9th century of the
Common Era.
He's as popular, or not quite, but he's
somewhat comparable to, like, Ghazali's position in Islam
or Aquinas,
in Catholicism.
And he was actually accused of teaching
Buddhism because the Buddha was
an iconoclast,
right. He rejected
these, what are known as Ishtas and Murtis.
These sort of icons representing God in his
various forms or idols representing God.
However, for Shankara, Ishtas were not incorrect.
Right? They're just not the optimal way.
So again, Hinduism is religiously
pluralistic.
Right. But it's not relativistic. So there's a
difference between being a religious
pluralist
where you say that there's truth in other
religions and many of these other religions will
get to your goal.
And a relativist, when you say these it
doesn't make a difference that all of these
religions are on the same
plane as it were. They're all the same
on the same level.
But
Hindus do believe that all religions are valid.
And the, analogy that's used by Shankara is
like a man trying to get to the
top of his house, if that's his goal.
He can use a ladder,
he can climb a rope, he can take
stairs.
He I mean, there's different ways of doing
that. Some ways are easier. So for Shankara,
the easiest and quickest way, most effective way,
is through Hinduism.
Whereas the other
ways represent the other religions.
So no major world religion is invalid. Again,
why? Because they have the same goal, the
unitive experience with God. Right? So there are
good ways
of getting to God and there are better
ways.
Right? If a religion does not preach this
unitive
experience with God, then it would be considered
an incorrect religion.
Now, so what is this what is this
unit of experience? Moksha, it's called Moksha in
Sanskrit.
In Arabic it's called
right, which means to join. Mystical union is
usually how it's translated.
It's
in
Latin. Right? So that's the Catholics
that, would call it unio mystica.
It's called a theosis
in Greek,
right?
And it's called 'devikut'
in Hebrew. 'Devikut' means to cling to God.
Right?
So all of these major religions have this
idea.
Now Shankara said that the only accurate description
of Brahmin, of god, is Neti Neti. So
not this, not this.
Right?
And we're, of course, accurate according to this
approach. So imagine, you know, like flying through
the universe,
you see the sun, you see the moon,
and neti neti. This is not God. This
is not God. You pass by the, I
don't know, the Andromeda galaxy. This is not
God. This is not God.
Until you basically
have eliminated
the whole of the cosmos.
Right?
So the world,
right, which is called the jagat,
the world, the phenomenal world,
is aset. Aset means unreal.
It's not real.
It doesn't really have an ontological
reality,
like, you know, like some philosophers would say,
that,
evil does is not real. There's no ontological
reality to evil. It's just the absence of
good.
Right? Or like there's no such thing as,
as as cold. I mean, we call we
call something cold, but it it it doesn't
have a reality ontological. There's no essential thing
called cold. It's just the absence of heat.
Right? So the world is unreal, and we
are under an illusion.
Right? The world is aset, unreal, and we
are under an illusion. An illusion is called
maya
in Sanskrit. Very important,
concept.
So it is our association
with matter and mind,
right,
that deludes us away from the truth
which is a realization
that we are in fact Brahmin,
Matter in mind. This is called Prakriti
in,
in Sanskrit.
So
probably the best
text to study
to get a sort of firm hold
or comprehensive
understanding. I mean, Hinduism is
an extremely vast religion,
right? And again, it's very, very difficult to
distill an entire religion
in 1 hour.
But some books are better than others. Like
in Buddhism, the Dhammapada
is, is is basically all you need, unless
you wanna go into more advanced studies in
Buddhism.
In Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gita
is the best text.
Right? And all of these ideas are discussed.
You should get a good commentary as well,
though. Maybe study it with a guru or
a a swami.
But,
a very important concept is that mind and
matter called
is what causes the illusion.
So what is matter? That which is material,
like this table here, this computer,
my own body.
Right? That's an illusion. It's not really there.
By mind,
they mean individual
or subjective
psychological
constraints, or constructs, I should say.
Right? Subjective psychological
constructs.
They are not real.
Right?
So these delude us into thinking
that we are a separate existence
consisting of an individual body,
and mind. So that is an illusion.
Right? So behind the, I guess, veil of
this
world, there is one
seamless,
unchanging,
eternal reality,
And that's called Brahmin.
Everything is actually Brahmin.
Brahmin
is the real.
Brahmin is sat,
s a t,
capital s a t. The world is asat.
It is unreal. It is only Brahman
that is real. And we are under an
illusion thinking that it is real. It's not
really there. There's no ontological reality
to anything other
than Brahmin.
This matter is not real. So this this
is called metaphysical idealism, by the way. This
is the technical term in western philosophy.
Metaphysical idealism.
This idea that only our ideas and some
of our ideas
in our minds are real or can be
real.
Only some of our some of our ideas
in our minds
have the potential of being real if,
and it's a big if, if our minds
are purified of its subjectivity.
Right?
So Hinduism is basically teaching us how to
think correctly,
how to step out of our
subjective psychological
constructs
and think about reality. And when we can
we can tap into reality,
we tap into,
the the Brahmin.
Okay.
So
Brahman, according to nirguna Brahmanism,
is sat, chit, and ananda.
Very important.
Right? He is sat, s a t. He
is, what is sat? He is real.
Uh-huh.
He is real.
He is infinite being. That's a better way
to translate sat.
He is
which means
knowledge, infinite knowledge.
And ananda,
which means infinite bliss. And this is taken
from the Upanishads,
which is another,
very important
Hindu text,
the Upanishads.
So these are not his attributes.
Right? We're not saying
that Brahmin
has existence.
What they're saying is Brahman is existence.
He is existence itself. He is the ground
of being.
We're not saying that he has knowledge. He
is knowledge.
We're not saying that he is bliss. He
is infinite bliss. So these are describing
the very essence
of Brahman.
Right? And he cannot be described in any
other way
except Neti Neti, according to nirguna Brahmanism. And
this includes calling him creator and destroyer and
sustainer.
Right? So nirguna Brahminism then is essentially a
form of apophatic
theology. Remember this term, apophatic,
when we talked about the theological
positions of Maimonides or his method,
that he was
a negative theologian,
via negativa, apophatic
theologian,
right.
As they say in Arabic,
right.
So
not this, not this,
God is none of these things.
And the only 3,
the only three names that you can
reference to or predicate to
the deity Brahman
is infinite sat, cit, and ananda.
Now according to nirguna Brahmanism,
the atman
atman is
loosely translated as soul.
Right? Like,
it's not a one to 1. Right? But
if we have to think of a word
to use, it would be soul,
the human soul.
The soul eventually becomes completely identified with Brahmin,
with God.
And in doing so, loses every trace
of its former
distinctness,
which again was only illusory
to begin with. So distinction,
right, and duality.
This idea that I am not you, you
are not me, this idea that there's heaven
and earth, this idea that there's god and
creation,
that is illusory
according to
nirguna Brahmanism.
It's maya. It's an illusion. So here with
nirguna Brahmanism,
mystical union then,
mystical union, moksha,
with Brahman, is non dualistic.
It's a realization.
It's not a realization
that there is god,
right, and you're a human being,
and you keep your identity, and god stays
god.
That would be a type of dualistic
realization.
In Hinduism, moksha, in your guna Brahmanism,
moksha is non dualistic.
Right? Total annihilation
in god's essence.
So dualism and all apparent multiplicity
will fall away. Right? You are Brahmin.
It's like a drop of fresh water
into a lake. Total dissolution.
Right? Atman equals Brahman,
if you wanna put it sort of mathematically.
Nirguna Brahmanism
espouses Atman equals Brahman.
Shamel calls this
the,
the mysticism of infinity.
So while this method, right, is one of
affirming
transcendence,
transcendence,
in Arabic,
the goal
is a realization
of absolute
imminence,
of absolute.
Right?
The method is one of the the method
is one of affirming transcendence
while the goal is a realization of absolute
imminence. Because what is the goal? It is
a realization that you are in fact Brahman.
So let's talk more about Moksha then. Moksha
is the term that is used to describe
this,
this,
liberation, this transcendental liberation,
self actualization.
I think it was translated, a state of
super consciousness.
Moksha, it comes from mukha in Sanskrit,
which means to loosen or to set free,
to release.
It's not related to mucus. A lot of
people make that mistake. Mucus is from a
Latin,
etymology.
Moksha is transcendental liberation,
spiritual release from
literally means the wheel,
right?
Or it means to wander around.
What is samsara?
It's this endless
cycle of birth
and rebirth. Right?
So,
in in the Kabbalah it's called Gilgul HaNashama,
which means sort of the rolling of the
soul.
Right.
In,
Plato,
it's called metempsychosis.
Right.
In Latin, it's called
reincarnation.
Right.
So reincarnation. So Hindus believe in reincarnation.
The Buddhists believe in reincarnation.
And a lot of people don't know this.
I don't know if I talked about this,
but
most Orthodox
Jews,
most Orthodox Jews,
believe in reincarnation.
Right. Methem psychosis.
So it is a release from the finitude
that restricts us
to identify the true self,
the soul, the atman,
right, with Brahman, with God. So atman,
Brahman identity.
The word Brahman has a dual etymology, the
word that is used for god in Sanskrit,
a dual etymology. There's br,
b r, which means to breathe, and and
maybe the word breathe comes from
Sanskrit, I don't know,
but then also
in Sanskrit means to be great.
Right? So the great breath
meaning, you know, life or existence itself.
Again, Brahmin is the ground of being. Right.
An infinite, eternal, non contingent
existence.
Now Moksha is
what's known as the 4th.
Means a stage of life.
Right. So Hindus believe in these stages of
life on earth.
So they begin with kama. Kama means pleasure.
And kama is to be sought, but not
hedonistically.
Right? It should be tempered and sought intelligently.
So like, you know, the Kama Sutra
is written for young married couples.
It's not written for people so they can
go live a cavalier lifestyle of licentiousness
and fornication.
So there's kama,
and then you advance to
which is the next stage. Kama then
right, which is
described as worldly success. You reach your thirties,
you reach your forties.
Right? You come into some wealth. But again,
this is not as an end, but as
a means
to an enriched life.
And then you have
dharma. And dharma is more of a perennial
stage.
Dharma means duty.
Right?
And
so to participate
in,
the social structure, basically,
to do one's role, And this is throughout
your life.
Right.
And then finally we have
So when a person becomes around 60 years
old or so, it's expected that this person
will now sort of settle down,
retire,
and pursue
Moksha pursue
otherworldly
types
of enlightenment.
So that's the ultimate goal then is to
actualize
Brahman.
So Atman is the incorruptible
soul
or the spiritual
substance within the body.
Again, there's different ways of thinking about Some
would say the supreme being,
residing in every heart,
the god within to be actualized,
the divine spark.
Right.
So like the name,
Mahatma, right, Mahatma Gandhi. Right. Mahatma is a
compound word. It comes from
which means big or great, and then atman
soul.
So Mahatma means the great souled one, the
one with a big or great soul.
The atman, according to the school of nirguna
Brahmanism,
is Brahman.
Right? Your soul
and my soul are actually the very same
substance. It's the very same thing,
and that thing is Brahman. We just simply
need to real well, not simply. It's not
so simple, but we need to realize that
according
to Hinduism.
Our individual
mortal souls
or or selves,
right, our individual
consciousnesses,
our subjective
selves,
those are not called
Those are called jivas.
Right? And that's in the plural. So does
one
My
is the same as yours.
Right. There's one soul because that soul is
actually Brahmin.
But we have individual jivas.
Right. The jiva is the term
for the atman when it is bound
to Prakriti.
Right. When it is bound to what?
To to matter in mind.
And
matter in mind, in the Hindu conception,
is made of 3 elements. They're called sattva,
rajas, and tamas. These are called the gunas.
I don't wanna get too technical here, but
again, I highly recommend getting the Bhagavad Gita
with a good commentary.
But basically, it is the gunas
that create
these psychological
constructs,
right,
which is half of Prakriti,
so it's matter in mind,
that,
fool us into thinking
that we know reality. But in reality,
in real reality, capital r,
all of our psychological
constructs
are an illusion.
They're not real.
Right.
So the jiva then is the term for
the atman
that is still unenlightened,
has not reached moksha.
So one needs to transcend the gunas.
And the gunas are represented by,
we said, sattva, rajas and tamas, tranquility,
action, and agitation.
So this is the state of our minds.
We're in one of these three states.
We're either in a state of tranquility
or we're we're in action or striving or
in agitation.
Right?
So again, we have this idea of this
kind of tripartite
soul or lower self. We see that in,
right, we see it in Plato.
We see it in Christianity.
Even in Islam, I mean, obviously again, it's
not a one to 1.
Right. But you have this idea of
right?
This tripartite
division
of the.
Okay.
So that is to say
that the person will actualize the god within.
And then when that happens, the jiva,
free of the impediments of
will realize its divinity, and that's called Moksha.
Okay.
So the world is not real.
It is an illusion.
It's like a psychological
construct.
Like, when you're dreaming and this is this
is
an analogy that is used
by
Hindus
when you're dreaming,
you accept the reality,
even if it's fantastical,
even if strange, very strange
things that are breaking natural law are happening.
And sometimes people,
in their dream,
realize that they're dreaming.
But they go on with that reality.
Right. So that's like the world.
So we perceive the world
and our individual
selves
as ultimate,
and nature as real, but only Brahmin is
real.
And we are all Brahmin. So when again,
I'm speaking in the first person. I don't
mean to say we, as in Muslims, are
saying this. Don't take these things out of
context. These are not things that I necessarily
believe in.
But I'm speaking the first person because I
am representing,
it's it's a more sort of effective way
of speaking,
the the tradition.
So everything is Brahmin.
Right? Everything is Brahmin. Everything is 1.
When you reach Moksha.
Okay. So our jivas, right, again, the jiva
is the what?
The individual
mortal soul
or the Brahmin clothed
in Prakriti,
in matter and mind.
That Jiva
must be transcended
in order to unite
with the Atman, which is the incorruptible
soul, which is Brahman.
In other words, when our atman realizes that
it is Brahman,
it is in reality
Brahman self actualizing.
Right?
It's Brahman actualizing
himself.
So it is the jiva, with all of
its acquired
karma,
that will reincarnate.
Right.
What is karma? Karma so just as there
is,
you know, the physical law of cause and
effect,
you have the moral law
of cause and effect.
Right?
So the karma so the jiva with its
acquired karma will reincarnate
should it not reach Moksha.
And this can go on indefinitely.
When one reaches Moksha,
all multiplicity
and materiality
and illusion
will vanish,
and one will come to the realization
that there is only 1,
the Brahmin.
So this is, if we were to classify
this,
what type of theology is this? So this
is probably best described
as panentheistic
monism.
Right? Panentheistic
monism.
So what does it mean, panentheistic?
Everything is in god.
Right? God is,
sorry. All is in god
and monism.
God is all there is in reality.
So
Kabbalistic Judaism
also espouses this type of panentheism.
But unlike Kabbalistic Judaism, in nirguna Brahminism,
the world, the jagat,
is totally
illusory. It is not created. It's not created
out of nothing. It wasn't created at all.
It's
a and we're just blinded by illusion.
So in Kabbalistic Judaism, the universe exists
and is created, but god is greater than
the universe,
although the universe is nothing other than god.
So in kabbalism,
we have this paradoxical
language,
which is basically used to communicate the idea
that god is both ontologically
superior
to his creation
and simultaneously,
mysteriously
inseparable
from his creation.
Right.
But at the end of the day,
both Hinduism
and Kabbalistic
Judaism and not all Jews believe in the
Kabbalah.
But at the end of the day, both
religions, Hinduism and Kabbalism,
would seem to agree with a statement in
the Torah
where god is called,
that there's nothing else but him.
There's a verse in Deuteronomy,
chapter 4, verse 39,
which is used as a proof text by
Kabbalistic
Jews who believe in panentheistic
monism,
this idea that everything is actually God,
this verse says, I am the lord and
there is none else.
Right.
So it's not I am the lord and
there are no other gods.
I mean, there are verses like this.
They're called in Hebrew, in the in the
Hebrew bible. But this particular verse says, I
am god, I am the lord, and there
is nothing else.
It is only god. God is all and
all.
Right.
So in this tradition of Kabbalistic Judaism as
well as in Hinduism, to say that God
is separated from creation,
to say that God is,
definitively separated from his creation is to put
a limit on God. It's to say that
there is some sort
of existence
separate from God's existence,
and that's to put a limit on God.
So that can't be true.
Okay.
Okay. But Hindu scholars
Hindu scholars, they say,
most people need sort of pointers.
Right? They need to put their love
in some place
or upon some form.
Right? Something tangible,
something visible.
Hence, you have these this idea, this concept
of the avatars.
Right? The dashavatara
in Sanskrit means the 10
incarnations
of Vishnu.
Vishnu is just one
of the manifestations
of Brahman.
Right?
So
according to this other understanding that we're going
to get to called Saguna Brahmanism,
s a g u n a,
Brahman does have attributes, and they're positive attributes.
And you can describe God as having positive
attributes. Remember in nirguna Brahminism,
he sat, chit, and ananda, infinite being, bliss,
and knowledge, or knowledge and bliss. Right? And
that's it. Everything else is neti neti. But
in Saguna Brahmanism,
this allows for a more kataphatic
positive
expression about Brahman. So Brahman is now described
as creator
and sustainer
and destroyer.
Brahma
Shiva Vishnu.
Or Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva.
Vishnu is the sustainer.
Right? So
you have like the ila and you have
the rab.
And this is how
it's taught.
Right? This is not 3 gods.
Right?
This is these are manifestations
of attributes of Brahmin.
This is and these aren't actual people.
Right? So, Hindus don't believe that Krishna, for
example, who is, you know, the, what is
it,
the 9th or 8th,
I don't remember. He's one of the incarnations
of Vishnu.
They don't believe that he was actually a
a historical personage. Maybe some of them do.
Right.
But
these stories are are mythos. It's a myth.
It's a myth that's teaching a lesson about
god.
Right? So what does it mean to be
an incarnation of Vishnu? Again,
Vishnu represents the attribute
of Brahmin
describing Brahman's
concern
and his ability to sustain
the world.
Right? So in other words,
right? Just like there's an ila, the word
ila in Arabic denotes
the transcendent god, whereas the rub denotes the
one who's close to you, the one who
takes care of you.
Right. We use
this means someone who takes care of you.
Right. Your
is the person who raises you.
Right.
So the avatars are then
revered and worshiped
by
most
Hindus.
And they also
have and how are they worshipped? Well, they
set up
idols. They have iconography.
Right? Because, again,
according to Hindu scholars,
most people need these kind of
pointers.
They need to to see something. It's hard
for it's hard for them to conceptualize
things. They need to represent them with some
sort of physical form.
It's like c s Lewis, the famous Christian
author. He says
that he has a story where
he was a little boy and he was
at his he was, you know, he's gonna
go to sleep and they make a prayer
with his parents.
And,
you know, he asked his parents, you know,
you know, what is god? And either his
father or his mother said to him, God
is formless and infinite.
All right? And then CS Lewis, he wrote
years later that, immediately, I started thinking about
this infinite ocean of tapioca
pudding.
That's where his brain went as a child.
Right?
Because he's spiritually immature.
Infin infinity. How do you conceptualize?
Infinity.
Right?
Formless,
formless infinity? What are you talking about? His
brain immediately what? Needed a visual.
This leads us then to our second theological
approach,
and this is sort of the Hinduism of
the masses.
And this is what most people think is
actually all of Hinduism,
but it is not. But it is the
approach of Saguna Brahmanism, s a g u
n a.
Saguna Brahmanism, also known as
personalism,
the Hindu of the masses.
So here
Oh, there's one more point I wanted to
make,
going back to this idea of
trying to conceptualize
things versus representing
them. So remember when we talked about the
trinity.
Right. Remember the,
the the diagram of the trinity that I
tried to explain, although not very effectively.
The triangle of Peter of Poitiers. He said
that the triangle is equilateral. At every point,
there's the person of God, Father, Son, Spirit.
In the middle is God, 3 who's, 1
what.
So that's good for starters, but it's also
very inadequate
compared to the concept
in the mind.
Right? And the concept
is nothing compared to the reality.
Right?
Because the reality is ineffable. It
is beyond speech.
So we have this idea of representation,
conceptualization,
and actualization.
Right?
So
al Biruni,
who was a great Muslim scholar,
he's called Alberonius,
I think in Latin,
Abu Reihan al Biruni.
He was
arguably
the founder,
the wadir.
Right? If you're going to use,
you know, the if you're going to do
a paper on the 10 foundations
of comparative religion,
the.
Would be probably and this is by admission
of Western scholars as well.
Would be the founder,
of that topic.
And so he has a very famous book
called,
right,
the history of India.
And in this book, he distinguishes
between what he calls the,
like the elites, and the,
the vulgar or the masses.
Right? Just like ordinary Hindu believers. And this
is this model is still used today. It's
called the 2 tiered model of religion.
Right?
So
what what does he say about this? He
says, the latter,
the amma, the vulgar,
because they are not philosophically
adept,
they needed
concrete
manifestations
or representations
of the higher being.
Therefore,
shirk or polytheism
became an accidental
deviation,
an is
the word that he uses,
from Hinduism's
essence,
which according to is
monotheistic
at the essence of the religion
because everything is Brahmin,
one
god.
It's a monistic religion. Everything is the same
substance, and that is god. So he's saying
here. So it is, it is in other
words, it is at its
sort
of, elite philosophical
core,
but shirk at its popular level.
In other words, polytheism
is caused by common people's inability
to understand
non symbolic
language,
where non symbolic
philosophical
and theological
matters. They need symbols.
For the elites, the religious tradition is monotheistic.
But at the popular level,
it is manifested
as polytheistic
and highly anthropomorphic.
Right?
The Scottish philosopher,
famous Scottish philosopher, David Hume,
he actually agrees with al Biruni
in his essay. He wrote an essay. He
was an atheist, but he wrote an essay,
The Natural History of Religion,
where he says that in, that he says,
the intellectual and cultural limitations among the masses
concerning original monotheism
caused the vulgar to fall into anthropomorphism
and the need for representation.
So he says that the whole thing, the
whole the whole history of religion
is characterized
by, quote,
the tension
between theistic
and
polytheistic
ways of thinking,
right, this 2 tiered
model.
Okay. So that leads us now to the
second approach, Saguna Brahmanism, we said
personalism.
So here, god is.
Means lord.
Right?
So that's
that's the that's the focus of this approach
is the
the if you will, the lordship of god.
The proximity and nearness of god,
He's personal with attributes
that correspond to his concern for humanity.
He's loving, merciful, sustaining, so on and so
forth. He assumes unlimited
forms, incarnations called avatars.
And of course we said the most famous
of these is Krishna.
Right. Krishna,
who is a major character in the Bhagavad
Gita.
Right. He is the charioteur and interlocutor
of Arjuna,
who is sort of the,
protagonist
of the story.
The Bhagavad Gita is the entire book is
a discourse
or a dialogue really between 2 men,
between Arjuna,
who is going to fight in the battle
of Kurukshetra
this is a famous battle that might have
been historical.
1000 of years ago in India, a massive
battle.
The winners would pick winner take all. He
was on one side of the battlefield, and
then there was other, his cousins and whatnot,
called the, the Kauravas. He was from the
Pandavas against the Kauravas. You'd have to read
the text to get the the details. But
anyway, his charioteer
was Krishna,
and Arjuna doesn't know it, but Krishna is
a divine incarnation of Vishnu,
the attribute of Brahma's lordship.
Right.
And then they have this incredible
dialogue,
culminating with Arjuna because he doesn't
want to fight. He said, these are my
brothers. I don't want to fight. And he's
actually
convinced that he should fight because sometimes fighting
is necessary to create peace.
Some people, they miss, misinterpret the text and
say that it's a text that's advocating violence.
This text was, was quoted by Oppenheimer
very famously one of the
chief,
engineers
of the Manhattan project that developed the hydrogen
bomb.
They've completely missed the point. The point is,
you have to do your duty. Do your
dharma.
Right?
You have to do your duty.
Okay. According to Saguna Brahmanism,
the perceived differentiation
or duality
then between god and the soul will always
remain.
Right? This is indispensable
in order to bask in god's beatific vision.
Right?
So like, how would you appreciate
how would you appreciate
the Grand Canyon
if you are the Grand Canyon?
You can appreciate it. Right?
How does the sun
enjoy a beautiful sunset? These are things my
my one of my professors, a Hindu professor,
he was giving me these analogies.
Right?
How does the sun enjoy a beautiful sunset?
It can't enjoy it. It can't experience a
sunset. It is the sun.
So in order to experience god's beatific vision,
one must not know that one is god.
So this is not a total dissolution of
the individual consciousness.
Right? The perception of duality
is indispensable.
It remains.
In the Upanishads,
the analogy is a single salt crystal
dropped into a freshwater lake.
Right?
So the the salt only appears to dissolve
completely
in the vastness of the water,
but something of its existence,
however
infinitesimally small,
however infinitesimally
small, enjoy
remains to enjoy the water.
You have a question here.
Hearing about the and the of the Hindus
makes me think
of the and of the Muslims.
There are also different understandings about shirk,
between,
the two groups.
Yeah. I mean, this 2 tiered approach,
right,
I think it's across the board.
Right. And you'll notice that people who
do not safeguard their aqidah it's very important
to study aqidah.
Right. Because things can creep into the religion.
Sometimes they're harmless.
So like the belief that
the belief that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
is the initial creation,
and that
all of creation is derived from his light.
That's a permissible belief. It's not, you know,
it's not, it's not haram to believe that,
not shirk to believe that. Because one still
maintains
that he is,
creation.
Right?
So, it's jah' is to believe that. But
the hadith that the that that is based
upon I mean, there's indications and other things
in the Quran and, and things like that,
nothing explicit. But the explicit mention of that
in the Hadith
is almost universally believed,
or maintained by the Muhaddithin as being mawdur.
It's a fabricated Hadith.
It could still be true.
It doesn't mean it's definitely false.
Right?
But that's an example of something something,
coming into the the masses that was embraced
and and,
but
that's a different situation because it's still a
permissible belief. But there are other things that
could come in. Cultural ideas could come into
the religion,
right,
that,
could
impact one's
sound aqeeda.
Right.
The beautiful thing about Islam though is that
the,
the fundamentals of the religion can be understood
even by the simplest of people.
That doesn't mean that the religion is simple,
right?
But it means that the religion is really
comprehensive
and speaks to all of humanity.
And it speaks to people in different ways,
right? So a simple Bedouin can grasp
One of my teachers told me, but, he
said that
and he was a convert and he said
that he was overseas.
And he said that,
one of the Bedouins sent said to him,
what were you before you were Muslim? And
he said I was,
my teacher, he said,
I was a Christian.
And and he and the Bedouins said,
what do they believe? And he said, well,
they believe that Jesus is the Son of
God.
And then the Bedouin said, well, that that
kinda makes sense because Jesus didn't have a
father. And then he said the other Bedouin
hit him with his stick and said, lam
yeled, walaam yulad.
Right? And he said, oh, oh, yeah. Yeah.
I knew that. Right?
So so that's that's that's simple. God does
not beget nor does he be nor nor
god does not beget nor was he begotten.
Now, you can write a 500 page dissertation
on the theological intricacies
and nuances of.
That's fine, but that's not necessary.
Hinduism, however, such as it's such a deep
philosophical religion.
Right? I mean the the question is how
does one get to Moksha?
It's it's really
a type of of of
meditative learning
that is very difficult for the vast majority
of the people. And that's why you have
these castes.
Right? The jati system, the caste system,
which,
is,
you know, in theory abolished, but still practiced
in India.
I mean, the consciousness of the caste system
is still very much there. So like the
Brahmins at the top,
these are sort of the scholars and so
they don't have to do I mean, they're
just sort of
they have comfortable lives,
they can
take time and read and study and practice
these yogas.
Right, because it's expected for them to enter
into a state of moksha
quickly. Whereas the people below them, especially people
at the bottom of the caste system
right?
And the castes,
Brahmins, Kshatriyas,
Vaishas,
and shudras.
The shudras are sort of the servants, the
unskilled laborers.
I mean,
what type of meditation can they do?
So
the yoga that's prescribed for them is really
a type of worship
or devotion
to these representations
of Brahmin.
Right. So basically worshiping idols.
Right. But the higher ways,
the more enlightened ways is a type of
learning and meditation. And then you have the
Dalits under them, the untouchables,
which,
is a sort of new cast,
that we'll,
maybe talk about in a minute here.
Yeah.
So definitely, this 2 tiered approach,
it,
you know You know? It's it's a and
there's also a type of, I would say,
a type of providential
protection
for the Muslims.
Right? I mean there's several hadith
where the prophet
said, I don't fear shirk for you after
me.
And he's harisun alaikum.
Right? He's the most covetous or he's the,
he's, he has the most concern for us.
So he's giving us this advice. It's good
advice coming from him, obviously, that I don't
really I don't fear shirk
for you.
It doesn't mean that people won't enter into
shirk. It's just not a major concern.
But I fear these, you know, these these
fitan in these
in these,
these other areas.
Right.
So
I mean, nobody in the history of Islam,
no sect
or group that claimed to be upon Islam
ever came out and said, we worship the
prophet. That's our aqidah.
So this god has protected the prophet from
that. I mean, people have come out and
worshiped Sayid al Ali.
Right? The
believe that he's god. He's a divine incarnation.
He's an avatar of Allah,
this type of thing.
This happened with Ali, but not with the
Prophet.
Right?
So we see
a type of
preservation.
God protects
the Quran. He protects the ummah.
Right?
Okay. Alright. Thank you for your question.
And then the other question
oh. Are you the one who debated David
Wood? Yes. I debate I debated,
Woody, as I call him.
2,007.
A long time ago,
I debated David Wood.
Yeah.
Okay.
So the question then becomes,
how can both approaches be true at the
same time?
So you have nirguna Brahminis
saying that god is transcendent. He's not represented
by idols. He doesn't incarnate.
You have the saguna Brahminis saying god has
personal attributes.
He can be represented by
and ishtas and avatars.
So either Brahmin so either is Brahmin or
he's not. Right?
God is either represented or he's not. Now
the truth is,
according to Hindus,
that Brahman is above representation and atman is
Brahman
because the world is, at the end of
the day, illusory and ultimately, god is all
in all.
However, this method of of
of of saguna Brahmanism,
and this realization,
are not necessarily
a requisite of moksha, according to Hinduism.
In other words, what I'm trying to say
is, because representation
and continuing to conceive
of brahman as other
can and does lead to moksha,
then it cannot be wrong.
It's just not the higher way. It's not
the best way.
Right?
So there's 2 ways to Brahmin. 1 is
better,
because it's more philosophical.
It requires more
thinking,
more thought, more meditation.
But the other way, segunda Brahmanism,
the way to god through devotion,
is also a valid way, because it does
lead to
moksha.
The achiever of moksha is called a sannyasin.
It's usually an old man,
sannyasin.
And,
he's described in the,
one who neither hates nor loves anything, cut
off from the world like a wild goose,
no fixed home but wanders north and south
in the lakes and the skies.
So basically, he becomes like a homeless mendicant,
Right? Taking no thought of the future and
indifferent
about the present. He lives identified with the
eternal self
and beholds nothing else. So in Islamic
sort of, Sufi terms,
we would say, like, there's no.
Again,
is not the same as.
Right? It's it's there's some
similarities, but it's not it's not a one
to 1. But just to use the term,
the terms in technical terms of the people
of,
there's no sobriety.
There's no coming back to one's senses,
right, after one experiences
annihilation in god.
So one remains either raptured in the beatific
vision,
if his method was suguna
Brahmanism,
or immersed,
immersed in the thought of divine realization,
if his method was nirguna Brahmanism.
Okay. The last thing I'll mention here, how
do you get to Moksha?
The 4 yogas.
Yoga means a path. The 4,
if you want, or.
And what are they? They're called jnana yoga,
spelled with a j, jnana.
Nyanana yoga, which is usually practiced by the
Brahmins.
Then you have raja yoga, which is practiced
by the kashatriyas.
Then you have karma yoga,
which is practiced by the veshyas
those are farmers and artisans.
And then you have
bhakti yoga,
which is practiced by the shudras,
the servants and unskilled
laborers, the vast majority
of the people.
Right? So what do these 4 yogas
represent?
Basically,
niyana yoga is experiencing
moksha through knowledge,
learning, studying,
meditating.
Karma
yoga, sorry, raja yoga is through these sort
of psychosomatic
experiences, where there's reading coupled with
movements of the body.
Karma yoga is through work,
right, finding god through labor.
And then bhakti yoga is through
love,
right, or devotion,
the worship of representations
of
the
Brahmin.
So we'll stop here,
Again,
I highly recommend,
if you're interested in learning more about Hinduism,
getting the Bhagavad Gita with a good commentary
and reading it, inshallah. So next week, we're
going to finish our course with our final
class
and it's going to be on a
religion that is derived from Hinduism, like Christianity
derived from its mother religion, Judaism,
And that is the religion of Buddhism.