Communication Between Cultures

emotional, is Brahman. Hence, Brahman becomes an all-inclusive, transcendental

reality that sustains and supports everything. Van Voorst develops this point when

he writes that Brahman is a“single‘world soul’that is the foundation of all physical

matter, energy, time and space, and being itself—in short, everything in and beyond

the universe.”^183 Perceived in this manner, Brahman is the definitive level of reality.

Multiple Paths

In many aspects, Hinduism is a conglomeration of religious thought, values, and beliefs.

As discussed earlier, Hinduism does not have asingle founder or an organizational hierar-

chy. Among Hindus, one may find magic, nature worship, animal veneration, and an

unlimited number of deities. This all-inclusive orientation has been responsible for Hindu-

ism’s popularity even outside of India. Because of this eclectic approach to“God,”Hindu-

ism has been able to present various paths to those asking the eternal questions about life

and death. There is even a famous Hindu expression:“Truth is one, but sages call it by

various names.”^184 Granting the“One Goal, Different Paths”orientation of Hinduism,

you will also find there are four paths that many teachers of Hinduism believe are the

major“stepping stones along one spiritual path, with each building progressively on

the previous one.”^185 These four are“(1) The Path of Work (Karma-yoga, selfless

actions), (2) The Path of Knowledge

(Jnana-yoga, philosophy and wisdom,

(3) The Path of Physical and Mental

Discipline (Astang/Raja-Yoga, exercise

and meditation), and (4) The Path of

Love (Bhakti-Yoga, path of devotional

service).”^186

Cultural Expressions of Hinduism

As we have stressed throughout this chapter, a person’s religion is never entirely con-

fined to a church, mosque, synagogue, or temple. Our thesis has been that religion is

something people do. This is particularly true of Hinduism. We now turn to some of

the ways the religion is reflected in everyday life.

Complete Way of Life

It has been said that religion and culture are interchangeable in terms of Hinduism. It

has also been referred to as a holistic way of life because, as the Hindu saying by

Swami Vivekananda states,“The Hindu man drinks religiously, sleeps religiously,

walks religiously, marries religiously, and robs religiously.”For the Hindu, life and reli-

gion are the same.“Both are inseparable. Both complement each other. Both exist

because of each other and both would lose their meaning and significance without

the other. Religion is the center of living and living is the center of religion.”^187

As we have been highlighting, Hinduism is not simply a theology; it is a com-

plete way of life that shows itself in a multiplicity of ways. The sacred writings of

this tradition speak of the arts, the birth of children, death, medicine, health, sci-

ence, governance, education, and a host of other cultural issues. In addition, while

temples are a popular place for worship, it is the daily activity in the home that

best reflects Hindu practices as an important and integral part of life. Henderson

CONSIDER THIS

What do Hindus mean when they say,“Truth does not come to

the individual; it already resides within each of us”?

Cultural Expressions of Hinduism 141

Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).