philosophical currents that have flowed from or into the
fertile river that is ‘Hinduism’ have never been driven by
institutional or scholastic disputes over questions of belief
or basic ‘credo’. For whilst ‘faith’ is merely ‘believing’
something to be true, truth itself is knowing it to be so. It is
important to recognise that Hindu theology does not
assume, like most Western philosophies and faiths, that
‘truth’ is a property of religious or scientific assertions or
propositions ‘about’ reality. For even to assert or deny the
mere existence of any thing or being - including a supreme
being - assumes a prior awareness of that thing or being.
From this it follows that the ultimate nature of truth can be
nothing but awareness as such - understood as an ultimate or
divine knowing - and not any thing or being that is known.
BASIC AND DISTINCTIVE ELEMENTS
OF THE HINDU WORLD-VIEW:
- In contrast to the Torah, Bible and Koran, Hindu
‘scripture’ has no dogmatically restricted canon of
scriptures, no supreme institution, no single spiritual
founder such as an Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Buddha or
Mohammed and no authoritative leader such as a Pope,
Archbishop, Ayatollah or Dalai Lama.